“Why wouldn’t I get you what you want? I want my money.” At least that much was true.
“And Vanya? Why does Vanya trust you?”
“I don’t know if he trusts me. But he needs me. I speak English,” Dima said with a smile that made him stand taller. “He’ll need me when he finds his American.”
“An American?” Ilya said and Dima realized his mistake at once. “I didn’t know he was after an American. I’m guessing Kir didn’t, either. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? Do we have a deal?”
“I need to explain it all to Kir. Ask for more money.”
“Then do it. I can stall for a few more days,” Dima said. But he needed more than just money from this Ilya. He also needed assurances that Ilya wouldn’t follow because if he did, he’d scare Vanya off. Or at least Yuri. And if Yuri fled, he’d take Vanya with him. Dima looked over his shoulder to be certain no one was watching. “Make sure you remind Kir how happy he’ll be when he gets his numbers. The wait will be worth it. And tell him not to send anyone else. No other spies. I’ll know if he’s following us. And I’ll make sure he never gets those numbers if he does.” Dima took the purse from Ilya.
As he walked away, he realized he’d have to learn more about Vanya’s work so he could be sure he was getting a fair price. What kind of numbers could be worth so much?
II
On August second, Baba sent a messenger to the hospital, asking Miri to come home. Baba had never done such a thing before, and Miri ran the entire distance. As she came in from the back alley, Baba met her at the threshold. “War’s started.” Germany had made its declaration against Russia. On the Jewish calendar the day was Tisha b’Av, the saddest day of the year. A day of fasting, the height of mourning. Dripping in sweat, numb from the news, Miri dropped to her knees and looked up at her grandmother. Baba’s face was so pale Miri saw the web of veins under her skin. And her eyes were hollow, the bright green gone. “There’s more.”
“Vanya?” Miri asked.
Sasha closed the door and locked it. She hadn’t even greeted him.
“War on Tisha b’Av is a terrible omen. It will be worse than we imagine,” Baba said.
“I don’t care about omens. Tell me what’s happened,” Miri said.
“Shhh.” Baba held a crooked finger to her lips. She was right. Kir’s guard was always close now. Baba hurried them both, again, to the cellar. “A telegram. Kir brought it,” Baba said once she was on the cot and Miri had a record playing. She gave it to Miri.
The onionskin envelope was yellow with mud smeared across the front, and it was ripped. By the folded corners, it looked to have been opened dozens of times. Miri fingered the typed address for the baker’s house. Kir had figured out their subterfuge. She ran her nail over the careful letters. Telegrams came during war only to announce death or injury, but this one was not official, not from the army. Yuri or Vanya? For a moment she imagined the news, whatever it was, wasn’t real. Not until she opened it. Was it better that way, not knowing? Even with the music playing, the quiet was terrible. She tore into the paper.
Changing plans STOP Visiting Levi’s Monster STOP Meet up in spring
“What is Levi’s Monster?” Sasha asked.
“Not what. Where,” Baba said. “Vanya’s telling us where he’s gone. Miri understands.”
She did. After Mama and Papa died, Baba tried to hug and kiss her sadness away, but only Vanya could quiet her, with his stories. Her favorite was an old folktale about Levi. Levi was a busy man. A baker. At Rosh Hashanah, when the rabbi told him, and the rest of the congregation, that it was time to take a trip to the river so they could cast off their sins, Levi decided he had no time for it. Instead of whispering his wrongdoings into pieces of stale bread and tossing the tidbits into the water, he admitted his errors to scraps and threw them into his basement. Little sins don’t go away when hidden like that, they turn into a larger monster, and in the old folktale, Levi had to face that monster. Often, Vanya changed a detail and made Levi a tailor, sometimes a farmer, but Levi’s home was always in the same city—not Constantsa as the rabbis traditionally told the folktale, as anyone else would think. No. Vanya placed Levi in the city Miri dreamed of visiting one day. “Kiev,” Miri said. Her mother’s favorite place in Russia, where she’d gone with Papa on their honeymoon. “Vanya and Yuri have gone to Kiev.”
She fingered the thin corner of the paper. It was dated nine days earlier. “Kir stormed into the house with it,” Sasha said.
