Debra Dean - The Madonnas Of Leningrad

They dress Viktor in fresh clothes and swaddle him in a sheet. With careful stitches, Nadezhda sews closed the shroud. After they have rested, each of them takes one end of the shroud and they try to carry the body through the shelter, but it quickly becomes apparent that they will have to drag it. Even so, they have to stop every few meters. Though the corpse weighs hardly anything for a grown man, it is an awkward bundle, and they struggle to heave it up the steps leading out of the shelter. The sheet catches and tears on the rough stone, and when the body threatens to slide out, they must stop midway so Marina can bind the unraveling end more tightly.

As they pass through the halls on the ground floor, dragging the corpse of Viktor behind them, Marina marks their passage past bare glass cases, past the missing bronzes and funerary of ancient Urartu. The only evidence of Viktor Alekseevich Krasnov’s lifework is shadows imprinted on the felt of the shelves. He never finished his book, she thinks. The pages of the unfinished manuscript are still on the desk, and later she will have to determine what is to be done with them.

Here, entombed in a glass showcase, is Viktor’s twin, another desiccated skeleton, leathery skin and bones with a length of linen draped over the hips. The mummy of the Egyptian priest Petese, it was left behind in the evacuation. The living that remained behind have suffered from the ravages of a relentlessly bitter winter, but the mummy, other than exuding a little salt which is regularly wiped off, is just as it was three thousand years ago.

When they enter the mortuary, Marina tries not to notice all the other swaddled corpses lining the room. They place Viktor’s body in a corner. Nadezhda slumps down beside the remains of her husband and closes her eyes.

“Come,” Marina urges and tugs gently at her aunt’s coat. “You must get up.” She is afraid that Nadezhda will simply die beside her husband. “We will go out tomorrow,” she promises her, “and see about finding a coffin. We will bury him next to his mother and father.” She has little hope that they will be successful. Even if they could manage a coffin, there is nothing to pay a grave digger. But she would promise anything now.

Nadezhda opens her eyes, and they travel slowly up the length of Marina ’s outstretched arm.

“I won’t be able to do it alone,” Marina threatens.

Nadezhda nods, her eyes vacant and listless, and she holds out her hand for Marina to help her to her feet.

When they reach the staff entrance and step into the cold air, they are breathing heavily. Their breath rises in vaporous puffs. Nadezhda coughs and Marina hears the rattle. They stand for a moment in silence, looking out across Palace Square. It is a Tuesday afternoon, it has stopped snowing, and there are no new tracks in the entire square, no sound except for the rap of hammering on the roof above them. Soldiers have come to board over the shattered skylight.

The sun is setting already, and the clouds are tinted pink on their undersides.

“When I go, you must try to bury me beside him,” Nadezhda says.

Marina nods. It would be pointless to argue that neither of them is going to die. Already they move through their days like ghosts, one foot in front of the other, thin as vapor.

No one weeps anymore, or if they do, it is over small things, inconsequential moments that catch them unprepared. What is left that is heartbreaking? Not death: death is ordinary. What is heartbreaking is the sight of a single gull lifting effortlessly from a street lamp. Its wings unfurl like silk scarves against the mauve sky, and Marina hears the rustle of its feathers. What is heartbreaking is that there is still beauty in the world.

Helen is startled out of sleep by the sound of knocking. In the unfamiliar darkness, she gropes for the lamp and snaps on the switch. The travel alarm on the bedside table reads 2:39. The knocking at her door is soft but persistent, and then she hears her father’s voice.

“Elena? Elena?”

She wrestles off the cotton coverlet, stumbles around the bed, and then struggles groggily with the chain on the door before she can open it.

Dmitri is standing on the other side of the door, in the dimly lit hallway. An old wool robe is open over his thin pajamas. Tufts of white hair sprout at wild angles from his scalp, giving him the appearance of a lunatic. His translucent, gnarled feet are bare.

“She’s gone,” he says.

“Gone? What do you mean?”

“I woke up and she wasn’t there. I put the suitcase in front of the door, but she moved it.”

“Is she in the bathroom, Papa?”

“No.” His shaky fingers fiddle with a loose end of the robe’s belt. “I went up and down the halls and to the lobby. She’s gone.” Dmitri’s eyes are rheumy, and Helen sees again how very frail and elderly her father is.

“It’s okay, Papa. I’m sure she’s around somewhere.” Her voice exudes calmness, the voice that used to soothe her boys when they had taken a bad spill off their bikes or the monkey bars. “Here, sit down.” She grabs some clothes off the chair. “I’ll get dressed and go find her.”

Her father looks at the chair blankly but doesn’t sit. “I was so tired. Usually, I hear her.”

Helen takes the clothes she is holding and disappears into the bathroom. She keeps talking through the door as she changes.

“She’s done this before?”

“She gets up and wanders the house at night sometimes. But she’s safe there. I put covers on the door handles so she can’t open them.”

Helen splashes some water on her face, runs a comb through her hair, and emerges from the bathroom dressed in the slacks and shirt she wore yesterday. She slips on a pair of sandals.

Dmitri is too agitated to wait in his room, even after Helen explains that Marina might come back and he should be there. So she waits while he puts on pants and shoes, and they leave the door of the room ajar just in case. The two of them check the halls one more time before they descend the stairs into the lobby. Despite her father, Helen has somehow fully expected to find Marina sitting quietly in one of the high-backed chairs. She isn’t there, and there is no night manager on duty to ask if an elderly lady has passed through. Helen walks around the front desk and taps on the door marked “Office.” It is locked. Another door, not locked, turns out to be a narrow supply closet with mops and a vacuum and stores of toilet paper.

Outside, a sodium lamp washes Front Street with a peachy light. Helen steps out into the cool night and walks down the sidewalk a few yards in one direction and then the other, peering past darkened storefronts into the shadows cast by their awnings.

“Mama?” she calls. The streetlight is buzzing and she hears the monotonous bark of a dog somewhere off in the distance, but otherwise the only sound is the clack of her sandals on the sidewalk. It comes to her then that her mother may actually have wandered off.

“Any idea where she might go?”

Dmitri shakes his head mutely.

She heads to the corner and looks up Spring Street, sees nothing but a few cars angle parked in front of dark shops, and then she jogs the half block back to the inn.

“Let’s get the car. She can’t have gotten very far, but it might be faster. Wait here.”

Helen uses her room key to unlock the front door of the inn and climbs breathlessly up the stairs. All the way up she debates whether to call the police. Is there even a police force to call on this island? She has no idea, but first she’d better make sure her mother’s really gone, she decides.

She checks her parents’ room one more time, then grabs her handbag and a sweater out of her own room and returns downstairs. Her father is standing just where she left him, a little old man in a pajama top and unzipped trousers, his shoulders drooping under the weight of his misery. She takes his hand and says lightly, “It’s going to be all right, Papa.”