A Train to Moscow(87)

What is waiting for her there, on the other end of this thread? She tries to imagine a New York airport, but all she has at her disposal are images of airports in Tbilisi, Kiev, and Baku, where her theater company has recently been on tour. She tries to conjure up Kolya’s face, but what rises before her eyes is the prewar photograph from their family album, of him in Grandpa’s garden, holding a branch of an apple tree, laughing.

Beneath is a heavy blanket of clouds, a curtain flipped horizontally that sets them closer to the sun and obscures the earth below. The first rays of light are just beginning to leak from under the clouds as the sun rises above the curtain, a stage light that in only a few minutes will flood the cabin and make everything pink. She looks out as a stewardess, her hand glowing in the streak of light from the window, hands her a US customs form. Her newly minted passport for foreign travel is in her handbag, ready to oblige, and, leafing through a pocket dictionary, she writes the answers to the stern American immigration questions.

As the plane descends, it banks to the right and then the left, as if to show her from every perspective a new, other life waiting below. She looks down on the gray expanse of water held back by a barrier of stone rising higher than she has ever seen, spires etched against the sky, lit by the sun like a set for a play.

In her mind, Sasha sees herself handing the form and her passport to a border patrol agent in New York, someone who has the serious face of her theater’s administrative director. “What are your reasons for leaving Russia?” the agent will ask. “What are you running away from?” In her broken English, she knows what she will tell him, the unpracticed words that don’t require rehearsing. “From graves,” she will say. “From pretending.” He will listen carefully, even though he probably won’t understand. “From shame,” she will say. Then the agent will hand her passport back and fling open the metal gate into a new life.

In the waiting crowd, among hundreds of faces, she will immediately see Kolya. Although she has never met him, she will recognize him at once. Sasha is certain of this. It will only take her a second to make out Grandma’s soft, round face. It will only take her a moment to see Mama’s eyes.

He will wait for Sasha to approach and hold her in his embrace. “Sashenka,” he will say, her name as soft as his cheek. “I’m so happy you’ve come.” He will smell of their Ivanovo life: of summer dust and lilacs, of the wood-burning stove, of their evening tea with little crystal bowls of black currant jam. This is when Grandma will pour boiling water from a samovar into a good cup with a pattern of roses, a cup that has been waiting for him all these years since he left for the front. This is when Mama will open her arms and press Sasha into the pillows of her breasts, making sobs erupt from a deep well inside her, making tears run down her face and leave wet spots on her mother’s dress with a red apple print she remembers so well. “Vsyo budet khorosho,” Mama will say, her voice like the tea with sugar in Kolya’s cup. “All will be well,” she’ll say, healing her with the warmth of her embrace, and this time, despite her stubbornness and doubt, Sasha will believe her.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


These books provided an immersion into the times of the story in the novel:

Svetlana Alexievich. Secondhand Time, Penguin Random House, 2016

Nikolai Nikulin. Memories of the War (in Russian), Hermitage Publishing, 2007

Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova. A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941–1945, Pantheon Books, 2005

I am deeply grateful to my agent, Molly Friedrich, who shaped this first novel and, with grace and humor, guided me through the minefield of writing fiction. My gratitude also goes to my editor, Alicia Clancy, whose exacting eye trimmed and enriched the story and who saw its title hiding in plain sight.

My appreciation goes to my early readers Heather Carr, Zoe Kharpertian, Liliane Gold, Nadia Carey, Mervyn Rothstein, and Rachel Basch for their honesty and support. A special thank-you to Barbara Jones for her invaluable suggestions of revisions.

This novel would not be possible without my sister, Marina, whose stories about Ivanovo, Theater, and acting laid the foundation of this story. I dedicate this book to her.

And finally, spasibo to my husband, Andy, who patiently read the countless iterations of this novel, for his loving encouragement and plainspoken advice.