David Bezmozgis - The Free World

After irritating half of the people in the hallway, Yury pointed his flashlight into Alec’s face.

— Looking for someone? Alec asked.

— The captain, Yury said.

— What captain?

— The submarine captain, Zhenya chimed. Can’t you see we’re going down?

— I knew we were in trouble.

— The captain is wounded, Yury said.

Before the boys could run away, Karl descended the steps and called to them. Grudgingly, they scuffed over to him. Karl led them to Emma, who had arranged four bowls on the floor near the entrance to their room.

— Sit, Karl said.

The boys slid their backs along the wall and dropped down.

— Eat, my darlings, Emma said. Grandmother made a tasty soup.

— How are we supposed to eat it? Zhenya demanded. There are no spoons.

— I’m sorry, darling, Emma said. Grandmother couldn’t find the spoons.

— Lift the bowl, drink, and don’t complain, Karl instructed.

Alec stood beside his brother and directed his flashlight at the wall immediately above Karl’s left shoulder. The wall, a grimy off-white, diffused just enough light to illuminate the side of Karl’s face. Karl’s expression suggested that he was not at all seduced by the anarchic, carnival atmosphere in the hotel. His mind operated on another plane. Alec would see a circus and want to join; Karl, meanwhile, would estimate the cost of feeding the elephants and conjecture that the acrobats suffered from venereal disease.

It was going to be like this every night, Karl said. The sooner they could get out of the hotel the better.

— You know that the Joint covers the hotel for eight days, Alec said.

— You want seven more days of this?

— I’m ready to go now.

— The hotel manager has a deal with the Joint. So long as the trains keep coming, his hotel stays full. That’s why he serves us slop. And so long as he serves slop, people plug in their hot plates. There’s a bus driver on our floor from Tula. He’s been here four days. Every fucking night a fuse blows.

— Why is he still here?

— He takes the train to Ladispoli every day. Brokers demand extortionate prices for hovels. Our bad luck. It’s summer. High season. Romans want to get away from the city, lie on the beach, swim in the sea. The bus driver comes home after a day of pleading and weeps in the bathroom so his wife and children won’t know.

— So what does that mean for us?

— The bus driver has a sad and trusting face. One look at his face and you want to plunge a knife in his back.

— And our faces?

— My face is whatever it needs to be. As for yours: there may be a sexually frustrated woman with an apartment available. In any event, I don’t intend to come back here and weep in the bathroom.

There was no limit, it seemed, to Polina’s sense of dislocation. The border crossing at Chop had been nightmarish, but at least the nightmare had conformed to some perverted Soviet logic. What was cruel and nonsensical about it was cruel and nonsensical in a typical way. Then on the brief stopover in Bratislava, where they had to change trains for Vienna, she had already begun to feel a heightened sense of foreignness — even though they were still only in Czechoslovakia, where it was not too difficult to find people who spoke Russian. Vienna was overwhelming, every step felt like an embarrassing misstep, but at least Alec had understood the language. And yet, compared to Rome, all that had preceded seemed mild and rational. When, on their first morning in the city, she and Alec stepped onto the sidewalk outside their hotel, Polina had the distinct impression that every car and pedestrian was rushing deliberately at her. She had never before seen quite so much human traffic. Cars, mopeds, and people surged in response to some inscrutable choreography. She watched an old man cross the street and somehow avoid being killed by several cars and one moped carrying two bare-chested teenage boys. On the sidewalk, a mother passed holding the hand of a little girl. The girl was no older than four or five and chattered away in singsong Italian. This little girl, Polina thought, stands a much better chance of fending for herself in this city than I do. She can put one foot in front of the other. She can cross a street. In Vienna, they had heard rumors about Rome. The city was dirty. Crime was rampant. To walk near Termini, the central train station, was effectively to surrender your valuables. As a city, they were informed, Rome’s claim to being part of Europe was purely geographical. Vienna was Europe; Leningrad was Europe; Riga; Moscow. With its withering summer heat, filth, and disorder, Rome was Africa.

HIAS had distributed maps to all of the family heads and expected them to fend for themselves. Polina’s sense of direction was good, but when they set out on the first day Alec and Karl took charge of the maps. They quickly got lost. They boarded the correct streetcar but took it going the wrong way. By the time Karl and Alec realized their mistake, they’d already been riding for ten minutes. They clambered off and reversed their steps in the mid-afternoon heat. Every few blocks they stopped so that Emma could take a drink from a thermos of water. Because they had already spent their money on a streetcar going the wrong way, they didn’t have money for a streetcar going the right way. At one point, Emma saw a park and insisted that Samuil needed a rest, and they all huddled under the shade of a palm tree. Rosa, who had left her boys with the bus driver’s wife, complained about a woman who at breakfast had finagled an extra serving of milk by claiming that her son was only twelve years old.

— Twelve years old. Stalin didn’t have such a mustache.

They recognized their destination, when they reached it, by the large group of émigrés milling about in front. They pressed their way through the crowd and presented themselves to a security guard. The guard, an émigré like themselves, made them recite their names and their city of origin before he let them pass. Though it was unnecessary in such heat, he stressed that the use of the stairs was expressly forbidden. They rode the elevator four floors and followed a hallway into a large waiting room filled with people. There were not enough chairs for everyone; some people sat on the floor while others leaned against the wall. The stout, matronly Georgian and Azeri women had fallen silent. Some tried to cool themselves with the black silk fans that they’d brought to unload at the markets. Their men gazed into their shoes or at the ceiling. The only exceptions to the general torpor were three old men bent over a small chessboard, and a young, pretty, dark-haired woman who was teaching her son to read using the signs tacked along the walls. The boy formed words by sounding out each letter. In a clear, earnest voice that, unexpectedly, stirred Polina’s heart, the boy enunciated:

AVOID LIVING IN THESE HIGH CRIME AREAS.

ENGLISH CLASSES OFFERED.

ROOM AVAILABLE IN CLEAN APARTMENT. ROME. CALL LUIGI.

DRIVING OR OWNING MOTOR VEHICLES IS FORBIDDEN.

DESTINED FOR CANADA OR AUSTRALIA? GOOD COMMAND OF ENGLISH? JOINT AND HIAS HIRING INTERPRETERS.

— What’s your name, little boy? Polina asked.

— Vadik, the boy answered.

— You read very well.

— He can also recite poetry, said his mother. At two he was already singing “The Regimental Commander.” If he’s in the right mood he can also do Marshak.

— Would you like to recite a poem? Polina asked.

— About Lenin? the boy asked.

— If you like.

The boy snapped to attention, pressed his fingertips to his bare thighs, below the hem of his shorts, and raised his chin for better projection.

— They taught him that stance in kindergarten, his mother said.