Chapter Forty-Five Ginevra

Ginevra folded a dress and placed it inside her suitcase with the same listless fatigue that had pervaded the latter part of her trip to Moscow—ever since Orsola had informed Ginevra that she was in love with a Soviet Jew named Anatoly Aronov.

And in the days following the revelation, Ginevra felt as if in her sister’s eyes, in her moony mannerisms, Ginevra was reading a book she wanted to burn: a flip-book of her sister falling in love, and feeling deeply loved in return.

Ginevra’s eyes skittered over the shabby, ornate room: the turquoise, orange, and cream carpet that clashed perplexingly with the paisley fabric of the couch; the minibar, empty because apparently the Metropol hadn’t yet obtained the import license it required to bring in foreign-made soft drinks and the like; and then beyond the bed that Orsola and Ginevra shared, the window onto Red Square, where it was currently drizzling.

According to weather reports, it was meant to rain all week.

Ginevra felt shame at the feeling that arose in her: satisfaction that tomorrow, on Orsola’s last day of touring, she wouldn’t be able to skip down the streets with Anatoly. They’d have to live the last keynotes of their love with an umbrella over their heads.

Although there was something romantic about huddling together beneath an umbrella, wasn’t there?

A desolate feeling pervaded Ginevra that not only did she feel heartbroken, but she envied others their joy. What had she thought after all, that a few hours spent with Anatoly Aronov had erased her meager looks, her quiet, unassuming self? Had transmuted her to a woman worthy of great love? Could light a candle compared to her vivacious, beautiful sister?

No, that was the worst thing of all. That ever since Ginevra had overheard that conversation between her father and sister, ever since she’d realized she was the cause of her mother’s death, probably even earlier in her life still, she’d never felt worthy of great love. More than that—she’d known in some deep, awful pit inside herself that she’d never ascend to experience the love others took for granted. Or if she did, it would be a love with its conclusion akin to Romeo and Juliet—love subsumed by tragedy. That was what Ginevra had felt since she was a little girl, a foundation of tragedy that underpinned her existence. The polluted soil feeding her. But God wasn’t available for replanting. This was the soil she got. Best be happy with it, try to create a garden from the weeds.

Sometimes it was really hard, though, to exist in a garden without flowers.

Through the window, the rain sloshing down the panes, Ginevra could glimpse all the tour groups queuing to see old man Lenin embalmed in his tomb. Ginevra had left her tour early, feigning illness again, which ever since Orsola’s revelation about falling in love with Anatoly, felt acutely accurate. Ginevra was ill—her heart throbbed, excruciating pain. Today the group had gone outside Moscow, to Zvenigorod, a quaint country town, but all Ginevra had wanted was to escape.

Not till now, back at the hotel, did she realize she only ever wanted to escape the borders of herself. An impossible thing.

She drew aside the gold brocade draperies shrouding a part of the window. As a consequence of moving the draperies, dust stormed her nostrils. She coughed, sighed a long, hollow sigh, staring out at all the people—even lovers down there in the drizzling rain, kissing beneath canopies. It was the USSR, gloomy and desolate, but still people loved and were loved in return.

Not Ginevra.

She drew the draperies back so she didn’t have to stare out again into everything she was missing. Then she sat on the bed and was feeling profoundly sorry for herself when a knock sounded on the door.

Ginevra turned, confused. Orsola was with their father today, which meant she spent the day three floors below in his room, shuttling him to meals, sometimes ducking out with him to a café or a local sight if he felt up to it. Ginevra knew the routine because she did it herself every other day this trip. But perhaps Orsola had forgotten something, a raincoat or galoshes.

Ginevra went to the door, flung it open, expecting to see her sister.

But her sister was not standing in the entry. Instead it was the last person her mind could have conjured up.

It was Anatoly Aronov.

He was dressed like a chef, with a white coat and a tall white hat. Rain droplets clung to his long eyelashes.

“What are you doing here?” she stammered.

He removed his cap and fixed his blue eyes on hers. “I had to sneak in. They are listening.” He pointed a finger toward the ceiling, his eyes rotating up.

“What? I don’t understand. I—”

“The rooms are bugged. And I’m not exactly beloved by the KGB, let’s put it that way.” He spoke softly, but he paired the terrifying statement with a smile. A smile like his showing up here wasn’t the craziest thing in the world. Like he expected her to be joyful. To welcome him in.

Ginevra didn’t understand. She didn’t understand anything at all. Until suddenly, she did.

Anatoly thought she was Orsola.

