count.”
They all laughed a little too much, grateful for the break in tension.
“You gotta understand him,” Ward said. “All his life—ten thousand acres. Milfords worked hard for this land. Hell, we used to produce six hundred thousand bushels of com, and a hundred fifty thousand of wheat.”
“What about milk for half of Omaha,” Aiethea said sarcastically.
“Damn you, Ali,” Ward grumbled. “Why do you do
this?”
“We’re not those Milfords anymore. If we’ve lost, then think of all the people in the country who’ve lost even more. How about their lives? How about Devin? He’s been in a prison camp for five years and we’re sitting around mourning our past. We’ve lost what our forefathers built, not what we created.” Aiethea looked around the dining-room table. “Look at us, we sit around clinging to our last fifty acres. We’re not doing anything, we’ve given up. All we do is peek through the windows at the awful squatters, thinking, Well, there goes the neighborhood.”
“What are you doing, Ah?” Ward asked. “What are you doing to make it better? You call getting drunk and sleeping with that—”
“Stop it, Ward,” Betty demanded. “Don’t you say anything else.”
Alethea pushed back her tousled hair and tried to regain her dignity. “We all have our weaknesses. I try not to hate the Russians, the Exiles, or even myself.” She stood up. “I’m sorry, Dev,” she said. “This is one hell of a homecoming party.” She stumbled into the kitchen and out the back door.
Devin got to his feet and followed her.
He started out to find Alethea, but when he saw the light in the barn he was drawn to it. Devin crossed the yard, beneath a broad and starry sky, and stopped at the bam door. His father was spreading hay into the troughs of his dairy herd, using this most basic labor to exorcise his anger. Four cows chewed silently in their stalls.
“Dad.”
The old man looked at his son, then turned away and continued to work. Devin found a second pitchfork and wordlessly began to help him spread the feed. For five minutes they worked side by side, until Devin said, “We’ve got to talk sometime.”
The old man kept on working. His face was sweaty and red, his hair hung down over his eyes.
“Like it or not, I’m your son,” Devin said.
“There ain’t nothing about you that’s mine,” Will said evenly. “And there ain’t nothing about me that’s yours. Let’s leave it that way.”
“I want to try to explain ...”
“You’ve been a part of something else for twenty years, something that hasn’t done us any good, hasn’t done anybody any good.”
“I understand how you must feel,” Devin said. “I respect how you’ve lived your life.”
Will lowered his fork and stared coldly at his son. “Do you? You’ve lived your life like it didn’t mean a damn what I did—or my father or his either. Three generations of Milfords have worked this land, carving it outta nothing: all good, loyal Americans. Building up this country. Then you come back from Vietnam tearing it down. Then you go off on some showoff thing against this new bunch. The only good it did was call attention to yourself.”
“I was trying to do the right thing. To help save America.”
“You lost the land!” his father shouted. Fighting for control, he plunged his fork into another pile of hay. Devin watched him, anguished, silently pleading for acceptance.
As if Will heard his thought, he stopped pitching and glared at Devin. “They say I got to live with you. Eat with you. But that don’t mean I’ve got to talk to you.” He spread the hay furiously. Devin laid his pitchfork against the bam wall and walked slowly back to the house.
At dawn the next morning he moved out.
Andrei and Kimberly were watching home videos of Devin Milford. Images of Devin’s face illuminated the huge screen. He was laughing, younger then, lifting a small child into the air. It was Billy, age three. Devin brought the child back into his arms kissing him, and reached around to bring Marion into the frame. Random shots of Devin’s family on the Milford farm. Alethea, Ward, Betty; young children running amuck across the fields.
Kimberly watched the videos silently. Something about this man moved her. She stared at a shot of Devin alone. He stood a little away from the Milford clan, looking over the land, then back to his family. Kimberly recognized the look of great sadness on his face. A second later he waved to the camera and smiled.
“He knows,” she said, speaking quietly into the darkness of Andrei’s apartment.
