Winter Garden (34 page)

The door behind her slid open and clicked shut. She thought at first it was Nina, here to tell her the bathroom was free, but then she smelled the sweet rose scent of Mom’s shampoo.

“Hey,” Meredith said, smiling. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“I cannot sleep.”

“Maybe it’s the color of the night.”

“I cannot sleep with the tapes in my room,” Mom said, sitting down in the chair beside Meredith.

“You can put them in our room.”

Mom coiled her hands together nervously. “I need to give them away tonight.”

“Tonight? It’s nine-fift een, Mom.”

“Da. I asked downstairs. This address is only three blocks away.”

Meredith turned in her chair. “You mean this. What’s wrong?”

“Honestly? I do not know. I am being silly and old. I know this. But I want to be done with this task.”

“I’ll call him.”

“There is no listing. I called information from my room. We are going to have to just show up. Tonight is best. Tomorrow maybe he will be at work and we’ll have to wait.”

“With the tapes.”

Mom looked at her. “With the tapes,” she said quietly, and Meredith saw the vulnerability Mom was trying to hide. And fear; she saw that, too. After all that Mom had been through, somehow holding on to the physical evidence of her life was the thing that had finally scared her.

“Okay,” Meredith said. “I’ll get Nina. We’ll all go.” She got up from her chair and started to go back into the room. As she passed Mom, she paused just long enough to put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Through the cable-knit wool of the hand-knit sweater, she felt the angular sharpness of bone.

She couldn’t walk past her mother lately without touching her. After so many barren, distant years, that was a miracle in itself. She opened the sliding glass door and went into the small room. Inside, there was a pair of twin beds, both dressed in red and green plaid, with moose-shaped black pillows. On the walls were black and white prints of Sitka’s Tlingit past. Nina’s bed was unmade already and piled with clothes and camera gear.

Meredith knocked on the bathroom door, got no answer, and went in.

Nina was drying her hair and singing Madonna’s “Crazy for You” at the top of her lungs. With her short black hair and perfect skin, she looked about twenty years old.

Meredith tapped her on the shoulder. Nina jumped in surprise and almost dropped the hair dryer. Grinning, she clicked it off and turned. “Way to scare the crap out of me. I need a haircut. Badly. I’m starting to look like Edward Scissorhands.”

“Mom wants to drop off the tapes tonight.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Meredith couldn’t help smiling at that. There, in a nutshell, was the difference between them. Nina didn’t care what time it was, or that it was rude to stop by without calling first, or that Mom had had a hard day and should be resting.

All Nina heard was a call to adventure, and she always answered that call.

It was a trait Meredith was determined to cultivate.

In less than ten minutes they were on their way, the three of them walking up the sidewalk in the direction the innkeeper had shown them. It still wasn’t full-on night; the sky was a deep plum color, with stars everywhere. From here, they looked close enough to touch. A slight breeze whispered through the evergreens, the only real noise out here besides their footsteps on the cement. Somewhere in the distance a boat’s foghorn sung out.

The houses on this street were old-fashioned-looking, with porches out front and peaked roofs. The yards were well tended; the smell of roses was heavy in the air, sweetening the tang of the nearby sea.

“This is the house,” Meredith said. She’d taken charge of the map.

“The lights are on. That’s cool,” Nina said.

Mom stood there, staring at the neat white house. Its porch railing was the same ornate fretwork as they had at home, and there was more ornate decor along the eaves. The embellishments gave the place a fairy-tale appearance. “It looks like my grandfather’s dacha,” Mom said. “Very Russian, and yet American, too.”

Nina moved in close to Mom, took her arm. “You sure you want to do this now?”

Mom’s answer was to move forward resolutely.

At the door, Mom drew in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and knocked hard. Twice.

The door was opened by a short, heavyset man with thick black eyebrows and a gray mustache. If he was surprised to find three unknown women on his doorstep at nine-thirty, he showed no sign. “Hello there,” he said.

“Phillip Kiselev?” Mom said, reaching for the bag of tapes in Nina’s hand.

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” he said.

Mom’s hand drew back. “You are not Phillip Kiselev?”

“No. No. I’m Gerald Koontz. Phillip was my cousin. He’s gone now.”

“Oh.” Mom frowned. “I am sorry to have bothered you. We have mistaken information.”

Meredith looked at the piece of paper in her sister’s hand. There was no error in reading. This was the address they’d been given. “Dr. Adamovich must—”

“Vasya?” Gerald’s mustached lip flipped into a big, toothy smile. He turned, yelled, “They’re friends of Vasya’s, honey.”

