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Back A Train to Moscow: A Novel Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ACT 1 IVANOVO
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. ACT 2 MOSCOW
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. ACT 3 LENINGRAD
  35. 28
  36. 29
  37. 30
  38. 31
  39. 32
  40. 33
  41. 34
  42. 35
  43. 36
  44. 37
  45. ACT 4 IVANOVO-LENINGRAD
  46. 38
  47. 39
  48. 40
  49. 41
  50. 42
  51. 43
  52. 44
  53. 45
  54. 46
  55. 47
  56. 48
  57. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  58. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  59. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I draw Nadia’s room, the room I know so well, with its oak armoire and heavy curtains that screened us from the outside with their gray and yellow squares of wool. Her mother, like my own, was simply a mother, defined only by her family rather than an outside job she never held. It was only during the rare blissful hours when Evgeniya Iosifovna took a streetcar to Vladimirsky Market or a bus to the garishly decorated turn-of-the-century Eliseyev delicatessen that we had the apartment all to ourselves. To avoid the rush-hour crowds, she went shopping in late morning or early afternoon, and that was when we would cut our classes (Nadia would make an excuse to slip out of a seminar on lexicology at the philology department of the university, and I would creep out of the lecture on ancient art) to meet on the Palace Bridge and hurry to Isaac’s Square and her building on Herzen Street. We would run up the four flights of stairs and spend an hour on the leather divan behind the drawn window curtains that made the room humid and dark, where we were as naked as those prehistoric people on the walls of the ancient caves of my textbook. For an hour once or twice a week, Nadia’s divan, with its lumpy surface and arms worn from wear, was ours, an accomplice to our transgression. We were too impatient to pull the sheets out of the armoire, and the old leather felt warm under our skin as if holding us in its embrace, as if watching over the clumsy reaches of our arms and legs, the fumbling delirium of our lips and fingers. Then we lay pressed into each other in the seam between the seat and the back as though we were one, locked inside each other’s arms and taking almost no space at all, the brown leather stretching before our eyes like the carefully raked top layer of a plowed field. From that strange angle, with all that leather between us and what was beyond, Nadia’s room was the microcosm of a world where life seemed full of wonder and promise.

Does one need love, Sasha wonders—the forbidden kind of love no one talks about, the fiery love, hot and ruthless as the tongues of flame in their stove—to see life as Kolya saw it, full of wonder and promise?

10

10

“Hey, kike,” yells a boy from a stoop as Marik and Sasha are walking home from school. “If you weren’t ugly enough before, you’re certainly ugly now.”