The tape stopped. Andrei started to rewind it. “What does he know?”
“That something is going to happen.”
He looked over to her and saw that she had tears in her eyes. “What is it? Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed so sad. It was as if he was having a good time with his family, but he’s still alone. Except maybe with the boy.”
Andrei walked over to the machine and took the tape out. “It was interesting how happy he and Marion seemed. A few years later, she betrayed Mm.” He walked over to his desk and rummaged through a pile of tapes and files. “Here’s a tape of him announcing his candidacy for president.” He started to put the tape in. “Do you remember him much?”
Kimberly repositioned herself in the chair. “I’ve never been particularly interested in politics.”
Andrei turned the machine on. Devin stood before a podium in Washington at the Vietnam Memorial. He had an undeniable charisma, Kimberly thought. She found herself listening intently to his speech—about the sense of greatness Americans had always assumed to be an integral part of their heritage but which was destroyed with Vietnam. He spoke of the dangers of the New Society which the Kremlin had designed for America, supposedly to give Americans the opportunity to be “truly equal.5’
“We are now equally enslaved,” she heard Devin say. Those words echoed inside her, touching her core. “Americans have allowed themselves to be immobilized by their own fears. Immobilized by their own selfish concerns. Immobilized by a lack of understanding of the freedom secured by our forefathers, into which most of us were bom—and now have lost. I have come to ask you for your support in an effort to regain our freedom. The battle will be long and hard. But freedom is not free. And ultimately we must choose what we believe in: the high demands and risks of freedom, or the security of the slave and the tranquillity of the grave.”
Andrei moved to the VCR and turned it off. He watched Kimberly, who had been deeply moved. “Look at yourself. He’s touched you.”
A tear roiled down her cheek. “I don’t know. He’s--”
“American?”
“I don’t know. While he was talking I started to think about ‘being an American.’ I never thought of myself as patriotic or anything, I just always thought of myself as me. Of course, I was an American, but it was just there. There wasn’t anything I had to do about it.” “Would you follow him?”
Kimberly looked at Andrei quizzically.
“As a leader,” he continued. “Would you follow him as a leader?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. He knows things I don’t. He understands things I’d like somebody to understand. Like you, but you’re Russian.”
“What about Peter Bradford, the man we met in Omaha? Would you follow him?”
She was quiet a moment, trying to recreate the evening. “He was a nice man. He makes me feel safe. Devin Milford doesn’t make me feel safe. He talks about choices and sacrifices. I don’t think I’m willing to make either one. Andrei, I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
“It isn’t a game. This man spent five years in prison because we were afraid of how he’d make people feel. I wish I could understand what it is about him.”
“Why? What difference does it make? You’re in control.”
He laughed and walked over to where she sat. He touched her cheek gently, tracing the path th
e tear had fallen down minutes before. “You Americans. You’re such a mystery to everyone except yourselves.” He became serious. “If I could somehow understand this man, I think I would understand America.”
Kimberly looked at him playfully. “If you could understand me”—she laughed—“you’d understand—” “America?”
“Me,” she said smugly.
They kissed, playfully at first, then deeply. He led her into the bedroom, stopping only to turn on the living-room lamp. Shafts of light spilled into his bedroom, caressing Kimberly’s beauty. It accented her porcelain skin, and her eyes shone.
She pulled back the bedspread and pulled Andrei to her. Embracing and kissing, they fell onto the bed. He began to undress her, unbuttoning her dress, sliding it off of her milk-white shoulders. He kissed her neck, then pulled off her satin teddy, exposing her beautiful breasts. She slipped out of her panties as Andrei took off his clothing and lay down beside her, running his hand up the smooth skin of her thigh. He began to kiss her breasts but she gently pulled his mouth to hers. She wanted him inside her. Now.
