A Bend in the Stars

by Rachel Barenbaum

  “No,” Miri said. “He can’t keep us in here like prisoners.”

  “Until he’s checked with Noskov, he will. He’s gone to make sure I turned myself in.”

  “You could be wrong. The train will leave any minute.”

  Sasha shook his head, took Miri’s hand and kissed it. “Your brother knows?”

  “That I’m pregnant?”

  “Of course I know,” Vanya said.

  Voices and footsteps trudged along the corridor on the other side of the door “Marry me, Miriam?” Sasha asked. “Please, marry me?”

  “You’re coming, then? To America?” The train lurched.

  “Is that a yes?” He kissed her hand again. “Say yes.”

  “Yes. Of course.” He kissed her, but only quickly. “Wait for me,” he said.

  “Wait for you? Why?”

  “They’re here.”

  A whistle blared. The first time Miri mistook it for the train but it sounded again, and now it was clear it wasn’t what she thought. A soldier ran toward their compartment. He was outside, with the whistle in his mouth. More whistles followed. Not two or three, but dozens of soldiers with whistles were in his wake. They were ordering the engineers to stop the train. “Polyakov!” one yelled, the tallest and thinnest.

  “We have to run,” Miri said. She knew she was screaming because her ears started to ring and her throat hurt. She tried to open the door. She pulled and pulled. “No. No,” she said. It didn’t budge. “The window.” She pounded the glass, searched the compartment for something, anything, to break the glass. “Why are you sitting there? Both of you? Why are you sitting there? We need to run.” Both Vanya’s and Sasha’s faces were pale, drawn. More soldiers ran alongside the train.

  “Get up and help,” Miri screamed. She tried to pull Sasha to his feet but he wouldn’t move. His stillness was terrifying.

  “I told you, Avram is a smart man. He knew I’d never turn myself in.”

  “And you won’t. Sasha, we need to get off this train. We still have a chance.”

  “It’s too late.”

  Miri kicked the door. She dented the metal. She kicked, harder. “Let us out!” she yelled. Only later would she realize she’d broken a toe.

  “Sister, it’s no use.” Vanya’s voice was as still as Sasha’s. “I’m Aleksandr. I told you, Mirele. I am Aleksandr Polyakov.”

  “No. I said no.”

  “We never had a chance,” Sasha said at the same time.

  “Stop this. Both of you. Help me get us out of here.” Miri pounded the door harder. The bottom was kicked out by now, almost far enough for her to fit her arm through.

  “If we run, they will shoot us all before we make it onto the tracks,” Sasha said. “I’ll turn myself in. Vanya, take your sister to America. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Let them take me instead,” Vanya objected.

  “You wouldn’t last ten minutes in interrogation.”

  “They’ll hang you in a day. At least with me, it’ll be fast.”

  Someone in the hallway was fumbling with keys. “Both of you, stop talking. When the door opens, we run,” Miri said.

  The key ground in the lock and the tumblers clicked. The moment the door slid open, Miri jumped to barrel through, but Sasha caught her. “Miriam, let me go,” he said.

  “No.”

  “I am Aleksandr Grigorevich Polyakov.” Vanya stood. “You’ve come for me.” Sasha had his hand over Miri’s mouth. She thrashed and kicked, tried to yell.

  “I’ve never seen that pathetic man in my life,” Noskov said. He stood in the hall outside their compartment. He poked his finger over the threshold and pointed to Sasha. “Take the other man. The one holding the woman. That is the Polyakov boy.”

  “Miriam, please. For me. For our child,” Sasha whispered. She jerked to the side and he held her even tighter. The scar across his cheek was red again, as red as it had ever been. “Let me do this. They will kill us all if I don’t.”

  A soldier bullied his way into the compartment. His hands appeared like claws. He grabbed Miri and tried to toss her to the side. Sasha jumped to fight, but the soldier brought the butt of his pistol down on his head. Blood streamed over Sasha’s face. Miri screamed.

  The soldier shoved Sasha out of the compartment. Voices shouted. Miri thought she heard Sasha say, “I’ll find you,” but then there was nothing but feet dragging. She tried to run after him but Vanya had her. How was he suddenly so strong?

