Studying herself in the mirror of the airport bathroom, she felt dismayed by her own credulousness. Her face was red, her mascara had flaked under her boring pale-blue eyes. Her blondish hair, badly in need of a root touch-up, was frizzy in the back, while in the front her bangs were glued to her forehead with sweat. The neckline of her old traveling blouse was hopelessly stretched. Luciano must be blind.
Outside, the spring morning was in full bloom, and Tanya found herself wishing she’d worn a short-sleeved dress to let her skin breathe. To her right stretched an endless taxi line. To her left, a bus was about to depart for central Moscow. Just off the curb, the Italian soccer team was boarding the Intourist van. Luciano waved and cried out, “Otto! Otto, per favore!”
What a peculiar man, Tanya thought. Italians … This was a real cliché. She tried to keep from smiling. She stole one last look at Luciano and ran for the bus, her heavy carry-on banging against her legs. It was almost nine hours until otto, plenty of time to forget about the way he’d looked at her.
* * *
Exhausted by the multitransport trip from the airport, Tanya rang the doorbell of Auntie Roza’s fifth-floor kommunalka. They kissed hello. Auntie Roza smelled like Tanya’s late mother, of sugary sweat and fresh-baked bread, scents that calmed Tanya no matter how stressed she was. She noticed that while she’d been in Leningrad, her aunt had given herself a makeover: she’d tweezed her eyebrows down to threads and dyed her graying hair the color of peeled carrot.
“Look at you, Auntie. Ten years younger! For the May Day party at work?”
“Trying to keep up with you.”
“Me?” Flattery was in the air today.
Tanya changed into a pair of house slippers and followed Auntie Roza through the darkened hallway, which branched off into rooms where different families lived. All the doors were closed. Every few steps Tanya bumped into something — boxes, metal-edged trunks, wood boards, a bicycle, a baby stroller, and God knows what else.
Halfway down the hallway they almost collided with Sergeich, who was carrying a bowl of eggs and a packet of sausages to the kitchen.
“Good afternoon, Roza Vasilievna. You look wonderful as always. Ah, I see Tanechka is back.”
“Good afternoon, Mikhal Sergeich. Thank you for the compliment.”
He pressed his barrel-shaped body against the wall to let them pass.
“Are you hungry?” Auntie Roza said when they reached her room.
“I want to take a shower, wash off that airplane grime.”
“Why shower? You’ll be running around dirty Moscow all day. Besides, Ivanova has the bathroom for the next two hours.”
“When’s your turn?”
“In the evening, Tanya, in the evening. Weekends are busy, you see, everyone’s home. You rest now while I warm up borsch and cutlets.” Auntie Roza opened her fridge and pulled out two pots.
“I’ll help. Want to tell you something, you won’t believe.”
On their way to the kitchen they ran into a tall, heavyset woman with a column of sooty hair piled on top of her head. Letting her pass, Tanya tripped over the bicycle, and it crashed to the floor with a ring. Fierce yapping started up at the other end of the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” Tanya said.
“To the devil!” the woman yelled, gesticulating with a pot of pea soup in front of her heaving bust. “That bicycle was new. If it’s broken, you’ll be standing in line for a new one yourself, Roza Vasilievna.”
“Broken!” Auntie Roza came to an instant boil. “You should see your sons ride it down the stairs. First bicycle, then their necks, I’ll say. Broken—tfoo.”
“That’s none of your business. You better tell your niece here that she turned on our lightbulb when she splashed in the washroom for a whole hour last week, and we now have to pay for that electricity,” Pea Soup said. “Do I look like a millionaire to you? She’s the one from Magadan here.”
“And who’s going to pay when your boys steal my—”
“Sergeich!” Pea Soup hollered. “How many times do I have to tell you that pets are not allowed in the common areas?”
The communal kitchen contained five ovens, five tables, several standing and hanging cupboards, most of them with locks on their doors, and a sea of kitchenware occupying every available surface and wall. The entire space was segmented by bedsheets, towels, and various other laundry articles hanging to dry from a network of ropes. An invisible radio babbled the news. The smells of fried onions, pea soup, and fish fought for airspace. A beautiful young woman with curlers in her bleached hair flew into the kitchen, chirped hello to Auntie Roza, and carried away a whistling kettle.
Auntie Roza turned on the gas and struck a match. “Now tell me what happened, Tanechka.”
In a half whisper Tanya told her about Luciano.
“I’d go,” Auntie Roza said.
“But you…” Her aunt’s husband had left her many years ago, when their children were still in grade school, and she’d never remarried. “How will I look Anton in the eye? It’d be so stupid for me to run there like some prostitute. They already have their own, from Intourist, KGB-trained.”
“Not like a prostitute, Tanya. Like a woman. When will you have a chance to enjoy such an exotic man again? Italians, they’ve got a temper. Anton is a good man, I’m not arguing. But … he’s Anton. He’ll be there on that couch for all eternity. Go, enjoy. Could be your last chance. I met, once, in Bulgaria, a certain engineer … Bulgarians love Russians, you know.” Auntie Roza pressed her ringed hand to her chest, which was rosy and laced with delicate spiderwebs of wrinkles. It struck Tanya as incredibly beautiful — and this, too, reminded her of her mother. She was overcome by a desire to rest her head on Auntie Roza’s soft shoulder — to forget about Luciano and her obligations to her family.
“He was tall, very good-looking. Such beautiful black eyebrows,” Auntie Roza continued. “I didn’t go, I was a good wife. To this day I bite my elbows in regret.”
The bedsheets next to them moved.
“What, Sergeich? Spying on us?” Auntie Roza said.
Sergeich emerged from behind his cover. Balding, with a stained undershirt stretched over his paunch and a grouchy expression, he seemed to have stepped out of the dictionary entry for “kommunalka neighbor, male.”
“Err … Roza Vasilievna, would you be so kind as to spare a pinch of salt. I’m all out.” His bite-sized white poodle twirled around his feet.
“Oh, you should have listened,” Auntie Roza said, holding out her salt dish.
Sergeich blushed. “You”—he addressed both of them, his tone philosophical—“you womenfolk are odd. I want to say…” He dove under the sheets to his oven, then reappeared and returned the salt. “First you complain…” He looked at the floor and said through his teeth, “One simply cannot understand women, and it’s your own fault.” He pouted his thin, lilac lips.
“My dear Mikhal Sergeich. Don’t get so upset. Like all normal people, women just want a little corner of happiness.” Auntie Roza smiled coquettishly and threw the poodle a piece of her cutlet.
“If it were me, I’d be careful with the foreigners.” Sergeich looked in Tanya’s direction. “There’s a reason why the State wants to keep us regular citizens away. It’s for our own protection. I’ve never met any real foreigners myself, but I’ve heard such stories—ogogo!”