Tatiana and Alexander. Paullina Simons

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      The next morning, as Harold and Alexander were getting ready for their day, Jane, still inebriated from the night before, held on to Alexander’s hand for a moment and said, “Stay behind, son, I have to talk to you.”

      After Harold left, Jane said in a hurried voice, “Collect your things. Where is that book? You have to run and get it.”

      “What for?”

      “You and I are going to Moscow.”

      “Moscow?”

      “Yes. We’ll get there by nightfall. Tomorrow first thing in the morning I’ll take you to the consulate.” They’ll keep you there until they contact the State Department in Washington. And then they’ll send you home.”

      “What?”

      “Alexander, yes. I’ll take care of your father.”

      “You can’t take care of yourself.”

      “Don’t worry about me,” said Jane. “My fate is sealed. But yours is wide open. Concern yourself only with you. Your father goes to his meetings. He thinks by playing with the grown-ups he won’t be punished. But they have his number. They have mine. But you, Alexander, you have no number. I have to get you out.”

      “I’m not going without you or Dad.”

      “Of course you are. Your father and I will never be allowed to return. But you will do very well back home. I know it’s hard in America these days, there aren’t many jobs, but you’ll be free, you’ll have your life, so come and stop arguing. I’m your mother. I know what I’m doing.”

      “Mom, you’re taking me to Moscow to surrender me to the Americans?”

      “Yes. Your Aunt Esther will look after you until you graduate secondary school. The State Department will arrange for her to meet your ship in Boston. You’re still only sixteen, Alexander, the consulate won’t turn you away.”

      Alexander had been very close to his father’s sister once. She adored him, but she had an ugly fight with Harold over Alexander’s dubious future in the Soviet Union, and they had not spoken or written since.

      “Mom, two things,” he said. When I turned sixteen, I registered for the Red Army. Remember? Mandatory conscription. I became a Soviet citizen when I joined. I have a passport to prove that.”

      “The consulate doesn’t have to know that.”

      “It’s their business to know it. But the second thing is …” Alexander broke off. “I can’t go without saying goodbye to my father.”

      “Write him a letter.”

      The train ride was long. He had twelve hours to sit and think. How his mother managed those hours without a drink, he didn’t know. Her hands were shaking badly by the time they arrived at the Leningrad Station in Moscow. It was night; they were tired and hungry. They had no place to sleep. They had no food. It was a fairly mild late April, and they slept on a bench in Gorky Park. Alexander had strong bittersweet memories of himself and his friends playing ice hockey in Gorky Park.

      “I need a drink, Alexander,” Jane whispered. “I need a drink to take an edge off my life. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

      “Mother,” said Alexander, putting his steady hand on her to keep her from getting up. “If you leave, I will go straight to the station and take the next train back to Leningrad.”

      Deeply sighing, Jane moved closer to Alexander and motioned to her lap. “Lie down, son. Get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”

      Alexander put his head on his mother’s shoulder and eventually slept.

      The next morning they had to wait an hour at the consulate gate until someone came to see them—only to tell them they could not come in. Jane gave her name and a letter explaining about her son. They waited restlessly for another two hours until the sentry called them over and said the consul was unable to help them. Jane pleaded to be let in for just five minutes. The sentry shook his head and said there was nothing he could do. Alexander had to restrain his mother. Eventually he led her away and returned by himself to speak to the guard. The man apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said in English. “They did look into it, if you want to know. But the file on your mother and father has been sent back to the State Department in Washington.” The man paused. “Yours, too. Since you’re Soviet citizens, you’re not under our jurisdiction anymore. There is nothing they can do.”

      “What about political asylum?”

      “On what grounds? Besides, you know how many Soviets come this way asking for asylum? Dozens every day. On Mondays, near a hundred. We’re here by invitation from the Soviet government. We want to maintain our ties to the Soviet community. If we started accepting their people, how long do you think they’d allow us to stay here? You’d be the last one. Just last week, we relented and let a widowed Russian father with two small children pass. The father had relatives in the United States and said he would find work. He had a useful skill, he was an electrician. But there was a diplomatic scandal. We had to give him back.” The sentry paused. “You’re not an electrician, are you?”

      “No,” replied Alexander. “But I am an American citizen.”

      The sentry shook his head. “You know you can’t serve two masters in the military.”

      Alexander knew. He tried again. “I have relatives in America. I will live with them. And I can work. I’ll drive a cab. I will sell produce on the street corner. I will farm. I will cut down trees. Whatever I can do, I will do.”

      The sentry lowered his voice. “It’s not you. It’s your father and mother. They’re just too high profile for the consulate to get involved. Made too much of a fuss when they came here. Wanted everyone to know them. Well, now everyone knows them. Your parents should have thought twice about relinquishing their U.S. citizenship. What was the hurry? They should have been sure first.”

      “My father was sure,” said Alexander.

      The trip back from Moscow was only as long as the trip to Moscow; why did it seem decades longer? His mother was mute. The countryside was flat bleak fields; there was still no food.

      Jane cleared her throat. “I desperately wanted to have a baby. It took me ten years and four miscarriages to have you. The year you were born the worldwide flu epidemic tore through Boston, killing thousands of people, including my sister, your father’s parents and brother, and many of our close friends. Everybody we knew lost someone. I went to the doctor for a check-up because I was feeling under the weather and was terrified it might be the dreaded flu. He told me I was pregnant. I said, how can it be, we’ll fall sick, we’ve given up our family inheritance, we are broke, where are we going to live, how will we stay healthy, and the doctor looked at me and said, “The baby brings his own food.”

      She took Alexander’s hand. He let her.

      “You, son—you brought your own food. Harold and I both felt it. When you СКАЧАТЬ