Despite the Falling Snow (16 page)

She is ready twenty minutes early, and she waits as the minutes drip by, glancing to the open window for any sign of him. She hears a firm footfall on the road below, and immediately there is a feeling of hollowness in her chest, a pleasant emptiness that she knows is a strange type of anticipation. She stands casually, with her face up against the grimy window pane and peers down, but it is not him. She breathes in to slow the sprinting of her heartbeat. This is all new to her, and all wrong, she thinks; very, very wrong. She should not be waiting like this, like a hopeful puppy, looking from windows. She has to try and be more rational about the whole situation. It is just one more step on the path you want to take through life, Katya.

Of course, it would be much easier if he was petulant, or unkind, or hungry for power, or even just ugly or inconsiderate. But there is time for her to uncover these things about him. No-one is without their bad points; she just needs to look harder to find them. And then she can work to subdue these unlooked for feelings, these slow droplets of escaped emotion that are slowly filling up inside her. It will be easier when she finds out what a bastard he really is.

She knows he will probably come slightly before the appointed hour, for he too has trouble keeping away from her, and sure enough, he is fifteen minutes early. He has taken the metro to her area, and has tried without much success to use up the extra time by walking slowly for much of the way. Now that he is before her building, though, within a hundred paces of her, it is easier to slow down, to savour the anticipation of seeing her within a very few moments. Her block is uniform, indistinguishable from the others around it except for the numbers on the front. He sighs slightly. The apartments are depressing. Pre-fabricated, hastily thrown up by Khrushchev to help solve the housing problems of the city – there are a million more people living in Moscow now than there were only ten years ago. They have served their purpose well, these apartment blocks, but the people who live in them call them
khrushchoby
, a joke that combines their leader’s name with the word
trushchoby
– slum. They are better than slums, certainly, but are not comparable to the stone and brick buildings in which Alexander has grown up. He moves quickly through the dank, gloomy stairwell. She lives on the top floor, the fifth. These blocks are rarely higher, for they dispense with the luxury of elevators also. Her door is thrown open before he reaches the top, and she is looking out for him.

“Katya,” is all he says, as he reaches her and lifts her up into a hug and spins her around and kisses her. His briefcase and two parcels are dropped onto the floor. She pushes the door shut behind him, and he glances around.

“Where’s Maya?”

“Gone out. She’s eating with her workmates. And her mother’s staying with her sister in the country for a week.”

He smiles, kisses her again.

“Will we always be this excited to see each other, Sasha?”

“Always, my love.”

“Even when we are ancient?” She has asked the question from her heart, without thinking, but as soon as the words are spoken she feels a weight in her stomach, a weight that makes her feel slightly sick. This suggestion of hers that they will be together until they die, when she knows that she is only with him, supposed to be with him, for one reason. It is difficult to remember sometimes. To stay aware, in the way Misha said she should always be aware. But if she tries to be aloof with him, or distant, or if she holds herself back in any way he will feel it. The relationship will not progress, and the game will be over. She has to let herself go, to immerse herself in the role of a woman in love, even when the acting begins to come too easily, and she no longer has to think so hard about her lines.

“Especially when we’re ancient.” He pulls back from her and looks at her eyes and mouth and face. “You will never be old in my eyes, Katyushka,” he says, gallantly, and with complete honesty.

“Are you sure?”

“Completely. Are you hungry?”

She nods. She has not eaten since her lunchtime meal of bread and soup from the school canteen.

“I brought bread and some fish,” he tells her. He holds up his prized packages with a flourish. She cannot help but notice that his briefcase, perhaps full of papers from work, is still lying on the floor, behind him. Perhaps he sees her glance at it, for he smiles and reaches to pick it up. Should she offer to take it, to put it in the bedroom with his jacket or will that be too obvious? In fact she is saved from the decision, because he himself passes her the food parcels and turns and strides into her bedroom, depositing the rest of his things there.

“Where did you get fish, Sasha?” she asks as he walks past her again, into the tiny area of the living room that passes for her kitchen.

He smiles. “Never mind.”

She feels a quick burn of anger in her stomach. He will not say, but she knows he has ready access to special shops, to the types of food that most people could never have access to or afford. He senses her feelings, and regrets that he dismissed her question.

“I know I have privileges,” he tells her. “But I just wanted you to have it. The fish, I mean. I wanted you to enjoy it.”

He is caught between repentance and the wish to give her everything in the world, and she sees his uncertainty, this dilemma.

“Is there any dessert?” he asks.

She pushes away the remnants of her anger, and stops at the entrance to the kitchen. She holds out her arms, offering herself. Her eyes are teasing, but her movement is slightly awkward, for she does not quite know how to be so relaxed and affectionate with another person; she is still learning to open out her natural insularity. He smiles and puts his arms around her, pulling her close to him, willing her uncertainty to crumble away. Then he kisses her hair, loosens his tie, and rolls up his shirt sleeves, for he has no intention of letting her cook for him.

First, he reaches into the kitchen drawer, feeling for a match, which he applies with caution to the back of the oven. She feels the slow heat rising at once, and can sense just a tiny bit of escaped gas.

He tosses the parcel of fish up behind his back and it drops onto the small plywood counter in front of him. Katya is laughing suddenly – at the fish, at his playfulness, at the fact of him being here. She gives him a knife and watches him slit open the layers of paper.

She shrieks.

“What?” he asks.

“It looks alive!”

“I promise you it’s not,” he replies.

He slams the handle of the knife smartly down on the chipped counter-top and stamps his foot. A flourish to start the cutting of the fish. He picks up the blade, and holds it up to his face, so that he is looking down it’s silvery length at Katya’s expectant eyes.

