Invitation to a Bonfire (12 page)

 

Lev

28 June 1931, later

Airmail via [Redacted]

One more thing. I'll send these letters together, and hopefully you'll feel the tug of time between them, how I set down my pen and folded the paper, and then was bowled over by the sense of you, present. I often get this feeling at home, when we're separated by a wall or a few city blocks; some whiff of you walks into the room behind me, brushes its fingertips over my shoulders, reaches a hand down the top of my shirt to caress the tough nub of my breastbone. I never want you more, Vera, than in those moments. When the distance between us is but a clarion cry, a note on our closeness. Tonight you crawled up onto my knees, pushing my chair back several inches and nearly toppling both of us over. I could feel the weight of you, could almost make out your outline. Your fingers scattering themselves over my skin, as if setting spells from some private grimoire, a book of incantations built to my exact specifications. Bring in the clear and cloudless wife. Her invisibility irresistible, my brain all woolen with desire.

Were those hands my hands? The ones that pulled at me, put me in my place. Was it my hips that pitched and rolled until the inevitable cataclysm? Hull of a ship, breached. Cheek of a woman, brushed by cheek. I know what most people would say about lonely Lev in his lightless
cottage at the end of the land. Lantern kicked over, fire brewing in the dirt of the floor before fizzling out. Self abuse, heavy use. But I have more faith than most people. In you, especially.

Tomorrow night I'm meeting again with the courier, Vlad, so he can secret me across the heavily patrolled border back to the home of my birth. Our births. From there I'll have twenty-four hours, along with my own sense of momentum and the hand spade I picked up—an ingenious contraption that can be folded in two so as to look less like a knife if one's possessions are tossed by suspicious soldiers. Today I found a small hillock and practiced shooting into it, getting used to the kick of the Italian pistol and fumbling my fingers through the process of a quick reload. I won't write you again until I'm homeward bound, or perhaps I won't write again at all. Whether due to hasty retreat or an untimely bullet in an unlikely place (forehead, home of dreams, kaput, et cetera), this may be the last missive you receive from my misadventure. I pray that fate not let those Marxist thugs derail me—I could not stand the
sovietskii sabor
on my tongue forever, flavor of a lost country. You know they'd keep me if they could, writing incompetent manifestos or moldering in an early grave. With any luck you'll see me soon, manuscript in hand, all triumph.

But if not, at least I had one last taste of you this evening, and I wanted you to know it, that your distant body was as nourishing as any meal. Salted radishes. Stewed pear. White wine. Red blood. I bit your unseen lip and into my mouth there came an iron tang. Back in our house, in our bed, by your candle, I'm sure you cried out and then reached for a tissue to wipe away the stain. Touched a finger to your newly bruised mouth. Settled back into the pillows, content.

 

Zoya

28.

The next day I was flush with my financial success, reorganizing succulents to make room for a new display—a small pond for water lilies, which seemed an appropriate homage to the tastes of my new benefactor. When I heard something scuffling at the building's rear, I thought,
Already?
It was early for the girls to be harassing me on my home ground. Most weren't even moved into their dorms, so where had they found the time to come creeping?
What eager devils
, I thought.
What pretty witches. Let's get started, if you wish.

Taking care not to crush the water lines or kick over any vital terra-cotta, I picked my way to the sound's point of origin. A window, tapping. A stick outside, giving up with a snap. I thought I might give them a bit of a scare, these interlopers, but even after pushing aside several jungle plants I couldn't see a soul. The glass was fogged up and lightly mildewed—annoying after the deep clean John and I had done, but this particular pane stood behind a bushy palm, and the fronds hid the worst of the mold. Since my shirt was already filthy, I breathed onto the stain and wiped it away with my sleeve.

Then I screamed.

In that scream: terror, surprise, embarrassment, and then—a tiny trill of pleasure. For there was no pert girl waiting to wiggle her fingers at me in some impertinent hello. Just a long nose, a raised eyebrow. A man bent over and trying every bit as hard to see my face as I was trying to see his.
And what's more, I knew this man's name. It was Leo Orlov, beyond a shadow of a doubt, though his hair was combed differently from as was usual in his photographs.
Lev Pavlovich
, I would come to call him.

He stood up and gave me a genial nod, then walked off across the campus lawn as if he did so every day. And, in time, of course he would. I put a hand up to my heart, then touched the cold glass. Not a hallucination. Thirty paces away he stopped and wiped something off his shoe on the grass.

But what did it mean? An imagined Orlov could have been chalked up to the same bout of magical thinking that had led me to strip off my stockings while standing a stone's throw from the Hall of Science the day before. Dreamy lust, bodily volition. But a real Orlov, a flesh-and-blood incarnation? Perhaps he was just passing through. A road trip with some fellow expatriate, on the run from an agent of the Soviet secret police, the dreaded NKVD. A book tour with a signing at the local shop. I knew vaguely that he was married; perhaps his wife liked maple trees. Perhaps they were visiting someone, an old shut-in astronomer who was helping Lev map the rules of a new star system. Two planets orbiting the same sun in an infinite double ellipse. That kind of thing.

