He gazed at her uncertainly, as though he didn’t know her. Then he spun around and took his cap off its hook. Florence followed him. “Where are you off to—back to boozing with that windbag?”
But Leon didn’t seem to hear her. “Don’t stay up,” he said.
—
TEN DAYS LATER, an article appeared in Pravda. The Party flack, Ilya Ehrenburg, had written up an opinion piece laying out the official policy to dictate how Soviet Jews were to regard Israel. “Is Israel the solution to the Jewish question?” No, was the emphatic answer. The injection of Anglo-American capital was as dangerous to Israel as were the Arab legions. The solution to the Jewish problem would depend not on military success in Palestine but on the triumph of socialism over capitalism, principles of the working class over nationalism. If there was no choice but for some victims of Nazi atrocities to leave demolished Europe and make their way to Palestine, this was by no means the case for Jews within the borders of the Soviet Union, where the oppression of money, lies, and superstition had long been conquered.
“There’ve been rumors, coming out of Birobidzhan,” Seldon informed them late one evening. It was nearly nine when he pressed the apartment buzzer, ringing three times for their room.
“What rumors?” said Leon.
“That the Jewish Party members are being arrested for receiving aid packages from the U.S.”
“Receiving packages? Hell, everybody did that. It was all done through the Red Cross.”
Florence insisted they talk more quietly. She could hear Yulik stirring in his cot. “By taking those packages, they were encouraging the impression that the U.S. was responsible for victory,” whispered Seldon.
“Mama?” the boy was calling out from behind the floral curtain that partitioned his side of the room from the grown-ups.
“That’s absurd. What were people supposed to eat?” said Leon.
Florence said, “Where did you hear that, Seldon?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Mama?” Julian had gotten up from his cot and parted the curtain.
“Go back to sleep, monkey.”
“I can’t. I want to sleep with you.”
“All right, lovey, just get back in your bed. I’ll lie down with you as soon as Uncle Seldon leaves. Seldon, can’t this wait till morning?”
“There’s more. The articles we were translating—for the American press—now they’re being called bourgeois nationalist propaganda.”
“That’s got to be a joke,” said Leon.
“Especially any articles that mentioned the names of American companies—the ones that sent rubber heating pads, syringes, those sorts of things. They’re saying that by praising those companies, the writers were encouraging American businessmen to make deals over the blood of Soviet boys.”
“Seldon, who’s saying all this?”
“But it was in the protocol,” insisted Leon. “To mention the name of the company. We were told to show gratitude.”
“Apparently, we bowed too deeply.”
—
IN THE DARK BEHIND the floral curtain, Florence lay on the cot beside her son. Light from the moon illuminated his downy neck and the curve of his shoulder in its cotton pajama top. Curled up he looked like a little swan. For a long time she rubbed his back and hummed softly; finally, she could hear the deep, slow breathing that meant he was asleep. She tiptoed back to their daybed, then lay on her back for a long time and stared at the ceiling. Above her the plaster molding, slightly peeling, had a pattern of leaves and lilies. There were birds, too, whose wings had been cropped by the wooded partition that had divided the once-large room into several smaller ones. It was like looking up into a world of myth, as different from the world around them as the sky was from life on earth. She could feel the heavy turn of Leon’s body beside her. “Why does he always come around so late?” she said, trying to gather anger into her whisper. “He knows we have a child. Yulik needs to be put to bed at a normal hour.”
“It’s never bothered you before.”
“How does he get his information? Yes, I know….He makes his rounds…eats and drinks at a different apartment every night. Never refuses a free meal or drink. How do we know this Birobidzhan gossip isn’t just empty noise?”
“I imagine he heard it from Olivia Bern. She processes all the letters the Jewish Committee receives.”
“He hears a rumor, then runs over here to frighten us.”
“Perhaps he’s frightened himself, Florence. We’re the closest thing he has to family.” She felt him turn toward the wall. “Why must you be so hard on people?”
—
THE TELEPHONE CALL CAME when she was at work. Florence was summoned by one of the typists who sat at the other end of the large, partitioned room.
“Flora Solomonovna?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad to get hold of you at last.”
She recognized the voice. Its casual tone hit her like a whiff of something sour. A rotting smell from another life. Black and smooth, the telephone in her hand felt as heavy as a piece of obsidian about to pull her to the bottom of a lake.
“It’s been a long time, Flora Solomonovna. Don’t you recognize who this is?”
She could hear a smile behind the words.
“Yes, you remember me after all,” said Subotin. “Well, this is no time for chatting. You’re at work. A real move up from that silly institute. I could never picture you among all those gabbing, effete intellectuals. Now, propaganda work, serving the country—that’s more like it. Keep up the good work, and we’ll chat when you’re free. Four o’clock tomorrow, say, at our old spot.”
Florence glanced behind her. She could not stay on the phone for much longer without drawing stares. “I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible, not tomorrow at four or any other time.” No, she would not march into the trap so obediently this time. She had a child to think of.
Almost as if he’d read her mind, Subotin said: “I promise I won’t keep you long. If you can help me with what I’m looking for, you can be out in time to pick up your little boy from his kindergarten.”
