Bleary-eyed, he would rise from the table when the library or museum closed, stuff his notebooks and notecards into his briefcase, and walk home through the dark streets, the gathering cold. He would collapse into bed in his tiny room, sublet from a professor of Chinese who never intruded on his privacy. Then he'd rise in the morning, his eyes still aching from the concentration of the day before, and, pausing only for a hunk of bread and a cup of coffee, return to the museum to resume again. The harder he worked, the sooner he'd be done.
That was how the autumn passed, and the winter. Shortages of coal and oil made the bitter cold even harder to bear, but, like Bob Cratchit, Ivan simply bundled up and scribbled away regardless of the chill in every building in Kiev. He was so immersed in his work that sometimes he didn't even read his mail from home—not from Mother, not from Father, not from Ruth. It would sit in a pile until finally, on a Sunday when the library opened later, he would realize how long he'd gone without contact from home and open all the letters in a binge of homesickness. Then he'd scribble hurried and unsatisfactory answers to all of them. What was there to say? His life was within walls, under artificial lights, with row on endless row of Cyrillic characters in old-fashioned handwriting shimmering in front of his eyes. What could he possibly tell them? Ate bread today. And cheese. Drank too much coffee. A dull headache all day. It was cold. The manuscript was indecipherable or trivial or not as old as they claimed. The librarian was friendly, icy, flirtatious, incompetent. The work will never end, I wish I could see you, thank you for writing to me even when I'm so unfaithful about writing back.
And then one day it wasn't cold. Leaves were budding on the trees. Ukrainians in shirtsleeves flooded the streets of Kiev, taking the sun, carrying sprigs of purple lilacs with them in celebration of spring. How ironic. Just when the season was about to make life in Kiev worth living again, Ivan realized he had accomplished all that he needed to do in Russia. Everything else could be worked out on his own, without further reference to the manuscripts. Time to go home.
Funny, though. As soon as he thought of going home, it wasn't Tantalus he thought of, or the shores of Lake Olya, or his mother's face, or sweet Ruth's embrace.
Instead he thought of a farm in the foothills of the Carpathians, with wild forest just beyond the cultivated fields. The face he saw was Cousin Marek's, and what his body yearned for was not the loving embrace of a woman, but rather to hold the tools of the farm and labor until sweat poured off him and he could fall into bed every night physically spent, and rise in the morning to face a day filled with a thousand kinds of life.
Even as memories of the place flooded back to him, Ivan realized that there was key information he had never known as a child. The name of the town where he would have to transfer from train to bus, and from bus to whatever ride he could get on the road to... what village? He had no idea how to tell a driver his destination. He didn't even know Cousin Marek's last name.
Oh well. It was just a whim.
But it was a whim that wouldn't go away. After months of barely writing to them, it was absurd to call his parents over this unscheduled side trip. But he picked up the phone and talked and waited his way through the half hour it took to make the connection.
"You want to go back there?" asked Father. "What for?"
"To see the place again," said Ivan. "I have fond memories."
"This must be a new meaning of the word fond. I still have backaches from that place. The calluses haven't healed yet."
"Mine have," said Ivan. "I wish they hadn't. Sometimes I think I was freer on that farm than... well, no, I guess not. Anyway, I haven't spent that much on food or whatever, so I've got plenty of money left for a trip. Does Marek have a phone?"
"Not that I know the number anymore," said Father.
"Then ask Mother, you know she'll have it squirreled away somewhere."
"Oh, yes, I'll love that conversation. 'So, Vanya is all done with his research but he's not coming home, he's going to visit his cousin while his mother languishes. What should I expect from a son who doesn't write to his parents? We can't force him to love us—' "
Ivan laughed. "Mother's not a whiner, Dad."
"Not to you," said Father. "I get a solo performance. And Ruth, she'll be glad to hear that you can wait to see her—because you have to say hello to some cows."
Ivan laughed again.
"You seem to think I'm joking."
"No, Father, I just think you and Mother are funny." Wrong thing to say. Father didn't like to think he was amusing. "Sometimes," Ivan added.
Unmollified, Father replied, "I'm glad to provide you with entertainment. Our ratings are low—one viewer—but the reviews of our performance are good enough maybe we'll be renewed for another season..."
"Come on, Father, I want to pay a call on Cousin Marek. He took us in when we needed help, should I be this close and not make the effort?"
"Close?" said Father. "As close as New York is to Miami."
"You've got the scale wrong," said Ivan. "More like from Buffalo to Syracuse."
"Tell me that again after four hours on the bus."
"Call me back when you have the information?"
"No, Mother has it right here in the book." Father gave him all the information and they said good-bye.
They refused to sell him a ticket at the train station until right before departure—inflation was too high to be able to lock in the price even the day before. Nor could they guarantee him that the bus would even be running. "Capitalism now," said the ticket agent. "They only run the bus if there are enough passengers to pay for the fuel."
That night, after half an hour of trying, he got through by telephone to Cousin Marek.
"Little Itzak?" Marek said.
"I use Ivan, mostly." Ivan was a little surprised. Cousin Marek had always called him Vanya. Ivan didn't remember that Marek had even known his Jewish name. But that was a long time ago, and perhaps the old farmer had been amused at this family of Russian intellectuals who suddenly decided to be Jews and then took up residence on a farm.
"You eating kosher?" asked Marek.
"No, not really," said Ivan. "I mean, I avoid pork, lard, things like that."
"No lard!" cried Marek. "What do you put on your bread?"
"Cheese, I hope," laughed Ivan.
"All right, we'll go out and pluck a few from the cheese tree." Marek laughed at his own joke. "Come ahead, we're glad to have you. I'll find out when the bus is coming in and I'll be there to meet you. I'm afraid all the cows you knew are long since knackered."
"They didn't like me anyway."
"You weren't much of a milker."
"I'll be no better now, I'm afraid, but I'll do whatever you need. I... pole vault rather well." It took him a moment to think of the Ukrainian word. Marek laughed.
That night, when Ivan was through packing, he was still too full of springtime to sleep. He went outside for a walk, but even that wasn't enough. He began to jog, to run, dodging through the streets as he used to do as a child. When he was a child he had never been allowed outside to run at this time of night, and it surprised him how many people were still out and about. But it might not have been like that, before. Had there been closing laws for drinking establishments? Or a curfew? He wouldn't have known, not at his age, or if he knew, he forgot.