together in silence, and he feels a tension in his shoulders release that he hadn’t known he was holding. This is how he should spend the rest of his days, he thinks: writing, being productive, sharing a hot meal with his wife. He asks for some wine, and his wife fills his glass.
He tells himself not to think of Olga and what she’s doing. Is she eating the feast with her family, or has she lost her appetite? Will she sleep tonight? He tries not to think of the way her face must have looked as she saw her family standing on the platform waiting to greet her—how it looked when she realized he wasn’t there.
* * *
Boris wakes. It is still dark. He dresses and leaves the dacha for his morning walk, careful not to wake his sleeping wife. As he passes his garden, he sees a few bright spots of green poking up from the earth. He sets off down the hill, passes the stream, and goes up through the cemetery, then into the village. He finds himself waiting at the station for the morning train into Moscow.
It isn’t until he’s on Olga’s street that he makes up his mind to see her. He slowly ascends the five flights of stairs, holding the handrail as he climbs. At each landing, he tells himself he will see her for only a moment, just a moment, to tell her what he told Ira in the park. She deserves to hear it from him, he tells himself when he reaches her door. He steadies his heart by pressing his hand to his chest. He takes a deep breath before he knocks, but she opens it before he can raise his fist. It has been seven years since they met, and three since he’s seen her. She’s aged twofold in that time: her blond hair, half-tucked under a headscarf, looks as dull as straw; her curves have straightened; wrinkles now radiate from her mouth, across her forehead, and from the corners of her eyes; her skin is marked with sun spots and unfamiliar moles.
And yet he falls to his knees. She is even more beautiful than before.
Boris no longer questions what to do. He rises and kisses her—and she lets him for a moment, before stepping back. Olga retreats into her apartment but leaves the door open. Boris follows, reaching for her embrace. She holds out her hand to stop him. “Never again,” she says.
“Never again?” he asks.
“Will you keep me waiting.”
“Never,” he says. “Never.”
CHAPTER 7
The Muse
The Rehabilitated Woman
THE EMISSARY
How many times had I imagined our reunion? Pictured Borya waiting, hat in hand, looking up the tracks? How many times had I thought of that first embrace? Rubbed my arms and squeezed my shoulders while lying alone on my bunk to simulate how it would feel?
Three and a half years had passed since we shared a bed, and we didn’t waste time. His touch shocked me. It had been so long since I had been touched. We came together like crashing boulders that echoed across Moscow.
After, I laid my head down on his chest to listen to the beat of his heart. I joked that after two heart attacks, he had a new rhythm. “And your teeth.” His large, yellowed teeth with the gap in the middle were now gleaming white porcelain.
“You don’t like them?” he asked. He closed his mouth, and I used my pinky finger to pry it open again. He pretended to bite it.
* * *
—
He held on tighter, not letting go as easily as he had before. He didn’t want to leave my apartment except to write and sleep. In my absence, he’d moved full-time to his dacha in Peredelkino, which, in the years I’d been gone, had been expanded with three new rooms, gas heat, running water, a new clawfoot tub. While I was living in the barracks, he was living in a retreat in the woods most Russians could only dream of.
After Potma, I asked freely and without guilt for him to share his good fortune—money for clothing, books, food, school supplies for the children, a new bed.
There were other things too.
He left all business pertaining to his writing to me: the contracts, the speaking engagements, payments for his translation work. If an editor called for a meeting, it was I who would attend. I became his agent, his mouthpiece, the one people went to if they wanted to get to him. I finally