Russian Winter Read Free Page B

sent you, after our brief meeting three decades ago, back when I—
    There was the click of the lock on the front door, the sound of the heavy door swinging open. “Hello, you!” came the voice of Cynthia, the wiry West Indian woman who came each evening to cook Nina’s dinner and ask embarrassing questions about her bodily functions; days she worked as a registered nurse at Mass General. Nina slid the letter and photograph back inside the envelope as Cynthia called out, in a voice still tinged with the genially arrogant accent of her native country, “Where you at, sugar?” She often called Nina “sugar.” Nina supposed it was some sort of private joke.
    “I am here, Cynthia, I am fine.” Nina returned the envelope to the drawer. To think that there had been a time when she was left to do things for herself, unattended, without the worried ministration ofothers…For over a year now Cynthia had been necessary, the last person Nina saw each night after being helped from her wheelchair to her bath and back out again. Of some indeterminate early-middle age, Cynthia had a boyfriend named Billy whose schedule and availability directly dictated which meals she prepared. On nights when she was to see him, Cynthia would not cook with onions, garlic, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts, lest the smell cling to her hair. Other days she had no ban on any particular vegetables.
    Nina could hear Cynthia hanging her coat, taking her little sack of groceries to the kitchen. The situation was appalling, really. Especially for someone like Nina, who had once been so strong, and was not yet even truly old. All the time now, it seemed, octogenarians went traipsing around the globe on cruises and walking tours. But Nina’s once-supple body, now eerily stiff, allowed no such diversions. Even this afternoon, the auction house girl had been unable to refrain from saying, at one point, “You must miss dancing,” as she eyed Nina’s swollen knuckles. She had looked horrified, actually, the way young people do when faced with the misfortunes of the elderly.
    “I do miss it,” Nina had said. “Every day I miss it. I miss the way it felt to dance.”
    Now Cynthia was calling out again, threatening to tell all about her day, brisk steps in her white nurse’s shoes as she approached the study. Nina slid the envelope more deeply into the drawer. Her knuckles ached as she twisted the lock with the tiny key. She felt no better than before, knowing the photograph was still there.
     
    G RIGORI S OLODIN SAW the announcement on the third day of the new semester. He liked to be at his desk before eight, while the Department of Foreign Languages was still quiet and the secretaries hadn’t yet arrived to unlock the main office. For a half hour or so the wooden hallways—cold from the heat having been off allnight—remained peaceful, no trampling up and down the narrow stairway whose marble steps were worn like slings in the center. Much better than being home, that still somehow unfamiliar silence. Here Grigori could read the newspaper in peace and smoke his cigarettes without his colleague Evelyn berating him about his lungs or Carla, the secretary, wrinkling her nose exaggeratedly and reminding him that the campus was now officially “Smoke-Free.” Then at eight thirty Carla and her assistant Dave would arrive to flick on all the photocopiers and printers and anything else that hummed.
    Grigori reached for his lighter, the cartridge small in his hand. First it had simply been for support, something to soothe him while Christine was ill. Now it was one of his few daily pleasures. And yet he hadn’t allowed himself to bring the habit into his home, too aware of what Christine would have said, how she would have felt about it. Anyway, he didn’t plan to keep it up much longer (though it had been, now, two years). Installed behind his desk, he breathed the comforting aroma of that first light. He wore a tailored suit, clean if lightly rumpled, with