They began to make love. Kimberly’s hands moved up and down Andrei’s back, slowly at first, in rhythm to their lovemaking. She felt herself take flight, riding a wave of ecstasy. She was aware of his rapidly approaching orgasm and dug her nails into his back, grinding herself into him, taking him further, deeper. At that same instant, she started to climax. She put her arms around his neck, holding on to him firmly, urging him softly.
“Yes, Andrei. Yes, yes.”
They were two people meshed, body and soul.
Andrei lay atop Kimberly for a moment, his sweat mingling with her own sweet scent. All of his life, he had played games with women in bed, using sex as a battleground to act out unresolved conflicts or achieve control. But there was something else with Kimberly. When he made love to her, his heart opened a bit, and an aching need washed over him.
After a moment he fell onto his back, his breath becoming more even, synchronized with Kimberly’s. She propped herself on her elbow, tracing his nose and then his lips.
“Welcome to America.” She smiled, kissing him
again.
Devin pitched a tent beside a stream about a mile from the farmhouse. Since boyhood this had been a special, private place for solitude and introspection.
But now the solitude was shattered by shouts from over the hill, reminding him that the exile camp was only a few hundred yards away. More than anything, Devin wanted some time alone, to settle back on this land that had been his home, to try and recapture some of the serenity he feit was at last his due. But the noise from camp drew him like a siren song; a sense of solidarity with these outcasts simmered in his blood and would not be denied.
At midmorning, he topped the hill and looked down on the camp, slowly accepting its abrasive reality. Finally, he drew near. He passed damp clothing, hanging on a line, a cluster of children playing on a heap of old tires, and an old woman in a black shawl, carrying a load of sticks. No one paid attention to him; with his lean and hungry look, dark pants, and black corduroy coat, he might have been an Exile himself. Devin heard music, a stringed instrument, and followed the haunting sadness of the melody to a small trailer.
He stopped outside and listened. The woman who had passed him carrying an armload of sticks approached him. She dropped the sticks beside the door, staring at him suspiciously.
“You a music lover?”
“No,” he answered, feeling at once like an intruder. “I’m sorry.”
From inside the trailer, the music stopped. A white-haired, serene-looking gentleman appeared at the door and spoke. “Gert. You back?”
“Of course I’m back, Dieter, that’s why you can hear my voice.”
The couple stared at Devin as he started to move away. A worried look passed between them.
“Sorry to have disturbed you,” Devin apologized.
“Wait a minute.” Dieter scrutinized Devin closely. “Come in here a moment.”
After a brief hesitation, Devin followed Gert and Dieter into their trailer. Its cramped interior was jammed with the sort of gewgaws that once abounded is middle-class American living rooms but which had now become exotica: Dresden figurines of vacant-eyed shepherds and lissome ballerinas caught forever in the middle of a pirouette; Hummel statuettes of perfect children who would never know hunger, fear, or bafflement. Gerta started to make tea at once, as the two men sat down on a leather sofa whose tom cushions leaked horsehair stuffing,
“I was going to vote for you, in spite of the way you messed up. It’s amazing, really. The history of communism is filled with good men and their good intentions—men who couldn’t survive the straggles for power.”
Devin raised his eyebrows. “The history of communism?”
“Yes. America is now part of the history of communism,” the old man said, and smiled. “Interesting way to think of it, wouldn’t you say?”
Gerta brought over a tray full of tea cups. “We would’ve been better off in the GDR.”
Dieter smiled up at his wife. “One of life’s little jokes. We escaped from East Germany to come to the promised land; now the promised land has become worse than what we left.”
Gerta reached across piles of papers, figurines and mementos, distributing the cups. “At least we lived with it—-learned how to manipulate it.”
Her husband sipped his tea. He put the cup down. “But we didn’t stay. Maybe we are destined to be outsiders, like you, Mr. Milford.” He winked, conspir-atorially. “I used to follow your ideas. I even read your speeches. Interesting premise, but forgive me for saying so, a little overstated, perhaps simplistic.” He shrugged. “But that’s the difference between the American experience and the experience of Europeans.”
