“You really told him I’m a scientist?” Vanya asked.
“Enough!” Dima said. “I did my best. If you want him to think more of you, you’ll have to convince him yourself.”
XVIII
No. No,” Sasha yelled. He kicked and a bag of mail slid. Letters ran like tears down the pile. He thrashed. Miri slipped on envelopes as she crawled closer.
“Sasha!” She shook him. “Sasha. Wake up.”
“What? What happened?” he asked. He jumped to his feet so fast that, for a second, Miri thought he was still asleep.
“You were having another nightmare.”
“Another?” He eased down to the floor, cracked the train door open, and leaned forward, gulping for air. The sun was just starting to tip up from the trees, and in the faint light, the train cut through a prairie blurred by mist.
“What are they about, your nightmares?”
“It’s not simple.”
“Tell me anyway.” She sat, waiting. She’d had patients who worked through terror like Sasha, and she’d wait for as long as it took him to start. Around them, the smell of damp paper mixed with pine and the wheels beating against the rails kept a steady, slow rhythm. The train crawled forward.
“My nightmares are about the Polyakovs. And the farmers who saved us. In my dreams, I keep going back to the farmers. I see the czar’s men slaughtering them.”
“But they’re alive,” Miri said. She reached for his hand.
“For now. Only for now.” Sasha looked outside. He told Miri about his mother and father, about the brothers and sisters who’d died in their cribs, or from fevers. And he told her more about the farmers who’d taken his family in. They taught Sasha what they knew, to smell soil, to taste it, to know if it needed manure. “They became family,” Sasha said. “One day, the farmer took me out to his barn. ‘Have you ever punched someone?’ he asked. The barn wasn’t large. Maybe the size of your baba’s sitting room. It had wagon wheels hanging on the walls along with ropes and traps. Bear traps, rabbit traps. Of course I’d never hit anyone, never taken a punch. The farmer, he said it was time for me to learn.” Sasha dropped his chin to his chest. Miri could feel him thinking, remembering. “There was dust everywhere. It made me sneeze, because he had me fill burlap sacks with hay, stuff it in as tight as I could. Then he showed me how to hold my fists so I wouldn’t break my thumbs. How to watch a man’s feet to know where he’ll strike. The farmer hung the sacks from the rafters. I practiced on them for weeks. Then he had me practice on him. He hit me. Hard. It was how I learned.”
“How did he know to fight so well?”
“Survival. He earned extra kopecks by fighting.”
“That’s what you said. The first night, in our cellar. You said the scar on your chest, it came from fighting, a good way to earn extra kopecks.”
“You remember?” He paused. “The farmer trained me to fight like him. Once a month, men from nearby villages came together. They paid the fighters and gambled. The farmer whispered, the first time he took me, ‘Don’t touch the vodka. Staying sober takes you halfway to the win.’ It was bloody but the farmer was the best. He introduced me as his nephew, and since he was their champion, no one questioned him. I lost in the beginning. But I got better. I started winning. I gave the farmer every kopeck I earned.”
“Did he train his sons, too?”
“They didn’t have children. It wasn’t God’s plan for them, they said.”
“And your own parents, did they know?”
“No. They forbade it.” He looked at Miri. “Those farmers. I miss them like parents.”
“We can find them. We can visit them. I mean, you can.”
“No.” He stopped. “The villagers know I’m a Jew. If I show my face, they’ll turn me in, and this time they won’t throw me to the army, will they? The farmer and his wife, they won’t be spared again, either. When I send letters, I write pretending to be his brother.”
Miri took a breath. “America could be a fresh start for you, too.”
Sasha shrugged. “I’ve thought of that but fate’s complicated.”
“You believe in fate, then?”
“Sometimes.”
