Kamchatka Peninsula?
Russia begins in her goodness,
her truth, her perseverance.
There is the source, and it flows
not from her mountains
but from her great works.
Friend, it flows from you!
Anna waited for his commentary, sure that he’d find something to criticize here, too, but silence reigned. Then she heard Petya jumping on the sofa. Curious, she turned the water off and stepped into the room, where she found her father standing with his hands on his hips and gazing down at the poem. “Not bad, I have to say. After so many years, still … not bad.” It had been a long time since Anna had last seen him smiling as he was at that moment. “Petyushka, this will be our first poem,” he said, nodding thoughtfully, as though his own judgment were not absolutely trustworthy. “Come on, we’ll put it in a new folder.”
He received no answer. The boy had curled up among the papers like a puppy and fallen asleep. Anna wiped her hands off, picked up Petya, carried him to the sleeping alcove, and undressed him.
“I’m going to see about getting a new curtain tomorrow,” she said, touching the place where the culpable curtain had formerly hung. Her father was sorry that he would soon have to put an end to all sound and movement in the living room. On tiptoe, he continued his journey through his own verse. The two of them, father and daughter, performed an odd ballet: Viktor Ipalyevich stepped mincingly to the radiator, while Anna dodged him in order to bring Petya to the bathroom. When they returned to the room, her father retreated from the sofa and let her pass on her way to put the boy to bed; then she went to the kitchen, where she turned off the light. Viktor Ipalyevich was going through a bundle of papers, his back to her, as she undressed and threw on her nightshirt. Then she slipped past him and sat down in the alcove.
“We did right to throw away that dusty thing. I believe Petya started sleeping better already last night.” She gazed at her son, who’d wasted no time falling asleep again; his head rested on a freshly washed towel, which Anna, in accordance with Doctor Shchedrin’s instructions, had spread over the boy’s pillow. “Would it bother you if I did a few more things in the kitchen?”
Viktor Ipalyevich didn’t lift his eyes from the pages before him. “Of course not,” he said. Seeing him so happy and hopeful gave Anna a satisfaction she had long gone without. She glided barefoot over the floor.
It had been only a week since Dubna, but her impressions of the place were already fading away. The ice race on the Volga came into her mind. She thought about the fork-tongued orphanage director, and about Adamek and his pipe. Would Nadezhda and her Irkutskian ever hear from each other again? As for the scientific achievements she’d been granted the opportunity to marvel at, Anna scarcely gave them a thought. In retrospect, it was hard to comprehend the time and effort it must have cost Alexey to smuggle her into the atomic city. They had been together one evening and one drowsy afternoon; wouldn’t they have been able to accomplish that more comfortably in Moscow? And why doesn’t he get in touch with me, she thought fretfully. She had something of great importance to tell him. During the morning shift, while she was perched high up on her scaffolding, Anna had decided to make a full confession to Alexey; he must know everything. It would be up to him, and not to Kamarovsky, to decide how things would proceed. As she was loading a trowel with mortar, this solution had suddenly seemed utterly simple to her, and the freedom of her decision had made her completely euphoric.
From an inner corner of the sleeping alcove, Anna watched the poet as he gathered his folders together, made sure that he was also bringing tobacco and liquor, and disappeared through the kitchen door. With the velvet curtain gone, Anna could hear all too clearly every sound coming from the kitchen. Her father banged open the ashtray’s metal lid. When he struck a match, it was like a whiplash. She turned off the light and got under the covers. Since Petya was taking up most of the bed, she lay on her side. Was she just telling herself that he was breathing more freely, or was it actually the case? Tomorrow, she’d continue the cleaning operation.