The Free World

1

Alec Krasnansky stood on the platform of Vienna’s Western Terminal while, all around him, the representatives of Soviet Jewry — from Tallinn to Tashkent — roiled, snarled, and elbowed to deposit their belongings onto the waiting train. His own family roiled among them: his parents, his wife, his nephews, his sister-in-law, and particularly his brother, Karl, worked furiously with the suitcases and duffel bags. He should have been helping them but his attention was drawn farther down the platform by two pretty tourists. One was a brunette, Mediterranean and voluptuous; the other petite and blond — in combination they attested, as though by design, to the scope of the world’s beauty and plenitude. Both girls were barefoot, their leather sandals arranged in tidy pairs beside them. Alec traced a line of smooth, tanned skin from heel to calf to thigh, interrupted ultimately by the frayed edge of cutoff blue jeans. Above the cutoff jeans the girls wore thin sleeveless shirts. They sat on their backpacks and leaned casually against each other. Their faces were lovely and vacant. They seemed beyond train schedules and obligations. People sped past them, the Russian circus performed its ludicrous act several meters away, but they paid no attention. Alec assumed they were Americans. He guessed they were in their early twenties. He was twenty-six, but he could pass for younger. In school and university he had run track and had retained a trim runner’s build. He also had his father’s dark, wavy hair. From the time Alec was a boy he had been aware of his effect on women. In his presence, they often became exaggerated versions of themselves. The maternal ones became more maternal, the crude ones became cruder, the shy ones shyer. They wanted only that he not make them feel foolish and were grateful when he did not. In his experience, much of what was good in life could be traced to a woman’s gratitude.

Looking at the two girls, Alec had to resist the urge to approach them. It could be the simplest thing in the world. He had studied English. He needed only to walk over and say, Hello, are you Americans? And they needed only to respond, Yes.

— Where in America do you live?

— Chicago. And where are you from?

— Riga, Latvia. The Soviet Union.

— How interesting. We have never met anyone from the Soviet Union before. Where are you traveling to?

— Chicago.

— No. Is this true?

— Yes, it is true. I am traveling to Chicago.

— Will this be your first time in Chicago?

— Yes, it will be my first time in Chicago. Can you tell me about Chicago?

— Yes, we can tell you about it. Please sit down with us. We will tell you everything about Chicago.

— Thank you.

— You are welcome.

Alec felt Karl’s hand on his shoulder.

— What’s the matter with you?

— Nothing.

— We have seven minutes to finish loading everything onto the train.

He followed Karl back to where their parents were arranging the suitcases so that Karl and Alec could continue forcing them through the window of the compartment. Near them, an elderly couple sat dejectedly on their bags. Others worked around them, avoiding not only helping them but also looking them in the face. Old people sitting piteously on luggage had become a familiar spectacle.

— I see them, Karl said. Move your ass and if there’s time we’ll help them.

Alec bent into the remaining pile of suitcases and duffel bags on the platform. Each seemed heavier than the last. For six adults they had twenty articles of luggage crammed with goods destined for the bazaars of Rome: linens, toys, samovars, ballet shoes, nesting dolls, leather Latvian handicrafts, nylon stockings, lacquer boxes, pocket-knives, camera equipment, picture books, and opera glasses. One particularly heavy suitcase held Alec’s big commercial investment, dozens of symphonic records.

First hefting the bags onto his shoulder and then sliding them along the outside of the train, Alec managed to pass them up to the compartment and into the arms of Polina and Rosa, his and Karl’s wives.

Karl turned to the old couple.

— All right, citizens, can we offer you a hand?

The old man rose from his suitcase, stood erect, and answered with the formality of a Party official or university lecturer.

— We would be very obliged to you. If you will allow, my wife has with her a box of chocolates.

— It’s not necessary.

— Not even a little something for the children?

Karl’s two boys had poked their heads out the compartment window.

— Do as you like. But they’re like animals at the zoo. I suggest you mind your fingers.

Alec and Karl shouldered the old people’s suitcases and passed them into their compartment. Alec noticed the way the old man looked at Polina.

— This is your wife?

— Yes.

— A true Russian beauty.

— I appreciate the compliment. Though she might disagree. Emigration is not exactly cosmetic.

— Absolutely false. The Russian woman blossoms under toil. The Russian man can drink and fight, but our former country was built on the back of the Russian woman.

— What country wasn’t?

— That may be so, but I don’t know about other countries. I was a Soviet citizen. To my generation this meant something. We sacrificed our youth, our most productive years, our faith. And in the end they robbed us of everything. This is why it does my heart proud to see your wife. Every Jew should have taken with him a Russian bride. If only to deny them to the alcoholics. I’m an old man, but if the law had allowed, I would have taken ten wives myself. Real Russian women. Because that country couldn’t survive five minutes without them.

The old man’s wife, the incontrovertible product of shtetl breeding, listened to her husband’s speech with spousal indifference. There was nothing, her expression declared, that she hadn’t heard him say a hundred times.

— To women, Alec said. When we get to Rome we should drink to it.

Alec helped the old couple onto the car and scrambled up as it began to edge forward. He squeezed past people in the narrow passageway and found his family crammed in with their belongings. Perched on a pile of duffel bags, his father frowned in Alec’s direction.

— What were you talking about with that old rooster?

— The greatness of the Russian woman.

— Your favorite subject. You almost missed the train.

Samuil Krasnansky turned his head and considered their circumstances.

— The compartments are half the size.

This was true, Alec thought. Say what you want about the Soviet Union, but the sleeping compartments were bigger.

— You want to go back because of the bigger compartments? Karl asked.

— What do you care about what I want? Samuil said. Samuil Krasnansky said nothing else between Vienna and Rome. He sat in silence beside his wife and eventually fell asleep.

2

Somewhere south of Florence, Polina lifted Alec’s head from her shoulder and eased it into a cleft between two lumps in the duffel bag that functioned as their bed. As she lowered his head, Alec opened his eyes and, after the briefest moment’s disorientation, regarded Polina with an inquisitive smile. This was Alec’s defining expression and it had been the first thing she had noticed about him. Before he had become her husband, before the start of their affair, before she knew anything about him, Polina had seen him in one or another of the VEF factory buildings, always looking vaguely, childishly amused.

— If Papatchka offered me life on a silver platter maybe I’d also go around grinning like a defective, Marina Kirilovna had said to Polina when Alec made his first appearance in the technology department.

Marina Kirilovna occupied the desk beside Polina’s at the radio factory. In her mid-forties and a widow twice over, Marina Kirilovna treated men with only varying degrees of contempt. They were sluggards, buffoons, dimwits, liars, brutes, and — without exception — drunks. The tragedy was that women were saddled with them and, for the most part, accepted this state of affairs. It was as though women had ingested the Russian saying “If he doesn’t beat you, he doesn’t love you” with their mothers’ milk. As for her own departed husbands, Marina Kirilovna liked to say that the only joy she’d had in living with them had been outliving them.

Later, when Marina Kirilovna began to suspect Polina’s involvement with Alec, she had admonished her.

— Not that it’s my business, but even if your husband is no prize at least he’s a man.

— It isn’t your business, Polina had said.

— Just know that it will all be on your head. No good can come of it. Believe me, I’m not blind. I see him skipping around like a boy with a butterfly net. And if you think this business might lead to a promotion, then half the women at the factory are eligible for it.

At the word “promotion,” Polina had almost laughed. The suggestion of some ulterior motive, particularly ambition, was risible in a way the widow could not have imagined. First, the mere idea of ambition in the factory was ludicrous. Thousands of people worked there and — with the exception of the Party members — nobody’s salary was worth envying. But, beyond that, if anything had led her to consider Alec’s overtures, it was her husband’s ambition — insistent, petty, and bureaucratic. In the evenings she was oppressed by his plots and machinations for advancement, and on the weekends she was bored and embarrassed by his behavior at dinners with those whom he described as “men of influence.” By comparison, Alec was the least ambitious man she had ever met.

One afternoon, as she was preparing to leave work, Alec had approached. He was accompanied by Karl.

— My brother and I are going out to seek adventure. We require the company of a responsible person to make sure that we do not go to excesses.

— What does that have to do with me?

— You have a kind and responsible face.

— So does Lenin.

— True. But Lenin is unavailable. And, at the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I am sure we would prefer your company.

Even now, with her forehead pressed against the cool window, it was hard to believe that this invitation had led to this humid passageway on a train bound for Rome. Straining to see beyond her own reflection, Polina marveled that the predawn countryside she saw was Italian countryside, the black two-dimensional cows Italian cows, and the geometry of houses Italian houses, inhabited by Italians — and when the train sped past the rare house with a lighted window, it seemed barely comprehensible that, awake at this hour, there were real Italians engaged in the ordinary and mysterious things Italians did in their homes in the earliest hours of the morning. She regretted that she didn’t have a quiet place to sit at that very instant to compose her thoughts and set them down for her sister.

In Vienna she had already written to her twice.

My dear Brigitte,

On our way to an appointment with our caseworker this morning we saw a little girl and her brother vomit in the pensione courtyard. These same two also vomited in the courtyard yesterday morning. Both times, their mother, a woman from Tbilisi who seems incapable of opening her mouth without shouting, raced out into the courtyard, swinging her slipper. This woman comes in from the market every evening with a bunch of spotted bananas roughly the size of a large cat. But you can’t blame her. It takes everyone a few days just to get accustomed to the bananas. They are not expensive, but if you want to economize you can buy ones that are overripe. They are even cheaper than apples. You’d think they grew them in Austria. I can’t begin to describe the pineapples, or the chicken and veal in the butcher’s shops. All the émigrés, including me, walk around overwhelmed by the shop windows. It doesn’t seem quite real, but rather like something in a movie. And considering how little money we have, it might as well be a movie. The second evening we were here, Igor and I explored a street lined with clothing stores. There were stores for men and for women. Austrians were rushing in and out carrying bags and boxes, all of them dressed like the mannequins in the store windows. Compared to them we looked like beggars. I was wearing the pale yellow dress Papa brought from Stockholm. The dress is almost four years old. You remember how excited I was when I got it? I’m embarrassed to think of it now. Wearing it in front of all of those people, I wished I were invisible. That way I could admire everything but avoid people seeing me and the horrible dress. Any single article of clothing worn by the Viennese would be the envy of all Riga. And it isn’t only a question of the latest styles. It is the materials, the quality of the work. Naturally, I expected this. What I hadn’t expected were the colors. There were dresses and blouses in colors I had never seen. How strange it is to think that I had lived my entire life without seeing certain colors. In one display there was a silk blouse of a deep lavender I associated with exotic flowers. I was so taken by it that I lingered too long by the window. Igor encouraged me to go inside and take a closer look, which I didn’t want to do. He teased me and pushed me playfully to the door. This attracted the attention of a saleswoman. She was in her forties, dressed very smartly. I suppose she was amused by us. She spoke to us in German, some of which Igor understands. She wanted to know what it was that had appealed to me. Igor pointed to the blouse and the saleswoman invited us into the store so that I could try it on. She was very kind and wanted to help us but I literally had to wrest myself out of Igor’s grip to avoid going into the store. I wanted to apologize to the woman for my rudeness, but I don’t know how to say even that much in German. She must have thought I was crazy. But all I could picture was trying on the blouse and somehow damaging it. If that had happened, I don’t know what we would have done.

