rambling on about American history. Did the Potter know, he had asked, that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other, on July 4, I826, fifty years to the day after they signed the Declaration? James Monroe, another signer and the last President to have been forged by the American Revolution, died five years to the day later. In the decades before the Civil War, the veterans of Bunker Hill, Lexington, Valley Forge, gradually died off. In the end, Piotr Borisovich had said, the Americans and the Russians were confronted by the same problem: how to transmit the idealism of the founding revolutionists to the generations that came after them. The Americans, according to Piotr Borisovich, had never solved the problem. And we Russians, the Potter had asked, have we solved it?
Piotr Borisovich had glanced sideways at the Potter, calculating how frank he dared get with the novator who controlled his life as surely as a puppeteer controls his marionette. It is my opinion, Piotr Borisovich had finally said-he appeared to be avoiding the question, but of course he wasn't-that revolutions don't so much change things as rearrange them. The Potter had accepted the statement for what it was: in the Soviet context, people consecrated friendships by uttering things which, if reported to the authorities, could get them fired or jailed or, occasionally, shot. And the Potter had responded in the same currency. I agree with you completely, he had said in a formal voice he normally reserved for oaths or rites. The people who made our revolution, theirs too. dreamed bigger dreams than we dare dream today.
The moment had contained something of the aura of an exchange of rings at a marriage ceremony. But then Piotr Borisovich, who had become the son the Potter could never father, had betrayed him. And now he, in turn, would betray Piotr Borisovich. It would end, the Potter could hear Piotr Borisovich saying with that bitter laugh of his that sounded like steam escaping from a partly open valve, in night, in death. And he remembered the line of Walter Whitman's that he had started to quote in reply and Piotr Borisovich, his head cocked quizzically, had completed.
" '. . . the hands of the sisters Death and Night,' " the Potter had recited.
Piotr Borisovich had picked up where he left off: " '. . . incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world.' "
"So," Oskar was saying-he had been waiting in the shadows of the first-floor landing-"we meet again." He reached for Svetochka's hand and bent his lips to the back of it, which made the Potter think that Oskar's accent was Polish after all. "Your husband, dear lady, calls me Oskar, and there is no reason under the sun why you should not do likewise, yes? Meeting you makes my day."
No one had ever kissed Svetochka's hand before, and it went to her head.
"The pleasure," she chirped, adopting airs the Potter never knew she was equipped with, "is mutual."
Using a latchkey attached to a thin gold chain, Oskar let himself into an apartment on the fifth floor. The three of them groped their way along a darkened hallway toward a door. Light seeped from under it. A soft whirring sound came from beyond it. "Let me do the talking," Oskar cautioned as he ushered them into the room.
A jew wearing an embroidered skullcap and peering through incredibly thick eyeglasses sat bent over a pedal-operated prewar Singer sewing machine. Oskar muttered something in Yiddish, and the young man nodded shyly at the Potter and Svetochka. "You are the fortunate ones," he said in Russian. He stood up and came around in front of his Singer and squinting professionally through his thick lenses, sized them up. "They will look perfectly American when I am through with them," he promised.
"American!" Svetochka's eyes cocked open.
The Jew, who was in his early twenties, handed Oskar a pad and a pencil, then produced a measuring tape. "Arms up, if you please," he instructed the Potter, and
Piotr Borisovich had glanced sideways at the Potter, calculating how frank he dared get with the novator who controlled his life as surely as a puppeteer controls his marionette. It is my opinion, Piotr Borisovich had finally said-he appeared to be avoiding the question, but of course he wasn't-that revolutions don't so much change things as rearrange them. The Potter had accepted the statement for what it was: in the Soviet context, people consecrated friendships by uttering things which, if reported to the authorities, could get them fired or jailed or, occasionally, shot. And the Potter had responded in the same currency. I agree with you completely, he had said in a formal voice he normally reserved for oaths or rites. The people who made our revolution, theirs too. dreamed bigger dreams than we dare dream today.
The moment had contained something of the aura of an exchange of rings at a marriage ceremony. But then Piotr Borisovich, who had become the son the Potter could never father, had betrayed him. And now he, in turn, would betray Piotr Borisovich. It would end, the Potter could hear Piotr Borisovich saying with that bitter laugh of his that sounded like steam escaping from a partly open valve, in night, in death. And he remembered the line of Walter Whitman's that he had started to quote in reply and Piotr Borisovich, his head cocked quizzically, had completed.
" '. . . the hands of the sisters Death and Night,' " the Potter had recited.
Piotr Borisovich had picked up where he left off: " '. . . incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world.' "
"So," Oskar was saying-he had been waiting in the shadows of the first-floor landing-"we meet again." He reached for Svetochka's hand and bent his lips to the back of it, which made the Potter think that Oskar's accent was Polish after all. "Your husband, dear lady, calls me Oskar, and there is no reason under the sun why you should not do likewise, yes? Meeting you makes my day."
No one had ever kissed Svetochka's hand before, and it went to her head.
"The pleasure," she chirped, adopting airs the Potter never knew she was equipped with, "is mutual."
Using a latchkey attached to a thin gold chain, Oskar let himself into an apartment on the fifth floor. The three of them groped their way along a darkened hallway toward a door. Light seeped from under it. A soft whirring sound came from beyond it. "Let me do the talking," Oskar cautioned as he ushered them into the room.
A jew wearing an embroidered skullcap and peering through incredibly thick eyeglasses sat bent over a pedal-operated prewar Singer sewing machine. Oskar muttered something in Yiddish, and the young man nodded shyly at the Potter and Svetochka. "You are the fortunate ones," he said in Russian. He stood up and came around in front of his Singer and squinting professionally through his thick lenses, sized them up. "They will look perfectly American when I am through with them," he promised.
"American!" Svetochka's eyes cocked open.
The Jew, who was in his early twenties, handed Oskar a pad and a pencil, then produced a measuring tape. "Arms up, if you please," he instructed the Potter, and
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