XIX
Seven days until the eclipse, that’s what Vanya said. Finally, Dima had a chance to get away and find the telegraph office. He didn’t even know if his last message had made it through—there was no way for Ilya to reply. Faster, faster he made his way along the pitted road. Already it was near midnight, but he’d sleep later. He was good at functioning without rest. Even though he’d been worked to the bone, worse than when he was a deckhand. Night and day the American, and Vanya, called on him to translate. To build. He’d hammered together tents and tables to hold the piles the American had carted across the ocean. Dima had never seen so much equipment. He couldn’t imagine the expense, where the money came from—and for what? Photographs? Did he need all that for photographs?
Vanya said all that really mattered was the camera and the glass that would capture the photograph. They’d found the camera right away. Assembled it. But they hadn’t found the glass—the plates. They dug in every crate. The camera, the plates, and the math. It was all Vanya talked about. Enough already. At least they seemed to be getting along better. Vanya and Yuri. All their bickering had died down. And that American, he seemed like a dolt. He never listened to a word Dima said when he tried to explain Vanya was a scientist. And Dima needed that American to know it so he could help Vanya. But every time Dima brought it up, Clay seemed to think he was joking.
He treated Dima, Vanya, and Yuri like dirt. Had them sleep in the loft above the barn. Never even bothered with their names. Lumped them together with Vadim and Stepan, the two who’d been there the day they arrived and, thanks to God, had come back. They turned out to be brothers. Strong as oxen even with one missing a leg and the other an ear. Good men. They helped Dima keep the pace fast. He liked them for that, had taken to drinking with them at night, late, after everyone else went to sleep. He also liked the red string they wore as bracelets, the charms around their necks, because they reminded Dima of his people. They believed in the power of talismans and magic. Vadim and Stepan had told Dima where he could find the telegraph.
And now that he was on the way there, he couldn’t get to it fast enough. That American, he’d started asking why everyone was in the army but them. “Doesn’t the czar need sailors?” Clay had said just that morning. Dima had brushed it off but couldn’t afford questions like that.
Finally, Dima came to a rambling strip of houses and banged on the green door Stepan had described. Through a hole in the house’s mud and mortar, Dima spotted a man lying on a cot, snoring, in the light of the hearth’s embers. Dima banged the door again. This time harder.
“Go away,” the man grumbled.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” Dima called back. “I’ll pay double.”
Dima saw the man stumble out of bed; a lamp flickered and the door flew open. The operator standing in front of Dima had a white beard so long it covered his chest. He wore a ragged shirt and no shoes. Dima saw he was missing two toes. The sailor held out his hand, and the man took the kopecks, waved Dima inside.
The house was a single room as small as a ship’s cabin. Wires fell from one corner in the ceiling and were connected to the machine sitting on the desk. There was a notebook next to it, along with a typewriter with half the keys missing.
“What d’ya need to send?” the man asked. He pulled out a pair of spectacles. “It’s about that American? That good-for-nothing lout?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“’Cause you’re new here in Brovary. Why else would you be here?”
“Fair enough. Why did you call him a lout?”
“Took all my vodka when he came one day to send a message.”
“Without paying?”
“Oh, he paid. Half its worth. Had those burls Vadim and Stepan with him as enforcers.”
Dima dictated his teleg
ram:
Price has gone up STOP Quadrupled STOP Meet in Brovary on the 22 STOP Keep soldiers away STOP If you come early you get nothing
Dima knew it was risky to let the telegraph operator know so much, or anything at all, but he needed to make sure Ilya, and Kir, stayed away. He left three bottles of vodka to buy the operator’s silence. Now he just needed Vanya to finish up with those equations. Tie all those loose ends together. If he couldn’t, if Ilya or Kir showed up and Dima had nothing but photographs, Dima would need Vadim and Stepan to help him get away.
XX
We have to work faster,” Vanya yelled as they dug. The men were expanding the dacha’s root cellar, converting it into a darkroom. “Six days. That’s all we have.” Six days, fourteen hours, and twelve minutes left to set up for the eclipse, to find those photographic plates. Vanya had to get the equations somehow, and while he couldn’t force the answers to come any faster, he did have influence over the photographs—he could push the others to help him find those plates. He was convinced they were there. Clay wouldn’t come to Brovary without them.