Devin shifted his weight on the love seat. He sipped the weak tea. “You’re a musician?”
Dieter smiled at the obviousness to that question. “I was first chair with the New York Philharmonic. We were exposed by a friend—”
“Who wanted to be first chair,” Gerta added.
“So, we were betrayed—not unlike you, Mr. Milford. A fact of life; even in America.”
Devin’s eyes clouded. “Betrayed? Just by the people, I guess.”
“No one specific?” Dieter asked. “Perhaps someone closer to home?”
“What? 'Hie KGB?”
“Yes, most likely, but usually there is someone you trust—-”
The path this conversation was about to take was proving too much for Devin. He found himself growing agitated, feeling confined. He stood up quickly. “I must go. Excuse me.”
Dieter rose apologetically. “Forgive me. I had no intention to be rude—”
“It’s—it’s all this is—” He looked to Gerta. “Thank you for the tea; I’m sorry.” And he left.
The two looked after him, then at each other.
“You had expected something else?” she asked. Dieter stared at her a moment, then turned away abruptly. He felt very irritated with himself, the conversation, perhaps with life in general.
Dowd by the creek, two boys were playing catch with an old tennis ball. Devin knelt and watched them, until the ball bounced his way and he tossed it back, glad to become part of the game. One of the boys was shy and awkward, but the other tossed the ball with natural grace.
Devin was swept away by thoughts of Ms own sons, with whom he had not shared such simple pleasures for so many years.
He did not at first notice the slender woman in boots and a parka, holding the hand of a little girl.
Amanda had come to the camp several times now. Peter neither approved nor forbade her visits. So she came, and did what she could, trying to accept how very little she could truly change.
She walked with Dierdre, the child she had discovered in her yard a few mornings before. She had brought the girl some of Jackie’s old clothes and had gotten to know her mother, Carla Tankinoff. They were Exiles, Carla explained, because she had protested when Dierdre’
s father, a physicist, was arrested for political activism.
In the cruelest blow, they were sent to this camp in Nebraska, hundreds of miles from him. Amanda was touched by Carla’s courage. “We’ll survive,” she had said. “We have to, because our family will be reunited.”
As Amanda approached, Devin was attracted, not immediately by her familiarity, but by the contrast between her clothing and that of the Exiles. Even “dressed down,” her clothes looked newer and nicer. As they passed, the recognition Mt him like a thunderbolt. She became aware of his stare, and returned it. She smiled, matter-of-factly, somewhat politely, and walked on.
Devin was paralyzed. One part of Mm would like to have run from this encounter, another part could not. “Amanda . .
She stood still in her tracks. The voice ran through her body to the pit of her stomach. She turned slowly and gazed mutely at the damaged image before her. Little Dierdre felt herself caught in Amanda’s tightened grip and wriggled to escape. Amanda realized this, and let go, the child skipping away toward her tent.
At that moment, Devin wished he had not spoken. He felt naked and inadequate. When he could bear the silence no longer, he said, “It’s Devin—Milford.” “Yes, I know. Devin. Of course I know.” She walked to him slowly, kissing him on the cheek, then pulled back, aware of how inappropriately she had acted. “God, what a fool I am. I almost said how are you?” He gazed at her and smiled. She had aged; there were lines in her face he had not known before, yet she was still the same Amanda: the same kindness and honesty she had possessed as a child and which would still be a part of her at eighty.
“I recognized your hair,” he said. “The way you tilt your head I’d know you anywhere.”
Amanda started to laugh off the remark in a polite counter to flattery, but his words were so direct and honest that tears welled in her eyes and an unexpected sob escaped her throat. She stood in front of Mm, shaking her head. “Oh no—” She rushed into his arms, holding Mm tightly, as though some long-ago locked-up feeling had suddenly broken free.
“Can we talk?” he said, gently stroking her hair. “Yes. Please.”
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