Chapter Twenty-Six Ginevra

On the drive from Sheremetyevo airport into the Moscow city center, Ginevra Efrati pressed her forehead to the window, riveted by the whiz of ugly concrete monstrosities. Finally—a glimpse of mysterious Russia.

Thus far, Ginevra had juggled dueling perspectives on the place: one from Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, the greats, illustrating life in the days of the tsars, Ginevra’s perspective formed as much from the admittedly tragic content of the pages as from the cozy library in which she read them; and the other perspective inherited from her father’s frequent diatribes consuming their dinnertime about the cruel Soviet Union and its particular hardships for the Jews. Ginevra was twenty-two, but still young enough to be sucked into the romance of travel—she wasn’t sure yet which perspective of this place would manifest in her reality.

Orsola sat in the middle of the back seat, sandwiched between Ginevra and their father, smoothing her stiff sky-blue dress. It was a nice dress, albeit not her stunning silky one with its full skirt smattered in lemons that Orsola couldn’t find when they were packing for the trip, even though she’d torn the bedroom apart in a frenzy, searching for it. Still, Orsola looked fresh and pretty in a replacement dress that seemed to Ginevra almost a brazen attack of cheerfulness on this sad gray country, whose skies were already pelting rain against their windows. Ginevra, on the other hand, wore a gray shift dress—well, she and Orsola were, as always, distinguishable. In energy, too. Where Orsola was almost unenthused about this trip, content with her vibrant life in Rome, Ginevra brimmed with excitement: to explore the world beyond their hometown, to meet and mingle with people of this foreign place that so dominated international conversation.

Ginevra’s stomach rumbled, reminding her she was ravenous. At the airport, in the great wide hall where the Efratis had waited in an endless customs line, an officer had confiscated the family’s cheese and sausage on the premise of hygiene. And the big fat booming man had not even waited for them to leave before taking a hulking bite of the sausage. Thankfully, the officer had not confiscated the many other items the family had transported: tallit prayer shawls; yarmulke; Western books potentially deemed antigovernment; siddurs; postcards of scenes in Israel. In order to enter the country with such loot, Domenico had negotiated with the officer, slipped him rubles. Still, hunger was apparently beyond bribe, as the officer had nonetheless seized the edible portion of the Efratis’ supposed contraband.

Ginevra’s father was a professor of Jewish studies at the prestigious Sapienza University of Rome. His specialty was ostensibly Italian Jewry, the oldest in Europe, dating back to 200 BCE. But Domenico Efrati had lost his entire family in the Holocaust—of his parents, two older brothers, and three younger sisters, Domenico was the sole survivor. Impossible for his experience in childhood not to shape a man. And shape Domenico it did. He studied, rallied, absorbed history through his pores, gave rousing speeches, collected donations. In the day-to-day, with his daughters, he was weary of life, often somber. But give him a cause—Jews to save—and he was transformed. Fiery, persuasive. Sure, he could pander to the community with fervent tales of prominent Jewish Italians, but his true passion—the genuine aim of his life’s work—was to help the world’s persecuted Jews.

In Domenico’s mind, Jews had a moral responsibility to save one another—because, by and large, no one else in the world could be relied upon to do so. The Holocaust had borne out this conclusion with certainty. And this is how Ginevra’s father, who had set foot outside of Italy only so far as the concentration camps, came to spearhead the cause of Soviet Jewry. In the seventies and eighties, Ginevra knew well the plight of the Soviet Jews, because it was a frequent topic at the Efratis’ dinner table. Ginevra knew about Sharansky, various Soviet Olympic defectors; she and Orsola even proudly wore big Star of David necklaces carved with the names of famous refuseniks to spotlight their plight.

Now they were going to help in person. To tell these Jews who were isolated and alone, imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain, that they had not been forgotten. To clasp the hands of these persecuted Jews and assure them that the Efratis—and many others outside the USSR—supported their plight. And to provide them concrete support, too—to take down their names and addresses and try to get them out.

The entry visas, extensive paperwork—all had by now been painstakingly produced. Three weeks in Moscow. But the Efratis almost hadn’t set off.

A month before they were scheduled to depart, Domenico had complained of tingling arm pain over dinner; an hour later, an ambulance rushed him to the hospital, as he’d suffered a heart attack. It was terrifying for the twins, who traded off waiting at his bedside, after he’d survived the surgery but remained in a precarious state. Now he had been cautioned by his doctors against making the trip. But in his characteristic defiant last word, Domenico had said they were going. He would give up his beloved butter and wine and steak, he would rest and take a little walk every day; but his mission wouldn’t be deterred, and his daughters were certainly capable of fulfilling it in his stead.

