Read Online Despite the Falling Snow by Shamim Sarif - Free Book Online

whole of Moscow to slake Misha’s thirst the morning after the party. His throat burns as he drinks down another cupful. This insatiable thirst always takes hold of him after he has drunk too much – that, and the sensation that his stomach is hollow, burned clean, as though scoured out with acid. He glances down at his flat abdomen, lean and keenly muscled, like the rest of his tall, lithe body. He looks fit and healthy – he is healthy, for the most part, even though on mornings like this, it can take a little time for his body to remember that fact. But six or seven long draughts of cold water, and some strong tea and black bread go a long way to bringing him back to himself, after which he will bathe, and wash his curly cropped hair in the sink, allowing himself to enjoy the feel of the soap lather around his ears and forehead.
    Thirty minutes later, he is dressed. Dark trousers and a black roll neck sweater that fits his slim contours closely. Over these he shrugs on a long thin overcoat. He does not bother with a hat. He spends all day at the Aviation Institute, becoming warmer and warmer under the over-zealous heating, and he likes the grasping rush of the cold evening air that plays over his head when he walks out of there at the end of the working day. Anyway, he is not prone to colds, has never been a sickly man, and if you treat the Russian winter like an enemy who has power over you, you will be caught out by it every time.
    She is waiting for him at a bar just a few blocks from her apartment. Misha sees her inside, drinking a glass of tea, and he slows down as he approaches. The inside of the bar is illuminated and has an unreal quality this evening, as though it is a festive stage set, placed down in the middle of the fading, dank, slush-lined streets that surround it. And in the centre of the lights and warmth and smoke sits Katya, alone at a small table. He watches her keenly as he approaches, then smiles when she looks up and catches sight of him. He goes straight to the bar and orders two vodkas before he kisses her on the cheek.
    “I don’t want a vodka,” she says. “I had too much last night.”
    “I know,” he says, easily, with a gentle sarcasm.
    She waits for him to explain himself.
    “I’ve never seen you act like that with anyone.”
    She presumes that he is referring to Alexander, and she is momentarily pricked by his directness, and then irritated. What concern is it of his how she acts at a party? A taut reply rises to her lips, but she holds it back at once; for she realizes now that he must have mentioned Alexander for a reason. Misha wastes no time in explaining.
    “He’s government,” Misha says. “Nice position too. Couldn’t you tell?”
    A pause. “Ah, yes,” she says. “Of course.…”
    Beneath the even tone of her voice, Katya is shocked. Shocked that the man whom she found so appealing and attractive, so unexpectedly, is working directly for the system she so despises. And she is even more surprised that she did not pick up this fact straight away. Now that she considers it, she realizes that the signs were there – the neat, blue suit; a sense of uniformity, a bland correctness, in his manner, his dress, even the shine on his shoes. All these things should have alerted her. It should not have been difficult to spot. In the end those political pigs are all the same, on the surface and deep down.
    “I told you I drank too much,” she says, and her ironic tone is a cover for the slight pang of disappointment that she also feels in her stomach. She had really liked him, for a while.
    “He’s so young,” she says.
    “I know. Nice, too. A little boring, but nice.”
    He has already drunk both the vodkas. He stands up and pays the bill and Katya begins putting on her coat. She understands that the rest of this conversation is best held outside.
    “Are you using him?” she asks, her voice altered in the vast dampness of the outdoor air.
    Misha smiles. “Alexander is