The Nesting Dolls Read online

  Natasha’s words tumbled over one another. She couldn’t be sure if they made sense or if it—she—was a mishmash of worst-case-scenario anxiety. Natasha was crying, wiping her cheeks with the backs of both hands, her nose running, her mascara smearing. The travel agent who’d smiled at Natasha earlier was now sneaking disgusted peeks and looking relieved to have dodged this bullet.

  The older woman, however, offered Natasha a handkerchief. It smelled of cloves and was embroidered with a lace border.

  “When is the baby due?” she asked.

  “Seven months,” Natasha sniffled, telling the truth.

  “And your friend, she’s afraid the father might not step up to his responsibility?”

  Natasha nodded miserably. “He’s a very important person. He has so much on his mind, so many other priorities. If this isn’t nailed down immediately, who knows what might happen?”

  The agent turned her back so her colleague couldn’t see. She reached into the lowest drawer of her desk and pulled out a stack of papers, sliding them toward Natasha, whispering, “These are for Party members. Last-minute tickets. I’m supposed to hold on to them, in case of an emergency.” She patted Natasha’s hand. “If your friend’s situation isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is.”

  “Thank you.” Natasha swallowed, relieved she hadn’t failed in her endeavor. Terrified about what her lack of failure meant.

  “Good luck.” The old lady almost cracked a smile.

  She didn’t, however, return the extra 100 rubles.

  “You’re marvelous!” Dima swept Natasha into a hug. “Look at what she did!” He flapped the tickets at their comrades. “Party member passes! No one would dare question us with these!”

  “Wonderful work,” Ludmilla chimed in. Less than enthusiastically, Natasha thought.

  “Yes, wonderful,” Miriam echoed.

  Natasha accepted their kudos magnanimously, stressing how she was just doing her part. But while her head may have swiveled to acknowledge everyone singing her praises, Natasha kept her eyes peeled on Dima.

  “You’re our heroine,” Dima said and, right there, in front of everyone, kissed Natasha on the lips. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  Now that they had tickets, step two involved practicing how they would tie up and eject the pilots, and what would happen next. One of their number had flown in the army. He would be in charge. Just in case, the rest of them read smuggled books about how to fly a small aircraft. They simulated a cockpit out of discarded household items, broken clock faces for the dials, a gutted television set for the window. They composed manifestos to overseas news outlets that they planned to drop in the mail the morning of their escape. They didn’t fear them being opened by authorities because, by that point, they’d either be in the air (assuming the course they plotted from stolen maps proved accurate) . . . or under arrest. If Natasha’s parents wondered where their unemployed daughter was disappearing to daily, they kept the questions to themselves. The less you know, the sounder you sleep. Even Boris was keeping his distance. Following their initial conversation, he never again brought up emigration or marriage or the baby Natasha had yet to confess to anyone else. He merely kept a stealthy watch on Natasha, like those paintings in which the figure isn’t moving but its eyes seem to be following you.

  Under different circumstances, Natasha would have been annoyed. Under different circumstances, she would have barked for him to cut it out. But these were exceptional days, and Natasha’s giddy happiness at finally being a full-fledged member of Dima’s inner circle, at finally doing something more productive and exciting than sweatily switching satchels, at finally having Dima publicly acknowledge just how much she meant to him, extended not only to Dima and his cause but to everyone who so much as brushed up against his aura. Instead of feeling exasperated by Boris, Natasha gazed upon him affectionately, as something that, in the past, held sentimental value to her; something that, in the near future, she would never see again.

  As the day of reckoning drew closer, Natasha realized she would soon be waving farewell to everything and everyone. Mama and Papa, her friends from school, Boris. Natasha couldn’t risk saying goodbye out loud, even as she walked about doing it mentally toward every tree, every edifice, every café and statue in Odessa. Goodbye, Duc de Richelieu with his outstretched hand; goodbye, peeing Pushkin; goodbye, flower-strewn Tomb of the Unknown Sailor.

