to meet our Radimir?”
I drew my hair down across the burn on my face. “He helped me. At the hotel.”
Radimir put his arm around my shoulders. “A group of creeps. Looking for weapons—about to spirit her away.”
“Some take things too far,” Dina said. She touched my hand. “We’re glad you’re safe. Just don’t make eye contact on the street.”
“Why worry?” Erik asked. He nodded toward Radimir. “The commissioner here is issued bullets.”
“Commissioner?” I asked.
“Since the Bolsheviks took power there are already hundreds of new committees,” Dina said. “Too many for my taste. But a commissioner is the person who heads one.”
Erik pulled me close. “In Radi’s case he was the most brilliant one at the museum so they made him Commissioner of Art and Historic Objects of the People. And, at not yet twenty, chosen over more senior men. Feel free to genuflect.”
Radimir smiled. “It’s no great honor. They are just firing the entire old regime and hiring any comrade willing to serve. Trotsky made a waiter from a restaurant the head of one department since he spoke a little French.”
“You only studied art since you could walk,” Dina said.
Radimir turned to me. “My parents died when I was a baby and a museum curator and his wife adopted me. Lucky number thirteen child. So, museums babysat me a lot growing up.”
“Who knew staring at naked people in museums could get you a cushy job?” Dina said.
“It requires a lot of travel.”
“How terrible, having to go to Paris and Venice,” Erik said.
“And it is not easy keeping the rabble from destroying the paintings. They almost burned David and Jonathan.” He turned to me. “It shows Prince Jonathan and King David parting.”
“King David?” I asked.
“You don’t know King David?” Dina asked. “He was King of the Jews.”
“I’ve not seen that icon.”
Dina threw back her head and laughed. “We don’t have icons, Varinka. Have you never met Jews before? You do realize all three of us are Jewish?”
I looked at the floor, my face hot.
“Leave her alone, Dina,” Radimir said.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Dina said. “It’s understandable, you being from a small village.”
Radimir linked his arm with mine. “Only those in the Russian Orthodox Church worship their saints via icons. You should see the old ones in the tsar’s collection.”
“I’m not religious, really,” I said. “But my Mamka has the tsar on an icon.”
Erik finished his vodka in one gulp. “Well, he’s no saint, and we’re finally done with that limp prick, happy to say. Done with the tsarina, too, and Rasputin, the whole mess. No more murdering us in the streets and no more samogon. We’ll get our real vodka back.”
“What if the Germans win the war and we all become German?” I asked.
Erik laughed. “Might be preferable. Butter is up to ten rubles a pound. But hopefully we’ll fix our own wages now.”
“I heard we’ll all have pensions if the Bolsheviks win?”
“Lenin’s promising us the moon, of course,” Radimir said.
“At least the wealthy are feeling what it’s like to be hungry,” Dina said. “Don’t we deserve to eat?”
My thoughts went to serving dinner at the estate, the Streshnayvas’ tea table piled with enough food for the whole village. “It is true. But confusing.”
How good it was to talk about the state of affairs with someone honest, instead of Taras, who told me nothing.
Dina handed me a pamphlet. “You should come with us, Varinka, to hear Lenin lecture from his balcony opposite Peter and Paul Fortress. You will understand then. He’s speaking tonight—”
“No, I must get back.” The clock behind the bar read 6:45.
Radimir pulled me closer. “By eight o’clock. That’s a world of time. Come, sit with me.”
Dina handed me a pamphlet. “Just a little something I wrote.” Red Russia: Triumph of the Bolsheviks.
Radimir and I walked to a booth and sat side by side, so close our thighs touched.
“You have such an important job.”
“Never would have happened under the tsar. He employed his rich friends. And hated Jews of course.”
“Because they’re taking all of Russia’s money?”
“That’s his sick propaganda, don’t you see? For years, he has spread lies about us. He’s not the great ‘little father’ he pretended to be, using his pretty family to curry favor with the people. Putting them on every postcard and picture book to distract from his evil ways.”
“But his daughters were good people.”
“Maybe so, but their parents used them to promote an image of goodness and piety that was not true. So many innocent Jews died at his hand.” Radimir shrugged. “I suppose he