Every time Vanya tried to ask Clay about them, with Dima translating, Clay brushed the question aside. “What do peasants know about my work?” Vanya thought about using the rubies to buy new plates, but he wasn’t sure where to look for them, or if they could be sent in time. What would happen if, after the eclipse, Vanya left Brovary without equations and without a photograph? Surely, Eliot would refuse him. Then he’d have no way of getting his family out. They could try to slip through the border, but that was dangerous. They could try to buy papers, but during war that would be impossible. No. He couldn’t let any of that happen. He had to find the glass plates.
And so he worked harder. Kept unpacking and searching. And running through equations. Sometimes he talked about an idea with Yuri. He didn’t think Yuri understood it all, but he knew enough to ask good questions, and that was just as important. It kept Vanya going as they installed a telescope, built tents to cover the camera and supplies in case it rained, and unloaded a photometer and an interferometer. All the while, as they worked, Clay sat under an umbrella on the veranda with a bottle of vodka and gave orders. Once he’d tried to help but complained the effort hurt his back, Dima explained, and he hadn’t lifted a finger since. It didn’t make sense to Vanya. Weren’t Americans cowboys?
Vanya and the others worked themselves up into such a frenzied pace that a man from the village they’d hired to fell trees tumbled from a ladder. Yuri diagnosed a fracture in the lower arm. He set the bone and lashed it to a plank of wood. Clay looked on, astonished. He hadn’t believed Yuri was a real surgeon. So many in Russia claimed to have a degree but didn’t. Clay asked Dima questions about Yuri’s qualifications, and once he was convinced of Yuri’s credentials, he invited Yuri to dinner. “There’s something personal I need to discuss,” he explained through Dima.
“I’ll only come if I can bring Vanya,” Yuri said.
“Fine. All three of you can come. Dima, tell Cook to make dinner for four.”
They were summoned to the dacha’s formal dining room at eight. Vanya had never seen much of the inside of the house before, and it was clear from the size of the table, and the number of empty chairs, that the owner was accustomed to hosting over two dozen people at a time. With just the four of them the room felt empty. There were squares and rectangles stained into the silk covering the walls where paintings used to hang. Clay explained they’d all been shipped to Paris for the duration of the war. The chandelier and sconces that normally would have dripped with a hundred candles were empty. Only a paraffin lamp burned, sending shadows into empty breakfronts that, like everything else, were empty.
The American spent the meal telling them about his observatory in America. He’d had most of the great scientists of the day come and lecture at his university. His guests, Clay said with Dima translating, coauthored papers with him. Vanya tried to ask Clay specific questions about Harvard first, and Einstein later, but Clay laughed. “Harvard? Ha! The famous university, so famous even Russian peasants have heard of it!”
“Yes, aren’t you familiar with Professor Eliot’s work? And shouldn’t he know yours?” Vanya tried to ask, but Clay ignored the question, consumed plate after plate of food. The more he ate, the pinker his nose became, the more pronounced the broken blood vessels around his face grew. Never once did Clay ask a question.
And this response, Clay’s refusal to admit he didn’t know Eliot, gave Vanya an idea. The best idea he’d had since they left Kovno. He just needed to think it through. He spent the rest of the meal in silence. Thinking. And thinking. As Cook brought more and more food.
Once the last dish was empty, the American turned to Yuri and, through Dima, said, “I know you’ve been wondering why I asked you here. I have awful diarrhea. I need your doctor’s opinion. Is it an ulcer?”
“Not likely. Not given the way you’ve been eating,” Yuri said. Vanya saw Dima stifling laughter. “But diarrhea can be dangerous. I’ve seen you swimming down at the pond behind the estate. Do you drink the water?”
“Of course. Fresh water,” Clay declared. “It keeps me healthy.”
“No, no,” Yuri said. “Don’t drink that water. Still water is never safe.”
“But the animals drink from there.”
