The Knife Sharpener's Bell (13 page)

“He's a good man, Anya. What can he have done?”

“Whatever it was he did, it got him in trouble. The NKVD, they're looking out for the Soviet people. Everywhere you look – spies, traitors, enemies of the people. If they took him away, he must have done something . . .”

“How can you talk like that?”

“I'm not saying anything bad about Lev. But when wood is cut, the chips fly. That's how it is. Sometimes people – you wouldn't think they'd done anything so terrible – they end up in jail.”

“He's an innocent man.”

“If he was so innocent, how come he was arrested?”

It never happened.
That's what my mother said. Lev wasn't arrested. It was a mistake, just like Poppa said. They took Lev in to ask him a few questions. A week he was gone and then everything was fine. He came home pale, a bit thinner, but he could lose a pound or two, his new suit jacket was getting tight. And they didn't take him away – they don't just take people away, my mother said, it wasn't like that. Everything was done according to regulations, it was all written down, you signed a piece of paper. They even had somebody who wasn't in trouble there to sign as a witness that everything had been done just right. Everything according to regulations. That was the law. If once in a while they make a little mistake, someone cools his heels for a week or so being questioned – it can't be helped. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. If you didn't do anything wrong, it'd all come out right. Everything was fine. It was nothing, my mother said afterwards. It never happened.

In April, the empty lot across the street from my school was always full of daffodils – hundreds of yellow cups open to the sun – and for my thirteenth birthday Manya and Lev had bought a cake with daffodil-yellow icing that could have come from a Paris pastry shop. But at the party at Manya and
Lev's, no one was paying attention to the cake, because that was the spring we could speak only of war. Though the loudspeakers that broadcast the news on every corner kept reminding us that the Soviet Union was a peace-loving nation, the Soviet people talked of the war they knew, but didn't want to know, was coming. And the enemies that we had felt like a vapour all around us – enemies of the people, enemies of the Revolution, foreign enemies, the enemy within – were beginning to condense. Our enemies were to shift swiftly in the war that was coming, but that spring we talked war and wanted peace.

What kind of peace did we want? The “peace” in Spain had begun: Franco had declared victory. The solidarity of the Soviet people with the struggle of the Spanish people had done nothing. My mother was certain of her peace. Comrade Stalin had been on the radio and had promised that Soviet citizens would never become cannon fodder in a capitalist war. And Molotov had written an article in
Izvestia
. All Soviet citizens could rest assured that Comrade Stalin would not let the USSR be pulled into another capitalist conflict by warmongers who were used to having others pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them. So there was no reason to worry. She was sure, my mother, as if she sat in Stalin's pocket. And in reply, Poppa would say nothing, as usual –
no arguing
. He seemed to be nurturing silence.

Lev was worried. Though it had been two years since that week of questioning, this was a new, a more careful, Lev. Nonetheless, when the talk of peace, of war, subsided, he nudged my mother, who finally instructed us to light the candles. Ben sang “Happy Birthday” to me in English, and then Manya, who didn't speak a word of English, joined in, making up nonsense words as she went along. After I blew
out the candles, Ben handed me two thick notebooks with black covers and red binding, one lined and one blank so I could write in one and draw in the other. That would keep me from doodling all over Poppa's
Pravda
.

It was at that thirteenth-birthday party, after my mother had gone into Manya's bedroom to lie down with a headache, after the table was cleared, the cloth put in the bathtub to soak, that Manya sat me down on the davenport and did what she did every time I visited, got her little bottle of lavender hand cream and massaged it into my hands, so that I got to take the scent home with me, so that at night, in bed, I could smell lavender on my hands, Manya. That was the day Manya told me the facts of life and I learned that I belonged to my father too. That I belonged to both of them. But when, a few weeks later, I “became a woman,” as the nurse at school phrased it, I didn't want to. Couldn't stand the feeling of the rags they'd given me. I felt more like a baby in a diaper than a woman. I didn't want to be a woman; I just wanted to be who I was. I said nothing to my mother, though I told Manya as soon as I saw her. My mother never asked, as though there were some understanding between us.