“Moscow is organized in circles,” Domenico said as the rain continued to drill down the window panes. “We’re in the inside circle, now. Look, piccoline, Bolshoi Theatre.”

Ginevra stared out at the blur of ivory pillars.

The driver said something, and Domenico translated—the only one of the Efratis who spoke Russian. “That was GUM department store. See the lines, piccoline.”

Indeed, Ginevra did—lines stretching around the block of people with shoulders slumped forward, but otherwise dressed finely, looking not dissimilar to Romans.

“It’s horrible weather to be waiting in line,” Orsola said.

Ginevra silently agreed.

“Well, when there is a line, you join it,” Domenico said. “That’s the Soviet way. The stores are largely empty. Empty shelves. Lines. Lines. Doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s for sale, these people will get in line to buy it.”

“Without even knowing what they’re waiting for?” Ginevra asked.

“Yes,” Domenico said. “Could be lipstick, perfume, toilet paper. In a communist country, supplies are extraordinarily scarce. The philosophy is: You buy what there is, and after, you’ll sell it for more than you paid. There are different stores for tourists, with more things on the shelves. That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Look at that man,” Orsola whispered to Ginevra, pointing to a tall blond man in flared blue jeans and the black platform shoes that were the height of cool. “He’s gorgeous.”

Ginevra felt herself bristle. Leave it to boy-crazy Orsola to spot a guy when they hadn’t even yet stepped foot in Moscow. But then Orsola smoothed her dress and her beautiful face looked flushed and hopeful, and Ginevra felt a wash of shame. She was jealous, as usual. She wanted to say something kind, conspiratorial, like twins were supposed to be, giggling into the night, sharing about crushes and makeup. But the Efrati twins had never been that way. They’d always had separate friends, their own secrets and dreams folded up and deliberately hidden from sight, as if the other might steal or exploit them.

“There are gorgeous men in Italy. Gorgeous men is not what we’re here for,” Ginevra said, hating herself. She was grumpy and envious. Orsola didn’t deserve it. What had she done but be born beautiful and kind and with all the ideal femininity? No doubt the Muscovite men would flock to Orsola the same as the Roman ones did. The other day, Orsola had declared Roman men too provincial, too obsessed with their mothers. Russian men were bound to be a whole new species. Russian men were basically the only reason Orsola hadn’t mounted an anti-travel-to-Moscow campaign.

Domenico nodded his chin to the right. “Red Square. Can you believe it, piccoline? We’re here. We’re actually here.”

Three heads craned toward the vast expanse paved in cobblestones over which loomed the red-brick clock tower with its black imposing face, and beyond it, the bloated domes of the famed Saint Basil’s Cathedral looking almost like hot air balloons that got stuck atop steeples. Suddenly, an inch from their car marched a man in a severe navy uniform with a glossy black cap, his eyes narrowed as if he could see inside and had found the Efratis lacking in some respect.

“Is that KGB?” Orsola asked in a whispery voice.

“No,” Domenico said. “If it’s KGB, be sure he wouldn’t advertise it. But we did just pass Lubyanka.”

“What’s Lubyanka?” Orsola asked.

Ginevra knew what it was—KGB headquarters. Where enemies of state were taken and never seen again.

“We’re almost at our hotel,” Domenico said, evading Orsola’s question. Ginevra watched her sister return to a smile—how nice that life blessed her so, that she could have a not-pretty thought and quickly forget it.

Ginevra’s not-pretty thoughts collected, decayed.

“We’re here,” Domenico announced. “Hotel Metropol.”

The rain had let up, and everything began to sharpen, revealing the town’s unexpected old-world charm. Ginevra felt a thrill run over her. Moscow! And the Metropol—the grand historic hotel in the center of town that had been there since the days of the tsars.

When Ginevra had informed her colleagues at the library that she was going to Moscow, their foreheads had creased in confusion. A few had asked if it was safe. Another had said: Is Moscow quite as far as Sicily?

Already a battalion of doormen were making way for the Efratis’ car.

Their driver said something again in Russian, his tone harsh. As Ginevra already knew, he was in all likelihood a KGB informant.