  “If you leave this compartment, they won’t hesitate. They’ll shoot,” Vanya said.

  “They’ll kill him.”

  “And if you run to him now, you’ll both be dead. And the child with you.” He was right, but there had to be choices. There were always choices.

  “I won’t leave Kiev without Sasha.” The train’s wheels were already rolling. When had they started to pick up speed? There was a shout outside. Sasha kneeled in the train yard, on the gravel. A group of soldiers stood around him. One was smoking. Another was moving his mouth, saying something. An officer in a long greatcoat approached.

  “No.” She banged the glass. “No. No.” The train was picking up speed. The officer pulled his revolver out from his belt, but instead of aiming it, he used it to backhand Sasha across the face. She watched him crumple to the ground. Miri must have screamed. The train banked around a curve and Sasha was gone.

  Cheshvan

  The eighth month in the Hebrew calendar, Cheshvan, is the only month during which there are no holidays, celebrations, or special mitzvot. It is said that Noah’s flood began during this month, and so it is known as a time of judgment and hardship that must be endured.

  I

  Cheshvan came without any vodka, without a toast between Miri and Vanya. One day slid into two as the train inched along icy tracks, traveling even more slowly than the mail train Miri had been on before. The sun skidded up from the horizon and tumbled back down, trailed by the moon. Miri sat across from her brother in a daze. She felt empty and broken. The engine thrummed while they heaved through the first true snowfall of the winter. Sasha had said he’d find her, but she knew he’d be dead soon if he wasn’t already. The wind howled. Day fell again to night. “He could still be alive,” Vanya said. “Sleep, sister. You must sleep. For you and for the baby.” She closed her eyes without registering time. What did the hour matter, anyway?

  She woke. Vanya brought broth he scrounged from the first-class dining car. She managed a piece of a carrot, a slice of potato. “I must go back for him,” she said. Vanya shook his head and pulled a blanket over her shoulders. Soon, snow had turned the countryside white and barren. As brutal as it was beautiful. “I think we’re going to have a son.” Yes, it had to be a son.

  II

  Vanya shook his sister awake. She’d barely eaten. Barely spoken since they’d lost Sasha. He didn’t know what to do, only that she wasn’t well. He held her, when she let him, ignoring his own pain, whispering the old stories he used to tell when they were children after their parents died. But she only cried.

  He walked with her up and down the train’s corridor, trying to keep both of their strengths up. Erik had been replaced by a simple conductor, and that man kept the door to their berth unlocked and ignored them, didn’t even offer to help, though he surely must have seen Vanya bending under Miri’s weight. And while she slept, he stared out on the countryside and thought about relativity. He’d come so close. If only he could have solved the equations. But while he’d held his notebook, taken it everywhere with him since the eclipse, he had yet to work in it. But then he had a thought. Not about his equations, but about his sister. There might be another way to help her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her with a book or a journal.

  “Miriam,” he said. “I need your help thinking through a problem. When Dima, Yuri, and I were hiding in the cave, after we stopped for coal, I imagined I was in a rocket, shooting upward—acceleration.” He waited for Miri to focus on him, but she continued to star
e at the window, seemingly at nothing. He continued, “What if I wasn’t on a rocket, but rather in an elevator? Free fall, acceleration. They’re related. I know it. But how?” The train barreled forward louder than ever, echoing on snow. Miri said nothing, but Vanya knew she liked to puzzle through pieces that stumped him. Her mind was as sharp as anyone’s. Maybe if he could convince her to think it through with him, she’d come back. “Can you help?”

  Miri kept her eyes toward the window, toward the snow. Why wouldn’t she respond? Hours passed with them sitting in silence. Vanya was about to give up hope, but then Miri turned to him.

  “You’re thinking about it wrong,” she said. The first words she’d spoken in days. “In an elevator. If you’re going up, your feet are pressed to the floor. But if you’re not moving, your feet are also pressed to the floor. The force only gets lighter when the elevator is in free fall. If you closed your eyes at any point, how would you know whether the elevator is stopped or moving upward?” She lapsed back into silence. Or maybe it was Vanya who went quiet because he was stunned.

