The Free World Read Online Free Page A

of Persephone,
a masterpiece by the sculptor Bernini.

4
    I n Vienna, Alec and Polina had had a tiny, but private, room. In Rome they had no such luck. Karl, Rosa, and the boys were given a room of their own but Alec and Polina were directed to share a room with Samuil and Emma on the fourth floor of the hotel. The elevator was either broken or off-limits, it wasn’t exactly clear which. On the ground floor, a sign composed in both Russian and Italian had been posted on the elevator doors. In one script was written,
Elevator is not functioning,
though in another script someone had scribbled the words
“For Russians”
before the word
“Elevator.”
To ensure that nobody misunderstood the prohibition, the hotel’s manager planted himself in front of the elevator doors. He was a grim little man, his face a mask of blunt suspicion. To Alec he seemed like a bad comic actor. The effect was reinforced by the man’s red hair, which he styled in a pompadour roughly the size and hue of a cheap fox fur hat. Who could get angry at an Italian gnome with a red pompadour? Alec mentioned this to a man who lurched past him, crippled by the bulk of two suitcases. The man hissed curses at the manager as he mounted the stairs.
    —Swine. Son of a whore. —What’s the point? He’s a clown.
    —How many floors do you have to climb?
    —Four.
    —So who’s the clown?
    Theirs was one of the rooms not equipped with a toilet. A shared bathroom was down the hall. It served three other rooms, each occupied by four people. Karl, who helped Alec bring up their bags, recommended the use of their bathroom. It would demand climbing another flight of stairs, but at least they would not be hostage to the bowel and hygiene peculiarities of a dozen strangers.
    When Karl returned to his room, Polina stated to Alec that she’d rather take her chances with strangers than ask Rosa’s permission every time she had to pee. From his parents’ half of the room there was silence. Alec didn’t need to look to confirm the magnitude of his father’s disapproval; he was an expert in the many tones of his father’s silences. He could have written a dissertation about them.
    —We had it much worse during the evacuation, Emma said. People would have paid anything to have such a room for even one night.
    Samuil remained silent. He refused to respond to Emma’s pacifying overture, even though the war was one of his favorite subjects.
    —You know, I’ve thought about it, Emma said, and what is this except another evacuation? Emigration, evacuation; I don’t see such a difference. At least this time everyone is together.
    —Think before you speak, Samuil said. In the war you ran from the enemy. Now who are you running from?
    To Alec’s relief, this interlude of family harmony was interrupted by a knock on the door. Alec hopped over a suitcase, opened the door, and was greeted by the momentarily startled face of Iza Judo. Alec, whose own expression must have mirrored Iza’s, could not at that instant imagine a less likely visitor. He said the only thing that came to his mind.
    —Iza, how did you know we were here?
    Iza shrugged ambiguously.
    —I heard, I guess.
    Alec had never been so happy to see Iza Judo—hadn’t supposed that the sight of Iza Judo could bring him happiness. They had never been close friends. Sometimes they socialized in the same company. In the summers, they played soccer together on the beach in Jurmala. He’d never particularly liked Iza, preferring Iza’s brother, Syomka. The two were identical twins, although nobody would ever mistake one for the other. Iza had shaved his head when he enrolled in the Institute of Sport, where he specialized in judo. Syomka grew his hair long and studied engineering and languages to become a translator of technical literature.
    Alec tried to think back to when he would have seen Iza Judo last. He remembered a small party at the dacha of a friend. There had been half a dozen men and four women. Alec