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…had met and fallen in love just before the war when his father was sent on a work assignment to Kazan. He had died in the trenches defending Moscow from the fascists.
Though Sergey had grown up in Kazan and loved the city, his sister had fought to live in Moscow, even going to the extent of marrying a Muscovite, then divorcing him, simply to get her Moscow housing permit. It was to Nadya’s shared apartment that he was going now. The letter had arrived last week. She was pregnant and would not abort this time. The father was a scurrilous dog, Sergey decided, after meeting him on a previous visit. A heavy drinker, not the type for Nadya. It was his duty to go to Moscow at this time and dissuade her from this vicious pattern. Maybe she could come back to Kazan with him. Keep the baby, even. She had pulled enough strings to get to Moscow in the first place. Why couldn’t strings be pulled to move her back home?
These thoughts buzzed through his mind as he sat and waited and counted and watched the flight desk where the boarding passes were neatly stacked.
After some time, he noticed a very curious thing. He was having great difficulty in counting the foreigners. The group from Canada would not stand still. They were always moving about. Every so often, one would sit for a moment, look around, get up and begin to walk again. He would never have obtained an accurate count but for overhearing the severe-looking one, the tour guide with the glasses and black hair, talk to the airline official. She reminded him of his local Party member and political officer. The Party member look-alike had given the figure of 18, counting herself presumably, though how she had counted the group when they remained in perpetual motion, he wasn’t sure.
This group’s activity was making him buzz. Perhaps it was the sugar they used in capitalist countries—apparently they ate a lot more of it than Russians did. He still placed a sugar cube between his teeth and strained tea through it, like his father had done before him. He couldn’t imagine any other type of sugar except maybe the sweet gassy water everyone drank. Did capitalists drink vodka? He could go one right now. There was probably none available and with his limited funds it would have to be a warm beer from the refreshment stand. Leaving the lounge was a risk but there was only so long he could sit here with a thirst. Stowing his bag under the chair thus giving him an excuse to return to the lounge, he slouched off to the refreshment stand on the lower level.
Libros Libertad 