Sasha thinks of Kolya’s journal, of Kolya talking to the neighbor from Nadia’s landing, of her suspicious, incriminating gaze from behind the door held by a chain. She thinks of the university secretary with nails bitten down to the skin, looking for Nadia’s file, then finding it and telling him to leave, condemnation in her voice.
“Isn’t it ironic,” says Andrei, “that the executioner becomes the victim, and the victim becomes the executioner? Our system, if you think of it, is pure genius: executioners and victims are the same people. The engine of death has been in motion for decades, and no one is guilty, because everyone is guilty.”
They sit looking at each other, not moving. It is so quiet in the room that Sasha can hear the buzzing of a neon lamp over the kitchen door.
“And you know what I’m wondering . . . ,” Andrei says, glancing away from her, as if he is no longer able to look Sasha in the eye. “If I’d been born earlier, would I have also become an executioner, as my father-in-law insists? Would I have followed orders and murdered and tortured prisoners, as he did? Would I have shot a kneeling man in the back of his head?” He looks at her and squints. “It is a terrifying question. And if I’m willing to be honest, I don’t know the answer. That’s what really cripples me, what keeps me up at night.” He pauses and leans back.
“Every day we make choices.” His voice is thick, and his eyes are down. “Or at least, we think they are choices. I handed Marik that unexploded shell, a choice that killed him. Kolya decided not to return home, a choice that killed him, too, at least in the eyes of his family. You made a choice to go to Moscow.” He pauses after Moscow, and she knows that of the three, this is the most consequential choice for him. “But there is one thing my father-in-law told me about choices that has always stayed with me: you either pull the trigger, or you kneel on the floor.”
He straightens himself in his chair and then leans forward, as if to share another secret.
“That’s why you have to go to America. You have to get out of here before it’s too late, before the poison has seeped into your veins and you become just like the rest of us.” He peers into her face for a few moments as Sasha shakes her head. “I know you think this could never happen to you, but with time, it does happen. It happens without you even knowing it. It happens to all of us.” He props himself on his elbow and leans so close, she can feel his breath. “You were born in the wrong country, Sashenka. You’re naive and uncompromising. You don’t bend, and sooner or later, our motherland will break you. It breaks everyone.”
She is not sure he is right, but she knows one thing: this is what her mother used to tell her, too. She wasn’t as laconic, but she worried about Sasha’s lack of self-censorship as much as she worried about all the other dangers.
Like a flash of lightning, an idea makes her heart lurch with hope. “Then let’s go to America together,” she says. “We will leave the past here. All the past, yours and mine. We will start over.”
His face convulses into a grimace, and he shakes his head, as if what she has just said is a perfect example of her inability to bend. “I can’t start over. I wish I could.” For a moment, he closes his eyes, as though she didn’t hear a word he said. “It’s like when you try to carry a load that’s too heavy. At first you manage to lift it, but after you’ve lugged it for a while, you can no longer carry it any farther. I know this feeling from when I unloaded freight trains. You try to carry the weight, you try to balance it and steady yourself, but it pushes you down further and further and it finally breaks your back. It’s broken me, this load. It’s too late for me to stop doing what I do. It’s been too long.” His hand rises to his throat, and his fingers fumble to undo the top two buttons of his shirt. “My back has been broken. I can no longer move forward. I’m now deep in this muck, up to my ears, drowning.”
This late-night talk laced with wine and cognac, in this surreal, empty place, seems as close as they will ever get to their moment of truth, and Sasha has to try one last time. She needs to exhume her guilt of leaving Ivanovo for Moscow, surrender it to him.
“I know I’m naive, but this is our only chance. I left you at a terrible time. It is my fault that you’ve been drawn into this swamp, and I want to pull you out. Please. Let’s leave together and start over.”
She peers into his face, waiting. He doesn’t say anything, but she can read the answer in his eyes. There is no light left there, no life. His silence is his answer. He hesitates, as if he were ready to say something, but it is only a hesitation, a bullet jammed in the throat of a gun.