Wake at 6 am, get up at 7 – there is work to be done. Toss off the white comforter, slip feet into your slippers. Pad down the short corridor, along the cold tile, open the door to the bathroom. Take a nice, hot piss. Cold-wash your bristled face, brush your teeth to the sound of the toilet’s draining. Stare at the blank expression of the face in front of you, try to see what she sees in you; give up. Spit out the white stuff, rinse out your dirty potty mouth. Hork a loogy into the washbasin, watch it whirl down and in. Go back to your bedroom, hand over yawning mouth, pull on that dusty black shirt of yours, the one with the white paint and caulking spatters. The pants – grab the starch-stiff khaki-coloured ones and conform them to your long grasshopper legs. Slip on your jean jacket; pat the pockets for the cigarette carton. To the kitchen – ho! Flick the switch on the archaic white kettle. Unstick the fridge door, bend over almost double to peek in. Extract a hunk of red-crusted cheese, several slices of gray rye bread, a can of Pepsi. Wrap these delicacies in a rustling plastic bag, tie it up in a knot.

Shake out instant coffee crumbs into a mug, shake out some sugar, ignore the light brown rings along the bottom of the cup’s innards. Realize that the kettle is empty, flick on the stupid switch again. Rush back to your room at the sound of your cell phone’s raving. Say, “Privet, Mitrofanovich.” Hello. Listen. Nod, although he can’t see you. Respond. End the call. Go back into the kitchen, slipping the dense metal contraption into a breast pocket. Pour the hot water, stir, consume. Sighing sharply – you don’t sigh very often -, bag and keys in hand, get your ass into the van. With a pencil, trace some streets in the map-book.

Drive forever, getting not a little annoyed at the songs that keep repeating on the radio. Smoke a cigarette. Arrive. Open the van’s trunk/hatch, pull out the toolbox and toolbelt. Greet your boss and coworker. Focus. Work. Pound the soles of your feet running up and down the ladder, up and down staircases. Bake your neck and arms to crispy on the roof. Pull and grapple the sheet metal into place. Cut a red line on your forearm, by accident. Don’t notice. Push, pull, cut, sweat, step back and consider, shout an answer to someone at the other end. Pull and rest the ladder on your shoulder, walk and carry it like the kill. Rest it against another wall. Escalate yourself back up. Labour, toil, remember the price Adam had to pay for insight. Carry on his legacy; carry on. Recall, for less than a nanosecond, your life before you got involved, before you came to know her and she came to know you. Eye the thick glass bottle at your boss’s lips. See him eyeing you. Try to make the muscle on your jaw stop spasming. Forget it in the rumination of your lunch, in the tossing back of a shot. No time now. Back onto the black scales of the roof, back to the inferno in the sky. You’re a man. Muschina. You have work; Work. You Work. You Do. You Shape. If you ever feel, if emotion ever spills in, let it distill. Connect it to your arm like an intravenous drip. Suck up each drop and let it be an extra bit of hit behind the nail, another push with your foot against a metal rung.

There was that time at
the beginning of July – prime biking season – that I finally thought to pull
out my old, red, chunk-wheeled beauty from the back shed, only to find its
chain completely rusted over. I happened
to voice my disappointment in passing to Mitya, while I hunted unsuccessfully
for machine oil. The sun was edging
towards the horizon, but it was still quite light out.

“You’re better off buying
a new chain,” he told me, but not ten minutes later he was outside near the
edge of the back lawn, the bicycle supine in front of him, wheels up in the air
like helpless limbs. In Mitya’s hands
was the chain. I sat opposite him, the
bike between us. I remember getting a
glimpse of his health card once. In the tiny thumbnail photo, he looked like a pasty,
utterly ordinary Russian. But by the
middle of the summer – his first in Canada – he had acquired a deep tan,
and it was obvious to me that he was only a stone’s throw from the
sublime. I didn’t show my admiration at
first. So I sat on the grass and watched
his hands, caked with dark red mud and slippery vegetable oil, and his arms,
bulging Popeye-like out of his T-shirt sleeves, as he loosened the stiff joints
of the bike’s chain. His face, showing
the wear of years and concentration, looked even darker because the sun was
shooting fire just behind him. His fingers of thick flesh met the round-eyed links
of the chain, forced them into rotation.
The slow, difficult work went on quietly.

