hadn’t yet ventured out of Moscow. “What are they building over there?” he asked his companion.
Vladlen flipped through Pasternak’s first book of poetry—Twin in the Clouds—which he’d brought along in hopes the author might sign it. “Apartments,” he replied without looking up.
“But you didn’t even look.”
“Factories, then.”
The passing landscape changed from recently constructed buildings to buildings under construction to countryside—dotted with spring-green trees and the occasional village marked by an Orthodox church and small country homes, each sectioned off with a fence and its own plot of land. Sergio waved at a young boy on the side of the tracks holding a speckled chicken under his arm. The boy didn’t wave back. “How long does it go on like this?” Sergio asked.
“Until Leningrad.”
* * *
—
The two men disembarked at Peredelkino. It had rained during the night, and as soon as they crossed the railroad tracks, Sergio stepped in mud. He cursed himself for wearing his good shoes. He sat on a bench and tried to remove the muck with a lace handkerchief, but stopped when he realized he was drawing the attention of three men on the side of the road. The men were trying to hitch an elderly mule to the front of a dilapidated Volga. Sergio and Vladlen made for an odd sight. The blond Russian in his oversized pants—cuffed at the bottom—and tight-fitting vest looked like any man from the city. He was a head taller than the Italian and twice as wide. And Sergio, in his slim-cut suit, was clearly a foreigner.
Sergio dropped the useless handkerchief and asked Vladlen if there was a café nearby where he could properly clean his shoes. Vladlen pointed to a wooden building resembling a large shed across the street, and the two men went inside.
“Toilet?” Sergio asked the woman behind the counter. She had the same expression as the men hitching the mule to the car.
“Outside,” she said.
Sergio sighed and asked for a glass of water and a napkin instead. The woman left, then returned with a piece of newspaper and a shot of vodka. “This isn’t going to—”
“Spasibo,” Vladlen interrupted, and downed the shot, pounding his palm on the counter for another.
“We have important work to do,” Sergio said.
“We don’t have an appointment. The poet can surely wait.”
Sergio forced his friend off his stool and out the door.
Outside, the trio of men had successfully hitched the mule to the car. A small child was now behind the wheel and steered as the men pushed. They stopped and stared as Sergio and Vladlen crossed the street and proceeded up the path that ran alongside the main road.
Passing the Russian Patriarch’s summer residence—a grand red and white building behind an equally grand wall—Sergio wished he’d brought his camera. They crossed a small stream, swollen with melted snow and rain, and trudged their way up the small hill and down a gravel road lined with birch and pine trees.
“A place fit for a poet!” Sergio remarked.
“Stalin gave these dachas to a handpicked group of writers,” Vladlen replied. “So that they may better converse with the muse. That, and it makes it easier to keep track of them.”
Pasternak’s dacha was on the left and reminded Sergio of a cross between a Swiss chalet and a barn. “There he is,” Vladlen said. Dressed like a peasant, Pasternak was tall with a full head of gray hair falling in his face as he bent over his garden plot with a shovel. As Sergio and Vladlen approached, Pasternak looked up and shielded his eyes from the sun to see who’d come to visit.
“Buon giorno!” Sergio called out, his enthusiasm betraying his nervousness. Pasternak looked confused, then smiled broadly.
“Come in!” Pasternak replied.
As they got closer to the famous poet, Sergio and Vladlen were struck by how attractive and young Pasternak looked. A handsome man always sizes up another handsome man, but instead of provoking jealousy, the outmatched Sergio looked at the writer with awe.
Pasternak leaned his shovel against a newly pruned apple tree and approached the men. “I had forgotten you were coming,” he said, and laughed. “And please forgive me, but I’ve also forgotten who you are. And why you’ve come.”
“Sergio D’Angelo.” He extended his hand and shook Pasternak’s. “And this is Anton Vladlen, my colleague at Radio Moscow.”
Vladlen, whose eyes were focused on the dirt in front of his shoes instead of at his poet hero, could only muster a grunt.
“What a beautiful name,” Pasternak said. “D’Angelo. Such a pleasant sound. What does