  As part of Natasha’s dosvedanya tour, she found even the most mundane exchanges rife with meaning. Her last morning at home, when she had to act as if it were just another day—some of the others told their families they were taking a holiday, but Natasha feared even a casual goodbye would break her—she accepted the cup of tea Mama proffered her with shaking hands, breathing in the aroma to imprint the smell. She ran her hand against the frayed plastic tablecloth. She stared out the window at the courtyard and mourned that the next time the dandelions went to seed, she would be gone. Who cared that, in the past, she’d raged against their fluff getting caught in her hair, sticking on her clothes, and clogging her nostrils?

  She stirred her mannaya kasha listlessly, as if Natasha’s dawdling might keep Papa from inhaling his portion of semolina before rushing off to work. Papa was making small talk about the workday ahead, dabbing at his sticky lips with a handkerchief and using the back of the same to wipe up drips of porridge his spoon left on the table. He had no idea that, before the day was out, he’d be called before another committee. Last time they’d excoriated him and taken away his medals. What punishment was in store this time? Natasha struggled to keep from imagining Papa and Mama fired, the Rozengurts stripped of their permission to leave. Both couples tossed out on the street. The shaking in Natasha’s hands migrated the length of her body.

  “Are you coming down with a fever?” Mama pressed her palm against Natasha’s forehead. “You’ve been looking haggard for weeks. Maybe you should spend today in bed. Resting.”

  She’d uttered the sentiment dozens of times throughout Natasha’s childhood. Illness was about the only thing that could make Natasha’s usually stoic Mama tremble. She lived in terror of every cough, every sneeze, every sniffle turning into pneumonia. Was it Natasha’s hypersensitive state that was prompting her to imagine Mama putting particular emphasis on the word today? And what about her saying Natasha was looking haggard? Had Mama, like Boris, put two and two together and come up with an almost-four-month-old secret? What was Mama trying to tell her when she suggested Natasha spend today—today specifically—in bed?

  “I don’t know,” Natasha began, standing up on equally shaky legs, moving for the door.

  “I think it would be for the best,” Mama said firmly.

  The pair locked eyes. In her peripheral vision, Natasha saw Papa. He’d stopped eating. He was watching them. While Natasha was watching Mama, whose body stood angled in such a way that she could as easily stop Natasha from heading for the door as she could let her go. Did Mama even know she had such a momentous decision to make?

  Natasha’s head moved independently of her will. It took a moment before she realized she was nodding.

  Chapter 30

  Mama and Papa left for work. So did the Rozengurts. Natasha was home alone, tucked under the duvet smelling of home-brewed lye soap, a plate of bland soft-boiled eggs mixed with scraps of bread—a favorite from childhood sick days—on a chair next to her. Natasha lacked an appetite. That would help with her illness excuse. Because that’s what this was, an excuse. Had Natasha been looking for one from the moment she awoke? Had she never planned to meet Dima and the others? If it hadn’t been Mama’s suggestion that she stay home, would Natasha have loitered until something equally acceptable turned up?

  She watched the clock. They’d worked their strategy out to the last detail. Natasha knew when everything was supposed to happen. The question was, would it happen? And then, did it happen? She turned on the radio, though she knew there’d be no news. If the hijacking succeeded, authorities would en
sure no word of it ever trickled down to the public. And if it failed, the notion that anyone might be so desperate to leave the USSR would still be an international embarrassment.

  Still, whether TASS was authorized to announce or not, there was always gossip. Like samizdat copies of forbidden books passing hand to hand, rumors traveled mouth to mouth. It’s how they knew about the Lenin Library protest, the Passover service, and the worldwide rallies. Or about Solomon Mikhoels, artistic director and star of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. He met everyone from scientist Albert Einstein to singer Paul Robeson while traveling across the United States to gain America’s support in the fight against German fascism. But then Stalin had decreed that contact with citizens of non-Communist countries was bourgeois, and he’d had Mikhoels murdered. The official cause of death was a hit-and-run, but everyone Natasha knew was convinced the reason their icon had a closed-coffin state funeral was to hide evidence of the torture he’d endured prior to being dumped on the side of the road and crushed by a truck. They laughed at Mikhoels’s self-proclaimed friend, Robeson, accepting the Stalin Peace Prize from the man himself, telling the international press regarding Stalin’s war against the Jews, “I heard no word about it.” Maybe he hadn’t. They all had.