“Not friends, really,” Mom said. “We are sorry to have bothered you. We will recheck our information.”

Just then a woman came bustling toward them; she was dressed in silky black pants with a flowing tunic blouse. Her curly gray hair was drawn back in a loose ponytail.

“Stacey?” Nina said in surprise. A second later, Meredith recognized their waitress from the Russian restaurant.

“Well, well,” Stacey said, smiling brightly. “If it isn’t my new Russian friends. Come in, come in.” To Gerald she added, “They stopped by the diner the other day. I broke out the caviar.”

Gerald grinned. “She must have liked you on the spot.”

Nina moved first, pulling Mom along.

“Here, here,” Stacey said. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some tea and you can tell me how you found me.” She led them into a comfortably decorated living room, complete with an ottoman bed and a holy corner, where a trio of candles was burning. She made sure each of them was seated, and then said, “Did Gere say you are friends of Vasily’s?”

“Not friends,” Mom answered, sitting stiffly.

There was a crash somewhere and Gerald said, “Oops. Grandkids,” and ran from the room.

“We’re babysitting our son’s children this week. I’d forgotten how busy they are at that age.” Stacey smiled. “I’ll be right back with tea.” She hurried out of the room.

“Do you think Dr. Adamovich was confused? Or did Maksim get the address wrong?” Meredith said as soon as they were alone.

“Kind of coincidental that these people are Russian and that they knew the doctor,” Nina remarked.

Mom stood up so suddenly she hit the coffee table with her shin, but she didn’t seem to notice. She walked around the table and across the room, coming to a stop at the holy corner. From here, Meredith could see the usual decorations: an altarlike table, a couple of icons, a family photograph or two, and a few burning votives.

Stacey came back into the living room and set her tray down on the coffee table. She poured the tea and handed Meredith a cup. “Here you go.”

“Do you know Dr. Adamovich?” Nina asked.

“I do,” Stacey said. “He and my father were great friends. I helped him with a research study for years. Not academic help, of course. Typing, copying. That sort of thing.”

“The siege research?” Meredith asked.

“That’s right,” Stacey said.

“These are tapes,” Nina said, indicating the wrinkled paper sack at her feet. “Mom just told her story to Dr. Adamovich and he sent us here.”

Stacey paused. “What do you mean, ‘her story’?”

“She was in Leningrad then. During the war,” Meredith said.

“And he sent you here?” Stacey turned to look at Mom, who stood so still and straight she seemed to be made of marble. “Why would he do that?”

Stacey went to Mom, stood beside her. Again the teacup rattled in its saucer. “Tea?” she asked, looking at Mom’s stern profile.

Meredith didn’t know why, but she stood up. Beside her, Nina did the same thing.

They came up behind Mom.

Meredith saw what had gotten her mother’s attention. There were two framed photographs on the corner table. One was a black and white picture of a young couple. In it, the woman was tall and slim, with jet-black hair and an oversized smile. The man was blond and gorgeous. There were pale white lines that quartered the picture, as if it had been folded for many years.

“Those are my parents,” Stacey said slowly. “On their wedding day. My mother was a beautiful woman. Her hair was so soft and black, and her eyes . . . I still remember her eyes. Isn’t that funny? They were so blue, with gold . . .”

Mom turned slowly.

Stacey looked into Mom’s eyes and the teacup she was holding fell to the hardwood floor, spilling liquid and breaking into pieces.

Stacey’s plump hand was shaking as she reached for something on the table, but not once did she look away.

And then she was holding something out to Mom: a small jeweled butterfly.

Mom dropped to her knees on the floor, saying, “Oh, my God . . .”

Meredith wanted to reach out and help her, but she and Nina both stood back.

It was Stacey who knelt in front of her. “I am Anastasia Aleksovna Marchenko Koontz, from Leningrad. Mama? Is it really you?”

Mom drew in a sharp breath and started to cry. “My Anya. . . .”

Meredith’s heart felt as if it were breaking apart and swelling and overflowing all at once. Tears were streaming down her face. She thought of all that these two had been through, and all the lost years, and the miracle of this reunion was almost more than she could believe. She moved over to be with Nina. They put their arms around each other and watched their mother come alive. There was no other word for it. It was as if these tears—of joy perhaps for the first time decades—watered her parched soul.

“How?” Mom asked.

“Papa and I woke up on a medical train going east. He was so hurt. . . . Anyway, by the time we got back to Vologda . . . We waited,” Stacey said, wiping her eyes. “We never stopped looking.”

Mom swallowed hard. Meredith could see how she steeled herself to say, “We?”

Stacey put a hand out.

Mom took it, clutched it, really, hanging on.

