Natasha! I know it’s not honorable of me, but the only excuse I can find for myself is that you must remember I have never made any promises.
Her facial muscles contracted in ache as she thought back to how she sank onto the chair and whispered to herself, “Why? Was I not a good lover for you?” and how tears rolled down her cheeks. And how painful it was to agree that Lyuba, a prude friend of hers, was not at all wrong when she warned her against Stepan.
“Hey, Natasha!” She jerked at Pavlovich’s cry. “You manufacture defective tiles.”
She switched off the power and peered at the metal swarf that had accumulated on the floor around her feet then at the tiles, which were drilled asymmetrically.
“Let me have them. Otherwise, the foreman will penalize you.”
Without saying a word, she turned on the lathe, and, willing herself to stop ruminating the past, returned her attention to her work.
3
Ulya
September 20, 1938
Saratov, Engels
There was something familiar in the young man’s figure in a military uniform strolling in front of her. “Gleb!” In several steps, she closed the distance between them before he fully turned.
“Ulya!” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
She stiffened, overtaken by an unfamiliar feeling like repulsion. “Haven’t seen you for ages.”
“Yeh, recently graduated from a military school. Came to spend several days with my mother and in hopes of meeting you and all the guys. How are you, girl?” Holding her at arm’s length, he studied her face. “In the three years since I last saw you, you’ve developed into a pretty young woman. Look at you, now you are taller than I. When I left, you were up to here.” He raised his right hand up to his forehead.
“Well.” She examined his uniform. “A tank man?”
He nodded in agreement. It didn’t escape her attention that his jaw tensed, and a cloud seemed to appear on his face, then vanished. “You tell me about yourself. My mother wrote you study at the Saratov University. Law School?”
“Yes.”
They reached the fence to their “enclosed” yard formed by the semidetached and little detached houses, and Gleb opened the gate for her. “Let me have lunch with Mama and maybe in the evening we can meet?”
“Under our tree?”
“But where else?”
At six in the evening, she bumped into her father on the threshold. “I am in, and you are out. Where to?”
“Gleb is here. To visit his mother. Did you know he studied at a tank school? He looks so fancy and beautiful in his uniform. I am to meet him under our tree.” As she was about to turn the doorknob, she saw her father’s eyebrows drawing together.
“You better—”
“Better what?”
“Ulya, you are a grown-up person and smart enough to understand some things.” He touched his chin, looking downward as though contemplating how to continue. “Never mind. You go. Go.”
“No, Vati—Dad. What things?”
Looking away, after a moment’s consideration, he said, “Gleb’s father was executed.”
“Justified? Was he an enemy of the people? Like the ones who are now being arrested?”
“Ulya! Stop. I beg you not to doubt the decisions of the Party.”
“I don’t.”
“Please, don’t discuss it with anybody, even with . . . people you think you trust.”
“I won’t, Vati.” She waited till he disappeared into his study and stepped through the door.
Gleb was already at their meeting place. His eyes lit up when he saw her approaching.
Before sitting at the plank table across from him, she reached up to rip a dry, brown lilac stalk and brought it to her face.
He stroked the smoothness of the table. “Tell me, Ulya, how was it here after I left? I missed you.”
“I missed you too. Especially that after you left, they drafted Wolfy and like you, he never showed up; Otto’s parents moved to Saratov, and he dropped off the map. I don’t even know his new address. Only Arkashka is still here. For some time, we used to meet to talk, to play a game of cards, yet after he was appointed to his plant’s first Komsomol secretary, I don’t see him often.”
“I see.” Gleb’s mouth twisted. “What a great time we had. For me, it will always be associated with this tree and the things we’ve done. We, the bunch of bandits.”
They went on reminiscing about their youngsters’ pranks, interrupting each other with, “Do you remember . . .?” “But how about . . .?” “Can you imagine . . .?”
Recalling an episode many years ago, Ulya chuckled.
“What?”
“Remember how once we sat on the branches and Wolfy made himself comfortable in the elbow of the limbs? And how one branch broke, and he fell off and couldn’t play cards until his fractures healed?”
“We all rocked with laughter but you.” For an instant, Gleb’s expression darkened. “That was the best time in my life . . . before they came to take my father.”
Ulya stretched her hand and put it on Gleb’s.
“Did you know?”
Her eyes meeting his, she bobbed her head.
“How have they ever accepted me into the military school, I wonder?”
“But why wouldn’t they?”
He let his hand slide from under hers. “Don’t you see what is happening in the country? Mass repressions. Family members of the detainees are often deprived of their rights.” After a moment’s silence, he added, “My father was a real Bolshevik, fought in the Civil War.”
“Do you think his—” she stopped, not finding a word—“was it unjust?”
“Yes, indeed. His offense, if an offense it was, was that during one of his lectures, he said the German people were strong and their army properly equipped. Was it a crime?” There was something unstated in his eyes. “But for them, of course . . . it was.”
She recognized the bridled anger in his voice, which he tempered with visible effort. “Just for that?” A forced smile that did not part his lips told her he regretted what he had said.
“By the way, how is your father? Still the chief editor of Nachrichten?”
“Yes, he is, and all is well.”
