“It took much time,” the woman said gruffly.
“But you’re sure it’s her?” Danforth asked.
“It’s her,” the woman said, then turned and headed down the narrow path and into an open field, muddy and overgrown but dotted with a few squat stone slabs etched with Cyrillic letters.
“How do you know?” Danforth asked.
The woman once again nodded to Slezak, clearly refusing to give any unpaid-for information.
“It’s the woman you are seeking,” Slezak said with a certainty that seemed uncertain.
As if given a signal to back Slezak up, the woman said, “It is her. I have proof.”
She had spoken defensively, like one accused of a crime she had not committed, and Danforth glimpsed the terrible sense of both distrust and being distrusted that was another of Stalin’s grotesque legacies.
“It’s her,” the woman repeated firmly, this time in a tone that was almost surly. “I don’t cheat you.”
They moved farther into the field of stones until they reached its far border, and there they came to a halt. The stone had toppled over, and time and the elements had weathered it badly, but Danforth could make out its faded lettering: Ana Khalisah. Another stone rose hard by it; its inscription indicated that it was the grave of the woman’s daughter.
He felt a desolate heaviness press down on him. It was not simply that he had made a long and arduous journey only to find the grave of some unknown woman but also that he now knew he would never find Anna Klein. He had not succeeded in avenging her; he had not even managed to find her and, in one last gesture of his knight-errantry, bring her home. He had grown old in his long effort, and he suddenly felt the full weight of those many years.
“This is not the woman I was looking for,” he said.
The old woman stared at him sternly. “I don’t cheat you,” she said. She looked at Slezak. “I have proof.”
But Danforth knew that there could be no proof, that anything the old woman might produce — a death certificate, a tattered document, even some physical artifact — would be either erroneous or falsified.
“I’m tired,” he said with a slight smile by which he wished to communicate to the old woman that he would not call her honesty into question, that she had done her best, that we are all, in the end, the final products of our errors.
He turned to Slezak. “We’ll head back to Magadan in the morning.”
Slezak nodded, and they both turned to leave the grave, but the old woman grabbed Danforth’s coat and fiercely turned him to face her. “Wait, you see,” she said.
Slezak looked to Danforth for instructions.
“All right,” Danforth said to the old woman. “Show me your proof.”
They walked back to Slezak’s car in silence, and then the old woman motioned that they should head down the barely passable road. “Twenty minutes,” she said.
It took a bit more than twenty minutes, but at last they arrived at one of Susuman’s larger public buildings, though it was hardly imposing. Inside, the old woman led Danforth up a flight of creaking stairs and to what appeared to be some sort of library, though the walls were lined with stacks of files, rather than books. If the proof was here, Danforth thought, who could find it?
The old woman directed him to the front of a long counter and disappeared into an adjoining room. Behind the counter, women in faded smocks, their heads wrapped in scarves, moved about the stacks of files and papers. The Gulag had been an assiduous compiler, and Danforth imagined that with the current thaw, thousands upon thousands of people were now seeking their lost kindred. In that paper graveyard and in others like it throughout Russia, the millions of dead lay in the mass coffins of filing cabinets.
“Okay, come,” the woman said as she emerged from the room. She motioned Danforth down a corridor, past several rooms where children sat at small desks, making him realize that the building also served as a school.
When they reached the end of the corridor, the old woman led Danforth inside a room where perhaps thirty children sat facing an ancient blackboard. The lesson had to do with Russian history, but now there were no pictures of Lenin or Stalin.
“You wait,” the old woman said, then marched up the center aisle and spoke briefly to the teacher. Danforth couldn’t make out what was being said, but after a short conversation, the teacher, a small, squat man in a threadbare suit, walked halfway up the aisle, then bent forward and whispered into the ear of one of the students. For a moment, the little girl sat quite still, then, as if in response to the teacher’s urging, she rose, turned, and walked toward Danforth. She wore a white shirt and gray skirt, as did all the other little girls, but her hair was shorter, and very curly.
“Hello, sir,” she said in perfect English when she reached him. She stretched out her hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”
It seemed to Danforth that he had never held so slender a hand. “Where did you learn such perfect English?” he asked.
“From my grandmother,” she said.
Danforth saw her startlingly blue eyes and knew that they were his; he saw her tightly curled hair and knew that it was hers, and in seeing this, he recalled that long-lost night, and under the weight of that remembrance, he sank to his knees and gathered his granddaughter into his arms. A great seizure of weeping shook him and he cried in a way that returned him to all the many ages he had known: the young man who had loved her, the middle-aged man who had sought her, and now the old man who had found her in the only way she could still be found.
~ * ~
Lexington Avenue, New York City, 2001
There was a knock at the door.
Danforth glanced at the clock, and a tiny smile crossed his lips. “Right on time,” he said, then called out, “Just a minute.” He looked at me. “Could you get the door, Paul?”
I rose, walked to the door, and opened it to find a woman in her early twenties. She was small and dark, with strikingly blue eyes and short, very curly hair.
“Hello,” she said, giving no hint of surprise at seeing a stranger open Danforth’s door.
“Hi,” I answered from the curious daze that overtook me. “I’m . . . Paul.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. She offered her hand, and I took it. It was extraordinarily small and delicate.
“I’m Alma.”
“Alma,” I repeated. “That means ‘soul’ in Spanish.”
“In Spanish, yes,” Alma said in a tone of complete authority. “And in Arabic it means ‘apple.’”
“So you’re a student of languages,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I work as a translator.”
“Come, sit down,” Danforth called from behind us.
She stepped in front of me, made her way over to Danforth, and kissed him softly on the forehead. “How are you doing?” she asked.
“As well as can be expected,” Danforth said in a way that attested to some grave circumstance he had not revealed to me but that I now saw in the waning strength and slight pallor that had overtaken him during the past hours.