Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [102]
“What do you mean we might not go back?” she yelled on the phone. “What about my mom, our friends, our home? Where shall we live? Here, in Spain? Without you? How will you get here? You have no passport.”
“Marusya, please,” he used her nickname, “cool down, talk to Yuri. I will call back in five minutes.”
Felshtinsky explained that Sasha was waiting for some friends to get him false documents. When he received them, he would be able to get to a safer place, where Marina and Tolya could join him. This was the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario was that the documents would not be forthcoming, in which case Sasha would have to go back on the ferry to Russia to face imminent imprisonment. There was no chance that he would be acquitted a third time. The third country where he was waiting was not exactly a safe place, so telephone discussions had to be kept to a minimum. There could be no talk of passports on the phone. For the time being there was nothing they could do but wait.
Finally, she understood. She agreed to defer judgment until the situation cleared up. They checked into the resort, and for the next ten days tried to make the most of their vacation, talking to Sasha about neutral, innocuous things, “like in Lefortovo,” she later joked.
On October 23, Sasha called to announce that his friends had delivered on their promise. He was in possession of everything he needed to continue on his journey. Felshtinsky packed up and left to join him. Marina and Tolya stayed in Marbella.
On the morning of the 25th he called again. He was in Turkey, and in relative safety. I had just called him from New York. It was time for Marina to decide: join him in exile, or return to Russia? He would do as she wished. This time he would not decide for both of them. The choice was Marina’s.
It was the most difficult decision Marina had ever had to make. She loved Sasha with all her heart, but she was not part of his violent and dangerous world; she had never asked for details when he went out to fight his fights. By joining him now, she would become a sort of comrade-in-arms. Perhaps she should return home and let him run alone. She would wait for him. After all, she had waited for him while he was in prison. Why shouldn’t he sort out his problems with borders and false passports without her? She had a six-year-old child on her hands, and a mother with a heart condition in Moscow.
In the end, as she explained to me later, it was Boris’s call that tipped the balance. She was lying in bed staring at the ceiling while Tolik played outside with a Russian child from their tour. A distant Andalusian rhythm echoed in the background. It was late afternoon. The phone rang.
“Marina,” said Boris, “I just spoke to Sasha, and I promised him that whatever happens I will never abandon you and Tolya. That is one thing that I need to tell you. The other is this. I believe that I know what’s on your mind. Actually I am now struggling with the same choice right now. The world out there, you know, in Turkey and beyond, must seem scary and cold and unpredictable. The one back in Moscow is warm and familiar, because it’s our home. Yet that is why it is so misleading. These people are killers, Marina. I have come to understand it just recently, a month ago to be exact. It’s why I sent Felshtinsky to Moscow to tell Sasha to run. They are really bad news, Marina. If Sasha goes back they will kill him. And I am afraid that if you go back, he will follow you. Maybe not now, maybe in three weeks, or three months, but he will. He is not a loner. You give him the strength to go against Kontora, and he needs this strength now more than ever. That’s all.”
She lay there for some minutes more. Then she called Sasha to say that she would join him in Turkey.
She lied to her tour leader, saying that she had to urgently return to Moscow. It was late