Sablin limped toward them. “Good God, you’re alive! How are you? What are you doing here?”

Lubochka looked around anxiously. “Let’s go home. Nina and Klim have nowhere to go, and I think they should stay with us. I’ll arrange everything.”

2

Lubochka clearly couldn’t resist showing her guests how much she had achieved. It was a great pleasure for her to act the hostess, boasting of the fine food at her table.

“Pelmeny should be made as they are in the Perm Province,” Lubochka said to Klim and Nina as she ladled out the meat dumplings. “About the size of a walnut and wrapped in dough as thin as linen. The stuffing should have finely minced onion and cream mixed with the ground pork and beef, and they should be cooked in a veal broth and served with red vinegar, ground pepper, and parsley.”

It was the first time in months that Nina and Klim had enjoyed a good meal in peace, warmth, and comfort. Nina sat on the sofa with her hands under her knees. She was ashamed that the skin around her nails was black with deeply ingrained dirt.

Nina felt overwhelmed by the opulence that Lubochka lived in, but the overriding feelings that she was currently experiencing were shock and indignation. How could her old friend possibly serve the Bolsheviks? How could she have possibly abandoned all her ideals for these pelmeni? However, Nina felt she had no right to condemn Lubochka as she herself was eating her meal courtesy of her former friend’s hospitality. Nina’s self-righteous anger would have appeared to everyone, including herself, as bitter and petty envy.

“Come on. I’ll show you your room,” Lubochka said and took Nina and Klim to a small, wood-paneled room above the porch. It had once been used by Anton Emilievich as a storage room.

“Are you sure your father won’t mind us staying here?” Klim asked when Lubochka told him about everything that had happened to Anton Emilievich.

“What are you talking about? You’re his nephew.”

“And what will your new husband say?”

“Nothing.”

“So, you have all of them under your thumb?”

Lubochka rolled her eyes. “Oh, you—you’re incorrigible!”

While Klim was taking a bath, Lubochka brought Nina a set of bed linen.

“Will you be sleeping together? Unmarried?” Lubochka asked, pretending to be scandalized. “But I really don’t care. Osip and I didn’t have a church marriage either.”

“So—what’s going on between you and Sablin then?” Nina blurted out, unable to help herself. “He must see everything… and I’m sure it’s breaking his heart.”

“I love him too,” Lubochka shrugged. “I love them both in different ways.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’ve come to realize that one man can’t provide you with everything you want. Take Klim as an example. He is a nice guy, but he’s let all his opportunities pass him by.”

“It’s not his fault there’s been a revolution,” Nina objected.

Lubochka laughed. “That’s not what I meant. Klim is vain, and all he needs to be happy is for someone to pay him a compliment. He hasn’t the slightest interest in money and power, and he’s always been that way. He’ll never be rich again. He doesn’t know how to make money and doesn’t want to learn.”

Don’t argue, Nina told herself. Let her believe she’s in the right.

“I’m sure you won’t have to go begging,” Lubochka said as she plumped up the pillow, “but I don’t imagine you’ll do very well for yourselves either. One day, you’ll remember Mr. Fomin and your dreams of a beautiful life. If he was alive and you were with him, you’d be living like a queen, no matter who was in power.”

“If the Bolsheviks hadn’t confiscated my mill, I’d have provided for myself pretty well,” Nina said.

“I don’t think so.” Lubochka laughed. “There are flowers that can’t grow without support. You know you would never achieve anything without Fomin.”

Nina was at a complete loss as to what to say.

“You know what’s your problem is?” Lubochka asked in a confidential tone. “It never occurred to you that Klim is the one who’s responsible for your present penury. If you had found yourself a more capable man, you wouldn’t have been starving and hiding from the Cheka, and you could always keep a man like my cousin by your side just for the sake of pleasure. After all, he does bring you pleasure, doesn’t he?”

Klim returned from the bathroom clean-shaven and wearing a new shirt and trousers provided by Lubochka.

“That’s much better!” Lubochka said. “You look like yourself again.”

He smiled. “All I needed was some hot water and a bar of soap, and suddenly, everything is right with the world.”

