A Shadow in Moscow, page 13
The metal door slams behind us, and I push Dmitri against the club’s brick wall. He slides to the ground. Forget the drinking. This is far worse.
I kick away a few broken bottles and crouch beside him, noting we are alone in the alley. No one but a single mewing cat is present.
“You can’t talk like that. What are you thinking?”
He grips his chest, wadding his shirt in his fist. “What am I to do? That hope we had? It’ll be gone, Anya. Wałęsa and Solidarity will end like the Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring—plowed into submission . . . Dozens of us are being sent this month, with one goal.”
“No.” I can hardly breathe. Until this moment I had no idea how much the tiniest bits I’ve gleaned from Dmitri and the samizdats mean to me. Solidarity started as a trade union in Poland about a year and a half ago over wages in Gdańsk, but it’s so much more now. It’s social change and political reform, working through civil resistance, not destruction. It’s about citizenship, rights, voice, and a respect for the human dignity of all Poles. It’s about freedom.
It is happening—even if it’s not happening here—and that has been a lifeline for me. Only now do I see the hope it gives me every day as I walk by that smug guard Rogov at work, every month when his boss, Stanslych, searches our desks, and every time I hear the delayed click on my office telephone line. And while I wasn’t alive for the Hungarian Revolution and wasn’t aware of the Prague Spring when I was ten, I’ve been tracking this and—even despite serious setbacks—Solidarity continues to gain steam. It’s the light that, given the chance to grow, might shine bright enough to free us all.
I press my hands against Dmitri’s, pushing both down into his chest. I want to compress him, stop him, put all the loose parts of him back in place, and lock them down tight. I want to keep him from traveling to Poland. I want to go back to that night months ago in another bar and another booth, where we sat whispering in wonder about this movement and what it meant.
“They posted a list of ‘21 postulates’ on the shipyard door, Anya. Rights. Freedoms. And they’re not backing down. What started with seventeen thousand people is now nine million. A quarter of Poland’s population. Even Brezhnev and his Supreme Soviet can’t shut this down.”
I want to go back to minutes before, when I believed something good could survive. I want to stop the KGB from destroying it. But there is only one thing to do. One thing that won’t get Dmitri killed and, perhaps, me along with him.
I close the distance between us until only an inch remains. I lock my eyes on his and pray I can hide the horror I feel—for everything he’ll soon do in Poland and for what I’m about to do in this moment.
“Never speak of this again, Dmitri. Don’t even think about it. Go to Poland and do your job. That’s the oath you made.”
Eleven
Anya
Moscow
January 22, 1983
Dmitri vanished. He moved to Poland and there was no communicating with him for over nine months. The job description of a KGB “illegal” is to enter a country as a worker—builder, banker, taxi driver, mailman—but to act as a spy, doing everything possible to destroy your assignment: group, country, or cause.
According to the samizdats, Dmitri and his brethren did exemplary work. To a degree. A couple months ago, the new Polish prime minister, Wojciech Jaruzelski, put all Poland under martial law and arrested every Solidarity leader he could get his hands on. But the movement didn’t die. It went underground and, by last estimate, has five hundred underground newspapers reporting its gains. And if what I’m reading is true, President Reagan of the US, Prime Minister Thatcher of the UK, Pope John Paul II, Spain’s General Secretary of the Communist Party Santiago Carrillo, and lots of other leaders globally—on both sides of the ideological spectrum—support it. Heck, I bet some of them are funding it.
It’s definitely not the KGB win that Pravda would like us to believe. Of course, the paper reports the win to be the legitimate Polish government’s victory, as it regains control over a violent and illegal protest. Never once does it mention that the protest isn’t violent and that Jaruzelski is Soviet-backed, or that he’s wielding the KGB sledgehammer.
But as of tonight, Dmitri is home.
I rush out of work right on time. A glance down reminds me how awful I look in my plain and stiff work clothes, but I don’t have time to go home and change. I catch the bus into the central city and find Dmitri already at the restaurant waiting. He is thinner, almost skeletal. As I cross the room I watch him roll his cigarette through his fingers and use its stub to light the next.