I was kept very busy with school that spring. They'd put me in an advanced Mathematics class, algebra and, though I liked algebra, it was a struggle. No Joseph to help me, and Ben had barely scraped through himself. My parents worried that Ben wouldn't do well in the university entrance exams. Ben didn't care. He'd be just as happy taking vocational training, doing something practical.

Poppa came home one day after work looking pleased for a change, a newspaper-wrapped parcel under his arm.
He'd been able to buy a bunch of bananas from a woman who was selling them on the street. We hardly ever saw them in the shops. But a far more precious trophy was the letter from Joseph that he'd collected with the mail. Mail was slow from Canada. The last time I'd gotten one of Joseph's rare letters it was only a page and half, and he'd spent two paragraphs talking about some movie he and Daisy had gone to. This time he'd written at length. Joseph still had his bicycle and ladder, was still repairing light fixtures and radios, but now he'd rented a little storefront, was selling a few small appliances, mostly used, some new. Business was getting better, but he was worried that it was because there was going to be a war. Nonetheless, business was better. But the best news of all was that Daisy was expecting. Poppa was going to be a grandfather. Before we could celebrate, my mother came home. Poppa slipped the letter into its envelope, put it into his jacket pocket.

My mother came home, as always, full of news. The cherry trees down the street were in bloom, further proof that her city was the most beautiful city in the world. Had we ever seen cherry trees in bloom in Winnipeg? Of course not. And the plum trees too. It was like summer already. Irena, the new woman at work, was nice and cosy with the boss. She had a mouth on her: her husband this, her daughter that. Irena's son had written a letter to
Pravda
demanding a larger room for his family. Meanwhile this same woman had been telling the whole shop that everybody in her family was such a big success. If he was such a success, why didn't he have a better room? What kind of success was that? Then the woman told her that Thursday night she had a dream about Comrade Stalin. She dreamt Comrade Stalin had visited the store, that he had made a speech standing
right beside her. Imagine the nerve! And had we heard Comrade Stalin's speech on the radio broadcast at work this afternoon? They had it on at the store. It was a busy day, so she hadn't been able to pay attention to all of it. But she did catch one phrase:
uncommitted people are of no use to anyone
. We should all think about that. It was remarkable how Comrade Stalin spoke: very slowly and clearly, very simply. Anyone, even a simpleton, could understand what he said. Even a child. Comrade Stalin loved children, and he spoke so that even a child could understand.

The news continued as she prepared dinner. But when she took Poppa's jacket to give it a good brushing, going through the pockets she found Joseph's letter.
What's this?
she asked, knowing the answer. Poppa set down his paper. I had a pencil in my hand; I'd been making sketch after sketch of the cherry trees my mother so much admired, fretting over them, erasing, redrawing. At my mother's words, I didn't move; I could only look at Poppa.
Say something.
Poppa's hands sat quiet on his knees.
Joseph wrote.
Not a word to her about Daisy; not a word about the baby. My mother had the letter in her hands; it seemed suspended, expectant. He said nothing else, did nothing. Then I heard it before I saw it, paper tearing.

And my father said nothing.

How is it possible that he said nothing? How was it possible for my mother to tear up a letter from her husband's son? Joseph, my father's son, who was just a boy when he came to us. And all he had needed was kindness – where was it in my mother? I remember looking over at her, the sharp profile, green eyes. My mother. Couldn't she give Joseph anything, after all that time? And what was wrong with my father? He had let her turn Joseph away.
Because it was easier to let his son go than to fight. His own son.

And what was wrong with me, that I sat there, saying nothing?

I close my eyes, let myself feel Raisa's hands on my hair. She's making me a French braid. Raisa's the only one who can get my curls into a braid. It's a special occasion: Raisa is taking me and Ben and Vladimir on a tour of Odessa's famous catacombs. The Efrons are in town because Pavel's giving a speech for professors of agronomy. He's as skinny as ever, Pavel, but even I can see how handsome he looks in his suit and tie and starched white shirt. Although this is my first excursion to the catacombs, I've heard my mother's stories about them – how her family worked the mines, knew every nook and cranny, owned maps of the labyrinth – since I was a baby in Winnipeg.