Before they left Italy, Domenico had sat the girls down, given them a primer on life in the Soviet Union and the precautions the Efratis would need to take. In order for foreign tourists to receive visas to the Soviet Union, they had to sign up as organized tourists with an Intourist guide—who would also be an informant to the KGB. The Efratis would be monitored every step of the way. The KGB would likely bug their hotel rooms. Domenico wasn’t well enough to rigorously tour, but the girls would go out, on alternate days—one to stay with Domenico, the other to explore, with the family’s ultimate aim to help any Jews they could find. Free time away from the Intourist guide would be restricted, but Domenico had heard that bribes could soften this rule, incentivize the guide to turn a blind eye, especially useful if the twins wanted to mingle with Jews at the synagogue. In this aim, the Efratis had packed their suitcases with Marlboro cigarettes (in case their guide was a man), and perfume, lipstick, and pantyhose (in the event of a woman), all items that were nearly impossible to buy in the Soviet Union, unless procured on the black market, or if your father was high up in the government and you got access to special stores. Domenico had puffed on his cigar, explaining to the girls that although they could circumvent some rules, they could not underestimate the KGB. The KGB followed foreigners; the girls would be monitored within the hotel, as everyone from the door staff to butlers would be KGB informants. Sure, the Efratis would have a bit of a pass because they were Italians. The Soviets were more ruthless about tracking Americans. But if for some reason one of the girls met a Jewish man—

For Domenico, it would be unthinkable to consider anyone other than a Jewish man as a suitable husband for his daughters.

“If you met a Jewish man,” he’d said, “it is quite possible he could be tailed by the KGB, and surveillance on you would increase. Jews are innately suspected as being Zionists and thus persecuted by the Soviet regime.”

Now, as a doorman reached out to open their door, Domenico gripped both girls’ forearms with strength that surprised Ginevra. He whispered, “Remember we’re here to enjoy and to do good work, piccoline. But we must endeavor to invite no trouble. We are not here to make friends.”

“Of course, babbo,” Ginevra said.

Domenico nodded. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Orsola? Niente scherzi.”

No funny business.

“What kind of scherzi would I possibly get into?” Orsola asked, doe eyelashes fluttering.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Domenico said. “Except that I do know.” He looked at his daughter sternly, but then his look disintegrated to fondness as it always did in the face of the daughter who assumed the spot as apple of his eye. Envy swelled in Ginevra, threatened to release from the dam. With great effort, she pulled it back off the precipice.

“How about, no falling in love? Not in Moscow,” Domenico said absently, searching through the papers in his coat jacket.

Silence, as Ginevra watched a brief shadow pass over her sister’s face.

“Okay,” Orsola said, her tone cheery. “Don’t worry, babbo. You think of such wild, improbable scenarios.”

Domenico frowned, and Ginevra thought he was about to say something stern, about how those scenarios were not wild at all, and Orsola was quite na?ve, but then he half smiled, apparently convinced.

Ginevra, however, was not convinced. As the Efratis exited the car and were swept into the shabby luxury of the hotel, with its plush red pre-revolution carpet and furniture and the gold-braided uniforms of the reception staff, she thought about what her father had speculated. Its possibility clunked up against her organs.

Ginevra knew her sister, and she knew—theoretically, at least—men. She’d covered for Orsola with their father countless times, when Orsola stayed out late, galivanting on the back of some boy’s motorino, and in that endless weekend Orsola had gone off to Genoa with that junior professor, and Ginevra told Domenico that Orsola was volunteering extra hours at the hospital.

Where Orsola went, romance and dramatics followed. As ever, Ginevra wondered what a different life it would be with Orsola’s commanding beauty, to walk through the world with footsteps that made marks, and attracted besotted male attention. Like Sophia Loren.

Instead of a person whose footsteps hardly made an imprint, with plain, off-kilter features at which no one glanced twice.

It made sense that Domenico’s worries focused on Orsola. Fat chance, after all, that Ginevra was at risk of causing trouble in the realm of love.

Their Intourist guide was named Olga—chipper, midforties, in scuffed cream pumps and a tan trench coat, with deep lines creasing her forehead and yet, paradoxically, lips both plump and rosy. Olga ushered Ginevra and the rest of the tour group around Moscow at a clipped pace, always telling them to hurry while flashing a winning smile, like she alone was going to sell these tourists on the Soviet Union’s prowess and superiority—or be shot for failing at her mission.

At the spectacular Bolshoi Theatre, Olga led the group through the ornate auditorium, explaining proudly how it was from this theatre itself that, in 1922, the formation of the USSR was proclaimed. Beside Ginevra shuffled an American tourist named Harold from a place called Minnesota. Harold was in his midsixties, and as kindred spirits do, he and Ginevra had already identified each other as not just one of their fellow sheep tourists. She and Harold had begun to quip at each other in whispers.

“Notice she didn’t say that shortly after the revolution, the government almost closed the theatre,” Ginevra told Harold as they traipsed past red velvet curtains with gilded rope trims that shrouded the VIP box which, during performances, housed the top government premiers.

