Whatever wartime good graces landed me in Maple Hill to begin with had long since worn off. As the date of my dorm eviction loomed I haunted the mailroom, hoping for a letter from the Office of Orphans that had paid my tuition. Perhaps, I thought, they knew a wealthy benefactor. Perhaps they could set me up as someone’s assistant. I could make a passable campfire with twigs and leaves and a single match; I could negotiate black-market transactions using only nylon stockings for currency. There had to be something I could contribute to, but despite my fine secondary school education I had no idea what this might be. A university was out of the question, because it cost money, and I thought with some bitterness about the wealthy Moscow girls who’d fled ahead of me to Europe and the new world, their furs and jewel earrings one day scattering to the wind as if they expected to be next in line for a bludgeoning now that the Romanovs were gone. At first I had been glad to be rid of them, elated to skate through a Moscow magically lightened of its bratty debutantes. But as winter lifted and my father disappeared, I did come to find some pity for them, deep within me—pity that they had been forced to leave home and all that they found dear. Now, thousands of miles away and years later, I realized they were fine. Probably getting ready to matriculate at Radcliffe or Sarah Lawrence, or else perhaps the Sorbonne. The revolution having changed—nothing. Vera once took issue with me on this point, arguing about lost estates and bank accounts absorbed into the national fund, but I’m fairly certain she arrived in Paris with diamonds sewn into her skirt hems.
Well, I shouldn’t say the revolution changed nothing. It took my parents, after all.
That last semester as a Donne student I shook out the Moscow lilac seeds I’d saved and used my father’s method to sprout them, first soaking them and letting them rest in a wet towel before transplanting them into a window box. I had, at that point, a deep sense that no more good would ever come to me from the country I’d abandoned, and those lilacs were the first hint that maybe I was wrong. The first hint that maybe what I deserved would not be the same as what I got—that I might do better. By making some educated guesses and reading a few pamphlets suggested by the Donne School gardening staff, I managed to adjust the mineral content in the soil just enough for the seeds to germinate and bloom. There was a fair bit of superstition involved, too: thinking they might miss the smoggy Moscow air, I borrowed a cigarette from a girl named Charlotte down the hall, and sat in front of the open window blowing clouds of smoke onto the soil. When the first buds opened that April—in the morning, with muted light gracing the petals as if through heavy-handed stage direction—it softened something in me. There were, after all, a few things in life untouched by people and the things we did. A few things that happened if the conditions were right, no matter who you were. Seeds had their own systems. After that I took to researching horticulture in the library, alternately calling forth and smudging out my family with every turn of the page.
At any rate, with a few weeks still to go before graduation, I had just unlocked my little brass mailbox and pulled out a handful of advertorial trash when one of the Donne School groundskeepers ran up to me. We’d always had a good rapport—I asked them questions about planting seasons and bulb hibernation, and they took pleasure in talking to a young woman who’d actually spent time in the dirt. They taught me things, a second education in seed varietals and local mulch tucked behind the lapel of my official degree. Most of the Donne girls acted as though the facilities crew didn’t exist; at least, not until those same girls had a clanking radiator or a mouse chewing through the walls near their bed. They walked the swept paths and commented on the comeliness of the flowers, all while ignoring the men in brown duck cloth who were weeding under the begonias. Sometimes they got their hands on a bottle of sherry and threw up on the carpeting, taking it for granted that the stain would be scrubbed clean by morning and never bothering to apologize.
I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. Not even with this particular groundskeeper, John O’Brien, who was especially kind and always took an interest. What are you planning to do next? I knew he’d ask, and the harrowing silence which would follow that question was more than I could bear. I honestly thought about pretending not to know him, or else hitting him in the face and running out of the room. Throwing the few clothes I had into a bag and making my way to the bus station, scraping together my last few dollars for a ticket to anywhere. For weeks I’d been agonizing over which of my paltry possessions I could carry with me on my back when I left and which I’d have to part with. Now I sparkled with clarity: a couple of sweaters, a week’s worth of socks. The skirt I was wearing and perhaps a pair of pants. What else could a girl need?
“Zo! Zoe!” John, as always, was happy to see me—and as always, mispronounced my name. He never quite wrapped his head around Zoya, though it is, to me, more obviously mellifluous than the nasal Zo-ee most Americans insist on. I gave up on Zoya Ivanovna Andropova early; here, I was just Zoe Andropov. Sometimes Zo. “I was looking for you,” John puffed. Apparently he’d been running around campus; his face was pink. “I just found out, and I knew I had to tell you right away.”
“Tell me—what?” I crumpled newsprint between my fingers. He seemed enthusiastic, but what was there to get excited for? Had the fellows put together a collection and bought me a balloon? Americans loved useless presents, I’d noticed. Rewards from bubblegum machines, wooden trinkets.
“There’s an opening,” John beamed. “Right up your alley.”
“My alley?”
“Your—I don’t know—area of expertise?”
I had trouble with idioms, but even more so with the idea I might be an expert in anything. “You must be mistaken.”
“No, honey, that I am not.” He puffed again, put his hands on his knees, delighted or perhaps on death’s door. A redhead, his skin was almost translucent, and veritably boiled under any provocation. “They’re building a greenhouse.” He gestured to the rear of the building. “Behind the science hall. Your little green thumb. Gonna be perfect.”
“I could—” I hesitated. “Work there?” He nodded. “Where would I live?”
“Probably let you keep campus housing until you save up for a place of your own.” John stood up straight at last, expelling a great gush of air. “We’re all rooting for you, sweetie pie.”
“You are?” My eyes filled up with tears, and I leaned back against the wall of locked boxes. A weight off my shoulders, but still my knees were jelly. They knew, after all. They knew, already. And here I’d been desperate to escape John’s high expectations.
After I recovered myself we hurried over to the facilities office; there had been some argument about who was in charge of the greenhouse project, and whether the hiring should fall under the domain of groundskeeping or the biological sciences. But as it turned out, both sides of that coin were keen on my potential, and I was hired with the title of Manager and Caretaker of Hothouse Plants. Following a provisional year, I could be offered a long-term contract, and though I would not be allowed to remain in the room I’d shared with Margaret, a small single would be made available for me until I could secure my own accommodations. In addition to maintaining a selection of fruits and vegetables for the cafeteria and observing student projects (my presence being a failsafe against those girls who slept through their watering or weeding sessions, and those too prim for fertilizer), my purview would include curating a display of exotic flora—a perfect showpiece for the school when anxious parents came to visit. What could be more soothing than warm, green stems bending overhead? And what more appealing than the waxy pink leaves of Stonecrop firecrackers and shock-yellow stamens of Dutch twink daffodils bursting with life while snow gathered in drifts beyond the windows?