“They shouldn’t. Come. Take off your shirt and I’ll examine you.” Yuri stood up from the table and pulled a stethoscope from his pocket. Vanya didn’t even know he’d brought one on their journey. The American followed Yuri’s lead, stood and disrobed there in the middle of the room. Yuri went through the motions of listening, tapping, and taking notes. Vanya had come to know Yuri, and he understood by the way Yuri looked at the American sideways, rarely straight on, that he didn’t like him.
As Yuri worked, Vanya continued thinking. He’d come to Brovary convinced he’d persuade Clay to give him a photograph of the eclipse: that at best, his math would prove he was on the verge of one of the greatest revelations in history and so, of course, Clay would support him and gladly hand it over; at worst, he’d have to pay for what he needed with Baba’s rubies. But ideas only moved people when they cared to understand their power, and already Vanya knew Clay didn’t care much for math—only fame. And money only worked when people were hungry and Clay wasn’t hungry, either. With all this equipment, with the entire expedition, it was clear that he had everything money could buy. Vanya could never persuade him with rubies. No, he’d need something else. And he’d need to be careful about it. He couldn’t let Clay steal from him. Not like Kir.
“Do you have a diagnosis?” Clay asked, maneuvering back into his shirt.
“Other than your weight, you’re in perfect health. Stop drinking the bad water. Only boiled water with honey,” Yuri said, tucking his stethoscope back into his pocket. “And now I have a request for you.”
“Yes,” Clay said absentmindedly, still working on the buttons pulling tight at his chest.
“Just as you now believe I’m a doctor, you must believe me when I say Vanya Abramov is a scientist. He’s the best in all of Russia. He’s a correspondent of the great Albert Einstein, and has been offered a position at Harvard, in the United States.”
“Ha,” sputtered Clay. “If that were true, then what’s he doing here? Dressed like that?”
“Sometimes circumstances, appearances, are out of our control,” Yuri said. “But he’s here for the same reason as you. To see the eclipse. To understand relativity.”
“Truly?” the American asked, staring in disbelief at Dima as he translated. Clay put his glasses back on so his blue eyes shrank back down to beads, and he leaned close to Vanya. “Harvard?”
“Yes,” Yuri said. “Hear him out.”
Clay agreed and ushered them into the sitting room, where he said they’d be more comfortable. As they walked across the hall, Vanya pulled Yuri aside. “Thank you, brother.”
Yuri smiled. “Go.”
They had to peel dust cloths off the
furniture. The only light came from the fire in the hearth so the space was crowded with shadows. Empty bookshelves lined the walls like bars. The hulking desk only added to the strangeness of the space because it was clear no one worked there. Clay fell into the largest chair, with a bottle of vodka. Vanya, Yuri, and Dima sat around him.
“Tell me, Vanya. What is it you want me to know?” Clay said.
Vanya cleared his throat. Where to start? He’d have to be careful. Very careful. When he’d practiced for this conversation in his head, he thought he’d talk about clocks, synchronization, and acceleration, and his gut told him now that none of that seemed right. Clay was a man concerned with his own greatness. Flattery was the key. Vanya leaned forward. “I know you come from a university of much prestige, Professor. It would be an honor for me if you would consider us working together. With all your vast experience, I’m sure there is a great deal you can teach me. I have ideas, many ideas but I need someone with experience, someone like you, to help me complete what I cannot finish on my own.” He paused. “I want us to be coauthors.” Just as Einstein worked with others, Vanya would, too. Especially if that was the only way.
“But you’ve been dragged in from the fields! Harvard,” Clay laughed and shook his head.
“Professor,” Yuri warned. “You promised to listen.”
“Fine. Prove me wrong. Show me what you have. Convince me there’s something for us to publish together.” Vanya pulled out his notebook. His hands shook and he was terrified now, not because he thought Clay would refuse him—but because he thought there was a chance Clay might understand him. That Clay might look at his equations and realize he had not yet achieved what he needed to achieve to make him great—that Clay might refuse to work with him. What if Vanya had risked all of this, their lives, their future, for nothing? Vanya felt every muscle and sinew in his body tense as he handed his work over.
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