David Bezmozgis - The Free World

Samuil had no appetite for the movie, but he stayed out of curiosity. He wanted to see, for the sake of comparison, the actors who played Tevye, Motl, Perchik, and Hodl. He remembered these characters well. Zachar Kahn had naturally been Tevye. Motl had been played by a real tailor named Froim Goldstein. Eudis Fefer, a young schoolteacher, admired for her looks, had the role of Hodl. Aron Zweig, the secretary of the local Komsomol, took the coveted role of Perchik, the fiery revolutionary.

These characters had captured Samuil’s childhood imagination. Months after the performance, he and Reuven were still reenacting what they’d seen, with Reuven assigning the parts. For himself he took that of Perchik and pretended accordingly that Eudis Fefer, as Hodl, was his wife. Samuil became Motl, the tailor, and Reuven allowed him to take Rochl Lieberman — a second cousin who hadn’t actually been in the play — for his imaginary wife. In their games, Reuven would typically set off to attack the bourgeoisie and launch the revolution. At the door he would have an impassioned exchange with Hodl/Eudis. She would declare her love and plead with him to stay, but he would resist heroically and fly out the door. Samuil would hear the piff-paff of rifles and he would rush out in pursuit. He would find Reuven mortally wounded, lying in the street or on a patch of grass beside their house. He would drag him back inside and lay him on their bed, whereupon Reuven would clutch a feather pillow to his chest and rasp his dying words to Hodl/Eudis. With his final breath, Reuven would exhort from Samuil a promise that he would take care of Hodl/Eudis and carry on the struggle for revolution. Then Reuven would expire and Samuil would run outside to exact revenge and tumble to his death in a hail of tsarist bullets. Sometimes, for variety, Samuil would get shot as he went looking for Reuven, and he would fall down beside him so they could die together.

In all of their doings, Reuven took the lead. One day he returned from Pioneers with a small oak-handled penknife and taught Samuil how to play “knives,” instructing him how to throw the blade between his feet so that it stuck in the ground. Another time he taught him the words to a dirty Russian song.

Hey, hey! Fuck your mother!

You’re a colonel, I’m a soldier,

Fuck your mother,

Hey, hey, I’m a soldier!

He remembered the conversation he had with Reuven after his kindergarten class was taught about class distinctions.

— Have you talked about this with anyone else? Reuven asked.

— No, Samuil said.

— Don’t.

— I won’t, Samuil said. Only with you.

— The Whites are burzhoois, Reuven said. They are the class enemy. The Whites killed Papa. In war you do not kill your own, you kill your adversary. So, since the Whites killed Papa, it means he was against the tsar and in favor of the revolution.

Samuil always found it hard to connect the word “White” with the men who had murdered their father and grandfather. When he thought of the men who had done the killing the colors that sprang to mind were the pale yellow and the cornflower blue of the rugs they wore across their shoulders. He had never seen anyone dressed this way before and, in spite of his fear, he had been impressed by how brash and adventurous it made them appear.

Before the soldiers came, their mother had hurriedly set the table with bread, sour cream, smoked fish, fruits, and vegetables. It was summer, and they had fruits and vegetables growing in a plot not far from their house. Their mother bustled about, gathering items from the cupboards and putting them out on the table. Meanwhile their father and grandfather frantically collected their dearest valuables: a leather pouch with gold coins, a fold of banknotes, and several pieces of jewelry that had belonged to their grandmother. They wrapped everything in a rag and concealed it behind a loose brick in the stove. From the street came fiendish, terrifying shrieks. When the soldiers burst through the door, a pot had been set to boil.

Samuil remembered their caps and their drooping mustaches. He remembered their drawn sabers. He remembered how the one wearing the yellow rug brought his saber down across his grandfather’s chest in a blur of violent force and the surprisingly feeble noise his grandfather made in response. He remembered quaking and then wetting himself as his mother shielded him and Reuven from the soldiers. He remembered his father’s groans and wheezes during the torture. He remembered his father’s face, and how he kept opening his eyes to gaze at them.

After her English class one afternoon, Polina came home to find Lyova at the kitchen table, hunched over the telephone. She heard him say, It’s good you can hold your breath for a minute and twenty seconds, but don’t upset your mother. Practice in the bathtub, not the sea.

Lyova raised his eyes and smiled weakly when he saw Polina enter.

— I don’t know how long I can hold my breath, he said. Probably not that long.

Polina crossed the apartment as quietly as she could.

— All right, I promise, Lyova said. I’ll try today and write you with the result. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I burst.

Polina made to sneak into the bedroom, but Lyova gestured for her not to bother. She saw him glance down at the tabletop, where he’d laid his wristwatch.

— Okay, there’s thirty seconds left. I miss you. I kiss you. Let me say a few words to Mama.

Not knowing quite where to go, Polina went into the kitchen and began to carefully unpack the vegetables she’d bought at the round market.

She heard Lyova say, I’m glad he likes the shirt. And what about the shoes? Give me your honest word. Because if you don’t like them, you should sell them. They’re Italian leather, and many women wear your size.

There was some silence, and Lyova fiddled with his watch.

— All right. All right. Give my best to everyone, Lyova said and laid the receiver into the cradle. He rested his chin in his hands as if after a great exertion.

— I look forward to these calls all month, but they’re costly, and not just in money.

Then, instantly, as if he had thrown a switch, he flattened his palms on the tabletop and thrust himself up.

— I could use a walk, Lyova said. What do you say?

On the street, shop owners were beginning to open their doors after siesta. Lyova took Polina to a bakery in whose windows were trays ladened with assorted biscuits. The woman at the counter greeted him by name. Lyova filled a white paper bag with biscuits, and they walked along the streets, taking turns reaching into the bag.

— When I left, Lyova said, I thought everything would get sorted in a few months. You can say a few months to an eight-year-old boy without terrifying him. You turn three or four pages in the calendar. But after a year, he gets used to you not being around. For now he still lets me behave like a father for five minutes once a month on the phone.

On their way to Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, Lyova described, as he hadn’t before, the balancing act that was his life in Italy — the tours he gave to cover his expenses, to send money to Israel, to buy gifts, and to pay for the monthly overseas phone calls.

In the piazza, they found places on the steps that surrounded the central fountain. The crowds hadn’t yet arrived. The white paper bag stood open between them. Polina kept her shoulders square, but her bare knees, exposed below the hem of her skirt, were turned casually toward Lyova. Sitting this way, unhurriedly, on marble steps, reminded her of her student days, when she would unexpectedly fall into conversation with a male classmate. A fleeting, platonic intimacy would arise, and they would wind up speaking frankly and seriously about themselves. Then they’d go their separate ways and never speak like that again, or need to. She’d forgotten all about these conversations.