  Yes, yes, she was right. She had a point. An obvious—brilliant point. It had been there in front of him the whole time, but it took Miri to see it. In an elevator, you wouldn’t feel any difference between gravity and acceleration. They are the same thing.

  Gravity equals acceleration.

  He pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose. And he thought. And thought it through. “Gravity and acceleration are the same,” Vanya whispered later, much later, when it was dark, when the rest of the train was asleep. “My God, Mirele. You’re right.” It was simple. Elegant. There was no question in his mind it was correct. Up to then, he’d been trying to balance gravity and acceleration, but he didn’t need to do that. Gravity not only bent space—it was equal to acceleration.

  Would it solve his equations? He opened his notebook for the first time since the eclipse. “Mirele, you’re brilliant,” he said, and took out his pencil—and began to write.

  III

  Vanya worked for a day. Then another. He could feel in his bones he was close because he sensed the changes he was making to space itself as he calculated, the curves smoothing and the heights coming to a plateau. He sensed their depth and weight. Even their moment in time. When he made a mistake, he could see his error as plain as a child who’d drawn outside the lines. Through all of it, he felt as if he were putting something back where it belonged.

  On the third night of work, he stopped. Miri dozed across from him, her head resting on the glass. “I’ve done it,” he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t respond even if she were awake. “Mirele, it’s complete. I’ve solved relativity.”

  Still, he’d check one more time. He went back and compared the version of Mercury’s path that he’d calculated to actual observations. It took hours. He checked and rechecked his work. Yes. “Yes!” he shouted.

  It matched. Precisely. Absolutely. “Good God,” Vanya said. “Finally. Finally.”

  “What?” Miri asked half-awake now. “What’s wrong?”

  Not one deviation between observation and calculation. He didn’t have approximate numbers, like Einstein. Vanya had exact numbers. His field equations were elegant. Precise. Exactly as they should have been. “I have my math.” Did he yell? Was he shaking? “I’ve done it!”

  “You did?” Miri asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “Yes. Yes!” Vanya’s heart beat so hard he felt it in his throat. He scrambled to hold his notebook over his head, waved the pages high. He grabbed Miri’s hands. She didn’t get up, but she swung her arms with him in a small dance and smiled for him. “I have it. Finally, I have it. Because of you. You’re brilliant. Gravity and acceleration. They are the same.” Through the glass he saw the stars twinkled as bright and clear as ever. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He felt weightless. He’d been told it was impossible. Other professors told him he was wasting his efforts. They said no one could challenge Newton. But they were wrong. All wrong. He, Vanya, had found the answer.

  But was he too late? He had no photographs, no way to reach Eliot safely with his news. The Okhrana were after them. They’d lost Yuri, and Miri’s soldier, too. They had no way of knowing if Baba was even safe.

  He’d beaten Einstein, but for what?

  He had solved his puzzle, but in his single-minded focus on the science he had dragged everyone he loved into danger. Without the other half, without the photographs, he had failed them all. He couldn’t remember ever feeling more tired. He rolled into a ball on the seat and closed his eyes. Sleep must have come quickly.

  IV

  Vanya,” Miri said. It had been another day since he’d stopped speaking, stopped holding her hand. He hadn’t moved from his seat since he’d finished his equations. At first she thought it was because he was tired, working without sleep for days. But now she saw there was something different about him. Something she wasn’t yet ready to name.

  Morning came and still Vanya didn’t get up. His skin glistened with sweat, but their compartment was cool. His lips were thin, thinner than ever, and paler. “Vanya,” Miri said. “Tell me about your equations.” She put her hand on his forehead. His skin burned. His pulse was weak and thready. She threw the blanket off of him and inspected his clothing. Had he been cut? He showed signs of an infection, but where? She couldn’t treat it if she couldn’t find it.

  She examined his hands, where his nails had been pried off. Nothing beyond fresh ink stains. Whatever ailed him was internal. “Vanya!” she yelled. She slapped his face. He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. She dropped to her knees. “Vanya, come back to me. What’s wrong?”