He finally sees me and stands, pulling me into a hug the moment I’m within reach. I grip him tight and stifle a gasp. I can feel all the bones within his shoulders and neck. They’re so sharp they frighten me.
“You got back today?” I drop into the chair across from him. “I’ve missed you so much.” I babble on, probably because I find his weight and the circles under his eyes disconcerting. I feel like if I keep talking in bright and happy tones, he’ll catch them and color will suffuse his cheeks again.
“Come for Sunday dinner. Sonya’s coming too. I’ll ask my mother to make that stew with boar and beets you love.”
He doesn’t answer me, but he’s smiling. I get the impression he wants me to keep talking, so I do. Until there’s nothing left to say.
“Tell me about you. What have you been up to?” I press my lips shut. That’s not what I intended to ask.
I pick up my menu before returning my focus to Dmitri. When I do, I stop. It’s like a curtain has been lifted. The actor, the man, the spy, the—who has he been this past year?—is gone and I see the face of the boy I’ve known for nineteen years. My best friend. He blinks with the understanding that I’ve seen him and with the soft sigh of one with nothing left to hide.
“At least you’re safe and home now.”
For some reason that bothers him. His attention drifts over my head toward the restaurant’s front door.
“What is it?” I scan the dining room. It’s only half full and no one sits particularly close. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” With a long exhale he returns his focus to me. “That’s not true. When I got back today, I heard Renet committed suicide a couple months ago.”
My heart drops down or my stomach pushes up, I can’t tell which. I can only tell that I feel sick.
When receiving our VUZ options all those years ago—our version of university assignments—Renet was awarded a place at the Science Academy to study geology. Ever cynical about the propaganda and daily dose of deceits, we all envied that Renet got to study the hard sciences. Especially Dmitri. He really wanted that assignment—maybe for those very reasons. But with his high scores and a father formerly in KGB service, Dmitri only ever had one path.
I finally find my voice. “I’m sorry . . . He was a good guy.”
“What hope is there for the rest of us?” Dmitri turns his fresh cigarette in tiny half rolls between his fingers.
I snag Dmitri’s free hand from the table and hold it. “What happened to Renet has nothing to do with you or me.”
“Do you think if I got that assignment and learned about rocks, earthquakes, and tsunamis, all this would feel okay? On some level I could study a thing and know what it was.” Dmitri watches his cigarette burn low. “Why wasn’t it enough for him?”
I keep hold of his one hand and tug it across the table. “You have to stop. You have to eat, laugh, drink, something . . . You’re scaring me.”
“Good.” His voice comes loud and strong. “Maybe you’ll wake up. There’s a word for this, Anya, this living two truths—one deep in your heart and one you act on every day. Ketman. It comes from Persia. It translates to doublethink. You divide your soul as you deceive others in order to stay safe, but you deceive yourself in the end.”
“Don’t tell me about ketman.” I grind the word out slowly. “I learned about it at Georgetown and I live it every day, too, Dmitri. But I have you. And you have me. We can be honest with each other.” I wave my free hand back and forth between us. “That’s all we need, right? One place to be real and we’re going to be fine.”
“We’ll never be fine. No one survives a divided soul.” He hangs his head and swings it from side to side as if trying to shake away reality. “‘One word of truth outweighs the whole world.’ Do you remember when your mama told us that proverb? Back when she told us about the Hungarian Uprising?”
I stare at him. Nothing comes to mind. “My mother?”
Dmitri blows out a long, heavy sigh. “You can be so smart, Anya, and so blind.”
“What? Hey—”
He lifts a hand, cutting me off. “Stop. It’s not about that. It’s about what’s happening now . . . I joined a group. An underground church. You need to come with me sometime.”
“Dmitri.” This time my heart and my stomach bottom out. “Tell me you’re joking . . . You can’t risk involvement with those groups.”
