Mother Russia Read Free Page A

neck,” Pravdin explains. “Pinched nerves. I lost the ability to shrug.”
    “That doesn’t sound incapacitating,” comments the thin woman.
    “Incapacitating is what it is,” Pravdin argues passionately. “In a workers’ paradise the inability to shrug is the ultimate wound.” Pravdin leans across the desk. “Lovely lady,” he pleads, “I have friends in high places. I could use influence, but I don’t take advantage of my name, I wait my turn like any ordinary citizen.”

    The thin woman shuffles through some file cards. “I can offer you a flat in Dzerzhinsky—”
    “Sooner Siberia!” blurts Pravdin.
    “Dzerzhinsky is twenty-five minutes by metro from the Kremlin,” the woman continues tonelessly. “The flat is in a building with an elevator, it is eighty-five meters from a metro station, it has fourteen square meters surface, heat, hot water and kitchen privileges—”
    “I’m entitled to eighteen square meters,” Pravdin whines.
    The woman shrugs, writes the address on a card, stamps the card with a seal and signs her name across the seal, hands it to Pravdin, looking up at him for the first time.
    “Could I trouble you,” Pravdin says with mock formality, “for the return of my Bolshoi tickets.”
    “What tickets,” the thin woman asks innocently, “are you talking about?”
    Pravdin paces off the distance from the metro to the front door of the gray building, six stories, one of many in a suburban project set at angles that suggest they are giving each other the cold shoulder. People stare. Pravdin concentrates, loses count, starts again, is annoyed to find the total eighty-three.
    The occupants of the flat, a worn, tired man with thinning hair and his pregnant wife, are wrapping dishes in newspaper and packing them in cartons when Pravdin knocks. (A note indicates the bell is out of order.)
    “You’re the new tenant then,” the man assumes. He manages a smile. “Come on, 111 give you the royal tour.”
    “First the lowdown on the building,” Pravdin demands. His eyes, darting nervously, take in the room: boxes tied and ready to go, matching overstuffed easy chairs, a grand-fatherclock with a sweep second hand that jerks when it passes the five, a huge television set, trunks, suitcases.
    The pregnant woman straightens, her palms on the small of her back. “I have to admit it, the building has a certain charm,” she observes dryly. “Today for instance there was no cold water in the taps. You wouldn’t be interested in a kitchen table, would you? The top is genuine formica.”
    Pravdin, dispirited, shakes his head, shuffles around the room, peeks into the kitchen, the toilet (both shared with another family), sniffs, screws up his face in disgust, tries to flush the toilet, has to climb on the handle to depress it. Using the tip of his sneaker he pushes up the yellowing plastic toilet seat; it is angled badly and bangs down again.
    “How do you pee?” Pravdin asks absently.
    “Quickly,” the man replies.
    “Funny is what you’re not,” snaps Pravdin. He turns on the tap marked “cold”; rusty hot water gushes out. He looks up at the shower nozzle, which is caked with a whitish residue, and then down at the hole in the cement floor that serves as a drain.
    “I suppose the facilities are like this in our space rockets,” the pregnant woman clucks her tongue sympathetically. Her husband shoots her a look and she goes back to her packing.
    “The same is what it is,” Pravdin agrees, “with the possible exception that the drain holes are stainless steel.”
    “Listen, it’s not all that bad,” the tired man urges. “The couple you share the kitchen with, the woman works at the hard currency store for tourists and gets the inside track on certain shipments before they’re put on sale.”
    “She’s good on fur hats, leather gloves, waterproof boots,” the wife calls out.

    But Pravdin is already removing his sinking heart from the flat.
    There are no signs