“Ready?” he asks, voice solemn.

She nods. “Ready.”

“And so.” He grabs it by the tail and turns it over with a slap, merely for effect, and then, in a flash of strokes with the blade, he has decapitated it, and removed it’s tail. These parts are deftly and swiftly wrapped up in the old, oily paper, and pushed to one side.

“Better?” he asks her and she nods.

“What’s next?”

“Gutting,” he says.

“Let me watch, then.”

He begins work with the knife, and she moves closer, near to his moving arm. He is concentrating now, enjoying the attention to detail required of him, and she sees the tip of the knife caressing the soft belly of the fish, watches the gentle strokes with which he cleans away the scales. He handles the knife with respect, as though it were an ally of his, working with him to subdue and prepare this clear-eyed creature.

Again, his wrists and fingers move so quickly once the fish is cut, that she barely sees a glimpse of the soft, red, spilling insides before they are also gone.

He turns his head to look sideways at her, and she enquiringly meets his glance. “Does the smell trouble you?” he wants to know.

“No. It is a fresh fish.”

“Yes, but still.”

She is mesmerised by his hands. The long bones of the fingers, visibly lined with gentle muscles. Their lithe, light touches, the patient, repetitive movement, the firm strokes of his fingertips, the careful caress of his palms. In a matter of moments, in too short a time, he is finished with his task and wiping his hands, and she sighs slightly that it is over.

“What is it, my Katyushka?” he says, turning to her. His mouth is near to hers, his warm breath on her nose. She stands very still, not yet able to lift her lips to his, but not wanting the sensations of this moment to end – there are times when his easy intimacy seems wondrous to her.

“I could watch you cook all day,” she tells him finally, and he laughs, his mouth still close to hers, but not touching. He does not know why, but he feels he must leap across a chasm that lies hidden within her to reach their next kiss.

“Is that what you want me for? To cook for you all day?”

“Yes,” she tells him. “That is exactly it.”

“How was your work today?” he asks.

“It went well. Are you going to bake this thing?”

Their flavourings are few; some salt, dried herbs and some vinegar. He wraps the fish and puts it in the oven.

“What did you do?”

“At work?” she asks.

“Yes. Why did you have to work late?”

“It’s time for the school reports – again,” she adds wryly. “So much typing. It gets boring.” She shakes her head at the memory of her afternoon’s overtime work, trapped in the office of the school administrator, a fictional two hours which is completely real in her mind at that moment. In fact, with Svetlana’s help, she had finished typing the reports by lunchtime.

“I can imagine. Aren’t you tempted to rewrite the bad reports as you go along?” Alexander laughs, but she is serious as she replies.

“Sometimes. Sometimes I have…re-phrased them. So they are less harsh. They are so uncaring, Sasha. They call the children stupid and dull and useless.”

He looks at her. “I am glad that you re-write them then.”

“I don’t change them completely, just…”

“I know. But I’m glad.”

“And yours, how was your work today?” she asks. They walk together to the small sofa and sit down. She likes the warmth of his leg touching hers, feels a stir of desire, but will not, or cannot show it.

“I don’t know.” His eyes are troubled. “It’s not the same since…”

“Since what?”

“You make me look at things in a different way, Katya.”

“But I’m proud of you. And your work. Why am I ruining it for you? Because I told you it was your father’s path?”

He looks at her for a long time, thinking about the answer. His eyes are still considering when he leans over gently and kisses her throat. She closes her eyes slightly against the pleasurable touch of his lips on her skin, and looking up at her, he catches that moment of release.

“No. Not just that,” he continues. “I don’t know how to explain. Everything looks new since I met you. It’s as though I was sleepwalking through the world up until now. You have sharpened all the blurred pictures that I had in my mind, and now I feel that I see things – or begin to see things – more clearly. I’m not really helping people, Katya. All I can do…”

“All they
let
you do,” she says, fiercely, and he shrugs.

“All I can do is push paper from one side of my desk to the other, and try and argue a small point or two in meetings, or watch and wait and hope that things will improve. I begin to see it in a different way. A very different way.” His voice is low, and she moves even closer to him, allowing his arm to press her to him, so that when they speak they can whisper. Just in case.

“How did you see it before?”

“You know. I like Khrushchev.”

“You know he followed Stalin around like a little puppy,” she says, with an ironic smile. “His little
liubimchik
.”

“Look. Everyone believed in Stalin unless they figured out what he really was about. And if you figured that out, you were trapped anyway. Khrushchev did what he needed to in order to survive. I think some of these new ideas of his are good. Not all of them will work, but he has begun sweeping away that hero-worship that people had for Stalin, and that fear, that terrible, terrible fear. I think he’s really trying to help now. It’s just…there are no controls. He overrides Bulganin, Malenkov, all of them. And they’re all watching their own backs, trying to keep their positions. Sometimes at the expense of doing good work. But it is changing,” he says, almost to himself. “At least now they’re trying to control people by giving them something, not by threatening them.”

“But they are still trying to control people?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Possibly.” He gives a wry, desperate smile. “You see, with one question you open up a new way of looking at things for me. I begin to see things differently now. And once you do that, you cannot go back to the old way of thinking can you? Can you, Katya?”

His last question is softly spoken, almost a plea. She hears it, but her eyes are focused on some faraway point, somewhere that he cannot see.

“No,” she tells him. “You can never go back.”

He looks at her a moment, and swallows a sigh. “Come on,” he says, pointing at the stove. “It must be ready. Let’s eat.”