“But winter, he said, was far worse. Prisoners who failed to fulfill the daily quota of work were tied to trees and doused with water. From November to April, dozens of ice statues loomed about the campgrounds. Reminders to others not to question anything. Reminders to fear those with power, to follow the rules. And for those who didn’t, he said, there were so many ways to be tortured and killed. My father was a common criminal, so his life was easier, but he saw what they did to political prisoners, to traitors. They were forced to sleep on the lower bunks, the coldest place in the barracks. Kirill from the bunk below my father’s was always scribbling in a notebook and was accused of insubordination. They beat him with iron pipes and left him outside to freeze. The white-haired man everyone called ‘the scientist’ had his hands tied behind his back before they pushed his face into a bucket full of shit and urine. That was his punishment for treason and subversion, a punishment that served him right, my father said.”
For a minute, they sit quietly, watching the figure of a lone fisherman with his rod, motionless, on the opposite bank.
“How could I believe him? This was the stuff of Auschwitz, not our own Vorkuta or Magadan. This is what the Nazis did in their camps. My father had become everything we were fighting against, his cruelty toward my mother, his drunkenness. That’s why I went to work for the Komsomol Committee, because of him. To get away from him, to take revenge on anyone like him. To build a world in which he wouldn’t exist.”
Andrei’s mouth tenses, and he looks away. “I hated my father, and I still hate him. Not a single tear for him from me.” He turns to Sasha and cups her hand between his palms. “Except for you, Sashenka, from now on, not a single tear for anyone.”
16
In their field, she hardens herself to tell Andrei that she must go to Moscow, that she has already bought a one-way ticket and hidden it on the bottom of her suitcase. A one-way ticket, a brazen purchase, as if she knows for certain that she will pass the three rounds of auditions required to get accepted.
She has been putting off the announcement long enough, and for that she is punished: the enormity of Andrei’s recent losses has drained the certainty of her intent to leave and allowed doubts to seep into her soul. Her leaving will clearly announce her priorities: acting and Theater are more important than life and love, more important than Andrei, even after the fire has robbed him of his family.
She is prepared to say, as a preface, that long ago, she and Andrei made a promise not to hurt each other, when there was so much hurting happening after the war. Then she would admit that she has been keeping something from him, something that she knows is going to hurt him. She has prepared all those words, neatly arranged, but not one of them is now breaking from its mooring to float to the surface.
“There is no easy way to say what I have to, so I’ll just say it.” She cringes at her own awkwardness. “I’m going to Moscow to take an entrance exam to a drama school. I leave in two weeks,” she utters, unsure of whether she can keep up her resolve and not disintegrate into tears because the mere thought of leaving makes her nauseous.
She is afraid to look at him, and when she does, his face has lost focus as it blurs when it is next to hers, but now there is at least a meter of space between them, space charged with the smell of gathering rain and betrayal. She has never seen Andrei look so unguarded, so fragile.
“Why?” he asks. His voice is heavy, swollen with pain. “Why are you leaving? Have I said something? I don’t understand . . .” His voice trails off, and he peers into the grass, breathing hard. “What have I done to make you leave?” His eyes are now searching hers, not finding any answers.
Should she say that she might be back next month, one of the scores of high school hopefuls who didn’t get accepted, humiliation lapping around her like a foul smell? Or would the possibility of such an inglorious return mark the end of everything for her, even though Andrei might see in it a glimpse of hope?
“Ever since I was seven,” she says, “I’ve wanted to study acting. If I don’t try, if I don’t go to Moscow and at least try, I will never forgive myself.” She knows there is another reason for going to Moscow, something that has been percolating through her mind ever since she heard Three Sisters on the radio, something that she decides not to tell Andrei. There has to be more than Ivanovo. She needs to see Moscow, to experience a different kind of life.
She says the words she has prepared, but all she hears in response is silence, and all she sees is Andrei’s wounded face. She never knew she could possess the power to hurt someone so deeply, to inject such anguish into someone’s eyes. The power she will learn to wield in Moscow, the power that ten years earlier made her believe that the actors in the radio play were really desperate to leave their provincial town, the power that will make her audiences laugh or cry. Was her mother right when she called her an egoistka? An egomaniac basking in her freshly discovered power while plunging a knife into the heart of someone she purports to love.