Stuart Kaminsky: Fall of a Cosmonaut

“You think I am right? You never think I am right.”

“This time,” said Anna, “I think you are right.”

“And what will you do about it?” Lydia asked insistently.

Anna felt like saying, “I’ll consult the neighbors and get their opinion,” but instead she said, “I will give Baku the rest of what I have on my plate and then I will call Porfiry Petrovich and ask him to stop by for a talk. I have never asked him to come visit me. He will come.”

Lydia said nothing and then opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out. She began to weep. As loud as her voice had been, her weeping was nearly silent. Her thin shoulders shook and she leaned her head forward. Anna had no experience comforting people. People, even her niece, had never really looked to her for comfort. Anna was large, serious, stern in appearance. When she was procurator, she always wore her dark uniform. One did not go to such a woman for solace.

“I will do what I can, Lydia,” she said. “I will do what I can.”

“You are going out?” asked Rostnikov, sitting across the table from his wife.

Galina and the two little girls were watching television. The woman sat between the children, who were completely absorbed in the young men and women on very tall unicycles speeding around on a television-studio floor. The television was black and white. They could only imagine the spectrum of colorful glitter.

“Yes,” said Sarah, finishing her coffee.

“I know where you go each Friday,” he said softly as circus music vibrated excitedly from the television set.

“You are a detective, Porfiry Petrovich,” Sarah said with a smile, reaching over to touch his hand. “I thought you would have figured it out long ago.”

“I did,” he said, picking up crumbs from the remains of the pastry on the plate between them and popping them into his mouth.

“And you want to know why?” she asked.

“It seems a logical question,” he said.

“And an emotional one.”

“And an emotional one,” he agreed. “Is there any more cake?”

“No more cake,” she said. “I don’t believe in God, Porfiry Petrovich. Maybe sometime. Maybe never. I feel the need to make a connection to my history. It’s … more a meditation than a worship. I can lose myself in the ritual, the prayers, the chants. I feel as if I’m making a connection and on good days I can walk away feeling a little better.”

“Avrum Belinsky is good?”

“Very good,” she said.

“He is very young.”

“But he has studied much and been through much,” she said. “Are you bothered by my going?”

“No,” he said. “If you want to read the Bible or something at home, I don’t mind.”

“No,” she said, still touching his hand. “I don’t want to read the Bible at home. Porfiry, maybe someday I’ll believe in a god, some kind of god. We have talked about this very little. What do you believe in?”

The crowd on the television set roared. Nina giggled. Laura clapped.

“You,” he said. “Nature. Benches and spaceships and people who can move objects very slightly with their minds and dreams that sometimes become reality. Mystery. People who are not all good or all evil. Common sense.”

“You are not really answering the question,” Sarah said.

Rostnikov nodded and said, “You are going to be late. Would you like me to come with you?”

“No,” she said, getting up. “I won’t be late.”

“All right,” he said. “When the circus is over and the applause has died, I have a sink to fix.”

“She did it,” Elena said.

Iosef and Elena were sitting in his apartment. With the afternoon off, they were supposed to be making the final plans for their wedding. Iosef had hoped that she would be filled with ideas and that they might end the afternoon with something to eat and, perhaps, an hour or so in bed, just being together without their clothes. Iosef loved her smooth, full body. But it was clear that Elena was in no mood for food or love. She pushed her hair back, a sign, Iosef had learned, that she was agitated. This time he needed no sign.

“I would like to go back, confront her,” Elena said, her arms folded.

“You’ve been ordered to forget about her,” said Iosef. “Yaklovev will handle it.”

“You know how he will handle it,” she said. “He’ll find some way to get something from the widow Vera Kriskov. He’ll probably have the movie dedicated to him.”

“That is not the kind of thing the Yak wants,” said Iosef. “I know. Remember when …”

“Yes, and he doesn’t want sex,” Elena went on. “Vera Kriskov is very beautiful, you know?”

“As are you.”

“I am not beautiful,” she said. “I have a higher opinion of my looks than I once had, but I am not beautiful.”

“I am entitled to my opinion,” he said with a smile she did not return.

“She will get away with the murder of her husband.”

“She will join the legions, the thousands, who have gotten away with murder and continue to do so,” he said. “Why does this woman obsess you?”

“She doesn’t. She …”

Elena stopped. A realization struck her, one she could not quite put into words. “She has wealth, two children, beauty, and …”

“You would like the same,” Iosef said, watching her face.

“Perhaps, yes,” she said with a sigh. “He loved her.”

“Her husband?”

Elena smiled. “Grachev. He loved her. He died protecting her.”

“Let us leave it as a tragic romance,” said Iosef.

“You think like a playwright,” Elena said.

“It is an ending out of Tolstoy. If she has guilt, she will have to live with it.”

“Then she will live,” said Elena.

“Feel better?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good.”

He leaned over to kiss her. She returned the kiss with a passion and hunger he had not expected.

Winter was still months away in Winnipeg.

It had taken Misha and Ivan only an hour to find a room they could share in the house of an old couple who spoke Ukrainian-accented Russian and who welcomed them as recent immigrants. They had stopped at a small restaurant and asked if there were places they might find a room. The incredibly thin man behind the counter had served them cherry pie and directed them to the old couple.

“We need new blood here,” the old woman had said when they carried their luggage in. “New blood that won’t freeze in the winter.

“People come from the United States. They say they love it here. They take deep breaths. The winter comes. They go home, usually at night. If they can get their car started or a ride to the airport.”

“But,” said the old woman, “you are Russians. Are you married?”

“No,” said Misha.

“Then maybe … what is your work?” the man asked.

“We are mechanics,” Ivan said.

“Mechanics? Like cars?” said the old man.

“Yes,” said Misha. “Like cars.”

The old woman motioned for them to pick up their luggage. They did and followed her to a wooden stairway.

The old man came after them and said, “My nephew, Frank. He has a garage. He is looking for help. You have papers?”

They were at the top of the stairs now. There was something familiar about the house. Ivan thought he might be comfortable. At the moment, he simply wanted to lie down on his stomach and hope that the pain in his back and behind would lose some of its anger.

“No,” said Misha.

“I understand,” said the old man. “I understand. Political?”

“Yes,” said Misha. “We are merchant marines. We jumped from our ship in Nova Scotia.”

“The water was cold,” said the man. “Even in the summer. The water was cold.”

“It was cold,” Ivan agreed, following the old woman into the room.