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Authors: Michael Wallner
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there’ll be a little canned fish. Are you coming again tomorrow, my little friend? Well, I am, too, so we have a date, right?”
“Does he have a name?”
“We’re seeing each other for the first time today.” The old woman snapped her bag shut. “And he surely won’t be here tomorrow.” She looked at the dog reproachfully. “Street mutts are faithless.” She scooted clumsily to the edge of the pedestal. “The dogcatcher may pick him up before morning. Right, sweetheart? If you don’t watch out, you’ll wind up in some research lab where they’ll operate on you and stick tubes in you.” The dog wagged his tail attentively. “At least you’ve had enough to eat this one time.” She jumped down from the pedestal, pulled her bag after her, and disappeared into the foggy darkness. The mongrel didn’t follow her; he laid his head between his paws and had a digestive nap.
The statue loomed blackly above Anna. It was high time for her to leave. She thrust her hands into her sleeves and tried to count the lighted windows in the apartment building across from her; like a trellis of light, they rose up out of the darkness and cast shadowy reflections on the frozen river.
Anna didn’t want to deceive Alexey; the shamefulness of it festered inher like an ulcer. A solution would require but a single step: She would have to leave him. For doing that, she could have named a hundred reasons, among them the truth. In the beginning, she’d believed that time was on her side; everything had seemed amusing and easy at first. Anna tilted her head back.
She hadn’t fallen in love with Alexey, she didn’t lust after him, and yet the evenings she spent with him felt to her like excursions to an exotic island. Once a week, usually Thursday, she was picked up by Anton and brought to the Drezhnevskaya apartment. It was as if Anna were going out to a play in which she had the main role. They would always start by chatting about everyday things over a drink or two; eventually, Anna would go into the bathroom, undress, and return naked to the living room, where Alexey would already be stretched out on the sofa. He’d tell her of his travels, and thus she heard about remote regions of the Soviet Union, about people whose way of life differed utterly from that of the Muscovites. Once Bulyagkov evoked a happy memory, an incident from his childhood in rural Ukraine, and his tale made Anna think of one of her father’s poems. Since she didn’t know it by heart, she paraphrased some of the verses in her own words. Alexey liked this and asked her to do it on other occasions, turning the play of her thoughts into a game. Under normal conditions, she would have found it ridiculous to speak in images and to invent individuals and circumstances that didn’t jibe with reality. But Anna was naked, she was a nymph in summer, improvising for the delight of her listener. Wearing an open white shirt, Alexey would loll on the sofa, sipping his drink and watching her as she darted around barefoot, took a book from the shelf, gazed at pictures, tracked the sun’s path over the rooftops. Sometimes Anna would sit down beside him and he’d lay his hand on her hip or grasp her knee and lavish her body with loving gestures composed entirely of words. During their erotic fantasies, they’d remain completely serious, which aroused Anna all the more. They escalated into wild and lusty orgies that the aging man and the house painter would scarcely havebeen capable of carrying off in reality. Alexey told Anna that he seldom slept with Medea, not because of aversion or habit, but as one might forget something that had never been important. Anna asked whether he’d entertained other women in that apartment, and Alexey did not deny it. On those Thursdays, Anna’s life was carefree, filled with a lightheartedness she’d never known before, something simultaneously lascivious and innocent. Those had been wondrous weeks, they had made the summer pass
“Does he have a name?”
“We’re seeing each other for the first time today.” The old woman snapped her bag shut. “And he surely won’t be here tomorrow.” She looked at the dog reproachfully. “Street mutts are faithless.” She scooted clumsily to the edge of the pedestal. “The dogcatcher may pick him up before morning. Right, sweetheart? If you don’t watch out, you’ll wind up in some research lab where they’ll operate on you and stick tubes in you.” The dog wagged his tail attentively. “At least you’ve had enough to eat this one time.” She jumped down from the pedestal, pulled her bag after her, and disappeared into the foggy darkness. The mongrel didn’t follow her; he laid his head between his paws and had a digestive nap.
The statue loomed blackly above Anna. It was high time for her to leave. She thrust her hands into her sleeves and tried to count the lighted windows in the apartment building across from her; like a trellis of light, they rose up out of the darkness and cast shadowy reflections on the frozen river.
Anna didn’t want to deceive Alexey; the shamefulness of it festered inher like an ulcer. A solution would require but a single step: She would have to leave him. For doing that, she could have named a hundred reasons, among them the truth. In the beginning, she’d believed that time was on her side; everything had seemed amusing and easy at first. Anna tilted her head back.
She hadn’t fallen in love with Alexey, she didn’t lust after him, and yet the evenings she spent with him felt to her like excursions to an exotic island. Once a week, usually Thursday, she was picked up by Anton and brought to the Drezhnevskaya apartment. It was as if Anna were going out to a play in which she had the main role. They would always start by chatting about everyday things over a drink or two; eventually, Anna would go into the bathroom, undress, and return naked to the living room, where Alexey would already be stretched out on the sofa. He’d tell her of his travels, and thus she heard about remote regions of the Soviet Union, about people whose way of life differed utterly from that of the Muscovites. Once Bulyagkov evoked a happy memory, an incident from his childhood in rural Ukraine, and his tale made Anna think of one of her father’s poems. Since she didn’t know it by heart, she paraphrased some of the verses in her own words. Alexey liked this and asked her to do it on other occasions, turning the play of her thoughts into a game. Under normal conditions, she would have found it ridiculous to speak in images and to invent individuals and circumstances that didn’t jibe with reality. But Anna was naked, she was a nymph in summer, improvising for the delight of her listener. Wearing an open white shirt, Alexey would loll on the sofa, sipping his drink and watching her as she darted around barefoot, took a book from the shelf, gazed at pictures, tracked the sun’s path over the rooftops. Sometimes Anna would sit down beside him and he’d lay his hand on her hip or grasp her knee and lavish her body with loving gestures composed entirely of words. During their erotic fantasies, they’d remain completely serious, which aroused Anna all the more. They escalated into wild and lusty orgies that the aging man and the house painter would scarcely havebeen capable of carrying off in reality. Alexey told Anna that he seldom slept with Medea, not because of aversion or habit, but as one might forget something that had never been important. Anna asked whether he’d entertained other women in that apartment, and Alexey did not deny it. On those Thursdays, Anna’s life was carefree, filled with a lightheartedness she’d never known before, something simultaneously lascivious and innocent. Those had been wondrous weeks, they had made the summer pass
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