“Take it easy; you’ll do just fine,” Potulniy assures a totally mystified Gindin. “The Cuban government is sending a car for you at eleven hundred sharp. Dress in your holiday uniform and get something to take to the ladies.”
By now Gindin’s palms are cold and sweaty and his heart rate is up. Fixing a ship in mid-ocean after a collision is one thing, but what the captain is asking him to do now is downright nerve-racking. “Something for the ladies, sir?”
Potulniy waves it aside. “Go see our zampolit; he’ll know what you should bring.”
Gindin wants to ask the captain why Sablin shouldn’t be the one to go, but by now Potulniy has turned away to deal with some minor problem with his ship. Who knows? Maybe the captain’s palms are even wetter than Gindin’s. And maybe the captain figures that Gindin isn’t shy and his easygoing, social personality makes him the best man aboard ship for the job.
Of course Sablin knows exactly what to do, and when the car comes for Gindin at precisely 11:00 A.M. he’s carrying flowers for the wives, as well as Russian nesting dolls, chocolates, Russian champagne, and vodka.
It was ninety-eight in the shade that day, the car was not air-conditioned, and although Gindin does not have to wear a uniform coat he does have to wear a tie with his white shirt and a jacket showing the three stars of his rank, black trousers, and a cap with gold embroidery. And he’s a Russian. What does he know about this kind of weather? Besides that, he’s very nervous and the translator, sent along to make sure he pronounces names correctly, is relentless.
Their first stop is the villa of Castro himself. He’s not at home, but his wife, Dalia Soto del Ualle Castro, greets them at the door with a big smile. She is young and beautiful and charming, and Gindin is speechless at first.
The Cuban translator smooths over the first few minutes until Dalia Castro offers them something to drink. Turns out she doesn’t care for wine, she only drinks straight whiskey or rum, and the only food she serves is some nuts and crackers on a tray. With the translator’s help, Gindin and Mrs. Castro chat about Russia and Cuba and their warm relations and even about Gindin’s family, all the while drinking straight whiskey. By the end of the visit, Dalia Castro is inviting Gindin to stay with her and her husband in the big house the next time he comes to Cuba.
“We have plenty of room for you. You’ll see.”
Gindin remembers later that he felt as if he were in some kind of a wonderland. He’d never seen such a magnificent place in his life, beautifully furnished and decorated with impeccable landscaping; flowers, trees, lawns, everything so perfect.
His next two stops are at the houses of the commander of the Cuban fleet and the minister of defense. The husbands were gone, but the wives give Gindin and his translator the same warm welcome that Castro’s wife had given them. And, like Dalia Castro, they drank only straight whiskey or rum. Gindin is given a few shots at each house, to celebrate the holiday, and how can a mere senior lieutenant refuse such offers?
After Gindin has handed out the gifts and visited the three wives and drunk their whiskey, it’s about three in the afternoon before he gets back to the ship. The translator, who was drinking shots right along with Gindin and is half-drunk by now, grins and says the trip was a smash hit, Gindin is a swell Russian, and the translator hopes he will come again soon.
When Gindin makes his way up to the bridge to report to the captain, he is about ready to go to bed, which is just what Potulniy suggests. Later, in the sober light of day, Gindin realizes that maybe the captain hadn’t been shy after all. Maybe he knew what was in store for the officer who visited the important wives, and if someone were to drink a little too much and make a fool of himself, it would be better if it were a junior officer rather than the captain.
But that afternoon is just a memory now, as Gindin heads back to his cabin to write a letter to his mother. He’s also getting flashbacks from his father’s funeral. The entire workforce of the factory where Iosif worked showed up to pay their last respects, telling Boris and his mother how much they respected and would miss their friend. Boris desperately wants to be with his family today—even more so today than other days, for some reason—so he hopes that the letter will put his mind at ease. In any event, they will head to the shipyard tomorrow and after that it’ll only be a couple of weeks until he is on leave with his family.
Or so he thinks.
PART 2
THE BALTIC
9. EVENING OF THE MUTINY
Dinner has come and gone, the sky is starless, there is a cold breeze stirring, and traffic along the waterfront is sparse. The holiday is over and the people of Riga are doing their own thing: family gatherings, playing chess, watching television—the Bolshoi Ballet is doing a matinee performance of Giselle. Anyway, tomorrow the Storozhevoy will leave for the shipyard where for two weeks everything aboard will be put to rights. Already the weapons loads—missiles, mines, torpedoes, and depleted uranium ammunition for the guns—have been taken off the ship, and his fuel tanks are nearly but not quite empty. One of the refit tasks will be to send the smallest sailors through maintenance hatches into the tanks to repaint them. The less fuel there is to pump out beforehand, the quicker the job will get done.
Gindin goes back to his cabin to get another pack of cigarettes—they’ve been at sea for six months, so he is out of Marlboros until they get back to base; now he has to smoke the shitty-tasting Russian ones, Primas without filters. But he guesses that he really doesn’t mind. One of the main reasons he started smoking the much more expensive
American brand was so that he could impress civilians with how good Soviet navy officers have it.
“We were protecting their lives,” he says. “So maybe we deserved a few bogatstvo, luxuries.”
As he’s stuffing the pack into his uniform pocket, his roommate, Vladimir Firsov, walks in, a half smile on his pleasantly square face.
“So, Boris, what’s eating your ass?” he wants to know. It’s like half the ship has come down with the shits or something. Almost nobody is smiling.
Gindin hasn’t a clue. He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “Something.” It’s a general feeling that something is right around the corner or that someone is sneaking up behind them. He’s developed a case of the volocy vstali dybom, the willies.
Vladimir and Boris leave their nine-by-eleven cabin and head back up on deck, where they lean against the rail and smoke. The wind has picked up and now that the sun has gone down it has gotten even colder than this morning. One of the fronts that regularly sweep across the Baltic from the Arctic must have come through in the past hour, because they can see their breath.
“It’s cold,” Firsov says after a long silence, and Gindin isn’t at all sure his friend is talking about the weather just now.
“Havana was better,” Gindin replies. They’re talking, but it’s like they’re wading through molasses. It’s as if they are drifting, rudderless, without any purpose. Gindin has never felt like this.
They talk about the rotation they’re finally coming off and the big repair job they were stuck with on the way to Cuba. There’ll be a lot of work for them at the shipyard, but in two weeks they’ll be home with their families.
Vladimir is married and has one young kid. Each year Boris helps Vladimir celebrate his anniversary and the birthdays of his wife and son. It’s a sweet Russian custom, especially among sailors at sea. The little celebrations tend to make the loneliness more bearable.