Sashenka

“In the safe, it’s open,” retorted Mendel from the bedroom. To Lena’s surprise, there were a few postcards from Stalin in exile; some notes from the twenties; and typed memoirs on yellowing sheets of foolscap, marked by Mendel’s spidery notes. Her father was so modest. He told stories of his adventures but never dropped names. “Lena!”

Lena followed her father into his bedroom. She opened his wardrobe and took out his three-piece black suit, his black fedora, his walking boots with the built-up sole, a leather tie, his Order of Lenin. Then, struggling to show no emotion and aware that she must not add to his troubles, she helped him dress, as her mother often did. He said nothing until he was ready. “Thank you, Lenochka.”

“What’s it about, Papa? Do you know?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t bothered him.

He just shook his head. “Probably nothing.”

Mendel entered the sitting room and kissed his wife’s forehead. “I love you, Natasha,” he said in his deep voice. “Long live the Party!” Then he turned to his daughter.

“I’ll see you down,” said Lena, feeling numb. In the hall, she helped her lame father step over a heap of family photographs, papers, letters and proofs of his famous book, Bolshevik Morality. The floor looked like a shattered collage of their entire lives.

They rode down in the ornate but creaking elevator. Outside, the night was warm. The Great Palace of the Kremlin glowed majestically. Even though it was so late, there were two lovers on Stone Bridge; tango music escaped from an open window somewhere in the huge building. There was no traffic, just a Packard touring car and a Black Crow van that bore the words Eggs, Bread, Vegetables, both with engines idling.

In the humid street, the glossy, oversized Commissar of Security Kobylov somehow reminded Lena of a shiny papier-mâché statue on a May Day carnival float.

“Your carriage awaits, Mendel,” he said, inclining his kinky-haired head toward the Crow.

Lena watched her father, limping in his old-fashioned suit, his metallic boots clicking on the asphalt, as he approached the open door of the black van. He paused and Lena gasped, her heart in her mouth, but Mendel just looked up at the super-modern apartment building they were so proud to inhabit and said nothing, though a nervous tic fluttered on his cheek. Her severe, laconic and very old-fashioned father was not a demonstrative man but Lena knew from a million little things that he absolutely loved her, his only child. Now Lena did something she had never done before. She took his hand and, placing it between both of hers, she squeezed it. He looked away, and she could hear him wheezing. He was sixty but he looked much older.

Then he turned to Lena and, to her surprise and deep emotion, he bowed formally and then kissed her thrice, the old way, à la russe. “Be a good Communist. Good-bye, Lena Mendelovna.”

“Good-bye, Papa,” she answered.

She wanted to inhale his smell of coffee and cigarettes and soap, his presence, his love; she fought an urge to hold on to his suit, to fall to the pavement and grip his legs so they couldn’t take him—but it was over too fast.

Mendel didn’t look at her again—and she understood why. The step was too high. Two Chekists took Mendel and lifted him into the van. Inside, there were metal cages so Mendel could not sit. They closed him into one such compartment and as they slammed the van door, Lena saw not only her father’s liquid eyes catching the light—but others’ too.

Kobylov banged the top of his limousine as he swung into the passenger seat. Lena stood in the street and watched the two vehicles speed across the bridge past the Kremlin and out of sight.

The janitor, so friendly, always doing chores for the family, stood on the steps staring, but he said nothing and averted his eyes. Then Lena went upstairs to tend to Natasha.

Her mother was sobbing so hard she could not speak. Lena sat down wearily and wondered what to do. She remembered that her mother had cared for Sashenka during her night in prison in 1916.

At dawn, Lena called Sashenka from a phone on the street. She could hear Snowy singing in the background, the clack of cutlery. Sashenka was serving the children breakfast over at Granovsky.

“It’s Lenochka,” she said.

“Lenochka—what is it?”

“Papa’s fallen ill unexpectedly and they’ve…he’s gone for treatment.” Lena was overcome with foreboding. Tears flooded her eyes and she put down the phone.

“Who was that?” asked Snowy. “Lenochka? Aunt Lenochka’s a fat cushion. What’s wrong, Mama?”

“My God,” sighed Sashenka, sinking into a chair, her hand at her forehead. What did this mean? First Gideon, then Mendel. She felt sick.

“Mamochka,” said Carlo in his piping voice, climbing onto her knee like a tame bear cub. He wore blue pajamas. “Are you feeling poorly? I’m going to give you a cuddle and stroke your face and kiss you like this! I love you, Mamochka, you’re my best friend!”