Peace on Earth

Alexandra reached to the table and handed him the papers she had been given in the office on Kolpachny Lane. ‘B’shavia Huzu a b’Yerushalaim,’ she said the words, did not know she had said them.

The same words he had said to the American woman in the lift in the hotel, the words she had understood and said back to him.

Not quite the same words. One word of difference for which they had been prepared to sacrifice everything. Not ‘Next year in Jerusalem’, not the saying which kept Yakov Zubko and the likes of Yakov Zubko in hope through the long Russian winters, the other saying, the saying for which so many longed but which so few now heard.

‘B’shavia Huzu a b’Yerushalaim.’

‘This year in Jerusalem.’

‘We are going home, Yakov Zubko.’ Alexandra closed the door behind him and shut the family Zubko off from the rest of the world. ‘We are going home to Israel.’

* * *

Yakov Zubko had been born in the Ukraine in 1951; despite the poverty of his parents he had shone at school, both as an athlete and as a mathematician. His record, whether at the University of Kiev where he graduated as an engineer or during his compulsory military service, had been impeccable. He had twice been promoted in the precision tool factory where he had first worked. In 1973 he had married Alexandra, then a teacher, the following year they had moved to Moscow, where he had secured a job in the ZIL car works; within six months of his new appointment he had again been promoted.

Yakov Zubko was a model of the Soviet system. He was also a Jew.

In 1977, after considerable soul-searching, he and Alexandra had applied to leave Russia for Israel. The request was rejected, partly on grounds of state security, Yakov Zubko having served in the Red Army, partly on grounds which were not specified, and they had joined what would shortly become the swelling ranks of the refusniks. Within three months Yakov Zubko had first been demoted then lost his job totally; since then they had survived on Alexandra’s salary during the period she worked as a teacher, and whatever he himself could earn whenever he found casual work. Each month since then they had sold a possession in order to eat, each month since then they had also tried to place a few more roubles in the tin they kept under the mattress for the day they would be called to Kolpachny Lane and told they could leave. Increasingly, not through design, simply to help his family survive, and to save the money for their journey home, Yakov Zubko had been drawn into the fringes of the black market.

The following year Alexandra had borne him their first child, a son whom they called Nicholas. The boy was delivered late at night in the maternity wing of the local hospital; partly as a joke, partly as an act of defiance, they referred to the place where he had been born by the name of the place they thought they would never see, the town called Bethlehem. In the winter of 1978, as they carried their son home, in the later years when they told him, there was no way they could know the awesome inheritance of that family secret.

Their second child, a daughter, had been born in the same hospital three years later.

In 1979 his brother Stanislav Zubko had applied to leave Russia with his wife Mishka and their son Anatol; like Yakov and Alexandra they were refused. Later that year Mishka bore Stanislav’s second child, a girl whom they named Natasha after her great-grandmother. Like her great-grandmother, who only saw her once, Natasha was small and pretty, with large eyes, and like her great-grandmother, to whom she was the most precious creature in the world, she was cursed with asthma. Even on the hot summer days when the two families walked in Gorky Park or went in the car which Stanislav was sometimes able to borrow to the fields outside Moscow they could hear her suffering.

Just as there was no way of knowing the consequence of the secret of the birthplace of the boy called Nicholas Zubko, so there was no way of knowing the devastating legacy of the illness of the girl called Natasha.

In 1980 Yakov and Alexandra Zubko applied again to leave Russia and were again refused. The next year the distant uncle who had met the formal requirement of inviting them to Israel had passed away and they had spent the next two years finding another relative to meet the requirement. In 1984 Alexandra had been officially invited by a third cousin to join him: when she left the office in Kolpachny Lane that afternoon she and Yakov Zubko had waited three months, two weeks and six days over seven years.

* * *

The night was darker, colder,

Yakov Zubko kissed the children goodnight and returned to the kitchen; Alexandra had made coffee, they sat together at the table and read again the authorisation from the OVIR office on Kolpachny Lane.

‘They can’t change their minds,’ she asked, ‘they can’t stop us now?’

‘No,’ he lied, ‘they can’t stop us now.’

‘How much do we need?’ They had already worked it out, worked it out every week as they counted the roubles they had saved in the tin beneath the mattress: the rail fare to Vienna – it was quicker and safer by air, but cheaper by train – the cost of the exit visas, the money they would have to pay to renounce their Soviet citizenship.

Yakov Zubko took a single sheet of paper and began writing down the figures, carefully and neatly, not looking up, not able to look at his wife, both knowing they did not have enough, both knowing they would never have enough, even with the money in the tin under the mattress. He glanced round the room, aware of what Alexandra was thinking.

‘Twenty for the chairs,’ he began, ‘twenty-five for the table. Forty, perhaps forty-five, for my watch.’

‘Don’t forget my ring,’ said Alexandra, sipping her coffee.

‘Your ring,’ he said, writing it down, ‘we should get thirty for your wedding ring.’

In the hotel overlooking Marx Prospekt the American family finished their dinner and went to bed, the wife lying awake and thinking of what her husband had said, knowing that he was right, yet remembering that she had known from the first day who the man in the lift was, what he was. Thinking of her loyalty to her husband but thinking of the man with whom they shared a faith.

‘There’s an American family at the hotel,’ Yakov Zubko was unsure whether he should tell his wife, sensing she had known for a long time what he did, ‘they are due to leave tomorrow morning, they said for me to collect their bags.’ He realised that she had known from the beginning. ‘The children always wear denims, the wife has perfume, nice perfume, the husband always carries a camera.’ Alexandra waited, afraid to hear. ‘I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘that they are Jews, I think they will give me something.’

