David Bezmozgis - The Free World

They were from Minsk, the mother said. It was the three of them traveling together. She was a widow. Her husband had died when the children were still small. The children now appeared to be in their early twenties. The girl introduced herself as Masha, and her brother appraised Alec stonily and gave his name as Dmitri. Given Dmitri’s appearance, Alec wasn’t at all surprised that he’d been detained by the customs agents and then beaten by the police. Like those of Minka, Iza’s albino friend, Dmitri’s hands and neck were festooned with prison markings. It looked like he’d spent a fair portion of his young life behind bars. Alec had noticed that men like him passed through the halls of HIAS in no small number. The Soviet authorities had been only too happy to clear the jails and prisons of Jewish criminals. The unambiguous message from the Kremlin to the Knesset was: You want Jews? Here, take these.

Efforts were made to divert some of the convicts to places other than Israel. To spread out the criminal element. The criminals were usually more than happy to comply; the immigration offices less so. It wasn’t easy to get the criminals past the interview process. Short of wearing gloves, there was no way for them to conceal their ring tattoos, and one glimpse at these was usually enough to settle the issue.

— We would like to go to Boston, said the mother, who gave her name as Riva Davidovna Horvitz.

She was a lean, dark-complexioned woman, once appealing, Alec supposed. Now she had the severity of a person who had been marked by misfortune and did not wish to conceal it.

While Riva spoke about the rigors of their emigration, Alec found himself constructing fantasies and stratagems about her daughter. Masha had elicited in him the same feeling he’d had when he first saw Olya on Karl Marx Street. In the intervening years, for all his conquests, he’d rarely had that feeling again. There were very few women who possessed perpetual mystery — who revealed less than they knew and remained, at some level, mysterious even to themselves. Occasionally, Alec saw a woman and suspected that she was of this type, only to discover that he’d been mistaken. But there was something about Masha that compelled him. She looked to have what Olya had had — beauty like a long blade, carelessly held.

Polina’s allure had been altogether different, she had been like the still point at the center of a gyre. He’d seen her, day after day at her desk in the technology department. Beside her was a stern old matron. Every time Alec thought to approach Polina the matron had been at her side, discouraging him with castrating looks. For at least a month he contemplated ways to breach the system of defense and get to Polina. At first, he wanted only a few words, just to see if he could elicit a smile. That was all. Nothing more. Just for a start.

Then finally, the afternoon he approached her with Karl in tow, her sentinel had vacated her post. Alec had made his silly, brash proposition, and succeeded in getting Polina to join them for a drink. She’d said little that evening; she’d let Alec entertain her. After she finished her drink, she discreetly checked her watch and rose to say goodbye.

— You can’t leave yet, Alec had said.

— I can’t? Polina had asked as if allowing that there might be substance behind Alec’s words.

Alec had looked up at her from his place at the circular café table, hardly big enough to accommodate their glasses and ashtray.

— You see, Karl said, my brother can’t bear to have a woman leave until she’s confessed that she thinks he’s the most desirable man on earth.

— Do many women say that? Polina asked.

— Surprisingly, Karl said.

— Or not, Alec offered.

— So this is the reason I can’t leave?

— Only if you think it’s a good reason, Alec said.

— Honestly speaking, I don’t, Polina said.

— Then it isn’t.

— So what is?

— There are many. Very important ones. To list them all would take some time. Please sit and I’ll buy you another drink.

— Your reason to stay is to hear the reasons to stay? Polina asked.

— Not good enough?

She had gone home that night, but Alec had perceived an opening. Not long after the evening with Karl, on the day of the annual Readiness for Labor and Defense Exercises, Alec had finagled his way into Polina’s group. The testing was done according to department, but Alec, in part because of his father’s status, but mainly on account of his own gregariousness, moved fluidly throughout the plant. It raised no eyebrows when his name was included with those of the technology department. Broadly speaking, nobody cared about any of the official and procedural events. Celebrate the workers on the anniversary of the Revolution? Why not? Honor the Red Army on Red Army Day? Who could object? Either was a good excuse to avoid work. Lenin’s birthday? Stalin’s first tooth? Brezhnev’s colonoscopy? Each merited a drink, a few snacks, and maybe a slice of cake. So, too, the Labor and Defense Exercises — only with less drinking and without the cake.

The morning of the exercises, Alec took his place among the young workers of the technology and transistor radio engineering departments. Dressed in tracksuits and running shoes, they crossed the street from the plant proper to the site of the VEF sports stadium and target range. At the range, 22-caliber rifles awaited them, having already been retrieved from the armory. Members of VEF’s athletic department — the trainers and coaches of the factory’s various sports teams — had already prepared the field for the shot put, the long jump, the high jump, and for the short-distance footraces. The trainers and coaches roamed about with their stopwatches, measuring tapes, and the lists of the norms that had to be met. Somewhere, presumably in the Kremlin, a physical culture expert had determined the basal fitness level young Soviet workers needed to possess to establish their superiority over the Americans and the Red Chinese. Should these foes come spilling across the borders, they would encounter a daunting column ready to repulse them with heroic displays of running, jumping, shot putting, and small-arms fire.

Before the start of the events, Alec sought Polina out and tried to strike a bargain with her. He told her that he wanted to see her again.

— You’re seeing me now, Polina said.

— One more evening, Alec said. All I ask. In the scheme of a life, what’s one evening?

— Depends who you spend it with.

— A valid point, Alec said.

To reach the decision, Alec proposed a contest. If he scored better at the rifle range, Polina would grant him another evening; if she scored better, he would leave her in peace. Perhaps because she was beguiled by the prospect of a game, Polina agreed.

— I should warn you in advance, Alec said. Last summer, in the officers’ training rotation, I placed eighth in marksmanship.

— Out of how many? Polina asked.

— Sixteen, Alec said.

— That doesn’t sound very good, Polina said.

— No, it doesn’t, Alec said. That’s the idea.

— I don’t understand, Polina said.

— Well, I was specifically trying for eighth place.

— Why is that?

— In the army, it’s best to be somewhere in the middle. Trouble usually finds those at the bottom or at the top.

— So you mean to say that you’re a good shot?

— Eighth place, Alec said.

— In that case, I should tell you that last year at Readiness for Labor and Defense, I finished second in my department. They awarded me a ribbon and printed my name in the factory newspaper. My husband pasted a copy of it into an album.

Alec noticed that Polina didn’t brandish the word “husband” like a cudgel. She seemed to place the same emphasis on “husband” as she did on “ribbon” or “album.” But Alec wasn’t fool enough to believe that she’d included the word innocently. In a sense, since she hadn’t unequivocally rebuffed Alec, anything she said about her husband verged on betrayal. Any information Alec had about him was information he could use against him. For instance, the fact that he was the kind of man who would preserve something printed in the factory’s idiotic newspaper. Then again, it was possible that Polina found such a gesture endearing. It could be that she was implying that this was precisely the kind of man she wanted. A man unlike Alec, who, in his ironical sophistication, couldn’t hope to access or appreciate such pure, sentimental feeling.