“Aren’t you bored?” He grunted.

“No,” I replied, “not at
all.” A squeak escaped from between the
links in his fingers. “That looks hard.”

“It isn’t really,” he
said.

More interesting than the
result – a functioning bicycle – was the miracle of bare-handed man, physically
unimpressive save for those carpenter’s arms and that long spine, turning
unyielding metal into pliable cord. He carefully looped the chain back around
the bike’s gears after giving it a thorough wavelike role, link by link, to
satisfy himself that no one part was stuck.
The chain had shiny rust on it, but not in the spaces that
mattered. It was oily and glistened in
the sun, but I beamed brightest at Mitya, my rescuer of aging steeds, my groom
of metal horses.

“Well,” he said when he
had finished, “try it out.”

Sitting up on the firm black
saddle, I rolled down the sloping grass, and gently pumped the pedals.

“It works!” I exclaimed in mirthful surprise as I braked
and hopped off. I turned and wheeled
back, and stopped facing Mitya. There
was an awkward pause where I fumbled for words, gestures, the right action in
response to this selfless act, in response to his greasy, scarlet palms, and to
the drops of sweat that rolled down his neck.
I flashed my brightest, warmest smile, looked straight into his hazel
eyes, and said, “Thank you!” I could have kissed him from sheer happiness.

He smiled back and said,
“It’s nothing.”

Turning away, I pushed my
bike out through the wooden gate, calling out, “Bye!” back over my
shoulder. In seconds I was borne away on
eagles’ wing at Mach 1 – at least, that’s what it seemed like to me. But something, something was pulling me back.
I braked suddenly and jumped off the bike. I pushed out the kickstand with my foot, but
in my haste I didn’t kick it out all the way.
The bike staggered and fell, but I was almost
through the gate by then and didn’t turn back to right it. Mitya’s black T-shirt, a rust-spotted towel,
a pack of cigarettes all mixed and blurred as I rushed towards him. His eyes widened and his torso braced for the
impact as I twisted my arms around him.

I mumbled, “Thank
you very much…” into his chest in response to his gasped “Goodness…”

I tried to be
careful about it, and he held his hands a bit away from my back, but somehow a
spot of rust got onto my tank top, and it never washed out completely. The sun behind him was setting. It looked juicy and bright red. When I pulled away, I saw that I had crushed
his pack of cigarettes.

“Oh… I’m so
sorry…” I murmured, staring at it.

“Don’t worry
about it,” he said, pulling out a slightly bent cigarette and putting it
between his lips. “It’ll still work.”

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Madeline Street, a crumbling asphalt road, was quiet at every hour. The road was lined on both sides by detached houses of brick, brown and worn, each staring dolefully past its neighbour opposite. Our former home on this street had a space below ground sectioned off into three bedrooms, a corridor, and a small kitchen. We let the rooms and watched the money come in. My father worked at an insurance company, and the combined incomes bought the house next door. We moved again, by a space of about fifteen feet. Soon enough, my father would lose his job. My parents did the logical thing and split up our former home with locks on doors that once held plain doorknobs, and doors where before there were no doors. New life appeared in these rooms in the form of grungy but earnest bachelors, who either worked or received government assistance.

My mother humoured them all. She was more than a landlady – she was maid, mother, and peer to them. We could see her, when we came home late from school, bringing out bags of trash from our home-house and our tenants-house. Then she came back in to wash her hands, heat up our dinner, and sit to talk with us as we ate. After polishing off the meal, my brother and I dropped the dishes by the sink and ambled in the direction of the television. Our mother washed the dishes in silence. She threw out a “hello” and “there’s meat and potatoes in the fridge” over her shoulder to our late-arriving father. Then she put on her coat and headed for the house next door. When I had my fill of TV and homework, I sauntered out into the back lawn to let the night air pick the sting out of my eyes. The back lawns of our two houses were divided by a low wire fence, obscured by tall brush and all sorts of weeds and flowers. There was a young maple, too, which hid a crude, U-shaped indentation in the fence. When I gripped either side of the U – careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges – and lifted one leg over, then the other – again, careful not to trip – I found myself on the other side. Crouching through the bushes and hidden in the shadow of the maple, I passed unnoticed and watched my mother as she talked with the tenants. Our tenants-house had a wooden deck built in the back. On it stood three or four plastic chairs, in a rough circle, and on them were my subjects. The harsh outdoor light set the figures ablaze, while the smoke from their cigarettes enveloped the scene in a thin, ethereal veil. I saw my mother smiling – something she didn’t do often at home – as she smoked and listened to the broken English of our tenants. I could only see parts of her: a wave of mousy-brown hair, a jean-clad leg, the flaming end of a cigarette, from between the vertical wooden planks on the deck. She burst out laughing at some mumbled joke, and I felt a vibration in my heart strings, a warm, inexplicable pain. I watched until she got up from her chair and stepped down the deck and around to the driveway. That was my cue to return home and pretend I’d been watching TV the whole time.

