David Bezmozgis - The Free World

Mama and Papa are about the same. Papa spends more time reading the newspapers and has taken to clipping certain articles. He leaves these lying around the apartment for me to find, as a precaution, to discourage me from also committing a terrible mistake. Mama is as before, except that she’s started going on long walks in the morning. In short, we are managing. There isn’t too much more I can say on this subject …

At six o’clock on Sunday morning Alec and Polina walked briskly along the Lungotevere. The morning was cool and clear. Across the opposite bank, the rising sun spread more color than heat as it crept above the marble and terra-cotta of the Palatine Hill. Traffic was almost nonexistent on the Lungotevere, and down below, on the paved paths that ran along the river and under the vaults of bridges, Alec saw the slumped forms of drunks and heroin addicts, stirring groggily.

It was a great morning for a stroll. The sort of morning where he and Polina could walk linked arm in arm, but in this instance both of Alec’s arms were weighed down by merchandise. In one hand he held the notorious plywood suitcase that contained stereo LPs of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Beethoven — pressed by the Melodiya label in Leningrad, an “All-Soviet Gramophone Record Firm.” In his other hand he carried a satchel filled with the Latvian tooled leather goods, lacquered boxes, ballet shoes, and various toys and plastic knickknacks meant to appeal to children and imbeciles. Polina was similarly encumbered. With both hands she clutched the handles of a duffel bag packed with linens. Alec had tried to dissuade her from loading herself down this way, and from making this early-morning hike in general, but Polina had been resolute.

As Lyova had said, their apartment put them in ideal striking distance of the Americana market. While others were racing down from Ostia and Ladispoli, rushing to catch trains, loading and unloading their wares, then sprinting from Trastevere Station, Alec and Polina were a short walk away. They could stop and rest when they chose, knowing that they would still be among the first to arrive. Karl had set them the task of claiming two well-situated tables in the Russian section of the market.

Alec and Polina arrived at the market at half past six as the first vendors were starting to unload their goods onto the broad wooden tables. Most traded in clothing, either new or used: jackets and sweaters, pants and hats, shoes and bikinis, formalwear and army surplus. The vendors were mainly Italian, although there were also Arabs, assorted Bulgarians or Romanians, and Gypsies, who laid their miscellanies on blankets on the ground. More arrived with every passing minute, turning in from Viale Trastevere in trucks, sedans, motorized rickshawlike contraptions, bicycles, and scooters — many loaded to excess with goods lashed into place by methods that ranged from ingenious to hazardous.

For a long time, as the market took shape around them, they saw nobody who could have been confused with a Russian. Vendors went about the mundane business of preparations, like actors before a performance, talking little, working automatically, making silent calculations. Alec thought to study them for pointers. It was possible that good looks and charisma were not enough. Or a disadvantage, even. In Riga, the most successful black marketeer he knew was a seventy-year-old Jew named Alter Schlamm, a head shorter than Alec and with the face of a dour picture-book dwarf. He’d seen Schlamm on occasion at the apartment Karl shared with his in-laws. Schlamm dealt in various commodities, and Rosa’s father, though timid in business, would now and again buy fabric from him. Alec had seen him arrive one evening and remove his oversize raincoat. Underneath, he’d wrapped himself in several meters of fabric.

— This here could make a nice dress. Short at the hem, how they’re wearing it now. And here could be a dandy little suit for the big brother with still enough left over for the baby.

It was said of Schlamm that he had an iron pail full of gold coins. It was said he had a woolen sock stuffed with rubies and diamonds. It was said he’d anticipated the last currency devaluation and made a million dollars.

Alec saw in the eyes of the vendors at the market the same thing he had seen in the eyes of Alter Schlamm: the fire of inventory.

When they had walked nearly the length of the market, Alec noted the first, unmistakable Russian. A wide-shouldered, bearded man was building a pyramid out of packs of Soviet cigarettes. Laid out beside these were the familiar linens and, strangely, cans of Soviet coffee.

— I take it we’ve found the place, Alec said.

— You’ve found it, all right, the man replied. I’ve got these two tables.

Alec put his records down on the nearest table but one. The other bag he set as a placeholder for Karl. Polina dropped her duffel bag behind the first table and started to unpack.

— Can I ask you, Alec said to the man, does the coffee sell?

— I have three customers. Italians. They come every week. Don’t ask me what they do with it.

Just before seven o’clock, as Polina was putting the final touches on their display, Alec saw the unmistakable figure of his brother lumbering up the path. He carried two large duffel bags, immensely heavy, their canvas skins stretched taut. He plodded ahead, betraying no hint of struggle or pain. He’d always been like this. They had lived in Teika, not far from VEF, a predominantly blue-collar area with few Jews. While Alec had been sent to the Number 40 School, specializing in English and located in the center of the city, Karl had been enrolled at the local school. If somebody said Yid, Karl went after him. Though sometimes he also went after people who said Hey, you, or who, he felt, had looked at him the wrong way. There were many afternoons when Alec returned home to find their mother patching Karl up, her doctor’s bag agape on the kitchen table. Karl never cried or complained, only sat broodingly and tolerated their mother’s lectures and ministrations. At night, in their room, he recounted the details of the fights and methodically planned his strategies for attack and revenge. Alec had been thrilled by the stories, and amazed by Karl’s fearlessness, or his ability to suppress his fear. Secretly, though, he worried that Karl’s battles would spill over from the schoolyard and follow him home.

Not surprisingly, Karl earned the respect of his foes, who then became his friends. Up until his graduation, Karl preferred them to people whom he hadn’t punched in the face. They drank together, played soccer, beat up other people, and in the winter went on marathon cross-country ski excursions. Later, Karl became infatuated with physical culture, and started doing push-ups and sit-ups by the hundreds. That led to Roman Berman’s bodybuilding class at the Dynamo gym and Karl’s pride in developing a neck almost fifty centimeters around for which he had trouble finding suitable shirts. Since the official Party line on bodybuilding was that it was a vain and decadent bourgeois activity, their father condemned it. But Karl, who loved dumbbells more than the Party, continued to train until marriage and fatherhood put an end to it. Alec naturally assumed that such a love never completely died.

He thought something along these lines as he watched his brother come to a stop and lower the bags in the middle of the path. Karl was still some twenty-five meters shy of their tables, but he remained in place, his expression incredulous and sour.

— Unbelievable, Karl said when Alec came over.

— What? Alec asked.

Karl kicked one of the duffel bags, which received the blow inertly, like a fat, sleeping drunk.

— What? Karl sneered. You’d think I was carrying them for your amusement.