“Did he hurt you?” Miri asked, leaning closer to her grandmother.
“No. No. But he’s smarter than Vanya ever gave him credit for. He assumed it was a coded note from your brother. Found a rabbi to tell him the folktale. But I told Kir this wasn’t about the old story. It was from a client; Levi is a common name. My client must have forgotten our address.” Baba continued, “I told Kir my client’s daughter was supposed to marry Levi’s son, but he didn’t show up for the wedding. The client is calling the ex-fiancé Levi’s Monster and wants payment and a new match for his daughter in the spring.”
“Kir believed you?” Miri asked.
“I doubt it,” Sasha said. “But Levi goes to Constantsa, no? Let Kir go there.”
“Either way, he’s angry. Ilya must not have found them yet,” Baba said.
Miri shook the telegram. “Maybe Ilya’s missed them. They could have already left for Kiev.” She stopped and pressed her lips together, dropped her hands into her lap as another thought came. “But Ilya will still be after them. And he might be able to track them, depending on the trail they left. Baba, we have to warn them. Vanya and Yuri need to know about Ilya, that he’s there to bring them back to Kir. They can’t trust him.”
“How do you plan to write to them, Miri? There’s no way to send a message.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to go find them myself. We need to save them before Ilya, or Kir, takes them.”
“But I don’t understand why they’re going to Kiev, not staying in Riga,” Baba said.
“I can only guess Vanya’s found his American and followed him. From what I understand, the eclipse will be clearer in Kiev anyway. None of the other expeditions following the eclipse had planned on Riga.” This American, he must have come around, decided he’d made a poor decision settling on that port. And even though their mother loved the city, Vanya would only go to Kiev to follow Russell Clay. It was far from home, far from Klara and their escape route. He’d never been, didn’t know a soul. And if he made it to Kiev, he was right to warn them. With war, and soon winter, travel could be difficult, especially as a deserter who’d have to hide somehow, in plain sight. He likely wouldn’t make it to Klara’s before snow set in.
“Maybe Vanya needs help?” Sasha suggested. “Maybe that’s why he sent this.”
“What kind of help?” Miri asked. The better question was what sort of help didn’t he need? Vanya and Yuri were both accomplished in their fields, but neither paid attention to the world around them. Yuri would be no fiercer in a fight than Vanya. Neither had ever even taken a punch. Truly anything could have happened—or nothing. Miri paced to the hearth, where Sasha had hung the greatcoat to dry. It was stiff now with spots caked in mud. “It doesn’t matter if he’s asking for help. What matters is Vanya assumes he’s safe. That we’re all safe until spring. He doesn’t know Ilya and Kir are after him. Nor does he know there are guards at our doors. And he’s not thinking about what it will be like to be a deserter on the run.”
Baba nodded. “You’re right about that. He’s not thinking clearly.”
Miri continued, “The longer the Germans try to face Russia down, the harder it will be to travel, and the tighter the czar will make our borders. Vanya doesn’t understand. We can escape to America now, but come spring our chances will be much lower.”
“Mirele,” Baba said. “You agree, then, that we must run to America?”
She took a deep breath. She’d seen the soldiers trickle into her hospital. She cri
nged every time she spoke to the guards outside their door. And Kir. He’d ruin Vanya. All of them. She loved Russia, but they had no future here. At least in America they’d have a chance at a new life. “I do agree. We have to leave. All of us have to leave,” Miri said. “And I have to find them, bring them back. So we have a chance to make it out while we can.”
“I’ll go. To repay you,” Sasha said. “With Grekov’s coat, I can impersonate the captain, use it to navigate the trains to Kiev. I’ll hurry them back.”
“You can’t go,” Miri said. “You don’t know my brother or Yuri.”
“You can describe them. I’d be looking for a group of men working around a large telescope. An American. How hard could it be to find them?” He cleared his throat. “I can’t stay here much longer anyway. Kir’s guards, they asked me yesterday when I plan to leave.”
“You didn’t tell us that.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. You know the police have been investigating the drunks’ deaths.”
“If you’re discovered as a deserter, you’ll be shot.” Baba paused. “So will we.”
