The Knife Sharpener's Bell (33 page)

And with the evasive answers came averted faces, a reluctance to breathe the air we breathed, as if, despite the barricades of their desks, their counters, their metal wickets, the officials were afraid of us, of contamination.

After three days of this, Pavel and Raisa insisted that I go back to school. Until then I'd been an absence among the many absences – Mikhailov and the others who'd become shadows, disappeared. When I slipped back into the studio in the late afternoon, after lectures were over, the dozen or so students still at work at their drafting boards looked right through me. Polina managed a few polite words and was gone before I could say a word. I'd become bad luck; bad luck or just bad.

I'm standing in the darkness across from Anatoly's apartment building. I need him. I've been leaving messages with the caretaker there and at his faculty office, but I haven't been able to reach him. I can't remember putting on my coat, my mittens; can't remember the walk to the stop, the trolley ride. I pull my scarf tighter against my throat, look up at the window to his room; it's the fifth floor. A light on up there, and a shadow crossing by the window: someone's home. I watch for more movement but can't make anything out. My hands, toes, are going numb.

I cross to the entrance and touch the switch. A pale yellow light trickles in, filling the hallway. Five flights. I knock at the door. There's silence at first, then footsteps. Someone comes to the door, waits. It opens. Misha.

“Annette – hullo.” He's rumpled, as usual. There's a heel of rye bread, half chewed, in his hand.

“I'm sorry, Misha – are you in the middle of dinner?”

“Just a snack,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Is Anatoly home?” Do I hear something, someone else in the room?

“Anatoly? No. No, he's not home.”

“I left a couple of messages but I haven't heard from
him.” I'll tell Misha what happened, the arrest, and he'll ask me in, make tea, let me wait until Anatoly gets home. But he's standing there, awkward, blocking the doorway. “Do you know when he'll be back?”

“He's um, he's . . .”

“Is he in trouble again? Did he get suspended again?”

He nods. “Yeah. He got suspended.” Misha's still got the bread in his hand, a closed grip, as though I'd want to take it from him. “Um, day before yesterday. He was pretty down about it. Drinking. You know. I haven't even seen him for a couple of days. You know what he's like when he gets in trouble.”

I hear a muffled scraping from somewhere in the room. “I'm sorry,” I say. “Have you got company?”

“Company? No. No, I'm just working.”

It must be a girl. He's got Nadya or some new girl visiting and doesn't want me to know. No wonder he's so fidgety.

“Well, I won't keep you then. Thanks,” I say. We stand there another moment. “Thanks.”

He tries for a smile, closes the door.

I've been in line since eight o'clock. The usual wait: this time it's beef we're hoping for. I'm just another in the stolid line of citizens, impassive, imperturbable. For the last half-hour I've been chatting with the woman in front of me, the routine pleasantries, complaints. It's nine forty. Since nine o'clock the line has been inching along. I exchange a few more comments with the woman, then, at her urging, go to the front of the line to check how empty the shelves look and see whether our wait is going to be worth anything. A few grumbles as I go back to my place, but they subside quickly enough. And then something keeps drawing my gaze forward, something nagging at me.
I look idly at a tall woman a bit ahead of me in line. She must be a good twenty years older than me but she holds her head lightly, gracefully.

And then I see it, three ahead of the woman, the back of
his
head, Anatoly's, the light brown hair curling around his ears, at the nape of his neck. He's not on a drunk; he's here, in line.

How could I have been so stupid as to accept the transparent lie? It was Anatoly who had been skulking at the back of the apartment, hiding from me. He's hiding from me now. He must have seen me when I went to the front. He saw me and said nothing. Didn't reach out his hand, touch my sleeve, call:
it's me
. Hadn't done that, had, instead, must have, let me go. There ahead of me, the sweet back of his head, the straight, strong neck. Anatoly, who saw me, but let me go.

I look at him, and remember that day we met in Moscow, another line, another wait that became our beginning. Will this be how we end, rigid, unthinking, accepting? I look at the back of his head and think how much I love him, how good it is to see the back of his head. What does this mean – that I love him, that it's good to see the back of his head, that some part of me goes, part of me steps forward, touches his neck just where the hair curls against it, part of me rests a hand lightly on his shoulder, calls him, but I stand in line, not moving? I stand in line, something in me going hard, cold. Then I turn around, empty-handed; turn and leave, let him go.

It's after lunch when I get home. As I start up the stairs, the Polankovs' door closes quickly, quietly. When I come round the landing, I can smell beeswax. A rag in a hand is rubbing slow circles into the wooden banister. Round and round
and slowly upwards the worn cloth moves, leaving a sheen behind, the tight oak grain of the wood come cleanly into focus. Then the hand stops. A deep breath. I take another step. It's Polankov's wife. She looks briefly up at me and her eyes fill, then her hands continue.

At the next landing Comrade Yevseyova is sorting through her mail. When she sees me, an envelope slips from her hands. I bend to pick it up.

“Comrade Yevseyova, you've dropped this.”

She takes it from me and then takes my hand, brings it to her lips. “My dear girl. My dear girl. It's not right.” Touches my cheek. A soft noise from below. She goes stiff, then bends towards me, whispers in my ear. “It's not right.” And backs into her apartment, closes the door.

That afternoon when I go back to the studio there's a note left on my drafting table. Anatoly has written: Misha told him I'd been by. He's in a bit of trouble and is lying low. He hopes school is going well. He's sorry he hasn't been able to see me. It's not that he doesn't want to be with me. But he doesn't want me to get into trouble. He wants me to focus on my school work. So, for now, we shouldn't be seen together. It's not safe for me. He sends his love to Raisa and Pavel, and of course to Vladimir.