Because she wasn’t accustomed to using the aliases, Polina had had to rewrite parts of the letter two or three times. To refer to Alec or to her sister by a different name still felt ludicrous. It seemed like a children’s game, playing at spies and secret agents. Her sister, however, embraced the game. When she met Polina in Kirovsky Park to say goodbye, she came armed with a list of preferred alternate names.

— I never liked my name anyway. It’s so average. Nadja. It’s the name of a cafeteria clerk.

They had met on a bright Sunday afternoon. Polina had arrived first and claimed a bench under a linden tree, not far from where the men played dominoes. This had been a week before they left. All week, all month, she and Alec had been getting papers notarized, valuables appraised, haggling with the seamstresses who sewed their custom duffel bags, supervising the carpenters who constructed the shipping boxes, and arranging clandestine farewells. All this time she had slept poorly. In the mornings she would open her eyes overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of her. Polina realized, as she sat on her bench, that it had been weeks if not months since she had last had such a moment to herself. The day was warm and cloudless, a rare treat in Riga even in late June. Along the paths, young mothers pushed buggies, and grandmothers shuffled after their grandchildren, trying to entice them with a flavored wafer or a peeled cucumber. All around her were the fellow inhabitants of the city of her birth, each one possessing the individuality and anonymity of a city person. Polina derived pleasure from the sensation that, at least at that moment, she was indistinguishable from them. No one could identify her as a traitor to the motherland, a stateless, directionless person. She smoothed her skirt and looked up through the branches of the tree. Feeling the warmth on her face, Polina considered herself as if from the sun’s perspective. Observed from such a height, she imagined that she could pass for a green leaf among green leaves or a silver fish among silver fish floating in the common stream.

From a distance, she recognized Nadja’s buoyant, fidgety walk. In low heels and a skirt, and swinging a small handbag, Nadja, at twenty, looked like a girl experimenting with her mother’s wardrobe. Because of their age difference and because of her sister’s nature, Polina harbored feelings for her that were more maternal than sisterly. To friends, their mother often remarked that, unlike other children in similar circumstances, Polina had never rebelled against the idea or the fact of a little sister. Although she was eight years older than Nadja, Polina’s own memory did not extend to a time before her sister’s existence and so she couldn’t say who had exerted the greater influence in forming the character of the other. Had she become maternal because of Nadja, or had Nadja remained childlike because of her? In this sense Nadja shared something with Alec, the difference being that Alec’s childishness seemed to protect him from the world whereas Nadja’s seemed to expose her.

— I’ve always liked the name Anastasia, Nadja had said. That or maybe Brigitte or Sophia.

She had dropped down beside Polina and set her small handbag on the grass at the base of the park bench where she was liable to forget it. The same people in the park who would not have been able to identify Polina as a traitor to the motherland also would not have been likely to identify the two of them as sisters. Polina had inherited their father’s coloring: pale skin, blond hair, gray eyes, and angular face. Nadja resembled, if anyone, their mother: dark hair, wide mouth, hazel eyes, and a starburst of freckles on her nose and cheeks — though her chief distinguishing feature was the slight gap between her two front teeth, which she displayed whenever she smiled or laughed.

— I suppose you can choose any name you want, Polina had said.

— What are you choosing for yourself?

— I don’t know. Something simple.

— And Alec?

— Igor.

— I never saw him as an Igor.

— When he was small he had a friend named Igor whose father could bend nails with his teeth.

— What was his friend’s father’s name?

— I didn’t ask. But he didn’t want to be the father. He wanted to be Igor. He wanted to have a father who bent nails with his teeth.

— I wouldn’t be surprised if Alec’s father could bend nails with his teeth.

— Probably. If he had to.

— And what will we call Mama and Papa?

— Mama and Papa.

— That won’t create problems?

— I don’t think so.

— We could just call them Him and Her.

— I’d rather not. Things are bad enough as they are.

Even if her relations with her parents had not soured, Polina supposed that their father, a Party member and a sea captain, would have objected to having her letters addressed to their apartment. She planned to post her letters to Arik Farberman, a friend of Alec’s and a refusenik who had been trapped in Riga for the last five years. Arik served this function for other émigrés who left behind family members — Party officials, esteemed professionals, or just the habitually cautious — who did not want letters from the West arriving at their homes. The false names were in case the mail was seized.

When she and Nadja had embraced to say goodbye, Polina felt her sister’s hair against her face and the sharpness of Nadja’s silver seashell earring against her cheek. When they drew apart, the earring had left an imprint that Nadja pointed out so as to avoid the subject of their separation. Polina also did not want a dramatic scene. She saw them meeting in another lifetime, two old women at an airport, straining to recognize each other.

As they rose from the bench and started off down the path, Polina noticed that Nadja had forgotten her purse. Nadja doubled back to retrieve it.

— There’s nothing in it anyway except the paper with the fake names.

— Who will remind you now not to lose your purse? Polina had said.

— Every time I lose my purse I’ll think of you, Nadja had said and smiled.

3

This is Rome? Samuil Krasnansky heard a man his age inquire in the hall.

Slight variations on the same question rippled through the car.

— Can this be Rome?

— Such a small station for such a big city?

— Do you see a sign that says Rome?

— You can read their language?

The train came to a halt and radiated its heat into the heat of the early morning.

— It’s not Rome, Karl said when he returned to the compartment. Rome is another hour. But someone from HIAS is here. We’re to get off the train.

Samuil Krasnansky looked out his window and saw Italian militia with their submachine guns lined up the length of the platform. He did not like being under foreign guard, but he preferred the Italian militia in their blue uniforms to the Austrians in their green. The Austrians offended his sensibilities. When last he had seen Austrians like these they had been marching in long, dejected columns under Soviet command. He had been a young officer then, a revolver on his hip and the soles of his boots worn down by the rubble of Eastern and Central Europe. Men still chose their words carefully when addressing him. Fussy women with clipboards had not felt entitled to pry into his thoughts and personal affairs.

Once again the baggage had to be deposited onto the platform. The same method they had used to get the baggage into the train was now reversed. His daughters-in-law descended and stood waiting beneath the windows. His sons wrenched the bags and suitcases from the floor and the sleeping berths and lowered them to their wives. Samuil and his wife, Emma, were assigned the task of looking after the grandchildren. Emma held each boy by the hand. At first, still half-asleep, they were obedient. But that lasted only a short while, until a suitcase slipped out of Rosa’s grasp and crashed loudly and heavily to the cement. From the train, Karl cursed and Rosa responded that he had handed her the suitcase improperly. She could not be expected to manage all that weight if he practically dropped it on her. She wasn’t going to risk her head for souvenirs and tchotchkes. She had the boys to think about. Did Karl want the children to grow up motherless orphans? If that’s what he wanted then he had nearly succeeded.

At the sound of the word “orphans” the boys started to revolt. They didn’t want to be orphans. They didn’t want their father to cripple their mother with the suitcases. They thrashed in Emma’s grip and tried to free themselves to assist their mother.

— Stay, don’t move, Samuil instructed them, but they didn’t heed him.

— Boys, you can help your mother by behaving, Emma said.

Just then another bag fell from the window and somehow wedged itself between the train and the platform. This time it had been Alec who had released the bag. It was one of the duffel bags, extremely heavy and unwieldy, and Polina tried in vain to dislodge it.

— Why even have them down there if they can’t catch the bags? Samuil said.

— They’re doing their best, Emma said.

— I could do less damage with a hammer.

— With your heart don’t get any ideas.

— I can’t stand here and watch their bumbling.

When Emma spoke again in protest, Samuil glowered at her and said, Not another word. He stalked to the train. Awkwardly, grasping for decent handholds, he and Polina ultimately managed to free the bag.

— Now let’s have the rest, Samuil said, his face crimson with the exertion.

Karl gazed down from the window, wordlessly.

— What’s the matter with you? Samuil demanded. You forget what you’re doing up there?

— For God’s sake, be careful, Emma implored.

— Don’t speak to me as if I’m an invalid, Samuil snapped.

With three of them receiving the bags, the job progressed faster. Soon they found themselves before another woman with a clipboard at the doors to the bus. Meanwhile, Italian porters appeared and heaved their belongings into its belly. A Russian interpreter accompanied the woman and called out the names of the émigrés. One after another they passed before him to be counted and checked off the list.

— You think terrorists couldn’t attack the buses? a gaunt, intellectual-looking woman said to Samuil.

— Rumors. Fearmongering, Samuil said.

— They’d hire all these soldiers because of rumors? the woman asked.

— Attacks have already happened, a man behind Samuil offered. That’s a fact. Palestinian terrorists.

— Italian Fascists, corrected another man. Shot up a train compartment. A woman from Odessa, mother of three, lost an eye. A tragedy.

— They always change the routes, Rosa said. I heard it from HIAS in Vienna. Sealed orders. Even the train engineers don’t know where HIAS will meet them until they get to the station.

The interpreter called out “Krasnansky” and Karl cleared a path to the front of the line. The others fell in behind him.

— You’re one family? the interpreter inquired.

— Three families. Same last name, Karl said.

— But related?

Karl withheld his answer.

— No point playing games. It’s all in the files.

— Who’s playing games? Karl said.

— Don’t worry, there’s no penalty. You have three family heads. Go find your seats.

Samuil and Emma settled for a pair of seats near the back. Once they were on the road it became evident that the bus lacked proper ventilation. For relief Samuil slid his window open but encountered resistance from the woman behind him.

— I have a young child, sir, do you want her to catch pneumonia?

— We’re elderly people, you’d prefer we suffocate?

— Citizens, let’s be civilized, another voice chimed in.

— We could exchange seats, Emma suggested.

