Rhapsody (11 page)

For two months the city had been under a deep
blanket of snow, and today the steel gray skies held the portent of
yet another blizzard. It was a grim and desolate world, and Sonia's
labor was long and arduous.

She was a tall and long-boned woman, with
olive skin, raven hair, and large, Gypsy-dark eyes. She was often
described as regal, not beautiful, but imposing and handsome. It
was her strength—an inner strength of daunting proportions—and
boundless energy, however, that friends and acquaintances would
unfailingly speak of when describing Sonia Levin.

Today, however, Sonia felt anything but
regal, and her normal vigor and optimism seemed to have deserted
her entirely.

Not an auspicious beginning, she couldn't
help thinking as she lay, racked with pain and fearing for the life
of the child within her, in the ill-equipped, outmoded, and far
from sanitary maternity ward in one of Moscow's state-run
hospitals. No, indeed, she thought tearfully. This excruciating
pain and sapping struggle in this cheerless, wintry place do not
bode well.

But when she was finally delivered of a
perfectly healthy seven-pound, eleven-ounce baby boy with a downy
fuzz of jet black on his head, her exhaustion and pain were swept
away. As her spirits lifted, she became absorbed in this miraculous
bundle of joy.

His birth was miraculous. She knew that
better than anyone. Hadn't she and her husband, Dmitri, tried for
years to conceive? At thirty-nine years of age, she had begun to
give up hope of ever getting pregnant.

Now, as she held little Mikhail, endearingly
known as Misha, in her arms, that despair was replaced with an awe
such as she had never known. Sonia had thought that she was
prepared for this moment, but nothing she had ever imagined had
readied her for the immense emotions stirred up within her by the
arrival of this child.

She was overwhelmed by the powerful and
sublime sense of wonder she felt, and the accompanying sense of
responsibility ignited every maternal instinct within her,
instincts whose existence she hadn't been aware of before. Oh, yes,
she had heard other mothers and fathers chattering on ad infinitum,
and she had read everything that dealt with the subject.

Still, brilliantly intellectual as she was,
she hadn't had a clue that her feelings would be this powerful,
that her desire to protect and nurture this child would become the
all-consuming purpose in her life.

So it was with thanks to a beneficent God and
a determination to give Misha everything humanly possible that she
and Dmitri Levin took their child home. It was on January 12, three
days after giving birth, that she and Dmitri slowly but excitedly
trudged up the four flights of dark and rickety stairs to their
apartment with Misha. Dmitri unlocked the door to their Prussian
blue parlor and immediately helped comfortably settle Sonia, babe
in arms, on a Karelian birch daybed, which was swathed in old
throws of wild boar and Moldavian kilims. Here she received their
friends and acquaintances to show off their infant, Misha.

In later years Sonia delighted in telling
anyone who would listen that it was on the Becker concert grand
piano in that very room that little Misha had first focused his
dark, bright eyes. On her very first glimpse of

the newborn infant, in fact, she had noticed
his long, slim fingers—so suitable for playing that same grand
piano. As she greeted the endless procession of friends who came to
visit, Sonia felt like a czarina, surrounded as she was by the
faded grandeur and beautiful objects of their parlor, the baby in
her arms.

The Levins, Sonia knew only too well, were
very fortunate to be able to bring their baby home to such rooms in
Moscow. It was an attic apartment in one of the few remaining old
mansion blocks within walking distance of the Kremlin, in one of
Moscow's oldest districts. Like many apartments in that precinct,
it had been purposely kept empty during Stalin's reign of terror,
for fear that it could be used as a sniper's lair. After the
dictator's death, artists were gradually permitted to move into the
attics, and the Levins had lived there ever since, thanks to their
prodigious talent as musicians and painters—and the ever-watchful
eye of the Ministry of Culture.

Soma's and Dmitri's immediate forebears had
managed to survive the waves of terror, from the revolution of 1917
on through the world war, plus the deeply entrenched anti-Semitism
that had always pervaded daily life in both czarist and now Soviet
Russia. But survive they had, even though any vestige of their
religious faith and Jewish culture had been driven underground.