Stacey led her through the living room and out a set of French doors. Beyond lay a perfectly tended backyard. The scent of flowers was a sweetness in the air—lilacs and honeysuckle and jasmine. Stacey flipped a switch and a string of lights came on throughout the yard.

That was when Meredith saw the small, squared garden-within-a-garden tucked in the back of the yard. Even from here, with the inconsistent light, she could see an ornate bit of fencing.

She heard her mother say something in Russian, and then they were moving again, all of them, walking down a stone path to a garden that was almost exactly like the one Mom had created at home. A white ironwork fence with ornate curliques and pointed tips framed a patch of ground. Inside was a polished copper bench that faced three granite headstones. There were flowers blooming all around them. Overhead, the sky erupted in amazing, magical color. Darting strands of violet and pink and orange glowed amid all those stars. The northern lights.

Mom sat—collapsed, really—on the copper bench and Stacey sat beside her, holding her hand.

Meredith and Nina stood behind her; each put a hand on Mom’s shoulder.

VERONIKA PETROVNA MARCHENKO

1919–

Remember our lime tree in the Summer Garden. I will meet you there, my love.

LEO ALEKSOVICH MARCHENKO 1938–1942

Our Lion

Gone too soon

But it was the last marker that made Meredith squeeze her mother’s shoulder.

ALEKSANDR ANDREYEVICH MARCHENKO

1917–2000

Beloved husband and father

“Last year?” Mom said, turning to Stacey, whose eyes filled with tears.

“He waited his whole life for you,” she said. “But his heart just . . . gave out last winter.”

Mom closed her eyes and bowed her head.

Meredith couldn’t imagine the pain of that, how it must feel to know that the love of your life had been alive and looking for you all these years, only to miss him by months. And yet he was here somehow, in this garden that so matched the one her mother had created.

“He always said he’d be waiting for you in the Summer Garden.”

Mom slowly opened her eyes. “Our tree,” she said, staring at his marker for a long time. Then, slowly, she did what she always did, what she could do that so few others could: she straightened her back and lift ed her chin and managed a smile, wobbly and uncertain as it was. “Come,” she said in that magical voice, the one that had changed all their lives in the past weeks. “We will have tea. There is much to talk about. Anya, I would like to introduce you to your sisters. Meredith used to be the organized one and Nina is just a little bit crazy, but we’re changing, all of us, and you will change us even more.” Mom smiled and if there was a shadow of sadness in her eyes—a memory of the words I’ll meet you there—it was to be expected, and it was soft ened by the joy in her voice. And maybe that was how it was supposed to be, how life unfolded when you lived it long enough. Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.

Meredith took her new sister’s hand and said, “I am so happy to meet you, Anya. We’ve heard so much about you. . . .”

No foreign sky protected me,

no stranger’s wing shielded my face.

I stand as witness to the common lot,

survivor of that time, that place.

—ANNA AKHMATOVA, FROM
POEMS OF AKHMATOVA,

TRANSLATED BY STANLEY KUNITZ, WITH MAX HAYWARD

2010

Her name is Vera, and she is a poor girl. A nobody.

No one in America can really understand this girl or the place in which she lives. Her beloved Leningrad—Peter’s famous Window to the West—is like a dying flower, still beautiful to behold but rotting from within.

Not that Vera knows this yet. She is just a girl, full of big dreams.

Often in the summer, she wakes in the middle of the night, called by some sound she can never recall. At her window, she leans out, seeing all the way to the bridge. In June, when the air smells of limes and new flowers, and the night is as brief as the brush of a butterfly’s wing, she can hardly sleep for excitement.

It is belye nochi. The time of white summer nights when darkness never falls and the streets are never quiet. . . .

I cannot help smiling as I close this book—my book. After all these years, I have finished my journal. Not a fairy tale, not a pretense; my story, as true as I can tell it. My father would be proud of me. I am a writer at last.

It is my gift to my daughters, although they have given so much more to me, and without them, of course, these words would still be trapped inside, poisoning me from within.

Meredith is at home with Jeff ; they are preparing for Jillian’s wedding and the plans are all-consuming. Maddy is still at work, managing the four gift shops her mother runs. I have never seen Meredith so happy. These days her schedule is full of things she loves to do, and she and Jeff are often traveling. They say it is to research his novels, which are so successful, but I think they simply love to be together.

Nina is upstairs with her Daniel, whom she has never married but loves more than she realizes. They have followed each other around the world on one amazing adventure after another. Supposedly they are packing now to leave again, but I suspect that they are making love. Good for them.

