“No. I want her back. I call her, write to her. I miss both of my children, perhaps Pulcharia most of all. It is almost her fourth birthday. I tell Maya I am changing. She doesn’t believe me. And, yes, even a day with my mother would have been enough to drive Lenin mad. I cannot explain my mood.”
“Nor can I,” she said, eating the rest of the apple puff. “But I will cease questioning it.”
“Proof,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Here are the tickets for the movie Yuri handed me. Take them. Go with Iosef.”
“Can’t,” she said. “We have other plans. Perhaps the new Sasha Tkach would like to take his mother.”
“It would be a true test,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I have taken my mother to movies in the past. It would be a true test. This morning, before I could escape, she followed me around, screaming that I should go to Kiev, beg Maya to come back. She said she would give me the money, that she would talk to Porfiry Petrovich. She misses her grandchildren. You know the Protopopovs, downstairs from us?”
“No.”
“It was so early and Lydia was so loud that they banged on the wall,” Sasha said. “I’m a policeman. They know it. Policemen don’t have their walls banged on. Even if you hear shots you don’t bang on a policeman’s wall. They banged.”
“What did you do?” Elena asked.
“After I escaped from my mother I knocked on their door and apologized,” he said. “Before Maya and the children left I would have pounded back and told the Protopopovs to be quiet. You see before you a very changed Sasha Tkach. Taking my mother to a movie will be the true test.”
There was a pause while Elena finished her coffee and Sasha gently drummed on the table with the fingers of his left hand and hummed tunelessly.
“Then I’m the niece?”
“Yes,” he said. “If you wish. And I will be a visiting producer from France. Would you like to hear my French accent?”
“I have heard it. It is fine. I will be the one making the exchange?”
“Yes,” said Sasha.
“I know what the movie is,” Elena said. “It’s English. Something called
“What is a monty?” Sasha asked.
“I don’t know. Some kind of container, I think.”
“You know if it has subtitles?” Sasha asked hopefully, mindful of the dangers of his mother’s poor hearing, which, coupled with her willfulness and determination, could easily bring an entire audience to its knees or send it in flight from the theater.
“I think it is dubbed,” she said.
“A true test,” he repeated.
Porfiry Petrovich had gone to see Avrum Belinsky alone. Iosef had no interest in joining him. Iosef’s interests lay elsewhere. Besides, Rostnikov had a reason for seeing the rabbi alone.
The walk from Pushkin Square was short so his leg did not protest as he moved. Rostnikov entered the small synagogue that had gone through several incarnations, from church, to government office where work permits were issued, to a minor tourist attraction with minimal restoration so that it resembled a church, and then to a synagogue.
Belinsky was by himself, not in his tiny office just to the left of the entrance, but at the rostrum on the small platform which Rostnikov knew was called a bema. Belinsky seemed to be lost in thought, a pen in hand, looking down at some papers.
Belinsky had been in Moscow only a few years. He had started a congregation and almost immediately had found the young men in his small congregation being murdered. Belinsky himself had almost been killed by the murderers, who had acted not out of a commitment to anti-Semitism but to drive the congregation out of existence and out of the synagogue where they knew a valuable bejeweled artifact was hidden. With Belinsky’s help, Rostnikov had caught the murderers. Now, the policeman and the rabbi were close to being friends.
Belinsky was a powerfully built man of average height. He had been a soldier, an extremely well trained Israeli soldier who was familiar with confrontation, sacrifice, and death. He had been chosen to go to Moscow precisely because he was determined and capable of taking care of himself and his congregation.
“Porfiry Petrovich,” Belinsky said, looking up with a smile and touching his short black beard.
“Avrum,” Rostnikov answered, deciding not to sit in one of the several dozen folding chairs that faced the platform on which the young rabbi stood.
“I was working on a sermon,” Belinsky said, moving away from the bema and approaching Rostnikov with his hand out.
The two men shook hands and Belinsky motioned for Rostnikov to take a seat. He could not refuse. Rostnikov did not trust wooden folding chairs. They had disappointed him in the past. He sat carefully and the rabbi turned one of the chairs around to face him.
“I was in Pushkin Square,” Rostnikov said.
“And you decided to pay me a visit,” said Belinsky.
Rostnikov nodded. “But that is not all,” he said.
“Sarah,” said the rabbi.
“She goes out every Friday night,” said Rostnikov. “She says she is going to see her cousin or friends. But she is coming here to attend services.”
“Yes, she is Jewish.”
“She has been through a great deal,” said Rostnikov. “Surgery. I almost lost her.”
“I know.”
“It does not surprise me that she would turn to the religion of her grandfather,” said Rostnikov. “And it is reasonable that she would come here, to you.”
“But?”
“I do not understand why she has not told me. Are you under some rule, like a Catholic priest or something, that prevents you from telling me?”
“No, but I think you should ask her. Would you like a drink? Water? I even have some wine and Pepsi-Cola in my office.”
“No, thank you. I plan to ask her, but I have learned that it is a good idea if at all possible to be prepared for what might turn out to be a difficult situation.”
It was Belinsky’s turn to nod. “She is concerned.”
“Afraid,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes. She is seeking some deeper meaning in life and has turned to a reasonable place for that meaning.”
“And has she found it?” asked Rostnikov.
“I don’t think so. Not yet. Maybe never. Let me tell you a secret, Porfiry Petrovich. There is no meaning we can find. Our God does not give us simple answers. His only answer is in the enigma of the Bible, of our Torah. I have come to the conclusion that if we seek openly we come to realize that the Bible is telling us to accept what is-the good, the evil. God makes no sense we can understand, just as the world makes no sense we can understand. We can only accept what is and we can find solace in that acceptance. Accept life. Do not ask God for justice, mercy, goodness. God is, like man, a mystery. He can act in ways that make no sense to us. He can change his mind. He can destroy us or grant us mercy, and there is no fathoming why he does any of this.”
“That is the sermon you are working on?”
“Yes,” said the rabbi, touching his dark beard and smiling.
“You do not wish to answer my question,” said Rostnikov.
“In a way, I have. Ask Sarah.”
Rostnikov rose.
“The heating system working well?”
“Yes, you did a good job. This winter will be the real test.”
“The toilet?”
“A work of art. Thank you.”