He’d come for Orsola.

“Can I come in?” he whispered. “I paid off the woman by the elevator.” He was referring to the rigid, unsmiling woman at her vigilant post, meant to keep tabs on the tourists on the floor. A KGB informant—a stukach. Ginevra had also paid her off numerous times. “I promise I have nothing indecent on my mind. Only seeing you. But we shouldn’t talk. Just—I know you’re leaving in two days. I wanted to see you.”

Right. If Ginevra had any doubt at all, that confirmed it. She hadn’t told Anatoly she was leaving in two days. Orsola must have informed him. Which made sense, of course. Orsola and Anatoly were in love. Ginevra should be flattered, even, that this spectacular man had mistaken her for her sister, on cursory glance.

Ginevra was suddenly grateful she’d switched off the lights, drawn the drapes, that there was no sun to torch her features, make the slants of her face apparent where Orsola’s were delicate curves.

She should tell him she wasn’t the twin he thought she was.

But as he entered the room, shedding his chef’s coat, revealing a pale-blue button-up with a hint of chest hair sprouting out atop, she couldn’t breathe—let alone speak.

He came over to her, tipped her chin up so her eyes met his. “We can’t talk, but can you read what I’m saying to you in my eyes?”

His touch sent electricity down her bones.

She managed a slight nod. She didn’t say it was so dark that she could barely see his face, that shadows were obscuring it. Then before a thought, an analysis, a preliminary recrimination, could invade her brain, his lips met hers, and her brain became entirely beside the point. Her heart was the conductor of this symphony; and as they kissed, her heart wound itself into a frenzy. It wanted more and more and more.

Ginevra’s fingers went to the buttons of Anatoly’s shirt and began to undo them. It wasn’t an act of courage, of daring—rather, it felt as natural as breathing. The next obvious step.

He pulled back. “Are you sure? I didn’t come here expecting—”

“I’m sure,” she said loudly, assuredly—then stepped back. Maybe he didn’t want this? Maybe he’d realized who she was?

But he just smiled, pulled her back to him, and she returned to the work of unbuttoning. His hands danced down to her hips. He hooked his fingers beneath her waistband, his touch like honey on her skin.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered.

Suddenly she knew what it was like to be a silk dress, satin sheets. Sophia Loren.

What it was like to be Orsola.

Coveted. Comfortable. Relaxed in the knowledge that you are desired. That you will eternally be desired.

A twinge of remorse. How horrible a person was she, to take this from her sister?

Horrible, maybe, but for once, Ginevra wanted the best. Wanted it all. Wanted Anatoly.

They undressed each other, fell onto the bed, and Ginevra lost all sense of time and even who she was. She could have been Orsola. She could have been anyone, really, even Gandhi or God. And the only thing she knew was that this couldn’t be wrong.

That she’d willingly live with the consequences for the rest of her life. No matter what they would be.

An hour later, when Anatoly left, making her promise to come see him at the synagogue the next day, Ginevra lay by herself on the rumpled sheets. She could still feel him on her skin, smell him on the pillowcase, and she tried to savor it all as the world crashed back down around her. As her skin sprang back to its solitary self, eliminating the indent of his finger pads, accustomed again to an existence without his touch.

She was a fool. That’s what she was. As common as the next silly girl lusting after the boy she’d never get to have.

But worse. To merely think herself silly was minimizing the evil of what she’d done. Ginevra had deliberately slept with the man her sister loved. She’d misled him. A word floated into her mind: rape. Wasn’t it as bad as rape, what she’d done?

She was a horrible, jealous sister. She’d acted spontaneously, reprehensibly. Sometimes she did. Usually she was restrained, but then in rare frenzied fits, she couldn’t help herself. Like Orsola’s dress—the lemon-print one Orsola had been so excited to wear in Moscow. Orsola didn’t know it, of course, but Ginevra was responsible for its going missing. Orsola had saved her money for it, looked so lovely and glowing and curvy, courting the attention of every eyeball around. And Ginevra hadn’t been able to stand it—the flagrant contrast between her sister’s charmed life and Ginevra’s own inadequate one. In a fit of rage, she’d pilfered Orsola’s dress, taken scissors to its silky fabric, then buried the shreds in a garbage bin blocks from home. After, on her walk back, Ginevra had felt like the most grotesque person on the face of the earth.

Now Ginevra shivered, held herself, shaking, choking on her own tears. Feeling like that grotesque person all over again. And yet, she still couldn’t fathom the consequences.

How high a price she’d have to pay.