  Mikhoels had been judged too famous and beloved for a public show trial. But Dima and his cohorts wouldn’t be. Odds are, something would eventually appear on the official news if they were caught. And yet, for days, nothing did.

  Natasha once again vacillated from a feeling of terror—that every knock on the door, every squeal of a tire in the middle of the night, was the KGB coming for her; if they’d been caught, that meant they’d been watched, and if they’d been watched, they had to know Natasha was part of the group—to a sinking realization that the others must have gotten away with it.

  And that Natasha had given up her chance to make history.

  She imagined the heroes’ welcome Dima and the rest must have received after they landed in the West. They’d be celebrities, feted by prime ministers and presidents, having their photos taken, granting interviews where they told and retold their thrilling tale of escape. There would be ballads written about them, books, perhaps even a film made. Natasha fantasized that Dima would send for her. He wouldn’t abandon the woman he loved or permit his child to grow up trapped in the USSR. But as days passed without a representative from the U.S. embassy showing up on Natasha’s doorstep with a visa and a one-way ticket to New York, she told herself Dima wouldn’t risk her safety in such a manner. He would keep her name out of it, for fear of reprisals.

  She could have gone with him. She could have been a hero, too. She could be in America right now, living in a mansion where they had closets so big they needed their own lightbulbs, wearing a silver mink coat to drive her gold Cadillac to a restaurant where you didn’t even have to go in, they brought the food straight out to you! No waiting in line!

  She and Dima would be married. He’d want a religious ceremony. Natasha wasn’t sure what that entailed. It wasn’t as if she could ask. There were short stories Sholom Aleichem had published in Russian available at the public library, but anything that referred to religion had been exorcised in order that, according to the introduction, they could better focus on the writer’s love of Russian culture and its progressive ideals in the face of international moneybags. They were no help.

  Still, Natasha was able to glean something about the bride and groom standing beneath a canopy, a smashed glass, and a wedding contract you were supposed to frame. She imagined the rest, popping herself and Dima into the scene. She visualized their wedding pictures in the newspapers, and, when their baby was born, it would be on the cover of one of those glossy French magazines, like European royal families. But most important, they would have made a significant political statement and advanced the cause of Soviet Jewry worldwide.

  Except now all that would happen without Natasha.

  Her baby would be born in Odessa, where she would have to bribe the anesthesiologist for medication and give birth in full view of any hospital personnel who happened to wander through, including the janitor. She’d spend a week in the maternity ward, lying side by side with other new mothers in a row of identical cots. Then she would bring the baby home—to the same crowded room she already shared with Mama and Papa—and proceed to drown in a cascade of cloth diapers to be hand-washed, starched, and ironed; bottles to be sterilized; and screams to be hushed. She wondered if she’d be allowed to go back to work, if her child would still be eligible for a place in a public nursery and if her political pariah situation would be permanent. Like her misery. And her regret. And her stupidity. She’d been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And she’d been too cowardly to run with it.

  Natasha’s remorse grew so severe, she would be walking down Primorsky Boulevard by day, yet seeing before her Times Square lit up at night. Instead of the white Potemkin Steps rolling down, she saw the gray Empire State Building towering up, and instead of the Monument to Catherine the Great, she saw the Statue of Liberty. In each location, Natasha walked hand in hand with Dima. Sometimes she was pushing a fancy American stroller. Once in a while, she allowed some of Dima’s comrades to flank them on either side, like an honor guard.

  So habituated was Natasha to her parallel existence that, when she spotted Miriam crossing the street, it took Natasha a moment to recognize the woman was actually here, rather than a chimera like the others.

