Galina smiled, grateful. My mom, she said. She was the one who thought there was something wrong with me when I was just little. Funny how she foresaw it-I started having hallucinations after she said I had to go to a hospital."
"Uncanny, Yakov muttered. Do you think it's possible that being in the hospital was maybe not the best thing for you?"
She stopped smiling. Of course I thought about it. What, do you think I'm stupid? But it doesn't really matter now, does it?"
"I guess not, Yakov said. Sorry I brought it up."
"It's all right, Galina said. But I'm tired now. Mind if I sleep a little?"
"Go ahead, Yakov said.
Galina rested her head on Zemun's flank and closed her eyes with a sigh. Yakov remained sitting, listening to the crying of an imaginary baby somewhere in his mind, on the very edge of hearing, so that even he couldn't say whether it was a memory or just a ringing of the frayed nerves. He waited for morning.
15: Kolomenskoe
There were many parks in Moscow-the ones in the old city, the white city, were there for recreation and entertainment, some complete with Ferris wheels and lemonade stands, the kiosks that sold everything under the sun, including gin-and-tonic in a can. The ones in the outskirts, Tsaritsino and Kolomenskoe, were different. These felt like real places that existed regardless of people's presence. The churches in Kolomenskoe and the palace in Tsaritsino were real as well-perhaps damaged by age and neglect, perhaps speckled with bird droppings and the twinkling fragments of broken bottles; but in their old age they remained stately, dreaming, it seemed to Fyodor, of the days that slipped by them, the days that decorated their facades with weathered brick and stubborn splotches of lichen as they went away forever, leaving the buildings in their wake like the skeletons of distant shipwrecks.
He looked at the reflection in the river-they were in Kolomenskoe now, and the river here was lively enough to resist the stiff embrace of ice that started to form along the shores. But in the center the water remained black and clear, as if purified by the early frosts of oil and other contamination. The snow fell, touching the clear black mirror without a ripple, dissolving quietly in the white apparition of the reflected church.
They had scaled the fence to get there. Oksana snapped a few slender birch branches and started a small fire. It melted a small crater in the snow, and they sat next to it, watching the river and the snow. Fyodor's hands warmed over the flames, but his back felt numb from the cold. He moved closer to the flames.
"Careful, Oksana said. You'll set yourself on fire."
"Better fire than hypothermia, Fyodor said. I saw that guy once, in the hospital. His temperature dropped so low, the only way to warm him up was to put tubes in his chest and pour warm water through them. I was one bed over, and I remember the water sloshing in and out of his chest. Weird sound, that. Nothing quite like it. It slurped."
"Sounds awful, Oksana said. I saw people freeze to death too. The key is to stay awake and keep the fire going. There're no ambulances here, and they won't find us until the morning."
"If then. No one comes here in winter."
"It's still fall."
"Same difference. Who would go for a walk in such weather?"
"I hope that Sergey's friends would."
"Perhaps. He tossed another branch into the flames. Where's your tabor?"
She jerked her shoulders, irritable. I don't know. Maybe they moved on, to Ukraine or somewhere south."
"Why don't you look for them? Fyodor asked. Because of me?"
"You're an outsider, she admitted. Most Roma don't like outsiders. But with me, I think you'd be all right."
"Why don't you look for them then?"
"Maybe in the morning. She sighed. It's difficult. I spent so much time among Russians, I feel like an outsider myself most of the time. The trouble is, you can't live in two worlds-you always pick one, even if you don't mean to."
"I think I know what you're saying, Fyodor said. Most of the time you don't even know that you've already chosen. He fell quiet, thinking of the summer of his eighteenth year when he failed the exams and never went home. There had been nothing keeping him from going, except that he just didn't. Couldn't. You never know until it's too late to do anything about it."
Oksana slouched more, digging her hands deeper under her bent knees. The rats pressed closer around her, in a protective circle of warmth. It's like when you're a kid, and then one day you realize you're ashamed of your parents, and you don't even know how it happened. Everyone gets embarrassed of their parents at some point, I think. I just didn't know one could be embarrassed of an entire people."
"I know how you feel, Fyodor said. I think."
Oksana shrugged. Everyone does to some extent, I suppose. Doesn't make it any easier."
"No, Fyodor agreed, and looked at the sky that was growing gray over the river. Morning was coming, and he turned to look behind him, at the palimpsest of a path, almost invisible under the thick snow swaddling the ground in its soft embrace. There were crosses of bird prints between the white silent trees, becoming slowly visible as the daylight grew with every minute, imperceptibly at first but quickly gaining strength. The fire burned out, leaving a black scorched circle that stared at them like an empty eye socket from the gently sloping face of the riverbank.
"I suppose we better go check out the cabin, Fyodor said.
They found it with ease-there were snow-covered signs everywhere, which detailed directions and historical irrelevancies in two languages. Really, Fyodor thought, who cared where the cabin was transported from, log-by-log? What did it matter if Peter the Great decided to move the capital to St Petersburg? Was there any significance to the fact that Peter was the first czar to be crowned with a crown made in Western style, indistinguishable from those of European monarchs, and scorned the Helm of Monomakh? He remembered that helm, displayed in one of the Kremlin's museums. It looked like a regular hat, save for the abundance of jewels and the cross that topped it. The museum guide explained that Monomakh's Helm symbolized the transition of the seat of power from Byzantium to Russia, and that since Byzantium was heir to the Roman Empire, this is why Russia was considered the third Rome. He spoke about the legacies of early Christianity, of the terrible and ancient heritage. Fyodor understood with a vague animal instinct why Peter the Great-the ticcy, twitchy, narrow-chested giant-would want to avoid this legacy, already replicated ad infinitum in the shapes of church roofs and fur hats everywhere.
It wasn't about control of the sea, Fyodor though as the virgin snow crunched and gave under his freezing feet, toes curled inside his oversized army boots. It wasn't about Peter's training in Europe or infatuation with the West. It was all about escape-escape from this blasted city with its terrible history buried deep underground, with its oppressive Byzantine past. Peter could not bear this place, suspended between worlds, and he chose a new alliance and built a new city, European and clean, where the streets ran in a grid instead of meandering drunkenly up and down the seven hills of Moscow. So Peter fled, Fyodor thought, fled in self-preservation, into the cold and sterile embrace of the Baltic. Who could blame him?