It was lunchtime. Taking a moment to wash my hands and de-smear the green matter from my clothing, I went to the cafeteria in search of answers. Hilda and Nadine both waved from the kitchen; they looked more and more alike these days. Returning students bubbled around me,
oohing
and
aahing
at the new ice cream freezer and pulling their parents away from the salad. It was nice to go unrecognized; I had been right before, it was too early for the girls to pay me any mind. Glancing behind myself to make sure I wasn't followed, I slipped into the kitchen and stage whispered.

“Psst!”

Nadine appeared from nowhere and whapped my head with a dish towel.

“
Psst
yourself, private eye. Long time, no see.”

“Don't be grouchy,” I said. “I've been busy.”

“I know, Miss Moneybags. John told us. So is that why you're here? To show off some new gold rings? Silk shirts? What's going on?”

I tried to look casual, downplaying my interest by inspecting a bowl of fruit salad, moving the grapes around with a set of tongs. Then, as an afterthought, “Is there a new teacher this year?”

Nadine shrugged, and looked to Hilda, who did the same. “There's always one or two. Someone gets sick, retires. Someone finds a better post. Why?”

“Nothing,” I said, picking up a slice of apple and nibbling the end.

“Malarkey.”

“No, really. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

“You?” Now Hilda was interested. “Like, another graduate? Or something else. You mean a
Soviet
?” She looked perturbed.

“It's probably nothing. Just a writer I like.”

“Oh, him.” Hilda laughed. “Well, then I was sort of right, wasn't I?”

“You've met him?”

“He came through with Mr. Round, he and his wife. She's pretty, if you like 'em mean.”

“Should fit right in around here,” I suggested. At the time, I didn't know we were talking about Vera, though I'm not sure it would have changed what I had to say.

Nadine made a
hmm
sound in the back of her throat and handed me another piece of apple. “So. You like his … writing? His … big ideas?” I turned immediately red.

“Yes, I do. And what's your point?”

“No point.” She smiled. “Just trying to make sure we're on the same page.”

I popped the last bit of apple into my mouth and tried to swallow without really chewing, then coughed. Hilda had to slap my back. “Well, I think it's time for me to get out of here.”

“You do that. We'll keep an eye out for your Mr. Writer.”

I left with the sound of laughter following me—a friendly sort of humiliation. I would never have admitted to them that I was intrigued by Leo
Orlov, but I was pleased anyhow that they were on the case, ready to share any news they came up with.

That night at home I pulled all my Orlov books off the shelf and piled them around me, curious to see if they gave off any new energy now, my body having approached so close to their maker. I flipped through my favorites, pausing on the pages I'd folded down at the corner and rereading passages I'd underlined with pencil. In my hurry, I got a paper cut on my index finger and sucked the blood away until it dried, then went on checking the biographies printed on the rear flaps of the novels hoping to note any changes in them over the years, however small. I wanted to know when he'd moved to the United States, when he won his first award. I wanted to know everything about him.

29.

I learned soon enough: Leo Orlov was a flirt. A burning flirt. I didn't need Nadine to tell me, either; I heard it straight from the Donne girls, who'd begun using the warm corners of the greenhouse to gossip while pressing red petals between their fingers. Plucking those petals from the flower and bringing them idly to their lips. Girls spilling over with themselves and their enthusiasms.

“He sat on Katie's desk,” one said, “and asked her to recite from Byron.”

“Oh yeah? Well, he said he wanted to measure the hem of my skirt, and the ruler was touching my leg the whole time.” A swoon sound.

“I heard he brought a bag of candies to class and threw one right into Nora's mouth. She almost choked, but she said it was worth it. Right from his fingertips onto her tongue.”

During these confessionals I made sure to carry out minute tasks, things requiring the appearance of my full concentration. I wound vines up stakes, searched for and eliminated caterpillar eggs, trimmed dead branches off the flower bushes. In my state of pathological attention, the girls soon forgot about me; it was a convenient camouflage. But often I heard more than I cared to.

“He told Sophia how short to cut her hair.”

Leo Orlov wouldn't do that.

“
He graded Bridget's paper B for Buxom.”

Leo Orlov is respectable. Leo Orlov is married to a beautiful wife
. It didn't matter that I had the same designs as everyone; the idea that he would stoop to flirting with children insulted me. I wanted to give all these girls a talking-to, shake Orlov's books in front of their noses and tell them—what? That great men didn't stray? Even I wasn't that na
ï
ve.

One afternoon, about a month into the semester, I was sitting outside taking a break and enjoying the last of the waning fall sun when I heard a screech coming from a stand of laurels. Flashes of color whipped through the branches, too quick to make sense of. Then a girl jumped around a nearby tree and leaned against the trunk, grinning. Panting. It was Daphne, the onetime freshman—now senior—who used to haunt my greenhouse during finals week, trying to relax among the green. She looked insane.

“Come out, come out,” a voice called. Daphne pressed herself tighter against the bark, nearly melting into the tree despite her giggles. If you squinted, her arms were branches, her hair the bloom.