“Yes. They wanted to eliminate every element of the bourgeois culture. Thankfully they didn’t fully succeed. Although they are still trying valiantly to rewrite history. Olga’s primary job seems to be to prevent the tourists from actually seeing anything.”

Ginevra smiled and nodded. She didn’t fully agree, although she understood the sentiment, understood that, of course, they were being shown a particularly cultivated image of the USSR that wasn’t necessarily representative of real life. Still, Ginevra was fascinated by everything: Red Square and the Kremlin a block from the Efratis’ hotel, the Kremlin Armory with the largest collection of Fabergé eggs worldwide, even the queue to see Lenin embalmed in his open tomb. Sure, as they shuffled forward in line, Olga dramatically rewrote the impact of the revered revolutionary on the history of the world, to omit the millions who’d died brutally at his hands and his orders—far more murdered by Lenin than even Hitler himself. But for Olga, Grandfather Lenin and Father Stalin were on the level of Jesus—or perhaps above. An equivalent somehow to God himself.

Still, Olga’s was a talent Ginevra admired—the ability to fictionalize anything. And Ginevra didn’t have to love Lenin to appreciate standing in line to see him, to be awed by this society that was so different from hers, to study people in line—the man who kissed his daughter’s forehead and called her zaychonuk; the couple who bickered, their low tones belying a conversation that appeared intense—and imagine spinning stories out of their little characteristics.

Ginevra was a student of people. She loved observing them, scribbling character traits and conversation snippets in the notebook she kept tucked in her bag. She was good at English, as was Orsola; they learned it in school. Ginevra loved that she could spy on American tourists, hear what they were saying. Orsola loved that she could converse with cute American tourists. For both girls, it would come in handy in Moscow. Neither spoke Russian; English could be a common language. Meanwhile, Ginevra was also a student of history, utterly fascinated by it. She’d read of the horrors under Lenin and Stalin, the Jewish Doctors’ Plot, the millions of lives annihilated in the Soviet Union—a country whose borders stretched so far and wide it was almost incomprehensible when one viewed it on a globe.

It was late April now, the air carrying far more bite than in Rome, where artichokes and strawberries had already started to appear at the farm stands. Olga hustled the group toward the Revolution subway station. After a ten-minute walk, the group descended into an ornate station. To Ginevra it almost looked like a theatre inside—mint-green walls, dark granite, bronze statues, even chandeliers. She was impressed. Rome’s public transport was nothing like this. Her father had explained before the trip that the Soviet capital they would be privy to see would be smoke and mirrors. Moscow was the showpiece of the entire nation—every Soviet citizen longed to live there, because its stores were less empty, its employment opportunities more robust. However, citizens needed a permit to even live in Moscow, unless they were born there, enrolled in school there, or fortunate to land the admiration of a Muscovite native, renowned for their marital prospects. The glorious capital was crafted as such to please the government elite who lived there, and also to display to tourists Soviet greatness. Still, little cracks slid past the veneer—for instance, the Efratis’ hotel. Apparently one of the nation’s finest, it sometimes lacked hot water.

All of the Soviet peculiarities aside, Ginevra’s enthusiasm hadn’t yet wavered. This trip was the most exciting thing to ever happen to her—spirited away from the sadness that she now realized blanketed their Rome apartment, from the shameful envy that always assailed Ginevra, coveting her sister’s beauty and charms. From the inadequacy Ginevra felt every moment of her life: that she wasn’t beautiful, that she never had any success with men—that although it was never spoken aloud, her father expected Orsola to marry well. And the inference that Ginevra, steadfast Ginevra, without marital prospects, would care for him as he descended into old age.

Now Ginevra was freed of it all, freed of her twin, freed even of her father, as she wove through crowds, bumping against fashionable women wearing pantyhose, men in fine suits gripping the day’s Pravda. As the group waited on the platform for the train, Olga chattered about how lucky they were—positively blessed, Harold the American teased with a twinkle in his eye—to be in Moscow for the First of May festivities. Apparently, there were parades and military demonstrations, but Olga exuded anticipation and fervor, like they’d been invited to lunch with the queen or to the launch of a spaceship to the moon. Toward the afternoon, after a nice-enough lunch at a restaurant called Belgrade facing the Foreign Ministry, with blintzes and a strange drink called kvass, which tasted like sour beer, Ginevra went to the restroom. In the stall, she glanced around and toward the ceiling for a hidden camera, before rummaging in her handbag and reassuring herself that her antistate materials were still accounted for and tucked away. She was allowed to possess them herself—at least she believed she was—but it would be a crime to distribute them.

