Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 89

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  Dmitri Borisovich Suslov no longer knew what he felt, or if he felt, or if he would ever feel again. His world had gone silent. He could break that silence any time he wanted, by turning on a radio that reported nothing about Olivia, or by his own voice, which had nothing to say. So he chose silence, the silence of the dacha, of the grove beyond the house, the silence of a telephone that did not ring.

  For a day and a night, he’d alternated between fury and fear. Then the two had melded together and slowly burned out. Now there was nothing to do but live. General Trimenko’s aide had provisioned him well. There was easily food for two weeks and enough vodka, brandy and wine to inure him for at least that long. He was thankful that this had come when he was only a student, not a commander. He wondered if he would ever command anything again. Or would want to.

  More than once, he’d asked Olivia what it was like to feel oneself a stranger in one’s own country. He had not fully understood her answers. Russia to him, whatever else it might have been or might become, was Russia. Always his. He could no more imagine leaving his country than he could imagine crawling out of his skin. But now, he wondered if the country that might imprison, torture, or kill Olivia could really be his anymore, or if he could ever serve it again.

  Suslov stared out his window at the birch grove. A true Russian would never believe that those who were destroying the country somehow had more right to be there than those who worked to save it. To be a stranger in one’s own home meant that one had surrendered that home to evil. Then the silences melded into words, and Dmitri Borisovich Suslov wept as, over and over, he heard them.

  When are we going to stop doing this to each other?