“Only English today, Annette. We must be strict. I need to practise.” Raisa likes reading books in English, poetry, stories. Her voice is low, almost like a man's. I like her no-nonsense voice. Last time she visited, I amused myself by teaching her to say “no-nonsense” in her throaty, no-nonsense voice. “You, Annette, are a very lucky girl to be speaking English and Russian so perfectly.”

“To
speak
English and Russian . . .”

“Ah, yes. To speak English and Russian, to know so well grammar, to correct your aunt so conscientiously.”

“And I can speak Yiddish too. Poppa and I used to speak Yiddish together.”

“To know Yiddish also is very good. Don't pay attention when people say it is not good.”

“Uncle Lev –”

“Uncle Lev is a very wise man. To Uncle Lev you must listen. Now allow me to concentrate on my very important work right now, which is making my niece presentable. Soon we must leave for our visit to the catacombs.”

Although I'm eager for time with Raisa, the catacombs make me uneasy. Even the word sounds ominous, like a city for dead people, of the dead. I shudder.

“What is it, Annette?” Raisa stops brushing for a moment.

“Nothing.” Underground. “Auntie Raisa, is the subway in Moscow finished yet?”

She nods. “They call it the Metro. The stations are like palaces. The tsar never had anything like it: chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings, marble floors. You come to Moscow some day to see it all finished.”

Poppa has told me about the underground palaces for the workers. But I don't like the idea of going underground. Not to subways and not to the catacombs. I've heard too many fairy tales about the bad things that happen underground: witches and goblins who carry children away, never to return. I shudder again.

“Are you all right, my dear young lady?” “I'm fine, really.” “You are still having those bad dreams?” “The ones I couldn't wake up from? They stopped ages ago.”

“Did I tell to you that Vladimir also would have that kind of nighthorse?”

“Nightmare.”

“Nightmare. I did research. It is a phenomenon called ‘night terrors.' The child cannot wake. Very normal.”

“But Raisa . . .”

“There. You are now tidy and nice.”

“Thanks, Auntie Raisa.”

“All right. Your most beautiful hair is accomplished and now you must take your cousin Vladimir, as you promised, to the kiosk for a treat.”

Vladimir's wearing his new sailor suit. He looks very serious in it. Vladimir and Raisa, they're good at looking serious. You never know what's going on inside Vladimir's head. Auntie Raisa calls him an old soul. I take him by the hand. “Thanks for the birthday card, Vladimir. And you wrote it in English!” Vladimir's note was written in cursive, in English. He hasn't even started school yet, but somehow Raisa has got him learning a bit of English.

“Annette, is Ben coming?”

“I think he's busy, Vladimir.” Ben is probably smoking cheap cigarettes at the back doorway downstairs and teasing all the girls in the neighbourhood who just happen to walk by.

This time there's scarcely any wait at the kiosk, so we're soon back with our
Pravda
for Poppa and the treat. “Race you up the stairs,” I tell him. And we come thundering up the stairs, Vladimir puffing behind me, trying to keep up. Yesterday he tried to make me run all the way up the Potemkin steps, but we were both breathless before we got a third of the way up.

“Momma,” Vladimir says, “Annette bought me pumpkin seeds!” He runs over to her, hugs her legs so hard she almost tumbles over. I hand Raisa the seeds, wrapped in a twist of newspaper, then pick Vladimir up under the arms and start spinning him round and round and he's not serious any more. He's laughing until he starts to hiccup.

“Enough, Annette, enough! You'll choke the boy!” Raisa's laughing too. “And be careful of the new suit.”

I set him down. “How about some of those pumpkin seeds?”

My mother comes to the door. “That's enough, children. Annette. Enough. Ben, get ready. Raisa is ready to take you. And you, Annette. That's enough foolishness.”

I can feel myself beginning to fill up with anger, feel myself moving towards a collision. Why does my mother always have to stand that way, in doorways, her arms crossed as though she were the immovable object? And me the irresistible force. Stalemate. I can feel the air between us crackle. “I'll be ready in a minute,” I say.