I set the note down. He can't stop lying. He can't stop. Hold on. Let go.

This distance opening all around me, a clearing.

Chapter Eleven

We're outside Lefortovo Prison. I can't imagine a structure more ordinary than this building, its five stories, dull walls, the monotony of its windows. The wind is cold, coils of filthy snow still flung at the base of the walls. Raisa and I are in a long line, mostly of women, waiting outside the gate.

We've asked to see him. He's here in Lefortovo, somewhere; that much we know. So far, we've been refused:
Can't be helped. Not possible. Not allowed. Come back tomorrow and we'll see what can be done.
If we can't see him, maybe we can get a package through. I'm carrying Raisa's carefully prepared bundle of clean clothes, non-perishable food. Each time we've waited two hours, or four, until finally the line of half-frozen women dissolves into the evening.

Suddenly, we're being waved forward.
Efron, Raisa; Gershon, Annette
. A voice summons us brusquely.

We push forward through the line of women, Raisa calling, “Yes, yes, that's us.” The gate opens and we walk through into the chilly halls of the prison, follow the man into an anteroom, are told to be seated.

“Annette,” Raisa says, her voice soft. Her hands droop at her side; they're so rarely still. As if to find some work, they
go through her handbag, take out a clean white handkerchief, snap the clasp shut. “You've got lipstick on your cheek,” she says. I scrub at my cheek.

Perhaps an hour goes by. The telephone rings. The official answers it.
Yes. No. Very well then.
He looks up from his desk, examines us distastefully, consults a file, inspects us again and then rises, goes into a backroom. We can hear the sound of muted conversation. Not long after, he emerges, his face dour.

“The girl,” he says.

“Pardon?” Raisa asks.

“The girl: Gershon. You're Gershon?”

I nod.

“You can go in.”

“Why? Why not me?” Raisa asks, her voice rising, loud.

“The Gershon girl can go in. Or not, if she doesn't want to.”

“I'll go,” I say, gathering the package, my coat, my handbag. “It's all right, Raisa.”

“The handbag,” the man says, “leave it where it is.”

I pass the bag to Raisa.

“Good,” Raisa says. “Tell him –”

“This way.” The man points to a door on the right.

“Annette, are you sure you want to go . . . ? Maybe, maybe you shouldn't . . .” She glances at the guard, bites her lip. She's afraid to let me go, afraid not to.

“It's good,” I say. “Don't worry. I'll give him the package.”

“This way, miss.” A guard in uniform is waiting in the corridor.

And then Raisa's standing beside me, pulling at the guard's sleeve. “Comrade, Comrade,” she says. “I think it should be me. I have to see him. You'll let me see my son . . .”

He shakes her hand away, takes me by the elbow. “Are you coming, miss?”

I nod, and Raisa steps back. The door closes on her left standing, holding the two bags against her solid little chest, her mouth slightly open, as though there were something more she wanted to say, as though the words took up some small room in her mouth.

I have new shoes, good ones, leather from Czechoslovakia, and they clack clack clack as I walk down the corridor. I feel myself towed along behind the guard. We go down a long narrow corridor to a gate that another guard opens with a set of keys, then down a long flight of stairs that keep turning back on themselves. There's netting across the gap in the stairwell.

“The prisoners,” the guard says, the first thing he's said since he told me to follow him, “they like to jump.” He points to the netting, grins.

Jump?
The fallen.
Ben. I see them now, the fallen. I have to lean on the railing and stop.

“Come on, miss,” his voice is stern. “Don't dawdle.”

Another guard unlocks another door, which opens onto a paved courtyard with a few weeds between the cracks in the paving. Though I don't look up, I can feel the height of the building around me, brick and concrete.
Soviet architecture, ideal Soviet architecture.
No curves to calculate here.

Another guard, another door, another staircase and, at yet another locked gate, we stop. The guard's a woman this time, stocky, a bit taller than me. “Raise your hands,” she says, no expression on her face. Blue eyes with no particular malice, no interest, no questions for me; she expects nothing from me, has nothing to say.

Those button blue eyes, a red curl straying over one eyebrow.

Tattletale
.

She runs her hands down my arms, then my shoulders, my breasts. Along my belly, between my legs. Then down my legs, lightly over the calves.

“Turn around.”

“Sonya?” I ask.

The blue eyes give nothing back. Her hands run quickly over my back, my backside, legs. Cursory, now, but she must feel me shaking.

“Go ahead. Go on,” she says, nodding to my guard, who has looked away and now looks back.

Is it Sonya, my old playmate, old tormenter? Her eyes gave me nothing. It doesn't matter. It's Sonya, or some other little girl who grew up to this.

My guard is leading me through a narrow corridor, its walls lined with identical anonymous iron doors, a peephole, an opening like a mail slot in every door.

He gestures me to stop. I stand looking at his broad back, slightly stooped shoulders, wondering what his playground games were. A little ways down the corridor two figures go silently by: a prisoner and a guard. Like us. For the first time I notice someone at the far end of the corridor – the traffic guard who's controlling our movements. He gestures with two little flags to signal us to move. My guard and I start forward, then stop again.

I can feel this building with its waiting rooms, its cells, basements, interrogation chambers, functioning around me: doors opening, closing. Gates being locked, windows, gazes pressing against their bars. A factory of some sort, a machine digesting the lives inside. I've been lifted out of my life and set into this machine.

And I don't know any more where I'm going, can't remember deciding to follow this man I don't know. But I
did decide; my body decided for me, setting my handbag in Raisa's lap, settling my coat more squarely on my shoulders.