He lifts his chin. I turn and see Lev and Sonya make their way through the tables toward us. Dmitri leans forward. His voice is soft and hurried. Whatever he’s going to say is for me alone. “Have you ever heard the first words of John Paul II’s papacy? He’s Polish.”
“No.”
“‘Do not be afraid.’” Dmitri, again, lifts his chin past me toward our approaching friends. “I’m not afraid anymore, Anya, and I don’t want you to be either. If you only knew what has started in Poland, you’d understand . . . It’s all going to come crashing down. No one can stop it now.”
He pushes his chair back. I reach out. “Dmitri . . . dinner? Where are you going?”
He shakes his head. “I gotta go.”
Lev and Sonya finally reach the table. Dmitri is gone. Both look to me for answers. I shrug. I have none.
* * *
The ringing wakes me.
At first I think it’s my imagination. So many sounds are still there, pounding into my brain. After dinner we trolled Cat Club, Drey Bar, and a couple others in search of Dmitri. We never found him. I finally left Lev and Sonya dancing at Metropol Disco and took my headache home.
I pull my clock over. Ten o’clock. Six hours of sleep. I push up but then, recognizing it’s Sunday, drop back into the covers. The phone rings again.
I climb out of bed and shuffle around the corner to the kitchen. I can practically reach the telephone from my bed, but it still takes until about the tenth ring for me to get the receiver off the base. The cord is in a tight twist that won’t stretch to my ear, much less the two feet to the kitchen sink. My glass of water will have to wait.
“Hello.” I arch my back. Who is awake and why are they calling me? My fingers work to loosen the twists within the cord.
“Anya?” Sonya’s voice is tense. “Dmitri is—”
“Nyet,” I bark. “I’m not taking three buses to come clean your couch again. If he got sick, it’s your mess this time.”
“He’s dead, Anya.” I hear Sonya’s voice before I can process her words. It’s tight and clogged, like she’s speaking through a wet cloth.
“What?”
“He’s dead. His mother just called. She said you didn’t answer your phone so she thought you might be here. He was mugged walking on the paths near the river last night. He—”
“Noooo.” I sink to the floor. The cord barely reaches.
“He got beat pretty bad and then . . . they shot him. They shot him for a few rubles.” Sonya starts to cry.
I feel boneless. The world closes around me and fades to black. My head hits the floor and the bump brings the colors back, but it doesn’t stop the tight feeling compressing my chest. “No. No.” I can only repeat the one word, certain that it can make all this go away.
“Anya. Do you want me to come over?”
“Did you say by the river? But we never go—” That fact sucker punches me. “Who said he was there? Who found him?”
“What? Anya . . .” Sonya sounds confused, like I’m crazy or missing the point. “His mother told me. Some man out walking this morning, I guess. What does it matter?”
“Where is he, Sonya?” Silence meets me. “Where’s Dmitri’s body? I need to see him.”
“I’m not lying. It’s real, Anya. He’s dead.”
“Sonya, stop. Just tell me where he is!” I’m yelling now. “I need to see him.”
“The Tverskoy Morgue. His mother is trying to get permission to bury him Wednesday, but—”
I push myself to standing. “I gotta go.”
“Anya—”
I hang up on her. My kitchen wavers around me as if I’m seeing it through water. I lean against the wall to let the feeling and the past wash over me.
Dmitri and I found a dead body by the river when we were nine years old. The man’s dark eyes were wide open, staring at us, and we could tell he had been scared. I can’t say how we knew; we just knew. He had died terribly afraid. His mouth was wide open, as if in a scream, and an orange scarf was wrapped tight around his neck. I’ve never liked the color orange since.
At first we drew close. I’m not sure if we wanted to prove ourselves brave or if we thought we could save him. But we got close enough to touch him, and that’s when we felt it. We never talked about it, but Dmitri’s eyes mirrored my own. It wasn’t fear that gripped us; it was far worse. It was desolation, aloneness, futility. I can’t describe it other than to say it was Death. Capital D.