  “Take it.” He waved his notebook toward her.

  “Vanya,” she said, shaking him. “Don’t leave me. Not now.”

  Day bled to night. She covered him in blankets. And she spoke to him, spinning tales about their future, about their reunion with Babushka. She talked about finding their family in America. They wouldn’t go to Massachusetts—to Harvard. They’d go to Philadelphia. “Vanya, it will be beautiful. I can’t wait to see their great bell. Remember, they have a giant cracked bell? And our cousins. Our aunt and uncle.”

  “Sasha will find you.” He kissed her hand. She stayed awake, deep into the night, talking to her brother. His pulse slowed. Their light burned away and Miri’s eyes closed. When she awoke, their compartment was still. And cold. She didn’t need to examine Vanya to know he was gone.

  V

  Miri sat with Vanya’s body for half the day before a porter came and took what was left of her brother away. She had no choice but to let him go. She wanted to give him the burial Baba would want and that he deserved, but she couldn’t watch him rot while they crawled to their grandmother.

  She endured the rest of the train ride in silence, tracing the silver numbers and symbols on his cigarette case with her nail. The countryside passing by seemed to be in a state of mourning with her, smothered in snow that left no room to breathe or move. The silence was as agonizing as the screams she’d unleashed for Sasha only days earlier. Now she’d lost all the men in her life, and she didn’t even know if Baba was still alive. All for what? For the eclipse? For a chance for easy passage to America? She looked down at his notebook, at the frayed edges. It was stained now, and bloated. All those nights ago, in Kovno, when they’d first discussed the eclipse, hadn’t she known then that he was pushing too far? Like Icarus, he was bound to crash. Still, Vanya didn’t listen. Why didn’t she do more to stop him? But he wasn’t blameless, she told herself. His ambition, his dreams, had blinded them all. Under the sadness, she realized, was a layer of anger she hadn’t recognized before.

  When the train arrived in Petrograd, soldiers began pulling apart the compartments and seats before she’d even stepped onto the platform. Miri walked out of the station in a daze. Stumbling down the streets toward Klara’s, wagon and tram drivers yelled at her. She’d only been to Saint Petersburg once before, but there were more beggars than she remembered, and where fa
cades used to sparkle, now they were caked with soot. Stores stood empty.

  Aunt Klara’s apartment building was grayer, too. She didn’t wait and watch the apartment before she entered. Didn’t even try to hide or send Baba a secret message through the butcher with a place for them to meet. What did she care if the Okhrana were watching? If they wanted her, they could have her. And if Baba and Klara had already run, well, she needed to know that, too.

  But there was Babushka, waiting. It was almost impossible to believe that after everything, Baba was exactly where she was supposed to be. Miri stopped two paces in front of her grandmother’s open arms. She’d crossed the country two times to get here. She’d lost and found her brother, and lost him again. She’d found Yuri and pushed him away. And, of course, she’d fallen into Sasha and he was gone now, too. While the rest of Miri’s world crumbled, Baba was the only piece that still stood.

  “Child, my poor child,” Babushka said as she wrapped Miri in her arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” Miri sobbed. “I’ve lost them all.”

  VI

  The first morning Miri woke up in Klara’s apartment, when all her failures came rushing back to her, she opened the window and flung Vanya’s notebook out into the snow. She’d thought about burning it but couldn’t. “Let someone else use it for heat,” she said, and slammed the glass back into place. Not long after that, Kir’s men banged on the door. Miri didn’t listen to whatever tale Baba spun to explain Miri’s appearance, but she understood they’d be watching the flat, didn’t believe Vanya was dead. Once they left, in the background, she heard Babushka and Klara discussing their situation. After everything Miri had done to prevent them from trying to break through the border in spring, there was no other way. If they tried now, they wouldn’t make it. The ice and snow were too harsh to brave a sledge across the Neva, let alone Ladoga. Even if they could escape Russia, they had nowhere to go now, no way to America. And so they tucked into Saint Petersburg for the duration of the winter.