rushed across the room and leaped into Emil Karpo’s arms. Without thinking he had scooped her up and the child had nestled her head against his shoulder. He had smelled her hair, seen her pink bow mouth and the thin blue veins of her closed eyelids. And something had happened, a deeply buried feeling had pulsed, a feeling of an almost forgotten childhood, of a child he had not seen or thought about for more than two decades.
Now he stood, alone, on the platform of a Metro station trying in vain to remember a quote that would sustain him. Communism had been his only god and foundation for most of his life. A return to the company of mankind was an alien concept that he was reluctant to embrace, though the altered world offered him little choice. He could not cling to a system that had failed, yet he was reluctant to betray it. So, in an era when it was no longer profitable to be a Communist, he retained his membership.
He had seen the old Czarists and White Russians in the park, heard them talk furtively and futilely of the return of the Father. He had been moved by his conversation with an old nun before she was murdered, but the fire of religion did not burn hot enough within him to replace the solid, now toppled, figure of Lenin. One could not believe simply because one sought meaning in chaos.
Emotion was not a familiar companion. He had felt it more and more in the last year as the Union tottered and collapsed, and he was wary of these feelings. They seemed to accomplish so little and to promise only the anguish he witnessed in the faces of others. He had worked honestly and hard, had devoted himself to a lifetime of duty, party, and the law. The warmth of Mathilde and the trusting leap of Pulcharia gave him not hope but fear. Emil Karpo did not know what he would be if he ever set free the animal he had kept caged within him for more than thirty years.
Out of the dark tunnel another train approached. Emil Karpo had lost track of time. The air on the track and in the station was alive. He checked his watch. Four minutes. He had been told that it was four minutes between trains at this hour but he had to be sure, had to see it, hear it, confirm it, and record it in his notebook. Four minutes. That was the approximate time 341 would have in which to kill if he chose the platform of a Metro station.
When the train pulled in, Emil Karpo got on. He found a seat in front, looked through the window at the hole of darkness before him, and waited to plunge into it.
Then a quote did come to him, not from Lenin or Marx, but from Mao:
“Taught by mistakes and setbacks, we have become wiser and handle our affairs better. It is hard for any political party or person to avoid mistakes, but we should make as few as possible. Once a mistake is made, we should correct it, and the more quickly and thoroughly the better.”
ELEVEN
Sasha Tkach had a cold. There was no denying it, no avoiding it, and no hiding it from Maya, who, Sasha was sure, was growing weary of his recurring bouts with viruses. He stood in the small cubbyhole that was the toilet and shower room of the apartment and looked at his face in the mirror. His nose was slightly red. His eyes looked moist. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to cough. He was certain, however, that he had a cold.
The prospect for the rest of the evening and the next morning was bleak. Neither Maya, his mother, nor the baby had any symptoms, but Pulcharia had a slight fever. He was the carrier. And that meant that certain things were inevitable. First, he had passed his cold on to his daughter, and the two of them would pass it on to the rest of the family if they had not already done so. Second, he would have to accept and swallow at least two of the vile little balls of Chinese medicine that his mother kept in a jar in her drawer.
He would have liked a shower but the water was, as always, tepid. Since there was no heat in the apartment and the weather was cold, he was afraid of risking a chill in spite of his mother’s repeated assurances that one did not make a cold worse by being cold. On the contrary, keeping cold kept one’s temperature down.
Yes, no doubt. Sasha now had the first sign of chills. He checked his shaved face, looked at his reasonably clean teeth, put on his robe, brushed his unruly hair back, and stepped out to face Maya, who was waiting her turn for the washroom.
Maya, who was sitting on the edge of the bed in her purple Chinese robe, stood and moved toward him.
“You are warm,” she said, touching his face.
“Because I am ill,” he said. “I just-”
“Shh,” Maya said, touching her husband’s lips with her finger and then speaking softly. “I am not going to make you take care of the baby. I’m not going to ask you to make love. I am not going to give you a reason to fight with me because you don’t feel well.”
He had to admit that he had armed himself with anger, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “I’m not looking for a fight. Why would I look for a fight? I’m just …”
Maya’s soft round face moved to his and kissed him softly.
“Thank you,” he said. “But now you are certain to catch my cold.”
“It was inevitable,” she said.
Maya leaned against him.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I have as many reasons to be as discontent as you and as many reasons to be in a good mood. We have too little money and no privacy and no likelihood that it will change. But we have the children, a place to live, and each other.”
“I must work tonight,” he said. “And maybe for many nights.”
Maya stepped back and looked at him, her cool palms against his cheeks.
“I doubt if you will be much use to anyone as you are.”
“And …?”
“And nothing.” She moved past him to turn on the shower. “I have learned not to argue with you about such things. You will do them anyway.”
“The water is cold,” Sasha said.
“Invigorating,” she said.
Sasha smiled.
“It’s just potato soup,” Lydia’s voice crackled from the other room over the beat of the shower water. “It will make you well.”
Maya took off her robe, moved behind her husband, and put her arms around his waist.
“I just told you, I’m sick,” Sasha said, sniffling.
“Then there is no way to avoid it. It is better to get it quickly and get it over than try to hide from the inevitable.”
“Now you are a philosopher,” he said, putting his warm cheek against her cool one as she moved in front of him.
“I’ve always been a philosopher,” she said. “What I lack is recognition.”
“Perhaps I should pay closer attention.”
“There is no ‘perhaps’ about it.”
“A little. I eat a little,” said Pulcharia from the next room.
Maya smiled, her face inches from Sasha’s nose.
“You know you are depriving me of my righteous self-pity and anger,” he said.
She nodded.
“I could sulk and be angry about that.”
“Not once you have recognized it,” she said.
