Chapter 8 Valya #2
We talk mostly about things that don't require choosing.
The best translation of a line from Pasternak.
He asks me how many languages I speak. I say four.
He talks about the way Boston pretends to be small when it wants to hide.
Whether honey is better in tea or on bread.
He says tea. I say bread. He considers this as if it reveals character.
I touch the crucifix at my throat just once and feel the small, familiar weight find the notch above my heart.
He sees the gesture and doesn't comment. I decide I like his style of silence.
At the corner, the wind turns and lifts a little of my hair.
I reach up to smooth it. His hand moves and stops.
There is a part of me that wants the touch.
It rises fast and clean as the arc of a bird changing direction midair.
Another part, older and stubborn, sets its feet.
Our hands hover for a second, then both drop.
The moment folds itself and tucks into my pocket like a note I will reread later.
We keep walking. The world is blue and gold and white. We don't speak for two blocks. It is not awkward. It is honest. My boots squeak on the clean parts of the snow and thud on the parts where people have gone before me. His steps are almost silent. He is that man.
At the square where we usually turn toward the river, he asks, without making it a question, if I would like the long way back. I say yes because the long way is a choice that belongs to me, and because I'm beginning to understand that he will walk as far as I ask and no farther.
By the time we reach Beacon Hill, the snowfall has softened into a steady curtain.
The gas lamps wear small white hats. The iron fence around our steps holds beads of ice like a necklace that belongs to nobody.
I stop outside the door because I want a second to keep this and once I go in, the house will put its hands back on my shoulders.
He doesn't say anything that would ruin the quiet by naming it gratitude.
I tilt my face up, let a single flake melt on my lip, and then I go inside.
The marble in the foyer holds the chill the way marble always does. A faint trace of incense lingers from the chapel. The house guard nods, eyes on my shoulder instead of my face. My heart hums a song, one it refused to sing so long, I forgot it lived inside me.
The day moves easily. I meet Reza, trade lists and smiles, and leave with jokes. I buy bread, oranges, a small fist of white flowers. I make a note to check mittens and caps. I sleep lightly and a sound wakes me.
It is a scrape and a grunt and then a silence that gathers itself around something that has just fallen.
I step through the arch. The room offers the picture without commentary.
A man lies stretched on the carpet near the hearth.
His face is broken at the temple, one eye sealed shut by swelling, mouth slack in benediction.
His hands are bound with wire, tight and deliberate, blood drying at the knots.
My father stands by the mantel, holding a glass untouched and never meant to be. The slow turn of his head is both a greeting and a command. Dmitri is nowhere, but his absence presses on the room like a thumbprint.
"What happened?" I ask, voice calm by long habit.
"A traitor," he says, almost gently. "Not your concern."
The man on the carpet exhales, low and wet, a thread of froth and blood catching at his mouth like a secret trying to leave.
Iron cuts through polish and candle smoke.
My father's jaw tightens once. He holds my eyes until I read what he wants me to understand.
I set both palms on the chair back so my hands will not shake.
The house calls this order. I call it a wound we dress in linen.
Every time the room turns violent, I see my mother in her bright, separate rooms, safe and aside, while men praise a code that chooses where and when to punish.
When my father finally looks away, the air loosens, but the fact remains.
I count the stains and the seconds, and I don't forgive the room for learning to watch.
I go upstairs because there is nowhere else to put my body that feels true. My hand finds the banister's curve, worn smooth by a hundred ghosts. A door sighs. Somewhere, a lock clicks softly, like comfort pretending.
My room is too warm. I set down my coat, unbraid my hair, slide the ribbon into the dish where memory sleeps beside earrings.
Nothing in this house is ever plain. I stand at the window but don't lean my head.
Snow keeps falling steadily. The street tries to stay blank.
I touch the cross at my throat. I don't ask for anything. I don't know what to ask for.
I make tea from the tray Yelena left and take it to the chair by the window.
Honey and clove rise with the heat. I try to inventory my heart, and it refuses to be itemized.
There is warmth from the cafe and the walk.
There is caution that pulls the warmth into order before it can spill.
There is a thread of anger for the man on the carpet and for the way my father made him a lesson and called it housekeeping.
There is a small, foolish happiness because Dmitri listened to fairy tales as if they mattered.
I set the cup down, and it leaves a ring because I forgot the saucer. I wipe it with my thumb. I tell myself I will sleep because sleep is a discipline. The house listens the way a cat does before it is ready to pounce. I close my eyes. I open them again.
My phone lights the room and then settles into a dim glow that still looks louder than the dark. I pick it up because I'm weak and because sometimes, the worst thing to read is better than not reading at all.
A message. Aleksandr.
Are you really marrying him? Tell me it's not true.