“Oh for god's sake,” I muttered. Except, not wanting Daphne to overhear me, what I really said was
Bozhe moi.
Russian still found its way to my tongue now and then, for secret keeping. Useful, as it turned out.

A hand reached around and tapped Daphne on the shoulder, and she squealed.

“Now, my dear,” said the droll voice attached to the hand. “Run away to class, I know you're late. You've made a quick study in the art of escapism, brava.”

I watched. She scampered off across the lawn, her little slippers so light she seemed to be dancing a ballet. Spring fawn,
grand jeté, grand jeté, grand jeté.
In retrospect I always imagine myself, in this moment, smoking a cigarette in furious protest, but that wasn't yet my vice. I'd learn it from Lev soon enough.

“
Nu, chto zdes est'?
” What have we here? A man—my man, the same fellow who had peered into my greenhouse, the same pair of eyes that first dreamed up the words in
Felice
, which I'd just finished devouring that
morning—walked over, wiping his hands on a pocket square, which he then deftly re-tucked. “
Prostitye
, kto
est
'.” Forgive me,
who
.

“Who, what, where,” I replied. Hoping to sound cool. “It doesn't matter what I am, because you don't
have
me.”

“Oh, very nice. I like that very much. But really, I need to sit for a moment. These infants are exhausting.”

Just like that I was sharing a patch of grass with Leo Orlov, hero of my reading life, current delicious villain of the rest. I tried to ignore the fact that he'd said exactly what I wanted him to say, and that he smelled like umber—the color, I mean. I wasn't sure how he did it, but was too afraid to sound foolish asking. It crept up on me, invading my sinuses and my good sense.

“You seem to enjoy them well enough,” I told him.

“Well, one enjoys young creatures. The enthusiasm of the barely born. Don't you think?” He asked me the way one asks a fellow traveler. A connoisseur. Then he leaned back against the greenhouse, glass creaking slightly beneath his weight. From the corner of my eye, I noted his mussed hair. The long hollow of his smooth-shaven cheek.

“I think they're terrible.”

“
T'i stishesh
,” he said: You're joking. He moved so easily into the familiar
t'i
that I hardly had time to register it. “How can something so na
ï
ve be terrible? They don't have the strength.”

Without speaking I held out my arm, showing off a dime-sized burn on the inner curve of my elbow. Just a scar, now, but still a standout. Its twin itched on my leg, though that one had at least appeared accidental when it happened.

“No,” he said. “Them?”

“The very same. Baby animals. Sharp teeth.”

He corrected: “Sharp fangs.”

At last I turned to regard him straight on. “I'm Zoya,” I said. “Zoya Ivanovna Andropova.” I laughed. “You have no idea what a relief it is to say my whole name for once.”

“Lev Pavlovich Orlov.” He held out a hand, which I shook. “And I think I might.” Lev switched back into Russian without missing a beat. “There
are days I can't stand talking to anyone at all here. I just want to crawl into my bedroom and lock the door. Leave all those dreadful
Hey Misters
outside and take a sleeping pill with a glass of vodka.” He employed a dreadful American drawl to say
Hey Meeester
.

“You don't really drink vodka.”

“Oh, of course I do, it's medicinal.”

“For a cold.”

“Not for pleasure.”

“Never pleasure.”

“Never, no.” Lev picked up my hand—I'm ashamed to say I jumped, but his touch was so welcome and warm it shocked my system. He inspected my fingernails. “So let me guess. A working girl.”

“That's right, Comrade. What else could I hope to be, as a functioning member of society?”

“Then you lost everything, too.”

I shook my head. His home, I thought, must've been magnificent, with gold woven into the curtains for texture and window lintels of dustless mahogany. It was tempting to pretend I was indeed the kind of girl he imagined, wealthy and fallen, with my own fond memories of angora rabbits kept as pets and a taste for expensive, peppery wine. But I didn't want to lie. Whether I thought it would've been an insult to him or to my parents I'm still not certain. “Never had anything to lose,” I said.

“Hmm.” Lev moved his fingers down my own; they traveled light. A drop of water. Spray of rain. I could see my hand, beneath his, as almost delicate, though his nails were buffed and mine were not. He lacked calluses, but still. It was in the way he handled me. “I can't say I entirely agree.”

I felt—my tongue grew very warm. I wanted to touch his neck, to smell his hair. I wanted him to reach into my mouth and count my teeth and see what the years had done to me. It was sex, but it was also the rest, unspoken: that we'd lost more than money when we lost our homes. That we didn't just escape a bad situation when we snuck across the border, we'd allowed our whole world to be washed away. Grammar, subject, object, tense. And that somehow together we could tally up those losses more
completely. Already I wanted to press my tongue against his ear and see if I tasted a Russian fall. Watermelon. Jam. Smog. My mother and father. But here we were, two people in a school for girls where
propriety
was the watchword. I sat perfectly still, hoping he wouldn't drop my hand. His eyes flicked to the watch on his left wrist.