That he would know the ordinary schedule of her day did not shock Florence. The Chekists knew everything. It was how he had said “your little boy” that sent gooseflesh down her arms. They never mentioned anything by accident. Subotin gave her the address, as though she could ever forget it.
—
NO ONE CAME TO THE DOOR when she knocked. Florence tried the knob and let herself in. How familiar the place looked. The same striped wallpaper, the same lace curtains. She approached the window, which looked bigger than she remembered. Below, the street cleaners were already out, pushing their brooms. Florence touched her fingers to the cool pane.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?”
She turned around.
“That stained-glass panel, it was quite pretty. Brought a certain old charm. The whole window shattered in one of the bombing raids, is my guess—this building being so close to the water. That’s what their planes aimed for during blackouts. No matter how dark it gets, it’s impossible to make a river completely invisible. Sit down.”
He hadn’t changed much, either. The war had been merciful to him, Florence was sorry to say. No missing limbs or mutilated eyes. With his graying hair he looked as groomed and banally elegant as ever.
“Please state your full name.”
She couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Flora Solomonovna Brink.”
“Your husband’s full name.”
“Haven’t you got all this?”
Subotin looked up and repeated the question.
“Brink, Leon Naumovich.”
“Nationality.”
“American, both of us.”
“Amerikantsi,” Subotin said as he wrote it down. He was smiling to himself, a smile that suggested he knew just as well as Florence did that—American or not—they had the double blessing of being Jews.
“Talk about the work you and your
husband carried out for the criminal organization known as the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.”
So it was true, then, what Seldon had predicted: a case being stitched against the committee. At this moment she wondered if their lives were perhaps no longer under their control at all. She considered the paths available to her. To say that she did not think the committee’s work was criminal in nature would be to appear to be defending it, and therefore to admit involvement. Any knowledge or involvement of any kind had to be denied. “Neither my husband nor I was ever employed by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.”
This answer sounded confident enough and had the added advantage of being true, if only technically.
“I’d like you not to forget where you are. We know for a fact that you both served the Jewish Committee as translators.”
“The committee did not have its own translation bureau. We were assigned to translate materials produced by all five committees in the SovInformBuro—the Committee for Scientists, for Youth, for Slavs—”
“I am now asking you about your work for the Jewish Committee, not the others. Answer the question.”
“I was not a specialized translator. My husband did some translation of articles that had been written for Einkayt, the JAFC’s magazine.”
“Why was your husband given these assignments?”
“He could read Yiddish as well as English, obviously.”
“And what did you and he make of the materials you were translating?”
“We were told they were necessary to raise money for the Red Army.”
“And were they not about the special achievements of Jews, separate from the achievements of the Russian people?”
“Perhaps a few. I don’t remember. I did not write them.”
“And so, consequently, you were in agreement with the exaggerated and false claims being made.”
“I wouldn’t dare to think that an unimportant person like myself could differ with those higher up on anything, least of all on questions of wartime propaganda.”
“You are avoiding my question. Answer concretely. Did you take no issue with the materials you were handling?”
“Like I said, I am always in agreement with the government’s policy.”
She didn’t avoid Subotin’s gaze. It wasn’t 1937 anymore, or 1940. It was 1948. If he was going to play this game, then she’d show him she knew the rules.
He smiled slyly.
“So you had no feelings about the blatantly nationalistic material you were translating?”
“We were doing our jobs.”
“And were you also doing your jobs when you attended the Zionist rally to support the Israeli ambassador, Golda Meyerson?”
“I did not attend this rally.”
Subotin glanced down at his papers, quickly but not imperceptibly. “There are witnesses….”
“Your witnesses misperceived. You can check. I was in my room that day.”
Subotin’s face flushed red, betraying his irritation.
“There are witnesses who saw Leon Brink and others….”
If he was guessing about her, could he have been guessing about Leon too? She didn’t want to take the risk. “I did not attend this rally. I had no interest in it. My husband went out of curiosity. He had heard about the lady from Palestine and wanted to see for himself what kind of person she was.”
“And a thousand other people also went out of curiosity, yes? And they also called her name and toadied to her staff out of simple curiosity. And shouted Zionist slogans out of curiosity!”
“But what slogans?”
“ ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ ”
She wanted to laugh. “That’s no slogan. Jews have been saying it since they were expelled from Babylon. It’s just something that gets said on their holy days. It means nothing.”
“Outbursts of crude and zealous nationalism being made in the thirty-second year of the Revolution are not nothing. I am forced to think you are less than forthcoming if you insist such a nationalistic frenzy was not whipped up by a band of Zionist scoundrels.”
How to tell him that no whipping up needed to have been done? That Jews would have gone on their own to take a look at Meyerson, with no prompting?
“I am insisting on nothing of the sort,” she said. “How would I know? I wasn’t on the Jewish Committee.”
“But you spent three years in Kuibyshev among these people, and around those who worked closely with them. Discussions and conversations transpired that you heard—things whose meaning you may not fully appreciate now.”