  In a half dozen brisk strides Natasha caught up to Miriam and tapped her on the shoulder. The girl whipped around as if struck by an arrow, the terror on her face a replica of how Natasha had felt during those first days before realizing Dima and the rest had succeeded in their escape. Natasha expected Miriam to relax once she realized it was just her, but Miriam, if anything, looked more panicked. She whispered, “Follow a couple steps behind me,” as she about-faced and began walking in the opposite direction. Confused, Natasha did as she was told. She kept a half block’s distance between them for over a kilometer, running out of breath as her newfound queasy exhaustion made its regular afternoon debut. Finally, Miriam ducked into an alley that smelled of rancid soup and backed-up sewage and made Natasha gag.

  “Morning sickness?” Miriam clucked, still whispering.

  “How did you know?” Natasha sputtered, forcing down the bile that didn’t so much rise in her throat as take up residence there—a sour, immobile clump of mucus.

  “Dima told me. Before he left.”

  Natasha supposed she could take offense at Dima’s sharing their private business. Despite the public kiss, they’d kept every other aspect of the relationship to themselves. But Natasha was proud that Dima appeared so excited about the baby he couldn’t keep the news to himself.

  “I thought you were supposed to go with them.” Natasha took heart in not being the only coward. And she didn’t even have God’s benevolent protection to hide behind. The way Natasha looked at it, that made her less of a coward than Miriam.

  “After he realized you weren’t coming, Dima told me to stay behind, to watch out for you.”

  Natasha instantly forgave Dima for all the trysts she, in her weaker moments, imagined him having with Western floozies who threw themselves at heroic celebrities. Dima had been worried enough about Natasha and the baby to leave behind his most trusted lieutenant (Natasha promoted Miriam from the farthest end of the table) to ensure their safety. What a sacrifice!

  “Dima needed to know you wouldn’t inform on us.”

  And just like that, Natasha’s faith crumbled. The stopper of phlegm in her throat barely kept Natasha’s stomach contents from joining the overall stench.

  “Dima thought I might betray you?”

  “He didn’t want to take any chances. He sent me to your house. I saw you were in bed, sick. The baby.” Miriam offered Natasha a way out, though she didn’t sound as if she believed it. “You didn’t want to slow them down.”

  Natasha nodded weakly, confirming the assessment. “I woul
d never betray him.”

  “Not that it mattered in the end. They were still caught. Ambushed right on the tarmac. They’re in Lubyanka. It’s only a matter of time before they come for us, too.”

  Natasha’s bladder clenched as if she were peering down from a great height. “I thought they got away. When there was nothing in the news—”

  “I heard it on Voice of America. The KGB intercepted them as soon as they got to the airfield.”

  “And we’re next?” Natasha suspected she should be more worried about Dima. The stories she’d heard about Lubyanka’s treatment of political prisoners—sleep deprivation with bright lights, beatings, starvation, isolation, naked dissidents getting hosed down with either freezing or scalding water—suggested Dima deserved her horror and concern. But all Natasha could think was, “Then why haven’t they come for us already?”

  “They’re watching. They want to see who we contact so they can arrest even more of us.” Which explained why they were having this conversation in secret. But not why Miriam followed up with, “We need you to go public.”

  “What?” Natasha all but shrieked, her head not so much spinning as throbbing.

  “We’ve been talking about this, those of us who are left. Ludmilla’s husband is trying to secure her release on humanitarian grounds, her being the mother of a small child, but he thinks—”

  Ludmilla had a husband? A child? Why hadn’t Natasha known this? She’d suspected Ludmilla saw her as a threat. But was the truth that Ludmilla had never taken Natasha seriously? That she thought Natasha was simply playacting at being a radical, just like Boris accused?

  Miriam was still talking. “People in the West, they need specifics; names, faces, stories. Look at the support for Begun or Sharansky. Americans prefer to fight for a person rather than a cause. They’re good people, but they’re simple.”