Only now do I even have words to convey that feeling. Back then we simply knew it as cold. Cold like we could never be warm. Cold like we’d always be alone. Cold like no matter what we did, we would always face the ground rather than savor the sky.
We ran. We ran until I threw up. We never talked about it, not to each other and certainly not to anyone else. And neither of us ever got anywhere near those paths along the river again.
I throw on a pair of corduroys and my boots and head to the Tverskoy Morgue. It’s not that I don’t believe Sonya. I do. But I need to see Dmitri. Confirm for myself that this is real, that my best friend—my true brother—is gone and that he’ll never laugh again, never pull my hair, call me out, or hug me tight. My mind grows paralyzed with all the “nevers” ahead of me.
It takes a half hour of bus rides and walking to reach the morgue, and the numb feeling deep within pulses ever outward in cadence with the bus, my stride, my breathing, and my exhaustion. It dulls reality from a sharp pain to one I suspect I’ll carry forever, along with the recriminations I’ll carry forever too. Everything I didn’t say and didn’t do last night, everything I didn’t say and do a year ago before he left for Poland.
I push through the single steel door at Tverskoy Morgue and walk a few steps into the beige-painted cement-block hallway. I stop to let my eyes adjust to the dark, windowless corridor. It smells sharp and pungent, like iron and antiseptic.
“May I see Dmitri Dimitrivich Shubin?” I ask the attendant behind the desk. A choked sob escapes. It wasn’t planned, but his wide-eyed surprise gives me an idea. “I’m his sister.”
The boy, because he can’t be over seventeen, straightens. He worries I’m about to start sobbing and points through the double doors to his left.
I walk down another hall and repeat my lie to the next attendant.
This one doesn’t let me pass like the boy did. Instead he studies me, and a prickling heat climbs up the back of my cotton blouse. My coat feels heavy and hot. I shift, about to shed it, then stop. Something tells me I’m becoming too memorable. I stand still, hoping sweat doesn’t break out across my brow.
“Only family.” The man, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, steps closer. “They’ve already come and identified him.”
“I was at work and couldn’t get here. Mama said . . . I came all this way. May I see him?” Again the tears start falling. “Only for a moment?”
“Papers?”
I pat my empty pockets. I have forgotten them. Yet an odd realization strikes me that I didn’t forget at all. The lie comes so easily. “I ran out from work. I can go back. They’re on my desk. If you’ll wait . . .” I let the words trail away in tears.
“No. My shift ends—” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He backs against the door, opening it for me, and points to a gurney in the far corner. “Last on the right. Be quick.” He steps away and the door falls shut between us.
Five draped gurneys fill the room. I hold my breath and walk to the last on the right. I lift my hand to draw back the sheet and my courage fails. I can’t move. I’m not sure how long I stand there listening to my own heartbeat thudding in my ears, but when a sound draws me back to the room, to the smells, and to Dmitri, I realize I need to hurry.
I pull back the sheet. It’s him. Somehow that surprises me. I mean, I hoped it was a mistake. Not a lie. Sonya wasn’t lying. She’d just made a mistake. Because this is Dmitri she was talking about. Dmitri is alive. He has to be. He’s always been there for me. He’ll always—
Peaceful. It’s the first word that comes to mind. His eyes are closed and his face isn’t clenched tight. I can almost imagine he’s sleeping. I trace the scar along his hairline, the one I gave him with my wooden sword when we were seven. It stands stark yellow against his pale skin. I pull back the side of the sheet just enough to see and touch his hand, to say goodbye.
His hands are not peaceful. A few fingers are broken. The knuckles enlarged and red, the tips of each veering off at odd angles. He fought back. I close my eyes, imagining what he must have done when confronted. I lift his hand, drawing it close, and see his nails are clean and clipped. But that’s impossible. Did they surprise him and he couldn’t fight back? But—
Then I see it. His father’s ring.
The solid-gold wedding ring circles Dmitri’s finger. It’s heavy and thick, and it’s been in his family for generations—like days-of-the-tsars generations—when his father’s family was well-to-do. No mugger would take rubles and leave behind pure gold.