Sonia and Dmitri, like their deceased parents
before them, were brilliant and hardworking musicians—pianists in
their case—performers and teachers, who belonged to the union.
Membership in the powerful unions was a rare privilege for Jews,
and as a result they lived luxuriously by Soviet standards, even
though they had to share an antiquated kitchen and a single,
somewhat primitive, bathroom with seven other families in the old
mansion attic.

It was a crumbling, once grand, house, with
high ceilings, glittering chandeliers, beautiful plaster molding,
and fireplaces with ornately carved marble mantels. Then- two
private rooms were chockablock with antique furnishings and artwork
rescued from rubbish dumps and demolition squads over the years.
Some of the grander pieces had been scavenged by their parents
after the revolution. Magnificent icons, salvaged from churches
closed during Khrushchev's era—many traded for no more than a
bottle of vodka—hung on the walls alongside nineteenth-century
paintings. Porcelains from former imperial factories graced the
Karelian birch and mahogany consoles and tables.

The only evidence of their faith was a small
gilt menorah, which rested, almost hidden among family photographs
and bibelots, on an ormolu-encrusted neoclassical sideboard.

It was into these splendid if time-worn rooms
that their friends and neighbors came to get their first glimpse of
the newborn, bringing gifts and glad tidings. Naturally enough,
they were all in agreement with the doting parents: Mikhail Levin
was destined for great things.

Just how great a destiny at that moment
neither Sonia nor Dmitri—nor any of their visitors—had a clue.

Four years passed before they had their first
inkling. At that tender age Misha gave them proof positive that he
had a truly miraculous gift: he was a musical prodigy.

During those first four years, life for them
had gone on much as usual, though it was infinitely more abundant
since the birth of their son. Those years for Misha were radically
unlike what most Russian youngsters experienced. He was never
placed in one of the multitude of state-ran day-care facilities,
but was coddled in the much grander and more cultivated atmosphere
of home. If both Dmitri and Sonia were working or performing at the
same time, one of the other musicians or painters who lived in the
house would watch over the boy.

In that fourth year, on the day in question,
Dmitri was at home, reading a musical score while watching over his
son. Sonia was shopping, waiting in the inevitable and often
horrendously long fines for the meager selection of groceries at
various shops. At first Dmitri thought he had heard music on the
radio; but he knew that the radio wasn't turned on. Then he
rationalized that the music was coming from a neighboring
apartment, even though he knew that theirs was the only piano in
the building that he could hear with this degree of intimate
proximity.

Finally, he put down his score and looked
over his half-glasses across the room. There, perched on the stool
at the grand piano, his chubby little legs dangling over its edge,
sat Misha, playing a Bach piece, its rendering technically correct,
though slow and strained, because of the size of the child's
hands.

Dmitri was so astonished that for long
moments he couldn't speak. When he eventually found his tongue, he
could only whisper: "Misha?"

The boy didn't hear him and continued
playing, strenuously making the effort to reach the correct
keys.

"Misha?" Dmitri uttered again.

When the child still didn't hear him, Dmitri
rose to his feet and strode over to the piano. He gently placed a
hand on Misha's shoulder and cleared his throat. "Misha," he
repeated.

Misha looked up at his father, his large,
dark eyes shining. "Yes, Papa?" He was grinning happily, perhaps a
little mischievously.

"Misha," Dmitri said, "when did you learn to
do this? How—?"

"I don't know, Papa," the child answered.
"I've just been watching and listening."

Tears sprang into Dmitri's eyes, and his body
trembled all over as the realization of what he was witnessing
dawned on him. It was frightening in all its implications, this
scene he had just beheld. The profound responsibility he had felt
with Misha's birth was now compounded a hundredfold, for the child
had a God-given talent that was so rare and so precious, that
Dmitri knew that he and Sonia must sacrifice all else to it.

When Sonia came home, her string bag bulging
with purchases, she dropped the bag onto the floor, looking from
her son to her husband and back again. Then she quietly sat down in
shocked stupefaction, listening to her son as he switched from Bach
to Mozart. When at last her initial shock had worn off, she and
Dmitri quietly discussed the spectacle before them, then sat at the
piano with Misha, testing him, trying to determine what he knew and
what he was capable of.