And Anya—I don’t care that she Americanized her name; she will always be Anya to me—is at church with her family. They come down often throughout the year and fill this house with laughter. My eldest daughter and I spend hours together in the kitchen, talking to each other in Russian, remembering the ghosts in the room. In words and looks and smiles, we honor them at last.

I open the journal one last time and write, for my children, in as bold a hand as I can manage at my age. Then I close it and put it aside.

I cannot help closing my eyes. Falling asleep comes easily to me these days, and the room is so warm on this late December day. . . .

I think I hear the sound of a child laughing.

Or maybe that is a left over sound, the remainder of our Christmas dinner. We are together again this year, all of us, this new version of my family.

I am a lucky woman. I did not always know that, but I do now. With all the mistakes I have made, all the bad and terrible choices, still I am loved in my old age, and, more important perhaps, I love.

I open my eyes, startled by something. Some noise. For a moment I am confused, uncertain of my surroundings. Then I see the familiar fireplace, the Christmas tree still up in the corner, and the picture of me that hangs above the mantel.

It hangs where once I had a painting of a troika. At first I didn’t like Nina’s photograph. I look so terribly, terribly sad.

But it has grown on me. It was the beginning of this new life, the time when I finally learned that with love comes forgiveness. It is a famous photograph now; people all over the world have seen it and call me a hero. Ridiculous. It is simply the image of a woman who threw too much of her life away and was lucky enough to get some of it back.

In the corner of the room, my Holy Corner still stands. The candles burn from morning tonight; both of my wedding pictures stand upright, reminding me every day that I have been fortunate. Beside the photograph of Anya and Leo, a dirty gray stuffed rabbit sits slumped on his side. Comrade Floppy. His fake fur is matted and he is missing one eye, and sometimes I carry him around with me for comfort.

I stand up. My knees hurt and my feet are swollen, but I do not care. I have never cared about such things. I am a Leningrader. I walk through the quiet kitchen and into the dining room. From here I can see my winter garden, where everything is covered with snow. The sky is the color of burnished copper. Ice and frost dangle like diamond earrings from the eaves above the porch. And I think of my sweet Evan, who saved me when I needed saving and gave me so much. He is the one who so often told me that forgiveness could be mine if I would reach out. I would give anything to have listened to him earlier, but I know he hears me now.

I am barefooted and wearing only a flannel nightgown. If I go outside, Meredith and Nina will worry that I am going crazy again, that I am slipping. Only Anya will understand.

Still, I open the door. The knob turns easily in my hand and cold air hits me so hard that for a beautiful, tragic second, I am back in my beloved city on the Neva.

I walk across the new-fallen snow, feeling it burn and freeze the bottoms of my feet.

I am almost to the garden when he appears. A man, dressed all in black, with golden hair set aglow by the sunlight.

It cannot be him. I know this.

I go to the bench, hold on to its cold black frame.

He moves toward me, gliding almost, moving with an elegance that is new, or that I don’t remember. When he draws near, I look up, and stare into the green eyes of the man I’ve loved for more than seventy years.

Green.

The color takes my breath away and makes me feel young again.

He is real. And here. I can feel his warm presence, and when he touches me, I shiver and sit down.

There are so many things to say, but I can say nothing except his name. “Sasha . . .”

“We’ve waited,” he says, and at the sound of his voice, a shadow peels away from the blackness of his coat and takes its own shape. A smaller version of the man.

“Leo,” I say, unable to say more. My arms ache to reach out for my baby boy, to hold him. He looks so healthy and robust, his cheeks pink with life. Then I see that same cheek slack and gray-blue, sheened in frost. I hear him say, I’m hungry, Mama . . . don’t leave me. . . .

At that, pain uncoils in my chest, making me gasp out loud, but Sasha is there, taking my hand, saying, “Come, my love. To the Summer Garden . . .”

The pain is gone.

I look up into my Sasha’s green, green eyes and remember the grass in which we knelt so long ago. It was there that I fell in love. Leo clings to me as he always did, and I scoop him up, laughing, forgetting how I’d once been unable to hold him in my arms.

“Come,” Sasha says again, kissing me, and I follow.

I know that if I look back, I will see my body, old and withered, slumped on that bench in the snow, that if I wait, I will hear my daughters discover what has happened and begin to cry.

So I do not look back. I hold on to my Sasha and kiss my lion’s throat.

I have waited so, so long for this, to see them again. To feel like this, and I know my girls will be okay now. They are sisters; a family. This is the gift from their father. This is what my story gave them, and in the past ten years, we have loved enough for a lifetime.

I think, Good-bye, my girls. I love you. I have always loved you.

And I go.