Winter came, with bitter-cold gusts of wind and icy blizzards. My father lost his job at the insurance company, but we did not starve because we had that other business. One day, another fight erupted. I was watching TV with my brother; about a quarter of my attention fixed on the audible drama in the kitchen.

“Why don’t you get a job already?” my mother snapped.

“I’m working on it, I’m looking – don’t you realize how difficult it is?” my father said in a low voice saturated with the bitterness of poison.

“Oh! You’re having difficulties? Why don’t you cook while I find tenants for the empty rooms?”

My father’s features hardened. His mouth set like a tense wire and his bulging eyes focused with nervous, furious force on her calm green ones.

“Speaking of the tenants,” he spat out, “just why the hell do you spend so much time with them? Why don’t they clean up after themselves, instead of making you do it?”

My mother started, but quickly regained her composure.

“You think it’s easy to get them to keep the house clean? Why don’t you try dealing with them? Why don’t you get the stove fixed, and clean up their messes? While they keep us from dying of starvation, while they’re bringing in money, I think we can sacrifice a little!”

There was yelling. There were loud, passionate cries, the stamping of feet, the appeals to justice and reason. These came mostly from my father. Finally, body and soul drained of logic and rage, my father usually stomped off into his little bureau and lock the door with a decisive click.

This time, however, there was a clang of dishware against sink and the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps toward us. My father went past his bureau and into the living room, then sat on the other end of the couch and stared at the TV with us. My brother and I did not condescend to glance at him. We knew he was wrong. Our survival depended on mom’s work. But we all three sat silently and watched the flickering screen. After some time my mother entered also and cast a long gaze at us – son, daughter, and husband slumped like old pillows while a thin light sifted in from outside.

“Papa,” she said evenly, “won’t you please at least shovel the snow?”

Our father remained silent. She thought he was ignoring her so she opened her mouth to repeat herself, but at last he said, “No,” and, “why don’t you get one of your tenants to do it?”

I tore my gaze away from the television set and looked at her. Her lip trembled.

“Simeon,” she addressed my brother, “would you… Please?”

My brother tossed his head debonairly and groaned, “Nooo…” without looking away from the screen. My mother sighed. She turned to go back into the kitchen, but I stood up and said, “I’ll do it!”

I sneered at my male companions – they didn’t notice – and leapt outside in boots and coat. I fetched the snow shovel from the shed and set to work on the driveway. The snow was up to my shins. My back and arms ached with each over-zealous bending motion, but the snow was powder-light. Still – I paused to breathe out white puffs of cloud. Still, there was a lot of it. I looked up. More started falling, slowly, catching on the tips of my lashes, on the edge of the gleaming shovel. More work. Manna from heaven. And nobody but my own hands to help me. I continued ploughing. I noticed a pair of black boots in the snow, stopped shovelling, and looked up at my mother. We stood, green eyes reflecting each other like ice, red cheeks burning under white snow. My heart melted.

“Let me do it,” she said softly and reached for the handle. I pulled it away, saying, “I know you’re tired, mum, I can do it,” and resumed shovelling. She looked at me for a long, silent moment. Then she turned and left. In a minute she came back with another shovel, one meant for the digging up of earth. She worked on exposing another section of driveway. We toiled in silence, only the scrape-scrape of shovel against asphalt audible in the membranous air. It was late evening when we finished. My mother came over to hug me from behind. My body, once rigid with cold, softened under her embrace, and I looked up at an indigo sky empty of stars, at a shard of moon. A distant scraping sound distracted me and I saw, on the driveway of the house opposite, two men shovelling snow. Somewhere, at least, men did men’s work.

