If only she saw a future for us as I do! I know that one day, we’ll wander through the center of Buenos Aires gazing up at the elegant facades of the buildings with their stucco ornaments. We’ll look at the closed shutters and try to guess who lives behind them. When we get tired, we’ll go to Café Tortoni with its stained glass ceilings and distinguished gray-haired waiters like English aristocrats. We’ll eat delectable medialunas croissants and cakes and—

That’s enough for today. I don’t want to get too carried away.

2

Nina never left the house without her flu mask, but she was no longer afraid that anyone would recognize her. Her life was like that of a forest animal. She knew there were wolves around, she knew they attacked and devoured prey every day, but what could she do about it?

Every morning, she went to the Military Commissariat. The city was covered with snow. Trees and bushes that had survived the fuel collection sparkled with frost in the sunlight, and the houses looked like gnomes wearing huge white caps and necklaces of icicles. It was so cold that there was a halo around the pale winter sun.

Women standing around outside the locked door of the grocery shop were cursing the Soviet government in whispers. “Why do all the Bolsheviks jump the queue? They should clear out.”

A saleswoman wrapped in an eiderdown was slowly moving the weights on the scales.

Why can’t they have two women serving instead of one? Nina thought. And why is this woman allowed to force people to stand in line in the cold? She should be punished like a thief for stealing the most valuable thing of all—time.

Still, maybe it was a good idea to kill time in the land of the Soviets because then perhaps everything would be over as soon as possible.

Nina had no real cause to complain. She worked in the best “public catering point” in the city. The canteen boasted gilded chairs stolen from a theater and dining tables confiscated from merchants’ houses. And while the spoons might have been made of wood and the tablecloths of newspaper, the tableware bore the monograms of princely families.

While the standard fare in other catering establishments was salted herring, in Lubochka’s canteen, the cook’s handwritten menu boasted “pilaf with beef” or “lingonberry dessert with shugar.” But even this menu had been drawn up for the ordinary customers and didn’t tell the full story. Lubochka also had dried fruit, rice, and flour from Tashkent, canned fish from the Baltic states, and even caviar and sturgeon from the Lower Volga region. She had plenty of food, but not for everyone.

There were always street children crowded around the entrance to the canteen. As soon as a visitor walked up to the door, they rushed forward shouting, “Mister! Ma’am! A spoonful, please!”

Trying not to look at their dirty faces, Nina stamped the snow from her felt boots—a gift from Lubochka—and went to the kitchen. She had to bring in firewood, light the oven, and heat a whole tank of water before the first guests appeared.

The canteen opened at twelve, and the kitchen filled with the sound of clattering dishes and running feet. Sometimes Lubochka came to the kitchen to announce that they needed “first-class service.” That meant that somebody important had arrived.

“How are you?” Lubochka asked Nina.

Nina, breathless with exertion, wiped her wet hands on her apron and tucked a stray lock of her hair under her kerchief. “I’m fine.”

Lubochka cast an eye over the piles of clean dishes. “Good for you. But do me a favor, don’t stack the cups like that. They could break.”

“I won’t.”

Nina and Klim had no right to hate Lubochka, but they hated her nonetheless. As they saw it, it was only thanks to her and her kind that the Bolsheviks were able to remain in power.

Countless Lubochkas had filled the state offices and institutions, feathering their nests in the process. Now, they were ready to fight tooth and nail to keep their jobs, which meant defending the Soviet state.

Of course, there was resistance but mainly in the form of petty sabotage and widespread theft. It gave Nina great satisfaction to steal millet from the canteen pantry and feed it to her hen, Speckle. This hen was the object of pride and constant concern because it laid golden eggs—golden because every one of them fetched eighty rubles at the market.

Nina was terrified at the thought that Lubochka’s cat might catch Speckle. She would often jump up in the night to check whether the hen was all right.

Klim had named the cat Kaiser because of its bellicose whiskers and recent misfortune. Like the former German emperor, it had lost its territory and was now forced to live at the mercy of strangers.

“If that cat of yours eats Speckle, I’ll give it short shrift,” Nina threatened.