— And wake my child? the woman said.

— If your screeching hasn’t woken her, moving won’t either, Samuil said.

Samuil thought, as he had time and again, that the Soviets had wisely managed to rid themselves of the least desirable elements. In his long life he had never had the misfortune of being cast among such a lot of rude and unpleasant people.

Gradually, the bus approached the suburbs. Up front, the Russian interpreter assumed the role of tour guide. The road they were on was called Via Flaminia, built by the ancient Romans. Those familiar with the famous saying “All roads lead to Rome” might be interested to know that they were now on such a road. It was interesting to consider, the interpreter continued, the traffic that the road had conveyed over the centuries. Roman legions used it when returning from their campaigns against the Gauls. Merchants from across Europe traveled its length from antiquity through the Middle Ages. Barefoot pilgrims walked it for hundreds of kilometers on their way to the Via Conciliazione, at which point they crawled on their knees to St. Peter’s Square. The carriages of kings and aristocrats had passed here, as had convoys transporting Italian troops to the Alps during the First World War. And during the Great Patriotic War, German Panzers had descended this way from the north to occupy Rome after the Italian king sued for peace with the Allies. It would not be an exaggeration, the interpreter said, to propose that the history of Western civilization could be plotted along this road.

— Their history: imperialist aggression, dogmatic theocracy, totalitarian monarchy, and fascism, Samuil muttered to Emma.

When they penetrated the ring road that circumscribed the city, the interpreter announced that they had officially entered Rome.

— Rome: the word tolls like a bell, the interpreter said.

Their route took them through a neighborhood called Parioli, the interpreter explained, home to many of Rome’s wealthiest and most powerful people.

Morning found these people emerging from their apartments. The boulevard was bordered at either side by a wall of pastel-colored stucco buildings. Trees in full leaf dotted the boulevard and nearly every window was ornamented by a flower box. Here and there, Samuil noticed young men in tailored suits holding open the doors of black sedans for older men in tailored suits. The superior quality of the suits and the cars was the only exceptional thing about this scenario. Not eight months earlier he had himself been a man with a sedan and a personal driver. For twelve years, he had stepped from his building promptly at seven in the morning to find the black Volga at the curb. Rain or shine, Arturs preceded him to the rear door of the sedan. The man always executed his duty with proper decorum — neither too formal nor too familiar. He also provided for Samuil that day’s editions of Pravda and Izvestia, folded neatly on the backseat. Before Arturs, Samuil had had a Russian driver who was far less reliable. Felix had been the man’s name. His mustache always looked greasy and he had a pronounced stutter that intensified when he was nervous. Nothing had tried Samuil’s patience so much as enduring Felix’s excuses for his tardiness. Most frequently, he blamed a neighbor in his communal apartment.

— H-h-h-h-he oc-oc-oc-occupies the tah-tah-tah-toilet with nah-nah-nah-no re-re-re-regard for others.

— You’ve informed him that his behavior is compromising your job?

— H-h-h-h-he resp-resp-resp-responded in a ru-ru-ru-rude manner.

— Well, either straighten him out or wake earlier.

When Felix had shown no improvement Samuil had dismissed him.

He had experienced none of these problems with Arturs. Samuil had observed that, broadly speaking, compared to Russians, Latvians possessed a superior regard for discipline. Samuil attributed this to the years of German influence. One could criticize the Germans for many things, but it was difficult to fault their discipline. Arturs had been a good man; Samuil did not even blame him for his denunciation, which, in any case, had been rather pro forma.

Samuil preferred not to think about that day. He had had no defense. In fact, he had, in principle, agreed with his accusers. He had attended similar meetings in VEF’s main theater and had also furiously denounced traitors to the state. Given his position, he neither expected nor received mercy. He prepared himself for the worst. He even allowed Emma to press upon him his blood pressure pills. He had carried the pills in his trouser pocket and had not felt the need for them until Felix with the greasy mustache rose in the front row, pointed his finger, and cried: Hyp-hyp-hypocrite!

On the street, the stucco apartment blocks gave way to large, gated villas. Palm and poplar trees jutted above the gates. Samuil saw garden terraces on the rooftops; on a balcony, gathering the wash from a line, he saw a maid in uniform; on the walls of another villa Samuil saw what was unmistakably a swastika graffito.

— Imagine, another passenger said, they do not even remove such filth from the walls.

— In Leningrad such outrage would never be tolerated.

Rome was a city divided, the interpreter went on. Parioli, being home to wealthy and powerful people, was traditionally a Fascist neighborhood. Other neighborhoods were Communist in nature. Typically, one could identify them by their graffiti. Fascists or Communists, all Italians liked to write on walls. This should come as no surprise given the Italian origin of the word “graffito.” That said, it was illegal to deface public property and any émigré found doing so would risk criminal charges. But this was getting off topic. A complete list of things that were forbidden to them would be provided at the first Joint meeting. Meanwhile, if they looked out their window to the right they would be able to see a section of the Villa Borghese park. It was a good place to go for a walk or for a picnic. It also contained a museum with an impressive art collection. Not to be missed was The Rape of Persephone, a masterpiece by the sculptor Bernini.

4

In Vienna, Alec and Polina had had a tiny, but private, room. In Rome they had no such luck. Karl, Rosa, and the boys were given a room of their own but Alec and Polina were directed to share a room with Samuil and Emma on the fourth floor of the hotel. The elevator was either broken or off-limits, it wasn’t exactly clear which. On the ground floor, a sign composed in both Russian and Italian had been posted on the elevator doors. In one script was written, Elevator is not functioning, though in another script someone had scribbled the words “For Russians” before the word “Elevator.” To ensure that nobody misunderstood the prohibition, the hotel’s manager planted himself in front of the elevator doors. He was a grim little man, his face a mask of blunt suspicion. To Alec he seemed like a bad comic actor. The effect was reinforced by the man’s red hair, which he styled in a pompadour roughly the size and hue of a cheap fox fur hat. Who could get angry at an Italian gnome with a red pompadour? Alec mentioned this to a man who lurched past him, crippled by the bulk of two suitcases. The man hissed curses at the manager as he mounted the stairs.

— Swine. Son of a whore. — What’s the point? He’s a clown.

— How many floors do you have to climb?

— Four.

— So who’s the clown?

Theirs was one of the rooms not equipped with a toilet. A shared bathroom was down the hall. It served three other rooms, each occupied by four people. Karl, who helped Alec bring up their bags, recommended the use of their bathroom. It would demand climbing another flight of stairs, but at least they would not be hostage to the bowel and hygiene peculiarities of a dozen strangers.

When Karl returned to his room, Polina stated to Alec that she’d rather take her chances with strangers than ask Rosa’s permission every time she had to pee. From his parents’ half of the room there was silence. Alec didn’t need to look to confirm the magnitude of his father’s disapproval; he was an expert in the many tones of his father’s silences. He could have written a dissertation about them.

— We had it much worse during the evacuation, Emma said. People would have paid anything to have such a room for even one night.

Samuil remained silent. He refused to respond to Emma’s pacifying overture, even though the war was one of his favorite subjects.

— You know, I’ve thought about it, Emma said, and what is this except another evacuation? Emigration, evacuation; I don’t see such a difference. At least this time everyone is together.

— Think before you speak, Samuil said. In the war you ran from the enemy. Now who are you running from?

To Alec’s relief, this interlude of family harmony was interrupted by a knock on the door. Alec hopped over a suitcase, opened the door, and was greeted by the momentarily startled face of Iza Judo. Alec, whose own expression must have mirrored Iza’s, could not at that instant imagine a less likely visitor. He said the only thing that came to his mind.

— Iza, how did you know we were here?

Iza shrugged ambiguously.

— I heard, I guess.

Alec had never been so happy to see Iza Judo — hadn’t supposed that the sight of Iza Judo could bring him happiness. They had never been close friends. Sometimes they socialized in the same company. In the summers, they played soccer together on the beach in Jurmala. He’d never particularly liked Iza, preferring Iza’s brother, Syomka. The two were identical twins, although nobody would ever mistake one for the other. Iza had shaved his head when he enrolled in the Institute of Sport, where he specialized in judo. Syomka grew his hair long and studied engineering and languages to become a translator of technical literature.

Alec tried to think back to when he would have seen Iza Judo last. He remembered a small party at the dacha of a friend. There had been half a dozen men and four women. Alec and his friend had met two girls at a café and invited them back to the dacha. Iza had arrived later with other friends and two girls. One of the girls had been very drunk and she had wedged herself at the kitchen table with a guy named Robik. Robik presumably held something in a closed fist and the girl kept whining, incessantly and mind-numbingly, for him to show her what it was. Robik, show me. Come on, Robik, show me. Robik, show me. At the same time Iza had been trying to make headway with the other girl. The girl was slight and dark. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she had an idea of herself. Part of this idea included the belief that she was too good for Iza Judo. She was also sober. When she was no longer willing to tolerate Iza she tried to leave. Iza blocked her way and then, somehow, managed to catch her head in the door. That nearly ruined the evening. The girl threatened to call the police, but eventually she calmed down, accepted a drink, and spent the night with Alec’s friend. Alec spent the night with the girl he met at the café. He no longer remembered her name. Mainly what he remembered was that as a child she had owned eleven pet bunnies. Even then, when he spoke of her, he referred to her as Eleven Bunnies.

Alec invited Iza in and cleared a place for him on the bed. Iza seemed to deliberate over the invitation. Hanging from his shoulder by a vinyl strap was a medium-size valise. Iza eyed this valise before he finally accepted the invitation and picked his way through the bags to take his seat.

— I wish we had something to offer you, Emma said. But as you can see …

— Don’t trouble yourself, Iza said.

— I’m surprised you’re still here, Alec said.

— Australia. Even the embassy is run by kangaroos. We’ve waited seven months.

— Before you left, Syomka mentioned an uncle in New Jersey.

— He lives in a home for geriatrics. We’ve never even seen a picture of him. If we’d gone to visit him and a nurse wheeled out the wrong old Yid we wouldn’t have known the difference.

— So why Australia?

— First, Syomka heard good things. Second, for America, they fly you out of Rome in about a month. But Syomka thought, We’re in Italy, what’s the hurry? So I thought, All right. New Jersey or Sydney: once we get there it will be all the same shit. Pardon my language, Emma Borisovna. And what about you?

— Chicago.

— You have relatives?

— My mother’s cousin from Vilnius, Alec said. They settled two years ago.

— Chicago’s a big city. I don’t know much about it. But people go there.

