The Winter Thief

42

Vera sat on a velvet-covered sofa in the publisher’s parlor, dressed in his daughter’s clothes. His wife fussed over her, refilling her tea and extending a plate of savory pastries. She was a comfortable-looking matron with snow-white hair swept up in a cloud above her face. Her daughter, with the same heart-shaped face, sat across the room, smiling at Vera, unable to hide the curiosity in her eyes.

Vera fought the urge to cry. She was reminded so strongly of her home in Moscow and of the kindness and decency of people, from the humble fisherman to this bourgeois family. She and her comrades believed that people were arrayed into opposing camps, the capitalist and the working classes, and that it was acceptable and even necessary to destroy one for the other. Yet here on the Agopian family’s sofa, their daughter’s satin slippers on her salved and bandaged feet, she sensed the contradiction of it and wondered idly what Gabriel would think of her finding refuge in the familiar surroundings of middle-class family life. She noted without emotion that it didn’t seem to matter to her whether he approved or not.

She concentrated on what she had to do next. She knew that her jailers had most likely been the secret police. But why were they holding Sosi? Did that mean they had arrested Gabriel too? Had Sosi managed to escape? Vera was unsure how much she could ask Monsieur Agopian to help her.

The publisher had made no inquiry when she had stumbled into his office, simply expressed his dismay at her condition and brought her home. Reluctant to tell him where she had been and what had happened, she was grateful that he didn’t press her. She hadn’t even told him her real name, which made her feel a bit ashamed. But she was reluctant to admit to lying to him at their first meeting. And somehow she had become used to being Lena Balian.

The publisher cradled a meerschaum pipe in his hands and nodded, his eyes on Vera’s face. She had the impression that he knew who she was and where she had been, although that was impossible. He leaned toward Vera and said in a warm voice, “Lena, if there is anything you wish to tell me in confidence, I can assure you it will go no further. Please let me help you.”

Vera wanted to tell him everything, but she seemed to have acquired a habit of suspicion that wouldn’t allow her lips to shape the words she wished to speak. “My name is Vera Arti,” she wanted to say. But then she would have to relate what had happened to her, and that she couldn’t do. Instead she nodded and said, “Thank you,” in a strangled voice.

Vera closed her eyes. Why didn’t she just ask Monsieur Agopian to help her find Sosi and Gabriel? He would send out word to the Armenian community, and the answer would flow back like driftwood on the tide of relations. Could things really be that simple? If she just sat here long enough, warm and comfortable and pampered, Sosi would come and sit by her side, and Gabriel would take her in his arms. She felt herself fall down a deep well toward oblivion.