He was weeping. I was afraid to get near him. I thought he might hit me.
“I know who I am. I don’t need followers! I don’t need to be called Master. That’s his weakness. He needs them to love him, to fear him. He’s Moloch. It’s not about ideas. He needed my ideas to give him legitimacy. But once he had what he wanted, he didn’t care about them at all.”
A burst of wind blew snow in our faces. I could barely see the trees now. But soon we’d be safe. Or at least warm. So all the pretty girls, that was not a figment of my imagination. Yet I thought of that night in his kabinyet. He never touched me. “Why didn’t you leave? Why did you come here, then?”
He hung his head. “Why indeed… fool that I am, I had nothing left. I’d destroyed everything that meant anything to me,” he said bitterly.
“What about your wife? Couldn’t you go back to her?”
He gazed behind him, toward the river, that blurry sleeve of white. I hoped he wasn’t going to bolt. It had taken me forever to get him this far. “It turned out she was more attached to her roles than to me. She wanted to be the Publisher’s Wife.” He stabbed the snow as if lancing a bear. “She wanted me to renounce my research. Concentrate on publishing popular novels.” He grimaced. “Romances. Cookbooks. Said if I moved to the dacha, I would never see my children again. She wanted me to choose between my work and my roles. What could I do? What would you have done?” His haunted, desperate face, begging me for an answer. Me, of all people. I was just nineteen.
I tugged the fox hat further down onto my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never been in that position.”
He leaned over the peeled birch ski poles and wept, great ragged sobs. It was terrible to hear. The months I’d watched him at dinner, accompanying us on the piano, shoveling snow, sitting like an Alsatian outside my mother’s door. Why had we never talked before this? Perhaps, like me, he hadn’t wanted to name his suffering, hadn’t wanted to see it so clearly.
He bent back so his face was bared to the sky, snow falling like freed secrets. “What was I to do? I had to pursue my ideas. A man is not an animal, to wander the world without a question in his head, a moment of wonder. I had to see, to learn, to discover! She brought the children in that night. ‘Kiss your father. He’s going on a trip.’ ‘Oh, where, Papa? To Moscow? With ’Kashin’? A grown man, a father, I walked in with my eyes wide open.” He struggled through the snow up to where I stood, slipped, fell against me, almost knocking me over. I pushed him back upright. “I’m such a fool,” he said, weeping, clinging to me. “I didn’t feel the noose around my neck until it was too late.” He backed away from me, sidestepping. “Maybe I still hoped I had a place. That I could protect my ideas somehow.” He took off his glasses. “I’ve been so blind!” And, disgusted, he pitched them out into snow.
That face, so full of pain. “Did I follow Ukashin, Marina? Have you noticed, only he gets a name? I have a name. Andrei Petrovin. Does that mean anything to you—Petrovin Press?”
He’d published poets I’d read. Ravich, Ivan Modal. And this is what had become of him.
“Andrei Petrovin!” He yelled into the falling snow, backing away from me. “Andrei Alexandrovich Petrovin!”
Without his glasses, he looked as unfocused and helpless as a worm writhing on a pavement.
I didn’t know how to help him. I didn’t want to embarrass him further, watching him sobbing so nakedly, so I moved in the direction he’d thrown his spectacles. I had little hope of finding them. Still, what else could I do? I couldn’t bring back his children, his good name, his publishing house, his marriage, his dignity. What would you have done? I scanned the snow, and there! Two small circles in the fading light. A perfect imprint of the specs. Like a fox, I dug them out with both hands, flinging snow left and right, then held them aloft. “Andrei, I found them!”
I was turning when I heard the blast. My God.
He sagged halfway to his knees, then fell over sideways in the snow, his feet still tied to the skis. I raced back to him, my right snowshoe coming undone. I plunged in up to my thigh, struggling to get back to him with one foot on top of the drift, the other falling through. “Andrei! Andrei Petrovin!”
He was lying on his side, my gun in his mouth, his eyes shocked and staring out, and the back of his head was gone.
80 Metel’
DID I SCREAM? Did I weep? My words returned tenfold as I knelt beside him in the falling snow. I’ve never been in that position. He’d reached out to me, and this was my answer to his soul-deep despair? That was all I could say? I took off my scarf and laid it over his head. I knew I should do something—go to the house, get help—but I didn’t want to leave him alone. It was not just the wolf. It was that he’d been alone so long already. I still had his glasses in my hand. I found your glasses, Andrei Alexandrovich. As if that was the important thing.
The crunch of snow. Pasha, flakes building up on his hat and his black beard, had heard the blast. He took one look at Andrei, at me. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.” The snow fell, trying to cover the deed, the blood, a soft mercy. Too late, too late. God forgive me, Andrei. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be another chance.
Soon Pasha returned with Bogdan and Gleb and the sledge he used to carry his wood. They loaded Andrei’s long, awkward body onto it. Bogdan didn’t know what to do with the gun. He tried to hand it to me, that deadly piece of steel. I couldn’t bear to look at it.
“I’ll take it to the Master,” he said, tucking it into his coat.
“No. Give it to me,” I said. I put it back in my pocket. It was already cold, and it weighed more than it used to, heavy with death. Andrei had fallen against me on purpose. His desperate hand reaching into my pocket. How could I have saved him? Why hadn’t I tried? Bogdan carried the skis while Pasha harnessed himself to the sled. Gleb held Andrei’s limp legs so they didn’t drag in the snow.
By the time we arrived at the house, the others had already gathered in the yard. They stared at the dead man, and at me, confused and wary. I had brought death to their camp.
Ukashin emerged from the house with his hairy dogs, buckling the belt of his greatcoat. The dogs ran to us, snuffled at the body. I kicked them away. This was a man, not a dead deer.
The Master approached. I didn’t want to look at him. Alive, so sturdy, so self-important. Usurper. He had stolen Andrei’s ideas, made him a laughingstock, driven him to suicide. He lifted my scarf to gaze at the man who’d once been his friend. His face betrayed nothing. I had the gun in my pocket. I could have shot him right there and then.
He straightened, whispered something into Magda’s ear, sending her into the house. Natalya hovered, scared, wanting to help, but her frightened eyes waited for Ukashin to signal his verdict. She would follow his lead. I glanced up to the second story, the windows overlooking the yard. Are you up there, Mother? What do you think of your companion now?