Tatiana and Alexander

“Martha told me one of her derelict sons has had his horn removed!” she whispered. “Removed, Alexander, and do you know why?”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“Because he got frenchified! Do you know what that is?”

“I think—”

“And her other son’s got French pigs all over his body. It’s the most revolting thing!”

“Yes, it—”

“The French curse! The French crown! Syphilis! Lenin died from it eating up his brain,” she whispered. “No one talks about it, but it’s true all the same. Is that what you want for yourself?”

“Hmm …” said Alexander. “No?”

“Well, it’s all over the place. Your father and I knew a man who lost his whole nose because of it.”

“Personally, I’d rather lose the nose than—”

“Alexander!”

“Sorry.”

“This is very serious, son. I have done all I can to raise you a good, clean boy, but look where we are living, and soon you’ll be out on your own.”

“How soon you think?”

“What do you think is going to happen when you don’t know where the harlot you’re with has been?” Jane asked resolutely. “Son, when you grow up, I don’t want you to be a saint or a eunuch. I just want you to be careful. I want you to protect what’s yours at all times. You must be clean, you must be vigilant, and you must also remember that without protection, you will get a girl up the stick, and then what? You’re going to marry someone you don’t love because you weren’t careful?”

Alexander stared at his mother. “Up the stick?” he said.

“She’ll tell you it’s yours and you’ll never know for sure, all you’ll know is that you’re married, and your horn is falling off!”

“Mother,” said Alexander. “Really, you must stop.”

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“How can I not?”

“Your father was supposed to explain to you.”

“He did. I think he did very well.”

Jane got up. “Will you just once stop with your joking around?”

“Yes, Mom. Thanks for coming in. I’m glad we had this chat.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Absolutely none.”

The Changing of the Hotel’s Name, 1935

One frostbitten late January Thursday, Alexander asked his father as they headed out to their Party meeting, “Dad, why is our hotel’s name changing again? It’s the third time in six months.”

“Surely not the third time.”

“Yes, Dad.” They walked side by side down the street. They weren’t touching. “When we first moved in, it was the Derzhava. Then the Kamenev Hotel. Then the Zinoviev Hotel. Now it’s the Kirov Hotel. Why? And who is this Kirov chap?”

“He was the Leningrad Party Chief,” said Harold.

At their meeting, the old man Slavan laughed raucously after he heard Alexander’s question repeated. He beckoned Alexander to him, patted him on the head and said, “Don’t worry, son, now that’s it’s Kirov, Kirov it will stay.”

“All right, enough now,” Harold said, trying to pull his son away. But Alexander wanted to hear. He pulled away from his father.

“Why, Slavan Ivanovich?”

Slavan said, “Because Kirov is dead.” He nodded. “Assassinated in Leningrad last month. Now there’s a manhunt on.”

“Oh, they didn’t catch his killer?”

“They caught him, all right.” The old man smirked. “But what about all the others?”

“What others?” Alexander lowered his voice.

“All the conspirators,” said the old man. “They have to die, too.”

“It was a conspiracy?”

“Well, of course. Otherwise how can we have a manhunt?”

Harold called sharply for Alexander, and later on, when they were walking home, he said, “Son, why are you so friendly with Slavan? What kinds of things has that man been telling you?”

“He is a fascinating man,” Alexander said. “Did you know he’s been to Akatui? For five years.” Akatui was the Tsarist Siberian hard labor prison. “He said they gave him a white shirt, and in the summer he worked only eight hours and in the winter six, and his shirt never got dirty, and he got a kilo of white bread a day, plus meat. He said they were the best years of his life.”

“Unenviable,” grumbled Harold. “Listen, I don’t want you talking to him so much. Sit by us.”

“Hmm,” said Alexander. “You all smoke too much. It burns my eyes.”

“I’ll blow my smoke the other way. But Slavan is a troublemaker. Stay away from him, do you hear?” He paused. “He is not going to last long.”

“Last long where?”

Two weeks later, Slavan disappeared from the meetings.

Alexander missed the nice old man and his stories.

“Dad, people keep disappearing from our floor. That lady Tamara is gone.”