The Secrets We Kept(30)

Ira stood and recited a poem about a toy horse who came to life and galloped across Moscow only to fall into a hole in the frozen river. She’d recited it from memory with a passion and animation that took Boris aback.

Now Ira was a young woman of fifteen, wearing her mother’s silk scarf around her shoulders. Boris admired her beauty, and he was ashamed to feel the familiar stir of passion Olga had caused when he’d first seen her at Novy Mir.

“Let’s walk,” Ira had said, taking Boris’s arm. She’d often told him that he was her almost father, a compliment that both delighted him and filled him with apprehension. “Such a beautiful day.” She began talking rapidly, telling him of all the preparations they were making for her mother’s return. She said they’d planned a party, that she and her grandmother had already begun preparing the feast, and that a neighbor had given them two bottles of cognac to celebrate. “Of course, besides Mama, you’ll be the guest of honor. I’m even tracking down some of those hazelnut chocolates you like.”

“I’m afraid I can’t attend,” Boris told her.

Ira stopped walking and turned to him. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I can climb the stairs.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I’m still not well.”

“Mitya and I will help you. We help Babushka up and down the stairs twice a day.”

“My schedule has become quite full. With the novel. And I’m working on a new translation. I barely have enough time to comb my hair.” He patted his silver hair for the joke, but Ira didn’t laugh. Her face darkened and she asked what could be more important than seeing her mother’s return, after all she’d been through.

“I’ll never abandon your mother, nor you and Mitya. But it’s over now.”

“Your heart has gone cold after just a few years?”

“We must adjust to this new reality. You must tell your mother that we can have a friendship, but only that. After my illness, I’ve realized I need to stay with my family.”

“You’ve told me. You’ve told Mitya. You’ve told my grandmother. You’ve told my mother that we are your family.”

“You are. Of course, but—”

“Why are you telling this to me, and not my mother?”

“I need your help convincing her that this is for the best. For all of us.”

“I’ll leave it up to my mother to decide what’s best for her,” Ira said.

“Please understand—”

“I’ve never understood.” She untangled her arm from his. “Never.”

“I don’t want to leave things on these terms.”

“Then you will meet my mother at the train station with us. You will embrace her. After all she’s been through—for you. It’s the very least you can do. Then you can tell her what you need to yourself.”

Boris agreed, and they parted ways. As he watched Ira walk away, he thought how the back of her head looked so much like Olga’s. He wanted to call out to Ira—to tell her he’d been wrong, that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, that of course things would return to the way they were. How could they not?

Instead, he walked back to his bench and saw a new old man take the former old man’s place feeding the pigeons. He wondered how many years he had left until he’d take that old man’s place, his own coat pockets filled with birdseed.



* * *



—

Olga is likely awake now. He wonders what she looks like. Is she still beautiful? Or have the camps changed her? And what will Olga think when she sees him again? He’s lost weight, lost hair, and for the first time in his life has begun to feel his true age. The one improvement he’s made while she was gone was to get a set of porcelain veneers. But even with his perfect new teeth, when he looks in the mirror now, he sees an old man, diminished, with a weak heart.

Boris puts the thought out of mind and turns back to his work. Finally he hits upon the right sentence and the rest of the words flow. The paper fills and he drops it into the wicker basket, then pulls out another. He knows he needs to leave in the next few minutes to avoid being late, but he keeps writing.

When he looks up again from his work, the room has darkened and he can smell the chicken Zinaida is roasting. He pulls the chain of the small lamp on his desk and continues to write.

When he finally goes downstairs for dinner, Zinaida smiles at her husband. She puts out her cigarette and lights the two candles in the center of the table. She doesn’t say anything about Boris not going into Moscow, nor does he. They eat together in silence, and he feels a tension in his shoulders release that he hadn’t known he was holding. This is how he should spend the rest of his days, he thinks: writing, being productive, sharing a hot meal with his wife. He asks for some wine, and his wife fills his glass.

He tells himself not to think of Olga and what she’s doing. Is she eating the feast with her family, or has she lost her appetite? Will she sleep tonight? He tries not to think of the way her face must have looked as she saw her family standing on the platform waiting to greet her—how it looked when she realized he wasn’t there.



* * *





Boris wakes. It is still dark. He dresses and leaves the dacha for his morning walk, careful not to wake his sleeping wife. As he passes his garden, he sees a few bright spots of green poking up from the earth. He sets off down the hill, passes the stream, and goes up through the cemetery, then into the village. He finds himself waiting at the station for the morning train into Moscow.