After they had worked with him at the piano
for an hour or more, she kissed Misha, and he tottered off to his
building blocks. She and Dmitri debated the best way to deal with
the prodigy in their midst, although any discussion was an
unnecessary formality for Sonia, because she knew deep down inside
exactly what they must do. She wiped her eyes with a finger and
cleared her throat, then turned to her husband. "Dmitri?"

He looked at her. "Yes, Sonia?" He could tell
from the bright intensity of her eyes that a plan was feverishly
developing in her mind and that she could hardly contain her
excitement.

Sonia took one of his hands in her own and
looked into his eyes. "Dmitri, you know and I know that Misha is
very special."

"Yes, Sonia," Dmitri answered, his voice
almost quavering. He sighed. "You are right, as always, Sonia. You
are right. But we'll simply have to do the best we can. What else
can we do?"

Soma's eyes gleamed with fiery determination
as she gripped his hand hard and said in a low, intense voice, "We
will emigrate, Dmitri! We will leave Russia so that Misha can get
the training he has to have. We both know that the only place he
can get what he needs is New York."

Dmitri jerked at her words and remained
speechless for a long while. Finally he said: "You are tempting
fate, Sonia. It's very difficult to emigrate."

"But—" Sonia interjected heatedly.

"But," Dmitri said quickly, squeezing her
hand with his, "I think you are right, as usual."

Sonia felt relief flood through her, and
tears of joy came into her eyes. She was reminded now of why she
first fell in love with Dmitri Levin. He had never been afraid of
taking chances, not with her. When they went into something
together, no matter how hare-brained the scheme might seem, she
felt indomitable and fearless, for Dmitri was at her side. And now,
once again, Dmitri would back up her—and Misha—all the way.

She wrapped her arms around her husband, and
Dmitri hugged her to him tightly.

She drew back at last and said to him: "Then
it is settled. We will start the proceedings to get exit visas at
once. Perhaps in a year to two, maybe even sooner, we will be able
to leave."

"Yes, Sonia. Yes, yes," Dmitri said, hugging
her again.

Sonia leaned back. "We may have to go to
Israel first," she said. "But no matter. He can get very good
training there, to start. Then who knows? It's only a short hop
from there to New York City."

She threw her arms about her husband's neck
again and kissed him on the lips. "It will work, Dmitri. I know it
will. It will work out perfectly."

Dmitri nodded enthusiastically, but thought:
Maybe in another world it would work out perfectly. But he said:
"You are right, Sonia. Yes, as usual, my Sonia is right."

It was on March 16, 1972, when the world of
Sonia and Dmitri Levin and their son fell apart. The snow and ice
had just started to thaw in Moscow after nearly five months. It had
begun as a perfect day, the first hint of spring in the air
exciting them with the prospect of being able to take Misha to one
of the nearby parks, or perhaps for an all-day outing in Leninskiye
Gory—the Lenin Hills.

It was not to be.

Early that morning, before they had finished
their breakfast, they heard the sounds of thundering boots on the
stairs leading up to their attic. Then there was a pounding on the
parlor door.

Sonia looked with wide, wary eyes at Dmitri.
"What... ?"

Dmitri shrugged, as if to say, Who knows?

But he did know. Oh, yes, he knew without any
doubts whatsoever. He quietly set down his cup of black coffee,
dabbed his lips with a napkin, then rose to his feet. His stomach
was already twisted into a knot of fear, but he gave Sonia a
reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as he passed her on his way to
answer the door. A tight smile was fixed on his lips.

"What is it, Mama?" Misha asked.

"Nothing, Misha," Sonia answered. "Nothing at
all. Eat your breakfast." She scooted her chair closer to his
protectively, and tried to interest him in his food. His large,
dark eyes, however, followed his father inquisitively.

Dmitri unlocked and swung the door open.
There stood two official-looking bureaucrats in almost identical,
cheaply tailored, dark gray suits under brown leather trench coats.
They carried battered leather briefcases, and on their faces were
the expressions of unrelentingly grim Soviet bureaucracy. They
were, Dmitri thought, the sort of petty officials who enjoyed
exercising their modicum of power. Behind the two men he saw four
armed militiamen—boys, really—in ill-fitting uniforms. They stood
waiting, their collective demeanor blank.