Tatiana and Alexander

There was no morning and no night. There was no brightness and no light. He had nothing to measure time with. The images of her were constant, he could not measure how long he had been thinking of her. He tried counting and found himself swaying from exhaustion. He needed to sleep.

Sleep or cold? Sleep or cold?

Sleep.

He huddled in the corner and shook uncontrollably, trying to stave off misery. Was it the following day, the following night?

The following day from what? The following night from what?

They’re going to starve me to death. They’re going to thirst me to death. Then they will beat me to death. But first my feet will freeze and then my legs and then my insides, they will all turn to ice. And my blood, too, and my heart, and I will forget.

Tamara and Her Stories, 1935

There was an old babushka named Tamara who had lived for twenty years on their floor. Her door was always open and sometimes after school Alexander would stop in and talk to her. He noticed that old people loved the company of young people. It gave them an opportunity to impart their life experience to the young. Tamara, sitting in her uncomfortable wooden chair near the window one afternoon, was telling Alexander that her husband was arrested for religious reasons in 1928 and given ten years—

“Wait, Tamara, Mikhailovna, ten years where?”

“Forced labor camp, of course. Siberia. Where else?”

“They convicted him and sent him there to work?”

“To prison …”

“To work for free?”

“Oh, Alexander, you’re interrupting, and I need to tell you something.”

He fell quiet.

“The prostitutes near Arbat were arrested in 1930 and not only were they back on the street months later but had also been reunited with their families in the old cities they used to frequent. But my husband, and the band of religious men, will not be allowed to return, certainly not to Moscow.”

“Only three more years,” Alexander said slowly. “Three more years of forced labor.”

Tamara shook her head and lowered her voice. “I received a telegram from the Kolyma authorities in 1932—without right of correspondence, it said. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Alexander didn’t want even to hazard a guess.

“It means he is no longer alive to correspond with,” said Tamara, her voice shaking and her head lowering.

She told him how, from the church down the block, three priests were arrested and given seven years for not putting away the tools of capitalism, which in their case was the organized and personal and unrepentant belief in Jesus Christ.

“Also forced labor camp?”

“Oh, Alexander!”

He stopped. She continued. “But the funny thing is—have you noticed the hotel down the street that had the harlots right outside a few months ago?”

“Hmm.” Alexander noticed.

“Well, have you noticed how they all disappeared?”

“Hmm.” Alexander noticed that too.

“They were taken away. For disturbing the peace, for disrupting the public good—”

“And for not putting away the tools of capitalism,” Alexander said dryly, and Tamara laughed and touched his head.

“That’s right, my boy. That’s right. And do you know how long they had been given in that forced labor camp that you care so much about? Three years. So just remember—Jesus Christ, seven, prostitutes, three.”

“All right,” said Jane, coming into the room, taking her son by the hand and leading him out. Before she left, she turned around and said in an accusatory tone to Tamara, but addressed to Alexander, “Can we not be learning about prostitutes from toothless old women?”

“Who would you like me to learn about prostitutes from, Mom?” he asked.

“Son, your mother wanted me to talk to you about something.” Harold cleared his throat. Alexander crimped his lips together and sat quietly. His father looked so uncomfortable that Alexander had to sit on his hands to keep himself from laughing. His mother was pretending to clean something in another part of the room. Harold glared in Jane’s direction.

“Dad?” said Alexander in his deepest voice. His voice had broken a few months ago, and he really liked the way his new self sounded. Very grown-up. He also had shot up, growing more than eight inches in the course of the last six months, but he couldn’t seem to put any flesh on his bones. There just wasn’t enough of … anything. “Dad, do you want to go for a walk and talk about it?”

“No!” said Jane. “I can’t hear a thing. Talk here.”

Nodding, Alexander said, “All right, Dad, talk here.” He scrunched up his face and tried to look serious. It wouldn’t have mattered if he were sitting cross-eyed and sticking his tongue out. Harold was not looking at Alexander.

“Son,” said Harold. “You’re getting to be at that age where you’re, well, I’m sure, you’re—and also you’re—you’re a fine boy, and good-looking, I want to help, and soon, or maybe already—and I’m sure that you’re—”

Jane tutted in the background. Harold fell quiet.

Alexander sat for a few seconds, then got up, slapped his father on the back and said, “Thanks, Dad. That was helpful.”

He went into his room, and Harold didn’t follow him. Alexander heard his parents bickering next door, and in a minute there was a knock. It was his mother. “Can I talk to you?”

Alexander trying to keep a composed face, said, “Mom, really, I think Dad said all there was to say, I don’t know if there’s anything to add—”

She sat down on his bed while he sat in the chair near the window. He was going to be sixteen in May. He liked summer. Maybe they would get a room at a dacha in Krasnaya Polyana again like they did last year.

“Alexander, what your father didn’t mention—”

“Was there something Dad didn’t mention?”

“Son …”

“Please—go ahead.”

“I’m not going to give you a lesson in girls—”

“Thank goodness for that.”

“Listen to me, the only thing I want you to do is remember this—” She paused.

He waited.