Free The Free World by David Bezmozgis Page B

Baltics. They took enough of them after the war, not a few of them Nazi butchers. You speak English?
    —Yes, Alec said.
    —Your wife doesn’t.
    —No.
    —But you we could use. Semyon said your English is as good as his. It could take six months or longer to process the papers for Canada. Meanwhile we could use you as an interpreter. It would mean eighty
mila
lire more for you each week. Come back tomorrow and I will explain everything. It isn’t very complicated. Now, we will have to make some appointments for you and your wife to see a doctor. You don’t have tuberculosis, do you?
    —No, Alec said.
    —They will x-ray you anyway. You both look healthy enough to me.
    The woman proffered a document for them to sign.
    —This is to confirm that you want to go to Canada. You will get a notice in the mail for the doctor’s appointment and for your interview with the Canadian consulate. A word of advice: if you want to go to Toronto, don’t ask for Toronto. Good? Good. Now, if you could call in your brother and his family.
    Like that, Alec and Polina left the office. Karl, Rosa, and the boys entered in turn, then Samuil and Emma. Later, when Alec and Karl reconstructed the first meeting with Matilda Levy, neither could recall having ever told her that they had decided to change their destination from America to Canada.

1
    T here had been a point—once it became obvious that his sons would leave Riga, that no manner of threats or appeals would deter them, and that his family and his reputation would be destroyed—when Samuil had, for the first time in his life, contemplated suicide. The idea plagued him for weeks. He sought a reason to keep living, to justify his waking-and-breathing participation in the future. Almost certainly he would be expelled from the Party. And then what kind of life would he have in Riga? At best, the phone would ring occasionally when a former colleague’s wife would take pity and invite him for dinner. But could he even see himself accepting such invitations? What could he possibly say to people and what could people possibly say to him? And as for the other alternative—emigration—it was, in its own way, equally bad. But after a lifetime spent eluding death, the habit of survival was deeply ingrained. He could not separate the image of putting a revolver to his head or jumping into the Daugava from the image of the White thugs who murdered his father—themselves doubtless long cold in their graves—dancing, singing, and drinking in celebration. He was not prepared to give them the satisfaction.
    In Ladispoli, thoughts of suicide returned. There was nothinghere for a man like him. The young men, like Karl, packed their bags of trinkets and laid them out on blankets near the beach. When the police came, they scattered. When the police left, they returned. To see such things brought back to memory his first lessons in the Soviet Yiddish school in Rogozna. Their teacher had instructed them in the alphabet:
    Is “komets” and “alef” O?
    O!
    Is “komets” and “beys” Bo?
    Bo!
    Is there a God?
    No!
    Is there a shop owner?
    No!
    Is there a landlord?
    No!
    Men his age he saw tending to their grandchildren, pushing prams, shaking rattles. Emma encouraged him to take the boys. Somehow, it had not occurred to her that this would offend a man’s sensibilities. More than offend. To be a useless old man was bad enough; to transform himself into an old woman was worse.
    To break the monotony, Samuil walked. Most mornings he would start by going to Club Kadima, where he could listen to the radio or read the weekly émigré newspaper,
Jews in Transit.
Then he would walk to the beach and skirt Piazza Marescotti. There, among the other peddlers, he would see veterans with medals pinned to their blazers and shirts. There were only several who were more decorated than he, although Samuil would have been hard-pressed to prove this claim given that his medals had been confiscated at Chop by a smug,