The conversation then hit an uncomfortable lull. Iza sat on the bed, at something of a loss. Alec kept expecting him to give some indication as to why he had come to see them, but Iza offered nothing and looked instead as if he was hoping that someone would explain the same thing to him. Eventually, Emma eased the awkwardness and asked Iza about his parents.

— Still there. My brother-in-law doesn’t want to leave. He’s the transport coordinator at the fruit and vegetable terminal. They live well. Everywhere he goes he carries a watermelon. My sister has the two kids. Our parents don’t want to leave without them. Me and Syomka, they’re happy to be rid of. They figure we’ll settle somewhere first and then it will be safer for the others to follow. We’re like the minesweepers.

— I’m sure that’s not what they think, Emma said.

— Maybe; maybe not. In any case, they didn’t want to be separated from the grandchildren. I don’t blame them.

— Of course not. A family should stay together, said Emma, intoning what had effectively become her anthem.

— And how do your parents feel about Australia? Samuil asked.

— They are getting used to the idea.

— You didn’t consult with them before you decided?

— We are here, they are there, you understand. If the day comes when they are able to join us — and I hope it will — then they will have to come to Australia. Or, if they don’t like it, they can always go to Israel. This may not sound very nice, but it’s the truth. Now, of course, you are traveling as one family and so, naturally, it is better.

— Naturally nothing. It remains to be seen what is better, Samuil said.

With that, Iza rose and excused himself. He had enjoyed his visit but had to attend to some affairs. For practical advice, he recommended settling in Ladispoli instead of Ostia. Ostia was overrun by Odessans. Ladispoli was populated more by people from Moscow, Leningrad, Latvia, Lithuania. In short, it was more civilized. But both towns were on the seashore. Both were close to Rome by train. If they liked, he would make himself available to help them find an apartment. Having lived there for seven months, he knew the system. He could protect them from the meklers, the unscrupulous apartment brokers. And, if they required, with his experience, he could also help in other ways. For instance, if they had optical equipment — cameras, lenses, telescopes — to sell, he could secure them a much better price than they would get on the open market.

— That’s very generous, Emma said, as Alec accompanied Iza out of the room.

In the hallway, when Alec said goodbye to Iza, he noticed a handful of men roaming from room to room, knocking on doors each with his own shoulder bag.

— Well? Samuil said, when Alec returned.

— Well, Alec replied.

— Glad to see your friend?

— What do you think?

— I just hope you didn’t agree to sell him anything.

— Of course not.

— Or tell him what we have. All the time he sat there, his eyes were on our bags.

— I said, Thank you and goodbye.

— With a character like that, what he can’t buy he’ll steal.

— I wouldn’t worry about Iza, Alec said. I know him. If he poses a danger to anyone it’s to himself.

They had no other visitors. After they put the room into some semblance of order, Samuil reluctantly followed Emma up the steps to see Karl and the grandchildren. In their former life, Alec had never seen his father do anything reluctantly. He did what he wanted or he did nothing at all. Almost in spite of himself, Alec couldn’t help pitying his father — even knowing that the only reason Samuil consented to climb the flight of stairs was that he preferred to sit in a room with Karl, Rosa, and the boys than to sit in a room with Alec and Polina.

— Quick, Alec said, before they come back.

— I haven’t slept. I haven’t washed, Polina said.

— Sleeping, washing. You’re the most beautiful woman in Rome.

Polina gazed at the squalid, overheated little room.

— This is Rome?

— We could open a window.

In the afternoon, everyone was called down to the cafeteria for lunch. Since the Joint Distribution Committee had yet to provide them with Italian currency, the meal was furnished by the hotel. Two Italian waitresses shuffled through the cafeteria, dispensing bread rolls and apricot preserves. For families with bambini they also brought milk. After the rolls were exhausted the waitresses disappeared into the kitchen. It soon became evident that the rolls constituted the entire meal.

— This must be a mistake, Rosa said.

Later, when they were served a dinner of lettuce followed by macaroni, a former dissident circulated a petition among the émigrés. He promised to file a formal grievance with both HIAS and the Joint. A number of people signed, though Alec declined and Karl forbade Rosa from adding her name.

— These people control our fate and you want to antagonize them because of a salad? Karl said.

When his turn came, Samuil sneered at both the petition and the petitioner.

— I didn’t sign your petitions before and I don’t intend to start now.

— What do you mean by “your” petitions, comrade? retorted the dissident.

— You know very well what I mean. It’s lucky for you we are no longer back home, because, over there, I assure you, no Zionist agitator would be so quick to call me comrade.

— My luck then, comrade, the dissident said, and moved on.

Alec, Samuil, Polina, and Emma retreated to their room. In one suitcase, Emma had stashed several dozen packets of dehydrated chicken noodle soup. In the same suitcase, she also found a box of crackers. Polina had several cloves of garlic, four potatoes, and a Spanish onion which she had bought in Vienna. There was also half the salami that she’d packed for the train. Alec withdrew a pot from one of the duffel bags and lined up with his neighbors by the bathroom to fill it with water. Everyone in line held either a pot or a kettle. Back in the room Emma set the pot to boil on a glowing hot plate. On another hot plate, Polina had placed a frying pan into which she deposited sliced onions and potatoes. The water had just started to boil when the lights in their room dimmed, flickered, and then cut out entirely. Immediately, shouts and curses rang through the hotel. Alec waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and then, by the vestigial glow of the hot plate, sought out the bag that contained their flashlights. The flashlights were jumbled in with windup, skittering toy chicks; tin Red Army soldiers; pocket knives; abacuses; miniature wooden chess sets. As a mark of Soviet ingenuity, the flashlights did not require batteries. They were mechanical, powered by a long metal trigger. One repeatedly pumped the trigger, thereby generating light and a faint buzzing sound.

Pumping his flashlight at the rate of a quick pulse, Alec stepped out into the hallway. Other people emerged from their rooms also pumping their little flashlights. The effect was reminiscent of the countryside at dusk. It was as if, one after another, nocturnal insects were awaking to pursue their nightly business. Before long, Alec could no longer distinguish individual sources. The buzzing lost all cadence and dominated the hotel. Alec heard it from the floors above and below and, all around, he saw the flitting yellow halos cast by the low-wattage bulbs. Not far from him, crouched against the wall, a boy spooned soup from a metal bowl which his mother illuminated by flashlight. Alec looked the length of the hallway and saw doors open to every room, the occupants peering out or congregating in groups. At the end of the hall, a man strummed a guitar and sang the first line of a melancholic war ballad: Dark night, only bullets whistle on the steppe. Interspersed throughout the hallway, other voices joined in and obliged him to continue. Alec passed an elderly woman who leaned against the railing, like a bygone movie heroine, singing, immersed in sentiment. For the first time, a sense of community pervaded. People suspended their quarrels and commiserated about the shitty hotel: no elevator, no food, no power.

As Alec turned back toward his room he heard the familiar piercing voices of his nephews. There was a bounding on the stairwell and two darting beams of light. The boys raced down the steps and then along the hallway, shining their lights into people’s faces. The boys were seven and five; the two-year age difference half that of his and Karl’s. Yury, the elder, and the more reserved of the two, looked like Karl, square and sturdy, and tried to emulate Karl’s laconic manner. Zhenya, on the other hand, though only five, showed the ill effects of his mother’s and grandmother’s coddling. He was overfed and impudent — qualities that Alec hoped he would outgrow. Emma was fond of pointing out that he himself had been a hundred times worse than Zhenya at that age.

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.

5

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.

With feeling and conviction, the boy chimed:

— When Lenin was little / With a head of boyish curls / He also gamboled happily / Upon the snowy hills / Stone upon stone / Brick upon brick / Gone is our Lenin, Vladimir Illich / Deep in the Kremlin / A kind heart resides / Sad are the workers / Sad too am I.

By the conclusion of the poem, others had turned to listen and when the boy was finished there was a smattering of applause.

— Now do one about Brezhnev, a man called.

— Don’t be coarse, a woman responded.

— Pay him no mind, a third added.

— Very nice, Polina said to the boy as he relaxed his pose.

— If you can believe it, he knows more of them than I do, the boy’s mother said.

— You must be very proud.

— Thank you. I wish I could take the credit. But it was the kindergarten. Where are you from?

— Riga.

— Do you know Leningrad?

— Hardly at all.

— Do you have children?

— No, Polina said.

— Well, there is a wonderful kindergarten. The best in the city. My husband pulled every string, called in every favor. We had money saved for a car, but once we learned there was a chance, we parted with nearly all of it. It’s probably the same in Riga.

— Probably.

— It was a wonderful kindergarten. Excellent teachers. Progressive pedagogical methods.

— All right, she understands, the husband interrupted, the kindergarten was good.

— At recess the children played in an apple orchard, the wife continued.

— This is her big regret, the husband said. The kindergarten.

— He says that now, but you should have seen him when we picked up Vadik from the kindergarten for the last time.

— Well, the fact of the matter is, I’ve heard mixed things about the educational standards in America, the husband said. Students in the fourth grade who don’t know the capital of France, can’t do simple arithmetic or sign their names.

Inside the classroom, Polina eased into one of the little school desks. Alec appeared and slid into the place directly behind her, even though there was an empty desk beside her.

— I like this better, Alec said. It’s like a fantasy.

— Which fantasy is this?

— The two of us in school together. Young love.

— This is a new one?

— Hard to keep track.

— So how does it go? You pull my braids, dip them in the inkpot?

— I sit all day and admire you. Stare at the back of your neck. Dream about you. Get yelled at by the teacher.

During the orientation, as the woman from the Joint was speaking, Polina twice had to reach back and slap at Alec’s hand when he tugged her hair.

— Are you even listening to what she’s saying? Polina whispered.

— After class, meet me in the hall. I’m having difficulties with algebra, Alec said.

When the orientation was over, Alec leaned forward and said he thought they should rent an apartment in Rome.

— So you were paying attention for that, Polina said.

As part of her talk, which escalated sometimes into a harangue, the woman from the Joint had dissuaded people from trying to rent apartments in Rome. The best and most expedient housing solution for everyone was to be found in Ostia and Ladispoli, where the Joint and HIAS had established satellite offices. Ladispoli and Ostia also now boasted Jewish community centers, created for the émigrés, where there were regular lectures, cultural events, and even programs for children. That past March, in Ladispoli, a professional director, formerly of the Moscow Theater, had helped stage a spectacular Purim pageant. And in April, in Ladispoli as well as Ostia, with the help of the Italian Jewish community, they had managed to organize Passover seders for more than one thousand people. Needless to say, these were very moving celebrations.

