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He had used the Russian word for cover or hide. It was easily misunderstood. “Oh, I didn’t mean…I just meant that I would…say goodnight to you,” he finished lamely. She returned his look for a full moment, it seemed, standing there in the shadowy living room, the naked kitchen bulb etching her face in profile, one of her bone-white hands still entwined in the handle of an empty glass pitcher which she hugged to her chest. Her eyes were soft, vulnerable, when she said to him, “You may do as you wish—anything that you wish.” She leaned forward and touched his arm, and in that one slight caress he felt her desire and something more, the fulfilment of his own longing.
As Paul lay on his narrow cot that night, waiting to hear the snores of the elder Shukshin, his thoughts about this present adventure mingled with knowledge of forthcoming loss. He wanted to be with Vera—she felt the same way. He knew that. But after tomorrow his group would leave the area. Just two days after they returned to Moscow they would be flying back to Canada. To what? A career as a perpetual academic? One thing Grandmother Yvonne had always taught him was to seize all opportunities, live life to its fullest. He missed her presence. He would have wanted the two women to meet. Yvonne would likely chew Vera up and spit her out. No, maybe not. He didn’t know Vera that well but he suspected she might possess a core of steel. She certainly stood up to that boring political commissar—and to her father.
The unfamiliar scents of the barnyard through the open window, the damp hand laundry on the line, the musty hearth assailed him and made him nostalgic for a home. The La Jolla house had always been his grandmother’s place—the art, the furniture, the constant company; they reflected her feminine, changeable personality, not his. This place felt old, centred, solid—it was probably a farm even before the revolution and would ever be so. He liked it. He yawned. It was surprisingly comfortable here on the window seat. Should he go up to her now? Sneak past Papa asleep around the corner. No, he would wait a little, close his eyes for a moment. Soon he was watching while Grandmother Yvonne led a chorus of Russian folk singers at the Moscow Palace of Culture. Oh, she’s still alive, he thought. That’s good. He searched for Vera in the audience but couldn’t see her. He felt loss. Then he realized that the morning light was streaking across the kitchen floor. Shukshin was already pulling on rubber boots and was out the door to do chores, while Vera was approaching Paul with only a hint of pique.
Libros Libertad 