“I’m not asking where you got them,” Sergei said, “I don’t want to know. I want the earrings. I will pay.” Releasing his grip, he glanced behind him; they were alone. He began to pull out handfuls of bills, which probably smelled of rotten fruit, unloved musical instruments, lost familial keepsakes, furtive, unclean transactions—the sum of his life’s worth. Two or three notes fell in the slush by his feet; he did not stoop to pick them up. “That’s all I have. If it’s not enough, I can send the rest with my son later, just name your price.”
“That’s fine,” the youth said thickly, and for one moment Sergei saw him as a little boy, freckled, his lower lip trembling at some transgression, not that long past, before his face had been marked with a scar in some alleyway brawl. “That’s fine.”
The youth’s hands shook as he crammed the money into his jacket.
Back on the street, Sergei turned left instead of right, narrowly avoiding a collision with a passerby who flashed past him, slapping his nose with a damp end of her scarf. Three blocks away he stopped, and stood in a pool of darkness, gazing at the people beneath the falling snow, gray, hunched over, faceless in the shadows, indistinguishable save for an occasional sleeve or boot thrust into a pocket of spilled, sickly light; but he thought he could see a place in the line where two women leaned toward each other, talking, their heads, their hats—one light, one dark—drawn close together.
He wondered briefly what would happen to his life if he approached them. Then he turned and walked away, and the music of the symphony he had imagined moved through his mind, softly at first, then gaining in volume, and he let it linger this time, running this or that phrase over his lips, humming this or that fragment, as he wandered the city and the night.
2
“ONLY ONE MORE WEEK! I won’t know what to do with my time once this is over.”
“Me, I can’t wait to get out of here. My cousin’s brother-in-law has a car, he’s agreed to lend it to me, so I’m going on a trip… Of course, there’s a waiting list for driving lessons, but I’ve put my name down already, they say it won’t be long, no later than next fall.”
“I’m thinking of taking up sports, but my doctor says I should lose some weight first.”
“And you?”
“I guess I might do some painting. An artist lives in my building, he’s always having pretty girls over. Or maybe I’ll learn to play the piano. Or write a book. I haven’t decided yet.”
There was a somewhat deflated silence. The snow was coming down faster now.
Anna turned behind her.
“It’s a year to the day today,” she said, “since I first joined this line. December twenty-third. I remember I was hoping for a cake. A cake would have been simpler, but I’m glad. Of course, I’ve lost my job as a result, but apart from that…”
Sonechka breathed on her fingers; she looked almost transparent with cold. “I dropped a glove somewhere,” she said, glancing up with a pale smile. “Are you interested in working at the Museum of Musical History?”
“You have an opening?”
“We will soon. They’re letting me go. They think I’ve stolen a valuable piece from the museum. It accidentally got broken, you see… But it was inevitable in any case, times are changing, and with my husband where he is, I’m a liability.”
“But Sonechka, what will you do?” Anna exclaimed.
“I don’t know. Stay home and learn to cook, maybe. Spend more time with my son… I still have friends at the museum, though, I’d be glad to put in a word for you if you like—”
Snow groaned under three or four pairs of boots; the uniformed men were striding down the sidewalk for the evening inspection. Anna turned away hurriedly, searching for the documents in her bag. After all this time, the line’s really nearing its end, she thought, strangely affected by the realization; and even though she knew that in the coming year all of them would still be shopping in the same bakeries, sitting on the same benches, and seeing the same films at the local theater, she had a vertiginous sensation of breaking away, quite as if they were taking leave of one another before each setting sail on a mysterious expedition to different, unknown shores.
The feeling was as sad as any farewell, yet exciting at the same time.
That night, when she walked home, the air was soft, filled with the gentle movement of descending snow; apartment windows glowed through the snowfall in hazy patterns that seemed to form the letters of some heavenly alphabet, spelling out a word she could almost decipher. Wrapping the winter around her in the folds of her coat, she moved farther into the darkness; and as the air grew colder, she felt the year rushing along on its ice-bound, sparkling way toward its certain conclusion. She had always known that the tickets would go on sale during her shift—the line contracting in thrilled little spasms toward the kiosk, the seller beaming at her, a ticket stub in her naked, freezing hand. A cursory knock on the door, Mama, you won’t believe this, Mama, look! Thank you, my dear, you don’t know how happy you’ve made me. Her mother’s scent as they embrace—not the sour whiff of old age, but a faint flowery scent of the past century kept like a dried blossom between the pages of some much-treasured book. Then the next few days, spent in busy, glad preparation as she bustles about the kitchen during evenings that are suddenly brimming over with time that is hers, hers alone—and at last New Year’s Eve, the night of the concert, her mother returning just before midnight, looking younger by decades; and as the four of them raise their glasses in a toast, she thinks to herself, Yes, this year will be truly new, everything about it will be new, her family, her job, her life; and now, in her kitchen, with the clock striking twelve and champagne foaming over and everyone laughing, she can already feel her life deepening, can feel herself sailing off on the slow, tranquil journey of her future years—Sergei’s hand on the small of her back, the taste of a perfectly baked date tart on the lips she is kissing, the candles nodding in glowing unison, Sasha’s excited university stories, her mother thanking her again with shining eyes, It was wonderful, wonderful, my dear—and oh, turn it up, listen, they are playing the symphony on the radio right now, Sergei can hear it too—and the music, yes, the music, just like—here her thoughts stumbled a little—just like that melody from her childhood, the only melody she could ever hum.
When she unlocked the door, winter scampered inside the apartment like a frozen little creature at her heels. Divesting herself of her coat, she walked into the kitchen, and stopped short: Sergei and her mother were sitting at the table, their faces turned toward her as if in expectation. “Ah, there she is,” her mother said, smiling.
“Mama, is that a new dress?” she asked, startled—and in the next moment saw the large white box presiding over the table, and somehow missed her mother’s answer. Smiling also, Sergei reached over and lifted the box’s lid; and immediately the kitchen filled with the bittersweet smells of chocolate and cream. She stared at the pink rose in the middle of the cake, two or three petals squashed.
“No candles, sorry,” Sergei said. “And it’s too bad Sasha’s stuck in the line.”
“I too have something for you,” her mother said. “I’m afraid it’s not wrapped.”
Flushed, she accepted a small rectangular box from her mother’s hands. Something hard rolled inside it as she pushed it open. She grew still.