of them, so I stayed away. They died within a few months of each other. Simple flu that became pneumonia. I often wonder if my fate will be the same. When I can no longer please the crowds, where will I end up?"
He didn't know what to say.
"It is hard for Americans to understand how things were. How they still are, to some extent. You could not live where you wanted, do what you wanted. Our choices were made for us early in life."
He knew what she was referring to, theraspredeleniye. Distribution. A decision made at age sixteen as to what a person was to do with the rest of his or her life. Those with clout possessed a choice. Those without took what was available. Those in disfavor did what they were told.
"Party members' children were always looked after," she said. "They got the best assignments in Moscow. That was where everyone wanted to be."
"Except you?"
"I hated it. There was nothing but misery here for me. But I was compelled to return. My talents were needed by the state."
"You didn't want to perform?"
"Did you know what you wanted to do for the rest of your life at age sixteen?"
He silently conceded her point.
"Several of my friends chose suicide. Far preferable to spending the rest of your life at the Arctic Circle or in some remote Siberian village doing something you despise. I had a friend from school who wanted to be a doctor. She was an excellent student, but lacked the requisite party affiliation to be selected for university. Others of far less ability were allowed to attend over her. She ended up working in a toy factory." She stared at him hard. "You are lucky, Miles Lord. When you get old or disabled, there are government benefits to help. We have no such thing. The communists spoke of the tsar and his extravagance. They were no better."
He was beginning to understand even more the Russian preference for the distant past.
"I told you on the train about my grandmother. It was all true. She was taken off one night and never seen again. She worked in a state store and watched while managers pilfered the shelves, blaming the thefts on others. She finally wrote a letter to Moscow, complaining. She was fired, her pension canceled, her work papers stamped with the badge of an informant. No one would hire her. So she took up verse. Her crime was poetry."
He tilted his head to one side. "What do you mean?"
"She liked to write about the Russian winter, hunger, and the cries of children. How the government was indifferent to common people. The local party soviet considered that a threat to national order. She became noticed--an individual rising above the community. That was her crime. She might become a rallying point for opposition. Someone who could galvanize support. So she was made to disappear. We are perhaps the only country in the world that executed its poets."
"Akilina, I can understand the hatred all of you have for the communists. But there needs to be an element of reality here. Before 1917 the tsar was a fairly inept leader who didn't necessarily care if his police killed civilians. Hundreds died on Bloody Sunday in 1905 merely for protesting his policies. It was a brutal regime that used force to survive, just like the communists."
"The tsar represents a link with our heritage. One that stretches back hundreds of years. He is the embodiment of Russia."
He sat back in the chair and took a few deep breaths. He studied the fire in the hearth and listened as the wood crackled into flames. "Akilina, he wants us to go after this supposed heir, who may or may not be alive. And all because some faith-healing idiot, nearly a century ago, predicted we would."
"I want to go."
He stared at her. "Why?"
"Since we met, I have felt strange. As if it was meant that you and I would connect. There was no fear when you entered my compartment, and I never once questioned my decision to let you spend the night. Something inside told me to do it. I also knew I would see you again."
He wasn't as mystical as this attractive Russian seemed to be. "My father was a preacher. He traveled from town to town lying to people. He loved to scream the word of God, but all he did was take advantage of people's poverty and play off their fears. He was the most