She was almost tempted to smile. In spite of Subotin’s recriminating tone, Florence understood these words as a retreat. He wasn’t accusing her anymore. If it weren’t for his total power over her, she’d even say he was wheedling, trying to enlist her help. Perhaps, he was suggesting, she was too naïve to really understand what went on inside the scoundrels’ den. Nevertheless, she could help them.
“It was five years ago,” Florence said. “More. If anything got said then, too much time has passed for me to recall it now.”
“I’m sure, with a little time, you’ll remember,” said Subotin.
—
WITH ESSIE SHE WAS now on the most abbreviated speaking terms. In the common areas, they ignored each other with an almost polite formality, like guests at a resort. Florence despaired of keeping up this posture with her old friend. It was simply a routine her body had fallen into, independent of any hurt feelings. Nevertheless, she felt, under the circumstances, that Essie ought to be the one to make amends. And so it continued.
One Sunday afternoon, Florence came into the room and found Yulik whimpering and sobbing in the niche under her sewing machine. Through his mucus-filled sobs, it took her some time to ascertain the cause of his suffering. That morning, while Florence had gone to buy food, Essie had taken Yasha to the new miniature railroad at the children’s park. Yulik had tried to come along, but Yasha had told him arrogantly that he was too small. The two had come back from the park laughing loudly and talking of what great fun they’d had riding in the miniature wagons all morning.
“Aunt Essie doesn’t like me anymore.”
“No, it isn’t that, bunny. I’ll take you.”
“No! It’s too late!”
“We’ll go next week.”
“No, I wanted to go with them.”
—
FLORENCE GAVE A STOUT rap on Essie’s door. She could endure Essie’s silent treatment without getting unsettled, but moving this combat into civilian territory—taking it out on Yulik—that was something else entirely.
“What were you thinking?” she said when Essie opened the door. Essie stood in her kimono robe with its flowers and birds of paradise. Florence walked past her into the room. “I found Yulik crying his eyes out. He said that you and Yasha didn’t take him to some railroad.”
Essie inhaled sharply through her nostrils and smoothed her hair. “Yasha asked me to go a long time ago. He wanted us to go—just the two of us. I couldn’t take them both, you know. I’m not a hired nanny.”
“But you had to come back talking and laughing so the whole apartment could hear. You could have made a little less of a show about it.”
“We all live in one apartment, Florence, whether we like it or not. What do you expect me to do? Stop talking to people? Stop laughing? Should I walk on my tippy toes? Sometimes people feel left out and that’s just a fact.”
“He’s a child!”
“Oh God, Florence. I didn’t know if you wanted me to take him.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Forgive me, but every time I try to so much as say hello, you hurry away. You’re busy or you shrug and turn your back on me. I’ve been trying and trying, but I know where I’m not wanted.”
Essie’s eyes were shining with bitter tears. Florence’s jaw hurt from holding back her own.
“Essie, I haven’t meant to be aloof. I thought you were still mad over…Oh, this is too sill
y. I don’t know why anybody needs to apologize, or for what.”
“I wasn’t holding out hope,” said Essie. “But I’m sorry it upset Yulik. That wasn’t my intention.” She tightened the belt of her robe, as if suddenly embarrassed to be caught in such a disheveled state.
“Let’s just forget it. Listen, I’ve been trying to get ahold of some magazines for us, but the new section editor they brought in, she’s…a real wolverine.”
“They all are nowadays. Do you want to sit?”
“Maybe I will. It’s unnerving. The first thing she did when she walked into our translators’ room was read aloud all the names—‘Vainberg, Feinberg’—in this disgusted voice, and said, ‘What is this, a synagogue?’ ”
Essie sat down on her bed, nodding. “I know, I know. I borrowed the typist’s colored pencil this week and broke the tip. I went to ask her for a razor to sharpen it, and she grabs it back and says, ‘I’ll do it myself; you people break everything you touch!’ ”
“I don’t know what’s happening.”
“After all these years, I thought I was finally…”
“One of them,” said Florence.
Essie nodded, her eyes dry now. “But we never will be, will we?”
Not long thereafter, Florence made good on her promise to Essie, knocking on her door with an issue of Life magazine in her hand. On the cover was Ingrid Bergman, costumed in her role as Joan of Arc.
“Florence! How did you manage to—”
Florence placed a finger on her lips. “There was more than one copy. Now, put it away quickly, before I change my mind.”
“Oh, let’s look at it together,” Essie said, blushing in gratitude.
“Not tonight—I have somewhere to be. You hold on to it.”
“You’re sure?” Essie held the magazine tightly.
“Just don’t wrinkle the corners or get any marmalade on it.”
—
IN SPITE OF THE NAGGING WORRIES on the margins of her consciousness, Florence felt agreeably magnanimous toward Essie all the next morning. Sharing the magazine was the best thing she could have done for their long-standing friendship. She assured herself that Essie could be trusted to keep it well hidden. But the pleasure she took in her own high-mindedness began to dwindle later in the day when Seldon showed up out of the blue, unshaved and smelling of alcohol. His hair was uncombed and his clothes were crumpled, as if they’d been slept in.
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