Inside a mini-mansion of a house, the noontime sun reflected off a honey-hued floor and the lemon-coloured walls of a foyer. The staircase that wound up to the second floor broke off and had its continuation in a smaller, semi-circling set of stairs going below the earth. Rada flew downstairs to the basement. There, daylight illumined the cold white tiles and walls, giving them a blue gleam. She walked through the corridor and found the place deserted – each of the three rooms was closed, and they yielded no sounds of movement or speech. She entered the dining area. It was empty, save for a dinner table, a chair, and a couch. The refrigerator hummed indifferently. There was the door that leads directly outside – just as Rada fixed her gaze on it, it swung open. The most handsome tenant that had ever rented a room from her parents, all six feet and two inches of him, stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“Mitya!” she cried, and ran to embrace him. He said, “Bozhe…” Goodness… and let himself be hugged.

“Mitya, I want to invite you to a date.”

The man looked at Rada with a puzzled expression. “Svedanie?” he teased her, “with whom?”

“With me, of course,” Rada giggled. “There’s this movie out, I thought you might like it.”

He said nothing, so she continued: “It’s this action-thriller-type-thing, I know you like those kinds of movies, and the best part: it’s got Russians as main characters! Imagine that! You never see movies like that now.”

“Ladno,” he said slowly, “I guess we can go.”

“When?”

“Sunday, I suppose, when I don’t have work.”

She stood and looked at him, just looked. He blinked and looked back strangely.

“Chto tokoye?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, “I just love to look at you…” She wanted him to take her right there, but that was not possible. She looked away. “I have to go do my homework,” she said at last. He gave her a peck on the cheek and said, “On your way, then; paka” and she turned and went back upstairs.

She took him at his word. In her mind, his vague agreement translated into a solid promise. It was Sunday now, and her parents would be leaving the house soon, so Rada was sure she and Mitya would go see the movie. She heard her parents make loud shuffling and showering sounds up on the second floor and thought quickly. She only wanted to confirm it with him, and then wait until he was ready and not tired and they could go-go-go. Rada flew downstairs again.

She stood looking up at him expectantly. They were just outside his bedroom, silence all around.

He said he was tired but still he drew her gently to his bed. She locked the door behind them, certain that her parents’ preparations to visit with Marina Stepanovna would keep them occupied, and not cause any attempt to intrude on the couple’s amour. They’d done this before; they were familiar with the unique algorithm from first contact to ensuring seclusion to locking the door to keeping a thin antenna out for suspicious noises. The couple felt a buoyant confidence, like true professionals in the art of clandestine fornication. That must have been their mistake. They were at each other, quite lost in each other, so enraptured that they could not hear footsteps coming down the staircase into the basement and down the corridor towards his bedroom. They did become aware, however, of keys flimsily rattling in the doorknob’s keyhole. White fear washed over the couple as two points of awareness fixed on the gold-coloured doorknob. Mitya leapt up and bore upon the door, not allowing it to open, pinching tightly the tiny locking mechanism. Rada shrunk towards the pillow, hiding in the corner made by his messy dresser and the icy white wall.

Mitya gave her a look and made a barely noticeable jerking motion with his head. That was enough to animate her and pull her with irresistible force to his other side. She stood next to the hinges of the door, spine tingling with cold and flesh trembling with fear, barely registering how he kicked her slippers and underwear under his bed. He lunged to the side for her jeans – the doorknob kept shaking ominously, he pushed back at it – and held them out to her.

Numbly, Rada pulled at and slithered into them. She was barely conscious of having put them on, nor of how they hid her white legs and the crimson shame between them. Her belly, her breasts, her blushing cheeks were bare and cooling fast in the cold, dank air, and under the chill sweat of the dread gripping her. Despite her jeans, she felt exposed in all her pallor. Beneath her lowered lids, her eyes turned misty-dim. In the darkness of her collapsed senses, she could already feel the piercing gazes of her family members, circling around her erect nipples, probing into that small crease from which unadulterated guilt and desire emanated.