— If the Romans are heading to the shore to escape the heat, it might be easier to find a place in the city, Alec said. — I don’t think it’s a good idea, Polina said. — You’re not serious.

— Your family will be in Ladispoli and we’ll be in Rome?

— That’s part of the appeal.

— They’ll say it was my idea, Polina said.

— No they won’t.

— They’ll think it.

— I’ll make it clear, Alec said.

— I’d be happier if you left things alone, Polina said. — Happier sharing an apartment in the suburbs with Rosa? You’d be miserable.

— A happier miserable, Polina said.

6

In Ladispoli, the hub of Russian activity was Piazza Marescotti, a short distance from the beach. It served as bazaar, employment agency, and social club. When they arrived, Alec saw an old man holding a sign that advertised tutoring in math and physics. Another man offered English lessons. There were women offering to mind children. A few people, men and women both, had also spread blankets on the ground and laid out a selection of small items. Many others were there just to trade gossip and kill time.

Karl was the first to spot a familiar face. It belonged to Boris Tsiferblatt, known at the Riga Dynamo gym as Boris the Bodybuilder. He was at the piazza advertising his services as a mover.

— I see you’re putting your training to good use, Karl said after an enthusiastic greeting.

— I’ve got my hand in a few things, Boris said. But people come and go every day. It’s a good way to make a little extra money.

They had left Rosa behind with the children, and traveled together to look for a place to live and also to make a phone call to Emma’s cousin in Chicago. It was a Tuesday, one of two days when Emma’s cousin had written that she could be found at home. On other days she had her job at the bakery, her driving lessons, her English classes.

On account of his sideline, Boris said that he sometimes got leads on apartments. The day before, he’d seen a family off to Philadelphia. They’d had a good three-room apartment. In the coming days, he knew of other people going to Baltimore and San Francisco. San Francisco: in the Soviet Union the name had possessed magic. California. America. Australia. Canada. Now when people spoke of these places, they spoke mainly about the relative strengths of their economies or the nature of their industries. Boston was in decline. Hadn’t New York City filed for bankruptcy? Calgary, mind you, was booming. They compared climates. San Francisco was wonderful if you didn’t mind rain every day. Atlanta was forty degrees in the shade and you were lucky to find a white cop. San Francisco had the ocean and a famous bridge; New York City had culture and phenomenal buildings. To live in these places you could marvel at them every day, but who did? In the same way you took a beautiful girl and made her into a wife. The wife remained enchanting, full of mystery, to everyone else. Strange men saw her on the trolleybus, concocted brute or intricate fantasies of seduction, while you waited for her to come home with the groceries and wash your socks.

— We are six adults and two children, Emma said.

— It’s not impossible, Boris replied. Maybe not an apartment, but a small cottage. There are cottages.

From Piazza Marescotti they went south along Via Ancona to the post office, which housed the international call center. It had a small seating area where people waited for their calls to be connected. One operator accepted the phone orders from behind a long wooden counter. Beyond the seating area, three numbered phone booths were visible. From one of them, Alec heard a man’s hoarse voice shouting in Russian. I can’t hear you well. Can you hear me? The furs? The furs? Hello? Mentka, you hear me? Yosik wrote you what? Your furs? He was with us at the border. He’s a liar. He saw with his own eyes that the furs were confiscated.

Holding a piece of paper with her cousin’s name, address, and phone number, Emma approached one of the operators at the counter. Karl, Alec, and Samuil drew up to the counter with her while Polina found a chair beside the window. The operator was a woman in her middle thirties, plump though not unattractive, with a hairstyle too fashionable for her job and her face. Because of her hairstyle, Alec expected her to be curt or impatient, but she listened attentively as Emma repeated the words “Chicago, Illinois, America” and her cousin’s name, and pointed to the digits of the phone number as they were written on the slip of Soviet graph paper. Emma looked meaningfully at the operator, as if, in the absence of a shared language, concentration and desire could effect understanding. The operator peered back at Emma. Then she pointed to Emma and spoke one word. When Emma didn’t respond, she continued to point and said several more words, hoping, perhaps, that given a broader choice of words, Emma might encounter one she recognized.

— What did she say? Emma asked Alec.

— I don’t know.

The operator pointed to herself and drawled: “Gisa.”

— What does she want? Emma directed her question nonspecifically at Alec, Karl, and Samuil.

— Your name, Samuil grumbled. Tell her your name.

They had spent immoderately on the train to Ladispoli. But Samuil hadn’t wanted decisions made about an apartment without him; Alec had insisted that Polina come and see the place for herself. To compensate for the expense, Emma had planned ahead and instructed everyone to conserve their dinner rolls from the previous evening. Rosa had sent them off with lingonberry jam from her private stash, and so, as they waited for their call to be connected, Emma unpacked the bread and jam and prepared their lunch. Sharing the waiting area with them were an elderly Italian, an Arab laborer in stained jeans and work boots, and the wife of the Russian man who denied stealing his friend’s furs.

The Russian completed his telephone call and left with his wife. (“So?” his wife asked as they walked out the door. “You’d think I hadn’t done enough for him,” the man spat.) The operator connected the Italian, and Alec watched as he limped to his designated booth. Every few minutes Emma checked her watch.

— What do we do? Emma asked.

— We’ve already waited an hour. You want to cancel the call? Samuil asked.

— Rosa is waiting with the children. What will she think?

— She’ll think. She’ll think we’ve been delayed, Karl said.

— If we knew how to call the hotel, Emma said, they could inform Rosa and maybe put our food aside.

— Do we know how to call the hotel? Samuil asked.

— No, Emma said.

— So why blabber about it?

— I only thought, Emma said dejectedly.

Just then, the operator’s phone rang.

— Emma. Numero due, the operator said, and motioned to the appropriate booth.

Emma sprang up and rushed to the booth, beckoning for the others to follow.

— Hurry, so everyone can have a chance to speak, she said.

Everyone rose, except for Polina, who shook her head and said, The woman doesn’t know me. Go on. You talk.

The woman didn’t know Alec all that well either. He had seen her perhaps three times in his life. She was his mother’s first cousin. As children they had been close. They had, in fact, shared the family house. During the war, they had evacuated together and spent the war years in the Kara-Kalpak region of Uzbekistan. Shura, the cousin, had met her husband there and, after the war, settled in Vilnius, his town. Emma had meanwhile returned to their house in Latvia, and soon was married to Samuil. Over the intervening years they had corresponded. On occasion, Emma visited Vilnius. More frequently, her cousin came to Riga.

When Alec reached the booth, Emma already had the receiver to her ear and was raising her voice.

— Shura, she repeated, is that you? It’s very difficult to hear. Hello?

Emma looked imploringly at Samuil and Alec.

— You can’t hear her? Alec asked.

— Shurachka, can you hear me? Emma asked again. She paused and pressed the receiver tighter to her ear. There. Now I hear you. Yes, I hear you, she said.

In a letter they’d received in Vienna, Shura had written about the secondhand car her husband had purchased. It was two-tone, green and gold, and larger than a Volga. Her husband had a job half an hour’s drive from their apartment. He was fifty-six years old and, in his entire life, had never operated a car. But he had passed for his license on the first attempt and was now driving on an eight-lane American highway. Shura was also learning to drive the car. Because of the car’s size, her husband had fashioned blocks for the pedals and she sat on a feather pillow, which she stored in the trunk along with the spare tire.

She’s been in America only four months but look at what she’s done, Emma had said after reading the letter. It’s hard to believe that she’s the same person.

Alec tried to imagine his mother in similar circumstances. In Riga, his father had owned a car, a Zhiguli, which he drove poorly and infrequently. Arturs took him to work and, when the need arose, Samuil expected either Karl or Alec to drive him where he wanted to go. Otherwise, the car sat in the garage, halfway across town. Samuil recorded the mileage on a pad to ensure that neither Karl nor Alec took the car out for their pleasure. It never occurred to anyone that his mother might also want to drive it.

Some of the photos that Shura sent depicted her and her husband in the parking lot outside their apartment building, smiling in front of their car. Other photos showed them in downtown Chicago, set against a formidable panorama of receding buildings. There were also photos that they’d taken inside their apartment. One was of Lyona, Shura’s husband, with a bottle of beer at the kitchen table; another was of Shura, her hand resting on a velour sofa, flanked by a floor lamp taller than she.

— For God’s sake, don’t bother with trivialities, Samuil hissed when Emma asked Shura about the weather.

— Other than Rosa and the children, we are all here. In a moment I’ll let everyone say hello, Emma said.

The conversation proceeded for a minute or two along typical lines until Emma came to the point and asked her cousin about sponsorship.

— What happens, Emma asked, do you send your form to HIAS, or do they send something to you?

After this, there was a lengthy pause, during which Emma nodded her head and said nothing. Then she said, Yes, I’m still here. I hear you. I hear you. I understand. No need to apologize, I understand. Yes, of course, I understand. Naturally. All right. Would you still like to say hello to everyone?

— What is she saying? Samuil asked.

— Spin the globe, Karl said.

— Another time then, Emma spoke into the phone. Of course. Of course, I will write you. Yes. Certainly. Send my best to everyone.

Emma replaced the phone and tried to put on a brave face. The way she looked, Alec feared she would crumble if Samuil started to berate her.

— Well, Samuil said.

— Let her at least step out of the booth, Alec said.

— They got a letter saying that Lyona’s brother’s visa was approved, Emma said. They’d been under refusal for two years. What could she do?

— What could she do? She could keep her promise, Samuil said.

— It’s Lyona’s brother and his family. He’s a brother. How could they deny them?

— I didn’t know you had your heart set on Chicago, Alec said.

— What do I care about Chicago? Samuil said. Where I want to go, the door is closed. This is about principle.

— She feels horrible, Emma said.

— Not so horrible that she wouldn’t betray you.

— We already shipped the furniture, Karl said, shaking his head. She doesn’t have anyone else in Chicago who could sponsor us?

— I don’t know, Emma said. She didn’t say. I didn’t think to ask.

Emma was still halfway inside the booth when she said this, and as Samuil, Karl, and Alec started to walk back to the counter, she remained rooted in place.

— What are you waiting for? Samuil asked, either not noticing or ignoring that she had started to cry.