“I know.” Sasha looked down at the floor. “And I don’t want to bring you any more danger. I’m a dead man anyway. If I return, Grekov’ll kill me for surviving. If I don’t return, I’m a deserter and my sentence is also death. Until they catch me, I’ll pretend I’m Grekov. As an officer, I can travel without papers. Secure your passage.”
“Could you take us both with you?” Baba asked. She looked at him with her heavy eyes, and Miri thought she’d never seen her grandmother so tired, not even after the night they’d spent in the cellar. “If we travel together to Kiev, we can go straight to the border from there with Vanya and Yuri.”
“Baba, you need to save your strength.” Miri shook her head. “But even if we went together, what if we didn’t make it to Kiev before the eclipse and we missed them? Vanya and Yuri will run to Klara’s, and when we’re not there—then what? We can’t send word to Klara. That would be intercepted, too. And Kir? We need to keep Kir away from Kiev, lure him somewhere else.” Miri could see her grandmother working through plans even as Miri spoke.
“Yes, that’s right,” Baba said. “We can’t both go.” She nodded. “It would be better for me to draw Kir away. I’ll tell the women my sister is sick, that I need to see her. Then I’ll slip out. Kir will track me to Klara’s, but he’ll leave me be. He’ll want me as bait for Vanya.”
Miri didn’t like it, Baba sitting at Klara’s as a lure without Miri, but there was no other way. They couldn’t miss Vanya. And Baba couldn’t make the journey to Kiev and then to America. It was too much for her. And Miri was certain that Kir wouldn’t bother Baba any more than he already had. Not until Vanya was in his snare. “Sasha can secure my train,” Miri said. “I’ll find Vanya and Yuri and bring them to Peter. When we arrive, I’ll get word to you so you can slip away from Klara’s, meet us far from her apartment, far from any guards Kir has on you there. We’ll leave before spring, while the borders still have holes.”
“No.” Baba shook her head. “You are a strong woman, but no young woman should travel alone. And Kiev’s large. You’ll need help.”
“Miriam, I’ll go with you,” Sasha said. “I’ll use the coat and we’ll go together.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I insist. Your grandmother’s right. You can’t go alone. It’s not safe.”
“I can’t travel with a man who isn’t family or my husband, not without a chaperone.”
“Travel as cousins. Who knows the difference?” Baba asked. She took Miri’s hands. Her blue veins twisted around gnarled joints. “Go with Sasha. I will wait for you at Klara’s.”
“And Kir’s guards?” Miri asked. “How do we get past them?”
“You know Sasha’s been digging in our basement?”
III
Eighteen days to the eclipse. Vanya could feel time passing quickly, too quickly, as he and Yuri hid in the shadows of the chapel in front of Riga’s station, waiting for Dima. When Vanya and Yuri first met the sailor, Dima had been confident he could find them a way onto a train quickly, but he’d been wrong. And not for lack of trying. Every day for just over twelve days, Vanya and Yuri accompanied Dima from the public house where they’d been staying, to the station. They’d smeared their faces with dirt, wore rags they’d traded for their uniforms, and hid as crippled beggars at the chapel while the sailor scrounged for passage. The disguise made them invisible, and Vanya watched Dima bargain and hustle, but Dima reported all the trains were requisitioned for troops, for war. There was nothing for civilians. “I’ll find a way,” Dima said every day as they returned to the pub.
“A way to more money,” Yuri whispered to Vanya in reply. But Vanya didn’t care that payment was what motivated the sailor. All he cared about was getting to Kiev, and by now he was frustrated. They’d spent days watching the sailor, and Vanya couldn’t afford to lose so much time. He needed to get to Brovary. Could he spare one ruby to pay for their passage? No. He couldn’t touch them. He might need them for Clay.
“I think I could do better on my own,” Vanya said.
“No. I think that sailor is our ticket. He’s just stalling. He’s up to something. I don’t know what. Maybe he’s waiting on payment for something else.” Yuri leaned back against the stone wall. “When he’s ready, he’ll find us a way. Quickly.”
“How can you say that? Or think that and still trust him?”
“I’m not the one who trusts him. You are.”
“Then go.” Vanya pointed to the street, and Yuri waved a hand to dismiss him. Vanya continued, “One more day. That’s all I’ll give him.” Then he turned and huddled over his notebook as he had every morning they’d sat at the chapel.
