That morning, with his son still at his heels, Sergio splashed cold water on his face at the sink and wished he’d asked Vladlen to make the trip the following weekend instead. Entering the kitchen, which was half the size of his kitchen back home, his wife sat at the table drinking a cup of the instant espresso she’d brought with them from Rome. His four-year-old daughter, Francesca, sat across from Giulietta and mimicked her mother, bringing her own plastic cup to her lips and setting it gently down. “Good morning, my darlings,” Sergio said, and kissed them both on their cheeks.
“Mama is angry with you, Papa,” Francesca said. “Very angry.”
“Nonsense. Why would she be angry if there’s nothing to be angry about? Your mother knows I must work today. I’m paying the most famous poet in the Soviet Union a visit.”
“She didn’t say why she is angry, just that she is angry.”
Giulietta got up and put her cup into the sink. “I don’t care who you are visiting. As long as you don’t stay out all night again.”
* * *
—
Sergio dressed in his best suit—a custom-tailored sand-colored Brioni, a gift from his generous employer. By the door, he polished his shoes with a horsehair brush. Throughout what had seemed like an endless Russian winter, Sergio had worn the same black rubber boots all Russians wore. Now that spring had come, Sergio felt a jolt of joy as he slipped his feet into his fine leather shoes. Clicking his heels, he bid his family goodbye and was out the door.
Vladlen was waiting for Sergio at track number seven, holding a paper bag full of onion-and-egg piroshki for their short journey. The two men shook hands and Vladlen held out the paper bag. Sergio held his stomach. “I can’t.”
“Hung over?” Vladlen asked. “You’ll need to practice if you want to keep up with us Russians.” He opened the bag and shook it. “An old remedy. Take one. We’re about to meet Russian royalty, and you need to be at your very best.”
Sergio pulled out a pastry. “I thought the Russians killed off all their royals.”
“Not yet.” Vladlen laughed, a piece of hard-boiled egg falling from his mouth.
* * *
—
The train pulled out of the station, and as the many tracks narrowed to one, Sergio held on to the top of the open window, letting the warm air kiss his fingertips. The spring weather felt magnificent after he had been covered head to toe all winter. He was also excited to see the countryside, as he hadn’t yet ventured out of Moscow. “What are they building over there?” he asked his companion.
Vladlen flipped through Pasternak’s first book of poetry—Twin in the Clouds—which he’d brought along in hopes the author might sign it. “Apartments,” he replied without looking up.
“But you didn’t even look.”
“Factories, then.”
The passing landscape changed from recently constructed buildings to buildings under construction to countryside—dotted with spring-green trees and the occasional village marked by an Orthodox church and small country homes, each sectioned off with a fence and its own plot of land. Sergio waved at a young boy on the side of the tracks holding a speckled chicken under his arm. The boy didn’t wave back. “How long does it go on like this?” Sergio asked.
“Until Leningrad.”
* * *
—
The two men disembarked at Peredelkino. It had rained during the night, and as soon as they crossed the railroad tracks, Sergio stepped in mud. He cursed himself for wearing his good shoes. He sat on a bench and tried to remove the muck with a lace handkerchief, but stopped when he realized he was drawing the attention of three men on the side of the road. The men were trying to hitch an elderly mule to the front of a dilapidated Volga. Sergio and Vladlen made for an odd sight. The blond Russian in his oversized pants—cuffed at the bottom—and tight-fitting vest looked like any man from the city. He was a head taller than the Italian and twice as wide. And Sergio, in his slim-cut suit, was clearly a foreigner.
Sergio dropped the useless handkerchief and asked Vladlen if there was a café nearby where he could properly clean his shoes. Vladlen pointed to a wooden building resembling a large shed across the street, and the two men went inside.
“Toilet?” Sergio asked the woman behind the counter. She had the same expression as the men hitching the mule to the car.
“Outside,” she said.
Sergio sighed and asked for a glass of water and a napkin instead. The woman left, then returned with a piece of newspaper and a shot of vodka. “This isn’t going to—”
“Spasibo,” Vladlen interrupted, and downed the shot, pounding his palm on the counter for another.
“We have important work to do,” Sergio said.
“We don’t have an appointment. The poet can surely wait.”
Sergio forced his friend off his stool and out the door.
Outside, the trio of men had successfully hitched the mule to the car. A small child was now behind the wheel and steered as the men pushed. They stopped and stared as Sergio and Vladlen crossed the street and proceeded up the path that ran alongside the main road.
Passing the Russian Patriarch’s summer residence—a grand red and white building behind an equally grand wall—Sergio wished he’d brought his camera. They crossed a small stream, swollen with melted snow and rain, and trudged their way up the small hill and down a gravel road lined with birch and pine trees.
“A place fit for a poet!” Sergio remarked.
“Stalin gave these dachas to a handpicked group of writers,” Vladlen replied. “So that they may better converse with the muse. That, and it makes it easier to keep track of them.”
Pasternak’s dacha was on the left and reminded Sergio of a cross between a Swiss chalet and a barn. “There he is,” Vladlen said. Dressed like a peasant, Pasternak was tall with a full head of gray hair falling in his face as he bent over his garden plot with a shovel. As Sergio and Vladlen approached, Pasternak looked up and shielded his eyes from the sun to see who’d come to visit.
“Buon giorno!” Sergio called out, his enthusiasm betraying his nervousness. Pasternak looked confused, then smiled broadly.
“Come in!” Pasternak replied.
As they got closer to the famous poet, Sergio and Vladlen were struck by how attractive and young Pasternak looked. A handsome man always sizes up another handsome man, but instead of provoking jealousy, the outmatched Sergio looked at the writer with awe.
Pasternak leaned his shovel against a newly pruned apple tree and approached the men. “I had forgotten you were coming,” he said, and laughed. “And please forgive me, but I’ve also forgotten who you are. And why you’ve come.”