For all his mother’s agonizing and worrying, and for the harsh treatment she often received from Samuil, Alec rarely saw her cry. As a boy, after an argument with Samuil, he would often hear the unmistakable sounds of her crying behind his parents’ bedroom door. Later, by the time Alec was old enough to understand the reasons for those arguments, they had subsided. New arguments replaced them, the subject typically concerning his and Karl’s questionable behavior and misdirection. These arguments were conducted in the open, and didn’t merit tears. They participated in them as a family and, in time, the arguments standardized into the routine that represented life at home. It wasn’t until the talk of emigration that his mother found reason to cry again. If one of these arguments escalated beyond a certain point, she would leave the room. Karl and Samuil and Alec would then fall silent, temporarily chastened by her muffled sobs.

Now, in the telephone booth, with no place to hide, Emma cried openly. At first, she allowed only a few quiet tears, but after Samuil barked at her, she dropped her shoulders and covered her face with her hands.

A long interval followed during which nobody moved. They remained in this awkward standoff until Polina rose, walked over to Emma, and gently placed a hand on her elbow.

She leaned close to Emma and Alec heard her whisper, Emma Borisovna, come and let’s sit for a minute.

Emma kept her hands over her face but allowed Polina to lead her to the seating area. Polina sat down and eased Emma into the chair beside her.

— It’s nothing terrible, Polina said as she stroked Emma’s shoulder.

The dramatics had attracted the attention of the phone operator and the Arab laborer, both of whom turned their heads to observe her — the phone operator with evident concern. Karl and Samuil, meanwhile, stood several paces away, in the neutral space between the seating area and the operator’s counter.

— What are you crying for? Samuil demanded.

— It hurts, so I cry, Emma said, lifting her eyes above her hands.

— Cry, then. For all the good it will do.

— It’s like a bad dream, Emma despaired. I can’t believe it has happened.

— What’s not to believe? Samuil countered. It’s your own dream. You wanted it. You got it. So don’t complain.

— Now we have nowhere to go, Emma said, wiping her cheeks with the base of her hand.

— Why? On the contrary, now we can go anywhere, Alec said.

— It’s possible, Karl said, that we could still get into Chicago. Anyone can apply. We could explain our situation to HIAS.

— I will not live in the same city as those people, Samuil decreed.

— Chicago is a big place, Karl said.

— They have spat in our faces. I will not associate with them.

— Oh, for fuck’s sake, Karl fumed.

— Don’t you curse at me, Samuil thundered.

— Louder, Alec said, they can’t hear us across the street.

Samuil strode indignantly ahead on the return trip to the train station, where he announced that their straggling had cost them one train, with the next one not due for another forty-five minutes. At this rate, he assured them, they would miss dinner.

To their mutual displeasure, he was correct.

7

In the morning, soon after Karl had departed for Ladispoli to renew the search for an apartment, a doctor from the Joint arrived with, to everyone’s surprise, a young Italian man who spoke a very passable Russian.

— I am studying Russian at university, the young man said and added proudly, I am a Communist.

— Then it may interest you to know, Alec said, that my father, the very man you see before you, once caught Molotov’s hat when it was blown from his head by a gust of wind. — I don’t need a doctor, Samuil said.

— I’m sorry, comrade, the interpreter said, running his finger along a column in a file. It is mandatory for persons over sixty years of age or for those who have an illness.

— What does it say there about me? Samuil asked. — It gives your year of birth as 1913 and your age as sixty-five. Is that correct?

— You can tell your doctor that there is nothing wrong with my health, Samuil said. Tell him that I was already poked and prodded in Vienna.

While the doctor examined Samuil, Polina and Alec left the room. With Chicago a dead issue, Rosa seized the moment to advocate for Israel, where, she did not need to remind them, her parents and brother were enjoying a comfortable life surrounded by their own people. And unlike Emma’s relatives, her family would not spurn them. How many times had they already extended invitations? The Israeli government would provide for their basic needs. They would not be guests in a foreign country, but rather valued citizens residing in their ancestral homeland. When Rosa uttered the words “ancestral homeland” she managed, pointedly, to avert her face completely from Polina.

— The ancestral homeland will always be there, Karl said.

— I wouldn’t be so sure, Rosa said.

— Well, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

— No thanks to the likes of you or your brother, Rosa said.

— Why bring me into this? Alec said. I said before that Polina and I were willing to go to Israel. Or at the very least Egypt. I hear good things about Cairo. Especially now that there will be friendship among nations.

— Everything is a joke to you, Rosa said.

— Who’s joking? I expect Sadat and Begin, arm in arm, to personally greet us at the airport, Alec said.

Throughout the discussion—Zionists! — Samuil’s unspoken epithet swelled above them like dark wrath.

— What do you think, Polina? Rosa asked. Alec does all the talking. We never hear from you.

— I don’t know enough to feel strongly one way or another, Polina said.

— You understand that you’re talking about your own life, your own future, Rosa persisted.

— Thank you, I understand that, Polina said.

Nothing was resolved. The word “Queens” was uttered and New Jersey was referred to several times. A fledgling community of acquaintances from Riga had settled in a town called Fehr-lon. If all else failed, they could say “Fehr-lon” and be no worse off than anyone else. Nobody expected an answer today, tomorrow, or the next day. More pressing was getting out of the pensione and finding an apartment, Karl said. Or two apartments, Alec offered, and received no argument.

There had been signs up at the pensione, and, evading the Krasnansky surveillance ring, Alec had also taken down the phone number of the listing at the Joint offices. Before the family conclave he had descended to the lobby and called the number. Another refugee had been in the phone booth ahead of him and, out of the goodness of his heart, he had shared with Alec his gettone. The man had drilled a tiny hole at the top of the gettone and tied it to a length of black thread. To make a phone call, he dropped the coin into the slot, listened for the click, and then — like toying with a cat — yanked it free of its grasp. He had performed the same operation on another coin, he explained, which he used in elevators.

The phone moaned twice before a man said, Pronto.

— Buonasera, Alec said, consulting a slip of paper on which he had copied out words from a phrasebook.

— Buonasera, the man said.

— Luigi? Alec inquired.

— Si, sono Luigi.

— Appartamento, Alec began, and then attempted to string his words together.

The man listened to him for a few moments before he interrupted, chattered very quickly in Italian, and then fell silent. Disoriented and intimidated, Alec stared at the telephone booth’s scarred wooden panel. Gathering himself, he tried again. A-ppar-ta-men-to. There was another pause, after which the man laughed. His laughter was ringing and hysterical, as if Alec had just told him the greatest joke. Still laughing, the man said, in what Alec was almost certain was a mocking tone, Appartamento?

— Si, appartamento, Alec said, now angry and humiliated.

— What kind of apartment are you looking for? the man asked, this time in fluent Russian.

Only seconds earlier, Alec had wanted nothing other than for the man to miraculously speak Russian, but now that he had, Alec had to restrain himself from hanging up in fury.

— I was calling for Luigi, Alec said.

— I’m Luigi, the man said.

— You’re Luigi? Alec asked.

— In Kishinev I was Lyova. In Netanya I was Arieh. Here I’m Luigi.

— And you have an apartment, Luigi?

— Si, the man said, and laughed again.

— Listen, just because I’m desperate for a place doesn’t mean I’ll deal with any lunatic, Alec said.

— Take it easy, Lyova-Luigi said. It’s a miserable world. Can’t a man amuse himself?

The price Lyova-Luigi quoted was almost reasonable and, speaking in the Soviet conspiratorial tone, he suggested they could possibly negotiate once they met in person. Alec considered this sufficient to propel him and Polina through the labyrinth of Rome. Wide, reassuring boulevards gave way to serpentine streets that seemed to double back on themselves or to terminate at the steps of gloomy churches. Sometimes teeming streets led to teeming squares, other times to courtyards occupied only by laundry and flower boxes. Often Alec suspected that a tiny street they had accidentally stumbled upon was a shortcut known only to locals, though, his being lost, the discovery was naturally of no use. Different blocks bore the marks of different centuries. Neighborhoods changed, but he could not interpret the changes. He could not have said with any conviction what kind of people lived where, or when a place should be visited or avoided.

Eventually they came to the river and crossed a bridge to the opposite bank. More stumbling and they began to see the names of streets Lyova-Luigi had mentioned. Trastevere, what the neighborhood was called, bore a distinct resemblance to Old Riga: dignified and ramshackle; three-story buildings; medieval streets, narrow and constricted, conducive to the spread of plague.

On Via Salumi they found the designated house: green shutters and a tangerine, peeling stucco exterior. Beside the frame of a wooden door, built to withstand marauders, was a line of buzzers. Alec depressed the little black nipple on the uppermost buzzer and then, through the door, heard the bolt and hinges of another door opening above and within, and then rapid footfalls beating the rhythm of staircase, landing, staircase, landing, staircase, landing. The door was pulled open; Lyova-Luigi stood before them and extended a long freckled hand.

— Lyova, he said. Welcome.

He was at least a head taller than Alec. His red hair and sideburns were chaos. His features were a series of conflicting planes: sharp, skeletal cheekbones; his nose a high, thin ridge; an Adam’s apple that was like a second nose in his neck. He wore steel, largeframed eyeglasses that magnified his blue eyes and their pink rims. When he spoke or smiled he exposed long teeth and the flesh of his upper gums. He was the kind of ugly man women found attractive. Alec had often seen very beautiful women clinging to men like Lyova. Speaking as if under the influence of some narcotic, women described these men as “interesting.” What the women meant was that they had faces that made you want to keep looking — which, for all practical purposes, was the same as handsome.

Alec and Polina followed him up the marble steps. On the third floor they went through the door which Lyova had left ajar. From the entrance, and to their right, they could see one large room that had been divided in half by a brocade curtain of green leaves on a black background. The far half of the room had windows, a single bed, an armoire, and a small television; the near half had a simple walnut table, four chairs, and a bookshelf with books and a telephone. To their left was a small kitchen, a door to the bathroom, and a third door, which was closed. Lyova walked ahead and opened it to reveal a larger bed with a headboard, a window, and a closet.

— I sleep here, Lyova said, and indicated the single bed behind the curtain. The other room would be yours. The table, the kitchen, and the washroom are shared. As you can see, it is clean. Everything works.

With a chivalrous gesture, Lyova invited Polina to inspect the place.

— Open anything you like, Lyova said.

When Alec didn’t give any sign to the contrary, Polina stepped into the kitchen and glanced at the cupboards and the stove.

— Where are you from? Lyova asked.

— Riga, Alec said.

— And where are you going?

— We’re still deciding, Alec said, and offered a summary of their recent reversal.

— It’s difficult to travel with a large Jewish family, Lyova said. Too many opinions. Like the joke about the couple that has sex on the street in Israel. Everyone who passes by tells them they’re doing it wrong.

