promising pianist in Georgia before her arrest. It was also rumored she was pregnant once, and a babki was brought in with her knitting needles to perform the abortion.
These were rumors, only rumors, I told myself as the guard pointed her truncheon at the cottage door. I told myself I was too old for the Godfather’s taste, which I’d heard was for women who’d yet to have children or reach the age of twenty-two—whichever came first.
I entered the two-room cottage and stood at the door. The Godfather sat at his desk, writing. I wanted him to speak, but all he did was point his fountain pen to the chair in front of his desk. Ten minutes passed before he put down his pen and looked at me. Without a word, he opened his desk drawer and handed me a parcel. “For you. These cannot leave this office. You must read them here.” He pushed a piece of paper toward me. “And when you’re finished, you will sign that you’ve seen it.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing of importance.”
Inside the parcel was a twelve-page letter and a small green notebook. I opened it, but the words didn’t register. All I could see was the handwriting—his handwriting—broad scrawls that always reminded me of soaring cranes. I flipped through the notebook, then the letter, and the words started to register. Borya was alive. He was free. And he’d written me a poem.
I won’t share the poem with you, Anatoli. Did you think I would? I read it over and over again until I committed it to memory, then I never saw the actual pages again. Maybe you’ve already read them, but I will pretend you haven’t—that his words are mine and mine alone.
In the letter, he wrote he was doing everything in his power to get me out, and if he could change places with me, he would do so gladly. He said the guilt was a weight on his chest that grew heavier each day. He said he feared the weight would become so heavy, his ribs would crack and he’d be crushed to death.
Reading the letter, I felt something I think only the nuns of the camp could understand—the warmth and protection of faith.
Why was I allowed to read what Borya had written me, Anatoli? Why had the Godfather given the letter to me after all that time? Perhaps he wanted something in return. Whatever it was, I knew then that I would do it. I’d become an informer, I’d become a camp wife—whatever it took as long as I could hear from him.
But, Anatoli, the Godfather never asked that I become his wife, nor did he groom me to become an informer. Only later did I discover that Borya had demanded proof I was still alive, and that they had sent him some months later the piece of paper I had signed that night after reading his letter.
It was rumored that Stalin was sick and his reins were loosening. After my night in the cottage, I was allowed to receive mail from my family and Borya. He wrote of his heart attack, a condition he attributed to my arrest, and how he spent months in a hospital bed fearing he’d never see me again.
He wrote of his renewed obsession with finishing his novel now that he was well again and could be in contact with me. He said he’d finish it at all costs, and nothing—not the authorities who were likely reading his letters, nor his bad heart—would keep him from doing so.
* * *
—
Dear Anatoli, do you remember the night before Stalin died? I dreamed of birds that night. Not the white doves I’d been longing for—which the women of the camp believed signaled one’s imminent release—but of black crows, thousands sitting in rows like chess pawns in an empty concrete lot. The crows barely appeared to be breathing, and when I walked toward them and clapped my hands, they remained still. I clapped and clapped until my hands were raw. And when I turned to walk away, some inaudible signal propelled them to take flight. They swarmed into a beating cloud that covered the moon. I watched as the cloud shifted to the right, then left. Then, all at once, the cloud dissipated in all directions, each bird going her own way.
The next morning, the music started before dawn, blaring from the camp’s loudspeakers. We all seemed to sit up at once, squinting until our eyes adjusted to the