Snow in May. Kseniya Melnik
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Roza came to an instant boil. “You should see your sons ride it down the stairs. First bicycle, then their necks, I’ll say. Broken—tfoo.”
“That’s none of your business. You better tell your niece here that she turned on our lightbulb when she splashed in the washroom for a whole hour last week, and we now have to pay for that electricity,” Pea Soup said. “Do I look like a millionaire to you? She’s the one from Magadan here.”
“And who’s going to pay when your boys steal my—”
“Sergeich!” Pea Soup hollered. “How many times do I have to tell you that pets are not allowed in the common areas?”
The communal kitchen contained five ovens, five tables, several standing and hanging cupboards, most of them with locks on their doors, and a sea of kitchenware occupying every available surface and wall. The entire space was segmented by bedsheets, towels, and various other laundry articles hanging to dry from a network of ropes. An invisible radio babbled the news. The smells of fried onions, pea soup, and fish fought for airspace. A beautiful young woman with curlers in her bleached hair flew into the kitchen, chirped hello to Auntie Roza, and carried away a whistling kettle.
Auntie Roza turned on the gas and struck a match. “Now tell me what happened, Tanechka.”
In a half whisper Tanya told her about Luciano.
“I’d go,” Auntie Roza said.
“But you …” Her aunt’s husband had left her many years ago, when their children were still in grade school, and she’d never remarried. “How will I look Anton in the eye? It’d be so stupid for me to run there like some prostitute. They already have their own, from Intourist, KGB-trained.”
“Not like a prostitute, Tanya. Like a woman. When will you have a chance to enjoy such an exotic man again? Italians, they’ve got a temper. Anton is a good man, I’m not arguing. But … he’s Anton. He’ll be there on that couch for all eternity. Go, enjoy. Could be your last chance. I met, once, in Bulgaria, a certain engineer … Bulgarians love Russians, you know.” Auntie Roza pressed her ringed hand to her chest, which was rosy and laced with delicate spiderwebs of wrinkles. It struck Tanya as incredibly beautiful—and this, too, reminded her of her mother. She was overcome by a desire to rest her head on Auntie Roza’s soft shoulder—to forget about Luciano and her obligations to her family.
“He was tall, very good-looking. Such beautiful black eyebrows,” Auntie Roza continued. “I didn’t go, I was a good wife. To this day I bite my elbows in regret.”
The bedsheets next to them moved.
“What, Sergeich? Spying on us?” Auntie Roza said.
Sergeich emerged from behind his cover. Balding, with a stained undershirt stretched over his paunch and a grouchy expression, he seemed to have stepped out of the dictionary entry for “kommunalka neighbor, male.”
“Err … Roza Vasilievna, would you be so kind as to spare a pinch of salt. I’m all out.” His bite-sized white poodle twirled around his feet.
“Oh, you should have listened,” Auntie Roza said, holding out her salt dish.
Sergeich blushed. “You”—he addressed both of them, his tone philosophical—“you womenfolk are odd. I want to say …” He dove under the sheets to his oven, then reappeared and returned the salt. “First you complain …” He looked at the floor and said through his teeth, “One simply cannot understand women, and it’s your own fault.” He pouted his thin, lilac lips.
“My dear Mikhal Sergeich. Don’t get so upset. Like all normal people, women just want a little corner of happiness.” Auntie Roza smiled coquettishly and threw the poodle a piece of her cutlet.
“If it were me, I’d be careful with the foreigners.” Sergeich looked in Tanya’s direction. “There’s a reason why the State wants to keep us regular citizens away. It’s for our own protection. I’ve never met any real foreigners myself, but I’ve heard such stories—ogogo!”
“What stories?” Tanya asked.
“Well, I heard from a friend of a friend who knows someone who’s friends with one of the Party kids. You know, they all travel to the West like it’s Crimea. So, that particular comrade lived in America for a year and he said that they have special pornography schools there.” Sergeich made a sour face at Auntie Roza. “They teach … technique and some kind of philosophy of love there, as if it could be taught.” He hit his chest. “It’s amoral and it’s expensive. They don’t have free education there, so not everyone can attend. Those who do, you know, they have to bring a partner. They don’t have to be married, and—can you imagine?—it doesn’t even have to be a woman for a man. You know what I mean? They study special books and have homework assignments, also class demonstrations. As if it was some woodworking class!”
Pea Soup barged into the kitchen, tore through the bedsheets, and yelled out of the window: “Kolya! Grisha! Lunch is ready. March home on the double!” The poodle began to yap again. Pea Soup squatted down and clapped her big hands right by the dog’s flappy ears.
“Don’t you dare do that again, grazhdanka!” Sergeich yelled after Pea Soup. “Tak, where was I? These so-called students learn to hold—well, you know what I’m talking about—for a whole hour and sometimes more. And during the, the … during this, they see God. Yes, God. It is insulting to me even as a nonbeliever. But this is in America, I don’t know about Italy. Or Bulgaria.” Tanya thought she saw Sergeich wink at Auntie Roza.
“Are you sure it’s not the yogis in India?” Tanya said.
“An orgasm for an hour? That would finish Comrade Brezhnev right off.” Auntie Roza laughed, a beautiful, throaty trill. Sergeich’s face was completely purple now. “Those Americans must have a lot of free time. Italians, on the other hand, they don’t need any special schools. They have passion in their blood.”
“Now is not Yezhovshchina, of course, but it never hurts to be careful,” Sergeich whispered, then in full voice: “Remember that the State disapproves of intermingling with foreigners. It’s for our own protection, Tanya.”
“But what could happen?”
Sergeich stared at her with incredulity.
Tanya envisioned Luciano’s shapely olive arms. Her skin prickled.
“Every room in the hotel is bugged by the KGB. You may get accused of spying, that’s what. Arrested,” Sergeich said. “Or you could get recruited to spy on the Italians.”
“Mikhal Sergeich, my darling, what are you talking about? First of all, this is a onetime thing. Second, she’s not going there to talk.” Auntie Roza finally gave him the smile he’d been waiting for.
“Spying … I don’t have time for a second career,” Tanya said, a little exhilarated just thinking of the idea.
The women picked up their pans of food and went to eat in Auntie Roza’s room.
“Don’t listen to him, Tanechka. Listen to me,” Auntie Roza said, meeting Tanya’s eyes over the perfect nostalgic borsch.
The giant Children’s World department store stood across the square from Lubyanka, the KGB headquarters. Entering the first floor, with its marble columns, a sparkling double-decker carousel, and endless rows of toys still gave Tanya the same thrills she’d felt here as a child on her family’s transits through Moscow. Practical things first, Tanya said to herself, and marched up to a line that started at the base of the stairs. She took her spot at the tail and tapped the woman in front of her on the shoulder.
“What are we standing for?” Tanya asked.
“Finnish snowsuits.”
“God help us. What number?”
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