— And what about you? Alec asked.

— Me? Lyova said.

— Where are you going?

Lyova raised his palms and exhaled contempt mixed with resignation mixed with despair.

— You’ve heard of Prisoners of Zion? Jews punished for Zionism? I’m the other kind of Prisoner of Zion. No country will take me. I lived in Israel, so I’m no longer a refugee. There is only one option: back to Israel.

— How long have you been here?

— Fifteen months.

— You won’t go back?

— I haven’t yet given up on the idea that I’m a free man in the free world. I lived in Israel. I worked. I paid taxes. I served in the army. I repaid my debt. Now I’d like to try somewhere else. Why not?

Polina moved from the kitchen to the bathroom. From the doorway, she peered into the bedroom.

— What do you think? Lyova asked.

— It’s fine, Polina said.

— You haven’t seen anything else yet, right? Lyova said. I understand, you have nothing to compare it to. But let me say, you won’t find a better arrangement in Rome. Within walking distance are cathedrals, parks, monuments, galleries. Also the Porta Portese, the Americana market. I never have trouble renting the space. Normally, tenants leave, I know in advance and the day they leave I have already replaced them. This time, I was giving a tour of Florence, Venice, and Milan, and so the place has been vacant three days. But already I have had seven calls. I try to be selective. I live here, after all, when I am not giving tours. Generally, I can spot an honest face. Your wife, for instance, has an honest face.

— I’ve always felt that, Alec said.

— About you I’m not so sure, Lyova said and smiled.

— She will vouch for me, Alec said.

— In that case, Lyova said.

8

My dear Brigitte,

I hope you received my last letters. I sent two from Vienna. I send this one from Rome. I am writing it at the table of our new apartment. When I look out the window I have a view of the street. Actually, it is a view across the street of another building. I can see into the window of an apartment where a bald Italian man is reading his newspaper and drinking his coffee. Not very exciting, I suppose. I realize I could have looked out the window and seen essentially the same thing in Riga, and it certainly wouldn’t have interested me or seemed like the sort of thing to include in a letter. But already I’ve looked up half a dozen times to see what he is doing. He’s caught me looking twice and smiled. He may think I’m in love with him, or he may be used to this sort of thing. The apartment that we’re living in has been rented by a continuous stream of émigrés. There must be different Russians staring at him each month. In New York and Melbourne and Miami there are people from Leningrad and Baku and Kiev whose memories of Rome include this man drinking coffee. Now mine will too. Wherever I end up.

This is what I wanted to tell you. It appears that we are not going to Chicago. Zoya’s cousin can no longer sponsor us. They have to take her husband’s brother instead. That was the reason she gave, in any case. There’s a joke that if you want to make an enemy for life just sponsor a relative. So maybe it’s for the best?

Now we must decide on some other city or country. Igor’s family can’t agree. I don’t see that it matters, wherever we go we will be among strangers.

So you see, I do not know how long we will be in Rome. Even if we are here a short while it will allow enough time for this letter to reach you and for your reply to get back to me. But you will have to write quickly. I’m eager to hear from you. It would make me so happy to receive a letter from you. It’s already been nearly a month since we last saw each other. I think about you every day and wonder how you are getting along and about how Mama and Papa are behaving toward you. So write to me and don’t go off daydreaming and delay. Your sister misses you.

There was more I wanted to tell you, too. I wanted to describe the new apartment — although there isn’t all that much to describe. It’s really just two rooms that we share with a man from Kishinev who has trapped himself in Rome because he doesn’t want to go back to Israel and no other government will take him. In Israel he has his parents, his wife, and a young son. He has been in Rome for more than a year. I don’t entirely understand why he won’t return, but I couldn’t even begin to list all the things I haven’t understood about some of the people we’ve met. But our roommate is otherwise perfectly fine. I think you would like him. We have been warned many times to be wary of people, but he seems honest. Or at least as honest as a person can be under the circumstances …

9

It was bad enough, Samuil thought, that he’d been forced to listen to Alec voice his decision to take an apartment separate from the rest of the family; it was worse that Emma, after acceding to Alec, underwent a complete and total conversion that manifested itself in a pressing need to see this new apartment. That was the way it was with his wife. She was a simple creature. He had always known this. She had been simple when he married her, but he had attributed her simplicity to the fact that she was hardly more than a girl. However, over the years, rather than acquire shadings and complexities, she had become simpler still. Her brain was in her womb. But if he was to be honest with himself, he hadn’t sought much more in a wife. He had believed that a household should have one head. When Samuil’s division had been driving the Germans from villages around Minsk there had been a woman partisan who had mounted an ammunition crate and harangued the soldiers. You fight as if you fear death more than you love your country! People said such things then. She was a bold and electric woman. In the ensuing battle Samuil had seen her charge a self-propelled gun and not die. But what sane man would want such a woman for a wife? Better Emma, one moment treating their grown son like a boy leaving Mama for the first time, the next gushing as if he were establishing a new home for himself and his bride.

— Of course, while the tsar and tsarina cozy up in their apartment we stay in the pensione, Rosa said during dinner.

— We leave the day after tomorrow, Karl said, not bothering to look up from his plate.

— Boys, Emma said, a dacha near the beach. Just like we had in Jurmala. Do you remember the dacha in Jurmala?

— Will there be bugs in my bed? Zhenya asked.

— Grandmother will make sure that there aren’t any bugs, my dear heart, Emma said.

— There were bugs in my bed in Jurmala, Zhenya said.

— In mine, too, Yury said.

The dacha in Bulduri had cost Samuil plenty. He had had to threaten, to cajole. It was a quarter of a kilometer from the beach, yet all his grandsons could remember were bugs in their beds.

Two days later, one of the Jewish agencies — HIAS or Joint, why bother keeping track? — sent a truck for their belongings. Alec, always an eager candidate for a joyride, volunteered to remain at the pensione to oversee the loading. The rest of them took the train. From the station Karl led them left and right until they reached a street of wooden bungalows and larger apartment buildings. Fruit trees grew in the yards. Hedges were manicured. Samuil had to concede that the street seemed altogether respectable. The apartment buildings were well maintained. On the balconies, Samuil saw potted plants, beach umbrellas, tables, and chairs. Through an open balcony door, he saw a woman contentedly sweeping. Passing them on the sidewalk were not only Italian children on bicycles, but also older Russian men, his coevals, promenading in leather sandals, looking the part of vacationers. They nodded at Samuil in greeting, as though recognizing one of their own.

Karl stopped in front of a bungalow the yellow of rancid butter. He lifted the metal hasp on a chain-link gate and proceeded down a short stone walk to the front door. He knocked and the door was opened almost instantly by his friend Boris the Bodybuilder. Boris looked over Karl’s shoulder at the agglomeration of the family Krasnansky and grinned beatifically, like the world’s master of ceremonies.

— Did I not promise you a suitable place?

The door was pushed open yet further so as to allow a dark-haired Italian woman with a baby in her arms to join Boris and Karl at the entrance. With the least shift of her eyes, Samuil saw the woman make a rapid assessment of her new tenants. Using an inquiring lilt, Samuil heard Boris utter what sounded like the Russian letters veh, beh. The woman nodded and repeated Veh beh, veh beh. She then handed Karl a silver key.

With a sweep of his hand, Boris beckoned everyone inside to acquaint themselves with their new home. The boys darted past Samuil’s legs, competing with one another to be first. The front doors led to a kitchen, with a gas stove and a narrow refrigerator, both of which would have been antiquated by Soviet standards. At the feet of the appliances and at the edges of the room, the linoleum floor bore some kind of pattern or relief, but it was worn smooth everywhere else. Through the kitchen, in the sitting room, Boris was demonstrating how the sofa unfolded to become a bed.

At the doorstep, Samuil observed Karl handing Boris a thin stack of bills. Boris went through the motions of protesting and trying to press the bills back onto Karl before he counted them out, returned one, and pocketed the rest. He then withdrew his hand from his pocket, waved goodbye, and bounded out into the yard.

— Some friend, your friend, Samuil said.

— I gave him what was rightfully his, Karl said. He didn’t ask for it.

— And what did his valuable services cost us? Samuil asked.

— Less than the going rate. But don’t concern yourself. I’ll answer for the money.

— If we both live in this palace, I’ll pay my share. I’ve not sunk so low as to depend upon my children’s charity.

— It has nothing to do with charity. I’ll answer for the money now. When the time comes for us to leave, I’ll find our replacements and get the money back with profit. It’s the way things work.

— Well, if that’s the way things work, Samuil said acidly.

Out on the street, there was the squeaking of brakes and the sound of an engine coming to rest. A truck door slammed and Alec jogged into the house, smoking a cigarette.

— The truck driver, eighteen years old, listens to Vysotsky. He has samizdat some émigrés have sold him and also recordings made in France. Doesn’t understand a word of Russian but sings all the lyrics to “My Gypsy Song.”

The young man kept his cassette player on and Vysotsky, whom the authorities had rightly censored for his cynical anti-Soviet attitude, rasped hoarsely as they, yet once more, unloaded their belongings. Once the truck had been emptied, Samuil went out the front door without a word of explanation and walked in what he determined to be the direction of the beach. He crossed the highway that ran the length of the shore, and removed his shoes and socks on a slab of concrete not far from an array of changing booths. It was the late afternoon on a weekday, if he could remember correctly (the days of the week bore little significance anymore), and the beach was not crowded. At random intervals, often with large gaps between them, people had laid out their towels and staked their umbrellas.

Samuil plunged his feet into the warm black sand, which he found to be pleasant, not scalding as it surely must be at midday, and pressed ahead to the firmer footing at the edge of the surf. A girl and a boy, dressed only in white underpants, crouched not far from him, digging at the wet sand with tin shovels. The boy wore a blue cap; the girl had a pink kerchief tied onto her head. Nearby, Samuil saw the children’s corpulent minder — a triangle of torn newsprint adhered to her nose. She wore a green woolen bathing suit, her stomach balanced like a watermelon in her lap. Substitute the color of the sand, and these same children, this same grandmother, could have been in Jurmala or Yalta. They looked and acted as if nothing had changed for them. One beach, one seashore, was as good as any other. The same sun shone down on their heads and shoulders. What did it matter to them where they were? How were they different from the birds who landed in one place or another, unmoored by allegiances or souls? What troubled them? That they might come home after a day at the beach to discover that there is no sour cream for their sunburned backs? After a life such as mine, Samuil thought, this is where I find myself. Somewhere I went wrong. But where? He looked up from his horned feet, along the retreating peaks of the sea, to the flat line of the horizon beyond which was France or Spain. This was the Mediterranean. From here one could sail to Greece or Israel. His own father and grandfather, trapped and murdered in their Ukrainian shtetl, had only dreamed of such a wonder. He would have gladly gone to his grave without ever having seen it either. After everything I sacrificed, Samuil thought, where did I go wrong? And then he allowed himself to submit to sentiment and grieve: Reuven, Reuven, look how I failed you.