They were deemed religious artifacts—a prayer shawl; Leon Uris’s Exodus; postcards from Israel, the Zionist state the Soviets abhorred.

Ginevra closed her handbag and it percolated through her—the danger of what she and her family were planning to do. She was a little afraid, but no part of her considered turning back. Her father’s entire family had perished in concentration camps. It was horrifying to Ginevra that Jews suffered under this regime, persecuted. For the first time in her life, a smile lit in Ginevra’s soul, a fire kindled by something other than her beloved books and the escapism they provided—kindled by the prospect of helping her own people. Doing what she could so Soviet Jews could live freely as they desired.

Ginevra returned to the group, wrangling her face into a picture of innocence. It didn’t matter. As usual, no had even noticed she was gone.

When the tour group began to head back to the Metropol, stopping for Olga to expound upon points of interest en route, Ginevra peeled off early. She announced she wasn’t feeling well, that she was heading back to the hotel. Olga nodded at Ginevra, the briefest nod, a direct consequence of the two pairs of pantyhose Ginevra had slipped her in the morning before breakfast. Ginevra walked briskly the half mile toward the Moscow Choral Synagogue on Arkhipova Street, whose location her father had described. She tried to look like she belonged, like she was any other Soviet citizen hustling home from work. But Ginevra never felt that she quite belonged—and all the more acutely here, in this gray place, with unsmiling people and amorphous KGB agents lurking in the abyss.

At first, she thought she’d gone the wrong way and prickled with worry, but then Ginevra relaxed as she glimpsed the massive neoclassical yellow-brick temple pinned down by a cascade of white pillars, a truly gorgeous building especially in contrast to all the brutalist Soviet block housing Ginevra had thus far observed. The synagogue was built pre-revolution, when Judaism was more or less tolerated by the tsars, even if in practice, antisemitism raged and pogroms targeted Jews—Cossacks with sabers plundering Jewish villages, slashing Jewish throats. Ginevra slipped up the stairs, through the wooden doors with Hebrew script and stained glass windows, and was immediately absorbed into the majestic space.

Ginevra swept past rows of blond wooden pews, up to the ornate white marble ark surrounded by towering menorahs. As she wove through the huddles and the people milling about, hearing a smattering of languages—Russian, Ukrainian—suddenly all her excitement fizzled and the only sound in the place was the thrash of her heartbeat. Why had Ginevra volunteered—pushed, in fact—to be the first of the Efrati twins to get out into Moscow? She should have let Orsola test the waters. The leader, the extrovert, Orsola was the one always making friends, attracting people.

To assuage her nervousness, Ginevra rummaged in her bag for one of the prayer books she’d brought and began to pray the Shema Yisrael, which she found she was saying in unison with the boy—man—beside her. She didn’t dare look over at him, and she didn’t question why. But if she had to guess, it was because she typically avoided eye contact with men. She’d never had success in that area, and had steered quite clear of the male species altogether since middle school, when Stefano Avolio had found out she had a crush on him and made fun of her in front of their whole class.

Ginevra was perceptive, though. She didn’t look at the boy in the pew beside her, but she took his energy into her awareness, let her gaze drag out to her periphery and absorb snippets of his shape, voice. She pegged him in his late twenties, a bit older than her. Well, that wasn’t a boy anymore. That was a man.

When they finished, to Ginevra’s surprise, the man said in English, “You are American?”

Ginevra turned over her shoulder, to spot the American he was assuredly speaking to. But she saw no one.

“You.” Now he tapped her shoulder, took her eyes into his piercing blue ones, which did something to Ginevra she’d never experienced. She could compare the sensation only to what she imagined it would feel like to be stung by an electric eel—a jolt that electrified her entire being and would surely lead to her imminent death.

When unbelievably it subsided and she again felt capable of breath, Ginevra said, “What did you say?”

“I said, you are American, no?” He smiled then, and the electric eel feeling returned.

“No… cioè… I am not. Not American, I mean. I am Italian. Italy. From Italy.” She’d forgotten how to speak a sentence in one sweep.

“I see.” He smiled again. He didn’t have perfect teeth—neither white nor straight. But his smile was utterly perfect, Ginevra thought. Kind and broad, a smile that was ready to swallow all life had to offer, a smile with which life would assuredly cooperate, because of course life cooperated with beautiful smiles, beautiful people. Ginevra stared upwards at this tall specimen of a man who stood several heads over her, so her own head hardly reached his upper chest.

“Hello,” the man said. “My name is Anatoly.” He stuck out a big hand with long delicate fingers. “Anatoly Aronov.”