If Lonya’s appeal was exotic, Marina faced another threat to her peace of mind that summer, and it came from inside her own family. In August her cousin Valentin arrived to spend his holiday at the Prusakovs’. He was the son of Klavdia’s younger sister Polina and her husband Georgy Alexandrovi, who was head of the building trust in Kharkov. The legend of Valentin’s noble looks had preceded him, and Marina found that the handsome reality very nearly lived up to the legend. They were soon deep in a clandestine and, to Marina, sinful romance, of which one of the chief delights was being seen with Valentin on the street.
Strangely enough, Valya, who could be a zealous chaperone when the occasion, or her husband, required it, had not the slightest suspicion of the flirtation that was blossoming under her very roof. She even let Valentin sleep in the living room, which was also Marina’s bedroom. Marina for once was in a quandary that she dared not share with her aunt. She enjoyed Valentin’s kisses by day, but at night she curled up in her bed like a frightened rabbit and refused to allow him near her. When Valentin left after his two-week visit, he swore he would never forget her and asked her to wait for him. She even had a passionate love letter from him, which she hid at the pharmacy. But she made herself forget Valentin, for she considered her feelings for him incestuous, and she was frightened by them.
In October Marina went to Leningrad on vacation and stayed at a government Rest House. She had been there a week before she even dared to venture back to the Medvedevs’ apartment. When she did go, laden with gifts for everyone, Petya and Tanya were overjoyed. Even Alexander seemed glad to see her, although he behaved in his usual gruff manner and before long excused himself and went to bed. Marina promised to come again, but somehow she failed to get around to it.
She spent part of her vacation in Leningrad with the Tarussins, the parents of her old suitor, Oleg. Marina had written to them regularly from Minsk, and Oleg’s mother still treated her as a prospective daughter-in-law. But when she and Oleg were reunited, it was clear that his feelings had changed. The day before her return to Minsk, Marina told his mother that the romance was over—Oleg did not love her any more. She did not love Oleg either. But it hurt her to be unwanted again.
The faithful Sasha was there to console her on her return from Leningrad. She consented to be his date for New Year’s, but she promised herself that she would dance with anyone who came along, to torment the hapless Sasha and seek revenge on the entire male species. That evening she found herself in the arms of Anatoly Shpanko, a lanky fellow with unruly, dark blond hair and a wide, appealing smile. Toyla, as she soon called him, was a twenty-six-year-old medical student who had already served his term in the army. He was whimsical, yet deferential, to Marina, and from the moment of their first kiss—they were standing in a dimly lit courtyard, with snow swirling all around them and a lantern creaking in the doorway—she was deliriously in love with him. “He was a rare person,” Marina recalls. “He was honest in everything he did.”
There was only one drawback. Attracted as she was to Anatoly, Marina did not think he was handsome. Nor did she like the way he dressed. He simply did not fit the image she had created for herself of a girl who goes out only with handsome men. Not wanting to be made fun of, fearful that her friends might think less of her, she steered Anatoly along back streets when they were together as surreptitiously as if they were engaged in a clandestine affair. But she forgot her calculations when he kissed her. His kisses made Marina’s head spin. Finally, he proposed, but there were obstacles. Anatoly had two or three more years in medical school, no money, and, even more important, no apartment. Marina consulted Valya and Ilya. “No, my girl,” Ilya said. “Let him finish the institute first. He can talk about getting married then.”
Marina was not surprised. It was what she had expected, after all. But there was something in her uncle’s words that hurt her deeply. He would not consent to her marrying anyone, no matter how superior a human being, who did not have a place of his own. It was not Anatoly, whom he had never met, he was rejecting. It was Marina herself.
In later years Anatoly’s broad grin and unruly hair would return to haunt Marina. She knew she would be lucky to have him. She admired him, she was attracted to him sexually, he had a fine future as a doctor, and he loved her. He came, moreover, with a pair of adoring parents who would have been good to her. What more on earth could she want? But Marina was having a good time, and as yet she did not feel quite ready to settle down. Or perhaps she did not feel ready for someone who treated her with Anatoly’s decency. She and Anatoly kept on seeing each other, and Anatoly kept on proposing. Marina simply shelved his proposals. “Let’s wait and see how our feelings develop,” she said. And she would see, perhaps, whether anybody else came along.
On Friday, March 17, 1961, Marina went to a medical students’ dance at the Palace of Culture, a huge building in the center of Minsk. Both Sasha and Anatoly had asked her to go with them and Marina could not make up her mind. She preferred Anatoly, of course, but Marina, as she often did, decided to let fate take a hand. If she arrived early, she would go with Anatoly. If late, it would be Sasha. She told both of them to wait for her outside.
Marina was late. That evening she spent a long time in front of the mirror doing and redoing her hair. Wearing her very best, a dress of red Chinese brocade with a tiny bodice and a bell-shaped skirt, she did not arrive at the Palace of Culture until ten o’clock. Sasha had been waiting outside for nearly three hours. Anatoly was somewhere inside, alone.
The Palace of Culture contained within it a vast, impersonal hall with immense white columns and several glittering chandeliers. It was not a place for intimacy. The orchestra was deafening and brassy. Dancing with Sasha, her eyes sweeping the floor for Anatoly, Marina was approached by another medical student, an acquaintance of hers and Sasha’s by the name of Yury. He had a dark-haired stranger in tow, and as Yury began the introductions, the stranger stuck out his hand to Marina, grinned, and said simply: “Alik.” A moment later he asked Sasha for permission to dance with her.
Marina could not have cared less. They had been dancing in silence a minute or two when the stranger said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”
She told him.
“What a pretty name!”
Marina thought he was giving her a line. Still, he was a good dancer, and he was very well dressed. He was wearing a gray suit, a white shirt, and a white tie of some funny foreign material. The tie and his accent told her immediately that he was not a Russian. He must be from Latvia or Estonia.
“It’s not just your name that’s pretty,” the stranger continued. “You’re pretty, too. I saw you when you came in. I was trying to figure out how to meet you, but you had a crowd around you. I’m glad we finally met.”
Alik danced with her again and again, as if he could not bear to lose her for a moment or let her dance with anyone else. The second the music stopped, he asked for the next dance, and Sasha barely had a chance. When she did dance with Sasha, Alik did not dance with anybody else. He waited for her to be free. That was all right with Marina. This Alik was a good dancer. He was clean and polite. And his accent amused her.
But she still was looking for Anatoly, hoping to make him jealous. To teach him a real lesson, she suggested to a group of young men, all standing around waiting to dance with her, that they go to the bar. “It’s boring here. Let’s get some champagne!”
It was the climax of Marina’s career as a single girl. She felt like a princess, resplendent in her red brocade and her elaborate hairdo. Never had she looked so pretty. Never had she had so many admirers. They all drank champagne and were on their way back to the dance floor when Marina finally saw Anatoly. “You go on back,” she said to her entourage. “I’ll catch up with you later.”