He would have left on his own days ago but being away from Kir had put Vanya in a space where he was freer than he’d ever been, and those days he’d spent waiting were some of his most productive in years. He’d squared Ricci’s tensor, and the expressions had begun to flow from there. Some of the more elusive numbers and symbols fell into place. But what about acceleration? He still hadn’t figured that in properly. And he needed to, in order to convince Clay to take them. He pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose and leaned forward to think.
An hour passed. More. Yuri nudged Vanya and made him look at a plaque dedicating the station chapel that read “In memory of the miraculous survival of the Romanovs in the 1881 train crash, despite the insidious Polyakovs and their evil trains.” Yuri said, “They’re Jewish, you know. The Polyakovs.”
“Of course they are.”
Yuri pulled out a flask. “We missed Rosh Chodesh Av. We should have celebrated. Don’t you and Miri always celebrate? Toast while you watch the thinnest moon rise and fall?”
“You know our custom?”
“I try to know everything about my fiancée. L’chaim.” Both men took a long pull.
“Do you imagine she thinks about me?” Yuri asked, his voice softer than usual.
Probably, but Vanya didn’t want to admit it. “Seems wrong, no? A celebration for Av? Even worse so close to Tisha b’Av. We should be crying, mourning, not drinking. Wait.” Vanya leaned forward and squinted. “Is that…?” It was impossible. Or was it?
“Who? Did you see someone?”
“I thought I saw Ilya. The police officer.” But Ilya couldn’t be in Riga. He was posted in Kovno. Still, Vanya scrambled to his feet, felt his heart beating fast and hard. Did Baba send him to look for Vanya? Was something wrong at home?
“It’s nothing,” Yuri said. “A ghost from the imagination.”
By the time Vanya had taken a few steps toward him, the man he thought was Ilya was out of sight. He’d lost him. “Yes.” Vanya decided Yuri was right. Just a ghost. Neither Baba nor Miri would tell anyone where he’d gone. It was too dangerous. Even if something had happened.
“I see them, too. Miri’s around every corner. And others,” Yuri said.
�
��What others?”
Vanya was staring at Yuri, but before he could respond, someone whistled. Vanya recognized the light notes, the ones he’d heard in the alley outside the Hotel Neiburgs. It was Dima. The sailor stood forty paces away and waved for Yuri and Vanya to follow. Before going, Vanya looked back at where he thought he’d seen Ilya, but of course the man hadn’t come back. Vanya and Yuri wound around to the back of the station, past crates of supplies destined for the front. How quickly war came, Vanya thought. Was Miri still denying they needed to leave? As they walked, Yuri spoke. “We should be going the other way.”
“But you said that wasn’t Ilya.”
“No. I mean back to Miri.” Yuri’s voice shook. It was the first real anger Vanya had seen in him. “We’re risking everything for your damn science during a war. Doesn’t it strike you as absurd?” Yuri’s voice rose. “I’m saying there are times when your family needs you. When you should be home to protect them.”
“What are you so scared of?” Vanya shook his head. “My sister and my baba can protect themselves. Don’t you know that? And it’s not just about science. This eclipse, it’s our way out.”
“Doesn’t it matter to you whether we live or die? Whether your family lives or dies?”
“That’s precisely why we’re doing this. To reach America—all of us.” Vanya leaned closer to Yuri. “If you want to run, run. I never asked you to come. But if you stay, stop acting like a coward. It’s enough.”
“I’m staying,” he said. “But for Miri, not for you.”
“Then let’s hurry.” Vanya jogged the rest of the way toward Dima.
“We depart soon. Finally,” Dima said when Vanya caught up to him, then he hurried Vanya and Yuri behind a cannon mounted on a handcar. “I’ve found us a job as cleaners. They call us engineers, but really, we’re cleaning. Trees and branches block the lines. We’ll clear the way, riding in front of that timber train.” He pointed to a series of wagons so long that Vanya couldn’t see the end. Each one was piled with one hundred pines. “The train goes across Russia, but we can get off in Kiev. Find our way to Brovary from there. As long as we find cleaners to replace us.”
A Bend in the Stars Page 15