“Oh, come on!” Klim laughed. “A hen is nothing compared to a cat. Cats are princes of the animal kingdom. After all, they’re cousins to the king of beasts. Personally, I feel a sense of kinship with Kaiser. Perhaps you could call it class solidarity.”

Kaiser had grown fond of Klim too. The cat slept on his lap and let him scratch it behind the ears.

3

In order to escape from the land of the Soviets, Sablin, Klim, and Nina had to get to the frontline, and to do that, they needed the following documents:

1) passports

2) certificates of exemption from military service for the men

3) letters of assignment from work

4) passes from the Regional Executive Committee

5) permits to buy railroad tickets

6) railroad tickets

7) permits from the Cheka

Soviet bureaucrats who issued travel papers made a fortune in bribes. Sometimes they would be caught and executed. But then new officials would step into their shoes, and everything would go on as before. All that happened was that the bribes increased.

Money was scarce. Sablin, Klim, and Nina were all earning next to nothing. The shapeless lump of silver that was all that remained of the satyr couldn’t cover more than a tenth of their travel costs, and Sablin had nothing to his name but an amber cigarette case missing one corner. Things looked particularly bleak regarding the third item on the list—the letters from their workplaces—since neither the local newspaper nor the hospital ever sent staff to the frontline. As for Nina, her profession involved no travel whatsoever.

4

Sometimes Sablin’s acquaintances would bring news of a successful escape from the land of the Soviets. Excited, he would permit himself cautious questions: “Where is the frontline, and how did they get across it?” But no one could tell if these rumors were even true because no one ever came back from the other side of the frontline.

It was so hard for Sablin to tell himself that he would be leaving Lubochka forever in the spring. He kept questioning his decision, wondering if perhaps he ought to stay, clinging to what remained of his former domestic happiness.

“I’m sorry,” he told Klim, “but I really don’t think I can leave the hospital. People here are so hungry that they’re eating God knows what, poisoning themselves. And we don’t have even emetics, so—”

“Let your patients read our newspaper,” Klim said. “Listen, you have to get out of here. Otherwise, you’ll lose your mind.”

“You must start afresh,” Nina told Sablin. “You won’t find new love as long as you’re still carrying a torch for Lubochka. I know what I’m talking about.”

Sablin frowned. He didn’t like to discuss such things, particularly not with a woman.

He kept thinking of how Lubochka had nursed him back to health when she had found him dying. In the past, she had complained that Sablin didn’t love her enough. He had been at a loss when he had heard this unfair accusation. For Sablin, love meant family, and family meant respect, cooperation, friendship, and loyalty. Lubochka had had all of these things. What more did she want?

He could find only one explanation, the vilest and unbearable: she had been disappointed in him as a lover. He had asked her if this was true, terrified at what she might say, but Lubochka had only thrown her hands up, “Lord, how vulgar you are! It wasn’t about that.”

But what was it then?

Sablin tried to figure out how Klim had made Nina fall in love with him. Obviously, it wasn’t about his money—she hadn’t cared much for him when he had been rich. Perhaps his secret was his charisma. Sablin had never had this quality.

There was no point in cursing his fate. Some people have a talent for dancing, and some don’t. Some lucky souls are easygoing while others are born pedantic and boring. Sablin accepted his shortcomings in the same way that he had accepted his limp.

He spent evenings playing against Klim and staking his amber cigarette case as a bet. If they played cards, Klim usually won, but if they played chess, Sablin would beat him every time.

“What a stupid game this is!” Klim said angrily after Sablin had beaten him yet again. “In my opinion, there should be a special chess piece that both players are fighting over—a dragon, for instance. What’s the point in just knocking out all your opponents’ pieces? I need something to fight for.”

That was Sablin’s problem in real life: he had nothing to fight for.

Klim and Nina’s room was next to Sablin’s, and hearing the muffled sounds of their passion at night, he would feel sickened and angered. He wanted to bang on the thin wall with his fist and yell, “You’re not alone here, damn you!”

In the morning, Nina came out of her room still sleepy with a blissful, distracted expression, and Sablin could barely restrain himself from asking, “So, what do you plan to do if you get pregnant?”