After Love by Subhash Jaireth Page B

whispered. ‘You should be pleased. She likes you.’
    Vasu
    Anna seemed to think that Aunty Olga liked me. I’m not sure. Actually she terrified me, especially that look which would come into her eyes.
    â€˜You’re so much like Papa, her dear Leynya,’ Anna would often remind me. ‘Slow and steady, unsure but reliable.’
    That night I couldn’t sleep. Nor could Leonid Mikhailovich, Anna’s father. I heard him playing Ella and Louis softly in the library, over and over again. He was recording some of the songs for a friend, he would explain later.
    I lay listening to Aunty Olga and Anna talking quietly in the next room. Their whispers reminded me of water trickling from melting snow.
    I felt out of place. ‘You shouldn’t still be here,’ a voice inside me insisted.
    Aunty Olga’s room was hot and stuffy. I got up, opened the window and stood looking out. The wind was blowing strongly and in the courtyard a red ribbon swirled and whirled across uneven mounds of snow. I heard a glassy rattle and saw an empty vodka bottle roll and slide along a bench. I waited for it to fall off, but it continually rolled to the edge and then back. I waited and waited until I was so cold I shut the window and returned to the warm bed.
    I stared at the roof and tried to focus on the treacherous beauty of the taiga , a thought that had started to form slowly in my mind. But my eyes led me to a corner of the ceiling where a small piece of wallpaper had peeled off. The thought disappeared. On the bookshelf a small icon of Bogomateri (Our Lady) glowed, its eyes reminding me of Jijee-ma.
    Suddenly the door opened and Anna walked in. She took off her nightshirt, flung it on a chair and slipped into bed with me.
    â€˜I just want to lie beside you,’ she whispered. ‘We can’t make love, not with Aunty Olga sleeping on the other side of that thin wall.’
    She turned on her side and pulled me close so that her head rested on my left arm. My right stretched across her body.
    â€˜What are you thinking?’ she asked.
    â€˜About silk,’ I replied. ‘And water.’
    â€˜Silk and water,’ she whispered, ‘milk and honey, and the sweet smell of freshly-baked bread.’ She looked at me. ‘Tell me about your mother who died giving birth to you.’
    I told her about my mother in her sky-blue dupatta . I told her that my sister had a sky-blue wrap scattered with silver stars and that when she came to put me to bed she would cover me with the wrap and assure me that it would entice the starry sky to send me sweet dreams.
    â€˜Why would the sky be so benevolent?’ Anna asked.
    My sister and I had a favourite star, I told her, neither the brightest nor the biggest, but the one which shone with a steady light. That star, Jijee-ma told me, was where Amma, our mother, had gone to live. From there she watched over us.
    â€˜Is that why you call me “my sky-blue dupatta ”?’ Anna asked, and laughed.
    â€˜What about your mother?’ I asked. ‘Tonya: that’s a beautiful name.’
    â€˜Her full name was Antonina,’ she said. ‘And she was even more beautiful than her name – not an ugly duckling like me.’
    Then she kissed my hand and went to sleep.
    In the morning she wasn’t in my bed. I looked around the room and found her nightshirt on the floor.

Strange Fruit
    Anna
    When I saw Papa and Vasu together that night, I was surprised how similar they were.
    â€˜Of course,’ said Aunty Olga. ‘It isn’t easy to love them,’ she added.
    Vasu told me how much he liked our apartment. ‘Because it overwhelms me with silence,’ he explained. He’s right. I’m glad he doesn’t find the silence oppressive. Sergei hated it. ‘You live inside a grave,’ he used to complain.
    We don’t have a television and the radio is invariably turned off. When it’s on, it plays only