He turned the paper over and began another list, guessing what the American family might give, calculating what he might get from Pasha Simenov, and adding it to the money in the tin under the mattress. ‘We might do it,’ he said at last, not looking at his wife, wondering how much he was lying for her, how much he was lying for himself. ‘We might just do it.’

He looked at Alexandra, seeing the way she was smiling at him, recognising, not for the first time, how strong she was. ‘We will do it, Yakov Zubko,’ she said, ‘we will go home.’

In the hotel the American woman thought again about her husband, thought about the Russian Jew who wanted only to take his family to Israel.

In his apartment on the other side of the city Iamskoy switched off the television and telephoned militia headquarters. The afternoon shift had been back an hour, he was told; they had logged one firm suspect, one possible. He thanked the desk man and went to bed. Definitely tomorrow morning, he thought.

* * *

Yakov Zubko rose at four thirty, not needing to be quiet, he and Alexandra having lain awake all night. She pulled a coat over her shoulders and sat with him at the table. At five o’clock he kissed her goodbye, left the flat, and made his way to the metro station at Sviblovo; at a quarter to six Alexandra dressed the children and prepared them for their last days in Russia; at six precisely Major Valerov Iamskoy left the militia building on Petrovka. The morning was cold, even colder than the day before. At six thirty Yakov Zubko began work, at eight thirty the American family took breakfast. He made sure he was in the foyer as they went to the restaurant, made sure the woman saw him as they left, hoping for a sign, any sign, of confirmation, seeing none. At twelve minutes past ten the militiaman accompanying Iamskoy noted that the suspect Pasha Simenov had appeared at his door.

At fifteen minutes to eleven, as the woman had told him the previous afternoon, Yakov Zubko made his way to the rooms of the American family; there were four large suitcases, he took two, remembering that the entire possessions which he and Alexandra would take with them when they left Russia would fit into one. Please may he have understood the woman correctly the previous afternoon, he prayed, please may Pasha Simenov be at home.

The husband was at the reception desk, the wife talking to the guide. Yakov Zubko waited for her to turn and say something to him, the first doubts creeping up on him. He went back to the bedroom and collected the remaining cases. The family was almost ready to leave; he loaded the cases onto the coach and saw that the woman was still talking to the guide, knew then that she had not been able to disobey her husband, that he and Alexandra would not go home.

‘There’s one more bag by the children’s beds in 607,’ the woman turned to him briefly, not smiling. Watching him turn away from her, feeling the sense of betrayal. Seeing him for the last time, knowing that one day she would see him again. He cursed her under his breath and returned to the sixth floor. A maid was already cleaning the parents’ room; he went past, hearing the sound of the vacuum, into 607. The room was empty. He knew why the woman had told him to go back, knew it was because she could not face him, but began to check the wardrobes anyway, looking between the beds. Beneath one was a Beryozka bag; inside were three pairs of denims, new, unused, the manufacturer’s label still on them, two bottles of French perfume, and a Konica camera. ‘We are going home, Alexandra Zubko,’ he said, the relief coming upon him, ‘we are going home to Israel.’

When he returned to the foyer the American woman had gone.

It was almost eleven o’clock.

On the corner overlooking the street called Dmitrov the militiaman logged the first visitor to the house of Pasha Simenov. ‘We’ll pick up the next one,’ Iamskoy told him.

It was less than three hours till the end of their shift. ‘What happens if there isn’t one while we’re on?’ asked his subordinate.

For someone from the building on Petrovka, Iamskoy thought, the militiaman was remarkably naive at times. ‘There will be another one,’ he said simply.

Stick close to Iamskoy, the militiaman remembered they had told him at Petrovka, and you’ll learn a lot. ‘The next one,’ he agreed.

Yakov Zubko turned into Dmitrov, planning the conversation he would have with Pasha Simenov, working out how he would make sure that the man paid him enough. Be careful, Alexandra had told him as he left the flat that morning. In front of him he saw Pasha Simenov leave the house and begin walking up the road towards him. Suppose Simenov didn’t recognise him, he thought, suppose he had just done a deal, had no money left, suppose Simenov didn’t want to talk to him in the street.

At the top of the road Iamskoy cursed his luck and instructed the militia to log the fact that the suspect Simenov had left his house and turned east.

‘Good morning.’

Yakov Zubko knew Simenov was not going to speak to him, was going to walk straight past him. They still needed five hundred roubles, he thought; he saw the look in the other man’s eyes, saw Simenov was not looking at him, nor at the bag he was carrying.

Iamskoy saw the Beryozka bag, knew what was in it and reached for the ignition.

‘Across the road and left at the corner,’ Simenov ignored the greeting and pointed with his arm as if he was giving directions, as if that was what he had been asked. Yakov Zubko saw the car, realised why Simenov was afraid, turned to follow his instructions.

For one moment Iamskoy thought he was wrong, then knew he was not.

Yakov Zubko was reacting instinctively, following Simenov’s arm, as if he was in no hurry, as if he was clarifying the street directions he had been given. ‘Up the road fifty metres, through the block of flats.’ Simenov was talking quietly, quickly. ‘Car park on the other side, steps in the far corner to a tram stop. Good luck.’ It was almost, Yakov Zubko would think in the months and years he would have to remember the moment, as if Simenov knew what he was doing, as if he was sacrificing himself so that the Jew and his family could go home. ‘Thank you.’ He made himself pause, made himself move slowly, crossing the road in the direction Simenov had indicated. In the Zhiguli, Iamskoy hesitated for the second time. ‘Screw him anyway,’ he thought aloud, half to himself, half to the militiaman, ‘we can always plant something on him.’