10

Outside the Joint and HIAS building, a primly dressed middle-aged woman approached Alec and Polina. Alec had watched her and another man circulate through the crowd of émigrés, offering pamphlets.

— Do you speak English? the woman asked.

— A little, Alec said.

— And your wife?

— No.

— Well, perhaps we can be of help. The woman beamed, handing Alec a pamphlet. I am with an organization offering services. Free English classes and assistance with immigration processing, for example.

— What is your organization?

— We are with the Baptist Church.

— What is she saying? Polina asked.

— Jesus Christ wants to solve all our problems.

— That’s a relief.

As the woman filtered into the crowd of émigrés, Alec saw Karl, Rosa, the boys, and his parents advancing down the street. Before they could reach them they were intercepted by the woman’s associate, the other missionary. Shielding her children, Rosa refused his pamphlets and brushed the poor idiot aside. Alec hoped he wouldn’t try his appeal on Samuil. Alec remembered the day in the spring of 1961 when it was announced that Yuri Gagarin had become the first man in space. At nine years old, he’d been dizzied by the thought that a human being had traveled beyond the limits of the sky and, hovering in the blackness, had watched the clean blue globe of the planet rotate below. His father had repeated with great satisfaction Gagarin’s comment that he hadn’t seen any God up there. In his father’s presence, only a fool or a masochist would dare question the nonexistence of God.

— So I see you’re converting, Rosa said when she drew near.

— I’m keeping my options open. Besides, they’re offering free English classes.

— In a church? I’d rather pay.

— Karl might disagree.

— He’s right, I might disagree, Karl said.

— You see, Alec said.

— I think it’s disgraceful.

— I already speak English. I was holding them for you, but suit yourself, Alec said, and let the pamphlets drop to the pavement.

They had gathered at the office that morning to present themselves before a caseworker. The Joint would not furnish them with their stipend if they didn’t file papers for a destination. Rosa continued to agitate for Israel, even though two days before, Begin had officially rejected Sadat’s latest peace proposal. While in Beirut, the Syrians were shelling the Christians, and Israel was massing troops on its northern border. Alec, having successfully avoided the worst of Soviet military service, wasn’t aching to go from Ben Gurion Airport to boot camp. Getting killed or maimed in Lebanon, or Egypt, or wherever the bullets were flying, seemed to defeat the whole point of leaving the Soviet Union. Karl felt the same way and Rosa knew it. But when a man nearby loudly opined that Begin was allowing himself to be led down the garden path, that even Brezhnev would never be played for such a fool, Rosa interrupted and deflected the conversation onto the subject of the Shcharansky show trial.

— While the rest of the world condemns Brezhnev for Shcharansky you dare to compare him to Begin?

— One has nothing to do with the other, the man said.

— What are Shcharansky’s crimes? Being a Jew. Wanting to go to Israel. Tell me how the two are not related?

— He wants to go to Israel not because of Begin’s ridiculous peace with Egypt. If you want my opinion, he is willing to go in spite of it. He’s a true believer. If Israel was run by a group of half-wits who bayed at the moon — so long as they were Jewish — Shcharansky would go.

— Are you suggesting that Begin is a half-wit?

— Show me the proof he isn’t.

— Brezhnev is an anti-Semite. Begin is a Jewish hero.

— Tell me, please, if you’re such a patriot, what are you doing in Italy? As I recall, the plane for Tel Aviv departs from Vienna.

— My reasons are my own.

— All right, fine, the man said. Shalom aleichem.

In the crowded HIAS waiting room, Alec stood with Polina until he heard the name Krasnansky pronounced once and then a second time above the din. Alec looked around and saw Syomka Bender stepping over feet and picking his way through the room. Syomka wore a denim jacket, clearly a recent acquisition, but was otherwise unchanged. His face, intelligent and reserved, allowed the trace of a smile.

— I saw your name on the list, Syomka said, and got myself assigned to your file.

— I forgot, Alec said, Iza told us you worked here.

— That’s right, Syomka said, you saw my brother.

— We did.

— The less said about that the better, Syomka said. Follow me into the hall; it’s impossible to talk in here.

— Just me or all of us? Alec asked.

— All of you is probably best, Syomka said.

Karl and Alec had both been friendly with Syomka in Riga. They came across him at parties and at the beach in the summer. For a long time Syomka had dated the same girl. She was from a good family and was studying piano at the conservatory. There was general consensus that the two were ideally matched. At parties, everywhere, you never saw one without the other until it became impossible to imagine them apart. They shared the same disposition, quiet, clever, vaguely aristocratic. Even to each other they spoke little and yet seemed, as if by telepathy, to communicate and agree. More than once Alec had met them after a movie or a play and, just by the measured way in which they listened and considered what he said, he became convinced that they had understood the movie or the play at a level far deeper and better than he. Alec would walk away from these encounters slightly embarrassed but basically full of admiration. Almost everyone held the same opinion of them. Which was why their breakup, unremarkable for any other couple, acquired the level of scandal. Nobody could have predicted that Lilya Gordin might be discovered, unapologetic, in the arms of a cellist two years her junior. For two days afterward it was said that Syomka trailed the cellist. He didn’t confront him or say anything, he just waited outside his building and then shadowed him like a KGB agent. Alec never spoke of the breakup to Syomka. He didn’t know anyone who did. Syomka continued to show up at parties and at the beach, sometimes with his brother. Women treated him with kindness and uncertainty; his longtime unassailability and his eminent devastation conferred upon him the aura of the exotic. A girl explained that it was as if there was something monastic or virginal about Syomka, profoundly magnetic. But Syomka seemed to keep to himself until, very late one night, at Dzintari, after much drinking, a girl wanted a swimming partner and Syomka brushed the sand off his pants and volunteered. After that he was no different from anyone else.

In the hallway, Alec explained their predicament.

— We have contemplated New Jersey, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, and Seattle, Alec said.

— Do you want my advice? Syomka asked.

It was understood that the question was purely rhetorical. They lived in a fog of doubt and apprehension. Nobody refused advice.

— My advice, Syomka said, is Canada. Safer, cleaner, and in climate not all that different from Latvia. They have just increased their numbers. They want young, professional families.

— And our parents? Karl asked.

— Any serious health problems? Syomka asked.

Emma started to speak when Samuil cut her off.

— Nothing extraordinary for people our age, Samuil said.

— I can give you the forms for the United States, just in case. But now is a good time for Canada. I’d consider it myself but I’ve been waiting on Australia for so long I already feel Australian, Syomka said.

— Do we have to decide this second? Karl asked.

— No, you can think about it, Syomka said.

— We’ll think about it, Karl said.

— You can use the stairwell. It’s quiet. I’ll come and fetch you in ten minutes, Syomka said, and opened the door that led to the stairwell.

In the stairwell, Karl’s sons, sensing the gravity of the situation, hooted once to hear the echo, and then were silenced. Karl remained standing and leaned his back against the door.

— This is how you decide your family’s future, ten minutes in a stairwell? Samuil asked.

— Are we talking seriously about Canada? Rosa asked.

— I am, Karl said.

— Just like that you’re prepared to go and say Canada? What do we know about it? Rosa continued.

— What do we know about anyplace? Karl said. You watched the Olympics. You liked what you saw of Montreal. And in 1972 they also showed something of Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.

— You’re talking about the hockey games? Rosa asked incredulously.

— Da, da Canada; nyet, nyet Soviet, Alec said.

— If you have nothing intelligent to add, Rosa said.

— It’s more European than America, and more American than Europe.

— What does that mean? Rosa asked.

— It means, Alec said, that a person can eat and dress like a human being, watch hockey, and accomplish all this without victimizing Negroes and Latin American peasants.

— Basically, Karl said. Their dollar is also strong.

— It doesn’t concern you that we will have to stay for months in Italy? Rosa asked.

— That’s a reason against Canada?

— It’s something to take into account.

— Very well. I take it into account. We won’t be the only ones. We’ll manage. The boys will spend the summer at the beach. In the fall we’ll leave and they’ll start school.

— Now I’ll have to explain to my parents that we’re going to Canada, Rosa said, essentially to herself.

— What’s there to explain? Karl said. They understand how it is. One door closed, another door opened.

At this moment, Syomka reappeared. As he ushered Alec and Polina toward one of the small HIAS offices, Alec heard Syomka say to Karl, Now, for the rest of your lives you’ll remember me.

— For good or ill, it remains to be seen, Rosa said.

And then Alec and Polina were alone with their caseworker. The nameplate on her desk read Matilda Levy. She was a woman of a certain age whose hairdo, perfume, and bulky rings identified her as a fading continental beauty. Though Alec was certain that they had never met her before, she didn’t bother with the formality of introductions. Almost before he and Polina sat down Matilda recited what she believed to be the pertinent information.

— Riga, Matilda said, I knew it before the war. My father had business there. A European city. That works in your favor. The Canadian government prefers people from the Baltics. They took enough of them after the war, not a few of them Nazi butchers. You speak English?

— Yes, Alec said.

— Your wife doesn’t.

— No.

— But you we could use. Semyon said your English is as good as his. It could take six months or longer to process the papers for Canada. Meanwhile we could use you as an interpreter. It would mean eighty mila lire more for you each week. Come back tomorrow and I will explain everything. It isn’t very complicated. Now, we will have to make some appointments for you and your wife to see a doctor. You don’t have tuberculosis, do you?

— No, Alec said.

— They will x-ray you anyway. You both look healthy enough to me.

The woman proffered a document for them to sign.

— This is to confirm that you want to go to Canada. You will get a notice in the mail for the doctor’s appointment and for your interview with the Canadian consulate. A word of advice: if you want to go to Toronto, don’t ask for Toronto. Good? Good. Now, if you could call in your brother and his family.

Like that, Alec and Polina left the office. Karl, Rosa, and the boys entered in turn, then Samuil and Emma. Later, when Alec and Karl reconstructed the first meeting with Matilda Levy, neither could recall having ever told her that they had decided to change their destination from America to Canada.