Lubochka gave Nina a folded towel and one of her dresses. “Your turn.”

3

The mirror in the bathroom was misty with condensation. Nina wiped her hand across it and stared at her reflection.

A couple of well-directed blows were all it had taken to get right under Nina’s defenses. Lubochka had immediately sensed that Nina did not approve of her and couldn’t help enjoying her little revenge.

“Here you are, little countess, so noble and scrupulous… but who has been more successful in life? You or me? Who has come begging to whom with their arms outstretched? So, be quiet, and I’ll preach a couple of home truths to you and say whatever mean things about your man that I like.”

And there was nothing Nina could do about it.

All those months she had been tormented with anxiety about what the future would hold. Would her life ever go back to normal? If the Reds won the war, the only way for her to have a half-way decent life would be to serve the same people who had killed her brother.

Even if the Whites prevailed, Klim would never get back his inheritance, and there would be next to nothing left of the mill at Osinki or the rest of the property confiscated by the Bolsheviks. Without a visa, Nina wouldn’t be able to go to Argentina. So, what should she do? What should she hope for?

Nina had expected her former friend to show them some sympathy and even admire their courage and fortitude, but for Lubochka, they were just a couple of fools who only had themselves to blame for all the unnecessary misery they had experienced.

Lubochka was ready to play any game according to any rule as long as there was a guaranteed prize for her at the end of it while Nina still insisted on playing the old game that she had always used to win. It was little surprise that she had been so unceremoniously kicked out from the table.

It’s not Klim who’s responsible for our trouble but me, Nina thought.

Her reflection misted over again, and now, all she could see of herself was a shapeless smudge.

4

When Anton Emilievich arrived home, he was amazed to find the new visitors.

“Good Lord! Klim, is that you? Where have you been?”

Klim told him what had happened.

“So, Nina has no documents?” mused Anton Emilievich. “I think we can do something about that. She should go to the Regional Executive Committee and tell them her papers were stolen on a tram. It’s important she gives a different name—then she won’t have to answer any awkward questions. When they ask her about her place of birth, she should say she was born in Kiev. The local registry archive was destroyed by fire last year, so she’ll be issued with a temporary ID card that she can use for two years.”

Klim was stunned. “Is it that simple?”

“What did you think? That all the people working in the Bolsheviks’ offices have great minds? Most of them are just ordinary women. All they care about is keeping their jobs and pleasing their bosses. When they get instructions from other women just like themselves, they don’t question them; they simply follow them to the letter.”

5

Nina and Klim lay side by side in a clean bed in the warm room. It was impossible to sleep; everything seemed so unreal. They were worried about what would happen when Lubochka’s new husband came back. What would he say about his new tenants? And what would they do for money now? Whatever happened, they wouldn’t be able to rely on Lubochka for long.

Klim leaned on his elbow and looked at Nina for a long time. “Will you marry me?”

She smiled bitterly. “Don’t you think I’ve already dragged you down far enough?”

“My love for you is boundless and bottomless, and I want to dive down to its most profound depths.”

“If it weren’t for me, your life would have been completely different.”

“That might be. But in the current circumstances, you’re my only hope. There’s no other woman who would marry me anyway.”

Nina laughed. “All right then, but I’m keeping my maiden name, Kupina.”

“Why?”

“I want you to have a better chance of surviving if I’m arrested.”

6

They were married in the Church of St. George on the high bank overlooking the Volga River. It was the most beautiful church in the city with its white walls coated with lace-like stucco and its two golden domes gleaming against the cloudy gray sky.

“Glory to Thee, our God!” the choir sang.

Lubochka gazed at the newlyweds standing in front of the lectern. The bride was dressed in Lubochka’s old dress—not white, of course, not white. Against the background of the rows of candles that lit up the church, Nina’s head looked like a dark silhouette cut from paper.

“You’re nobody,” Lubochka whispered to herself. “An empty space.”

A young black-bearded priest looked up at Klim.

“Have you, Kliment, come here to enter into marriage with this woman, Nina, without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?”