When she placed the spike broom blossoms behind her mother’s picture, flowers surrounded the gravestone like a yellow corona. Then Anna and Rosa strolled away together down the central avenue of the cemetery, followed by the curious eyes of the old couple.
“Just a moment,” Rosa said, slowing her pace. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to …” She pointed to the little church that gave the cemetery its name, and Anna realized that the cross around Rosa’s neck was no mere adornment. They both covered their heads with scarves. It was cold in the chapel, and the space was filled with the singsong prayers of some old women. Rosa bought a candle, took out a small piece of paper, and wrote the names of her dead on it. After a short prayer, she laid the chit on a stack near the altar. Anna watched these proceedings with sympathy, which she was only later to understand was exactly what Rosa had wished to elicit. By performing a reactionary act in Anna’s sight, she was giving her friend a sign of trust.
In the tearoom after the earlier cloudburst, Rosa had mentioned that she worked as a journalist for the English-language daily, the Moscow Times. Now, as they left the church, she told Anna of a telephone call to the newspaper that morning: During some demolition work in the Arbat quarter of Moscow, an old storeroom, unopened since the war, had been discovered. Her editor, Rosa said, had assigned her to report on this discovery, and she invited Anna to accompany her on the assignment.
The building complex was on the boundary of the Arbat quarter. At first glance, the high fence surrounding the complex made it seem inaccessible. The photographer, a stout fellow with curly hair, was already waiting. He yanked two boards aside, allowing the women to enter the worksite. The converted lobby, its windows blacked out by decades of dust, was on the second floor. When the photographer opened the iron door, Anna just stood there, speechless. She felt as though she’d entered some monumental film like the ones that used to be shown to her and her fellow Pioneer Girls. The gray concrete ceiling was thickly hung with huge crystal chandeliers that sparkled in the light of a heavy-duty, upward-pointing halogen lamp. The sight before Anna’s eyes surpassed everything that she’d been taught about the wasteful extravagance of the feudal barons. Who had possessed the resources, not to mention the room, required to hang such luxury from their ceilings? For whom had workers’ hands suspended countless rhinestones from little wire hooks and assembled chandeliers as tall as two stories in a modern building? Hesitantly, as if she might be called to account for every step, Anna entered the scene, while Rosa questioned the worker who had come upon the hidden treasure. The photographer worried about the quality of the light and shot pictures from every possible angle.
The report on “Stalin’s Lamp Shop” had never appeared. Those who knew about the collection had preferred to help themselves to it. With a smile, Rosa had assured the head of the demolition firm that he’d be compensated for his discovery if he conducted himself appropriately. Even so early on, it should have made Anna suspicious to see a young woman, a journalist, in a position to make such an offer. Blinded by the hanging splendor, Anna had looked on, and the question never crossed her mind.
“Which one do you like?”
Anna’s eyes had wandered to a wall chandelier with a gilt arm; Rosa had nodded in agreement. Once, some time later, Rosa had told Anna that the small lamps, the ones that could be carried off in a crate or a box, had disappeared soonest. For the middle-sized chandeliers, trucks with their tailgates down had pulled up in the parking area; the monsters, the largest of the treasures, had hung there for some time, and then someone had decided to dismantle them and sell their individual parts.
That was the day when Anna accepted the first gift, the first time she associated herself with someone she barely knew in order to obtain some benefit. Much later, a good while after the two had become the closest of friends, Rosa admitted to Anna that no member of her family had ever been buried in the Vaganskovskoye Cemetery.
“You look like an illegal street vendor,” Rosa Khleb said, snatching Anna out of her memories. “Why didn’t you wait inside?”
“There’s … nothing there,” Anna said, pointing in the direction