David Bezmozgis - The Free World

Alec and Karl then watched the rabbi and his assistants perform the task. The neighboring plots, Alec saw, were already occupied by other Russian émigrés who had failed to complete their journies. The white stones were thin and bore no decoration, save for an etched Star of David, the name of the deceased, and the dates each came into and departed the world.

In an aching, reedy voice, the rabbi sang some verses from a prayer book. At certain predetermined moments his assistants responded, Omayn. They were the only ones. Nobody else knew what he was doing.

When the rabbi finished his portion, he flipped through the book and extracted a laminated card that he’d filed away between the pages. He presented the card to Karl.

— It is the kaddish. For you and your brother to read together.

Alec stood at Karl’s side to read. The card was typed with Hebrew words transliterated into Russian.

— What does it mean? Alec asked.

— It sanctifies God’s name, for your father’s sake.

— Our father wasn’t a believer. If it’s for his sake, he’d want nothing about God at his grave.

— Alec, the rabbi is showing us how to do it according to the rules, his mother admonished.

On the rabbi’s cue, he and Karl read the unfamiliar words, mispronouncing some. But after they’d read everything on the card, Alec still felt troubled by misgivings. He asked the rabbi what more there was to the ceremony.

— Only to fill the grave. Though if there’s anything you wish to add, there’s no law against it.

— I feel we should do something he would have wanted.

— And what is that? the rabbi asked.

— What is done at the burial of a Communist?

— What is done? You want us to sing the “Internationale”? Rosa asked.

— Not a bad idea. At least everyone knows it.

— You’d ask the rabbi to sing the “Internationale”?

— Why not? I’m sure he also knows the words. The rabbi was probably a Pioneer and maybe even a Young Communist. Am I wrong, rabbi?

— We all make mistakes in our youth.

— But do you have any objections against singing this song in our father’s memory?

The rabbi smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders.

Alec expected that Karl would disparage the idea and so put an end to it, but his brother didn’t say a word.

The first to sing was Josef Roidman. He raised his voice martially and proudly. Alec turned to see the little man standing at attention, his eyes wet, gripping his crutch, his chest with its medals thrust forward.

Arise you branded and accursed,

The whole world’s starving and enslaved!

Roidman began and the others gradually joined in. The old men and the teenage boy who had come along for the car ride and the free meal. His mother, her arms linked with Rosa’s. Karl with his heavy bass. And singing softly, the rabbi and the other bearded men.

After the funeral, instead of returning with the others to Ladispoli to begin the week of mourning and eat the kosher dinner furnished by the rabbi, Alec boarded the train to Rome. His family’s grief, and the expectation to grieve with them, was too oppressive. That house, with its rigors, felt like the one place where he wouldn’t be able to mourn.

Riding the train, Alec tried to think about his father and about himself as his son. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that it had been many years since he and his father had shown any affection toward each other. To no small extent, as soon as he had been able, he had structured his life so that it intersected only glancingly with his father’s. Now, guilt and sentiment bade him to repudiate this fact and to imagine that things could have been different between them. Could he have made more of an effort? Had he been guilty of making a conveniently low assessment of his filial debt? How great was his portion of the blame? But he knew that these questions were irrelevant and had nothing to do with what he actually wanted, which seemed like a very small and humble thing. And what was it? Merely to sit in the same room with his father once more. Exchanging not a word. Only to gaze at him, at his face and at his hands, to perceive him again in the realm of the living, and to inhabit that feeling for as long as he could.

The sun was beginning to set as Alec walked from Trastevere Station back to the apartment. In his mind he felt a sense of mission, as though he were about to make of himself an offering, to abase himself before a righteous judgment. The last time he had felt this way had also involved Polina. Then, too, he had taken a long walk through an industrial suburb. He had carried forms that needed to be signed by Maxim, Polina’s ex-husband. Alec had never seen the man before, but Maxim had asked for him specifically. Send your pimp, he’d told Polina.

Alec met him in the communal apartment where he and Polina had lived together. Alec had gone, uncertain of what awaited him. Did Maxim have any intention of signing the document or was it just a ruse? What indignities might he have in store? But the exchange had been nothing like he’d anticipated. The man he’d met had been like a bad actor playing a role for which he was sorely ill cast. He seemed to be clumsily following someone else’s script. His role demanded that he project indignation and anger but his true emotions seemed closer to confusion and hurt. It looked like he still did not understand why all this misery had befallen him. Alec suspected that a woman’s hand guided him. The word “prostitute” recurred too often in the script for it to have been written by a man. Alec pictured some squint-eyed crow perched on Maxim’s shoulder, playing on his bewilderment, dripping poison in his ear.

— Nobody gets a prostitute for free, Maxim had stammered.

So Alec had signed his apartment over to Maxim, and Maxim had signed the form, absolving Polina of her “material obligations” to him.

At the time he had come away from Maxim’s feeling as if he were coated in grime. But now the recollection evoked a different feeling. He felt ashamed of everything to which he had subjected Polina.

Alec reached the building on Via Salumi and stood before it under the weight of his grief and shame. In his pocket he had a key, but it didn’t occur to him to use it. He had lived in the apartment with Polina for nearly five months, but after two nights away, he felt utterly banished.

Lyova answered the buzzer.

Though he did not want to desecrate his grief, Alec nonetheless said, I just buried my father. I’d like to come up.

The lock released and Alec entered the lobby, which was cool and quiet. He mounted the steps, counting the flights, regretting that only three separated the lobby from the apartment. He still didn’t know what he might say to Polina, and three flights didn’t offer enough time to compose his thoughts. He imagined a climb of thirty flights, arduous and purifying, like one of the pilgrims crawling on his knees along Via Conciliazione.

From the landing he saw that the door to the apartment was open. As he neared, he found Lyova waiting for him in the vestibule, where he himself had stood and waited for Masha.

— My condolences, Lyova said, and put out his hand.

Alec accepted the hand and allowed Lyova to usher him into the apartment. Polina sat at the dining room table and regarded him silently. Alec looked at her, and then, instinctively, past her, around the apartment, alert to any changes that might have cropped up in his absence. The curtain separating Lyova’s half of the apartment was partially drawn, and the kempt bed visible. The door to their bedroom was open, but there, too, Alec detected nothing incriminating.

— I’m sorry about your father, Polina said. What happened?