Rada was momentarily blinded, but her eyesight came rushing back once Mitya let the white door swing slowly in and hide her behind it. Stuck in place, she looked blankly at the white wood of the door, so close to her face. She resumed her terrified quaking, and pressed her palms tight against her open mouth, lest any sound should break out. She prayed – cowardly atheist – for the intruder, which turned out to be her mother, not to enter too far into the room. With a startled cringe she jumped back against the wall, away from the thin, vertical crack between door and doorpost that could have betrayed her presence to a keen observer.

She heard her mother say to Mitya that she was sorry for bothering him, that she was about to leave for Marina’s.

“Have you seen Rada?” her mother asked.

Rada couldn’t focus on their conversation – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste all converged into a single, fine point. Hide was all she knew. Disappear.

She bit her lip in surprise as Mitya strode back into the room to retrieve his pants. It was then that Rada realized that he wearing only his black t-shirt. The physical source of their crime, their mutual desire – now back to its original size – was exposed.

Brilliant! She thought. The man is a genius! She could not have hoped for a better distraction. He strode back out, pants in hand, and shared an embarrassed laugh with her mother.

“Sorry I caught you like… This…” Rada’s mother said, and Rada imagined how she averted her gaze, and how she felt the flush of discomfiture, as Mitya put his pants on in front of her.

“I was sleeping, like always,” he chuckled. “No big deal.”

He had closed the door quietly behind him, not quite shutting it. Maybe mom will think it suspicious that he closed it. But Rada couldn’t consider that thought for long, because her gaze fell suddenly on her cell phone, which was on top of his dresser. Her mother might have seen it! And what if it had rang! But she hadn’t noticed it; of course not. Rada snatched it and turned it off, then set it behind her, on the floor. She remained in her corner for some minutes, bewildered, wondering if she should fetch the rest of her clothes and cover herself. She changed her mind and stuck the cell phone into her jean pocket. The whiteness of the room was overwhelming. Gleaming white tile, sterile white walls, and against it all the slender frame of Rada, red-haired, pale, and half-naked.

The door opened – Rada’s heart beat harder but she knew it could only be him.

Mitya came in and smiled at her.

“She’s gone,” he said. “And she had no idea. Thanks to me. It’s all thanks to me.” He embraced her and kissed her cheek. “I had to stand there like a dummy and hide that gap.” He pantomimed trying to conceal something with his back, straightening up his spine, moving almost imperceptibly with the sideways gaze of his inquisitor. Then he embraced her and lifted her up two inches off the floor, then set her down again.

“W-w-way, t-t-to, g-go,” Rada stuttered.

He pulled back a little and noted her nervous shaking.

“What’s this? Calm yourself.”

She took a few deep breaths, and spat out, “That bitch! How dare she try and open your door! I’ll get her keys and remove yours so she can’t do it again!”

Mitya didn’t reply to this abusive language, except that he pointed to his chain of keys hanging by one key on the other side of the door. True, Rada had locked it, but the keys remained where they were. Mitya had not pulled them out, but left them there, because, in hanging from the doorknob, the keys could not get lost under his dresser. Her mother had only proceeded logically in twisting the key in the keyhole. Rada swiftly realized their mutual imprudence.

“Holy crap!” She laughed, clutching her sides. He kissed her, and she smiled. “Hero. You’re a hero.” She looked at him semi-seriously now.

“No,” he chuckled.

“Yes, you are. Or, maybe, anti-hero.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he kissed her nose, “I’m an anti-hero.”

They both laughed in exalted relief. She picked up her clothes and dressed in silence. He went out into the kitchen and offered her some beef jerky as she came out of his room. She took it gratefully and bit in. Her knees still shook. “I need to sit down,” she said and plopped down on the gray couch. He remained standing. One hand was on his hip, the other held a Pepsi can from which he drank. Rada chewed thoughtfully.

What a mood killer, she ruminated, thinking of her mother.

She looked up at him and caught his eye. She gave a curt nod-nod of acknowledgement. He nodded back, still drinking. She smiled, glad to rid herself of her nervousness. She nodded conspiratorially again, and so did he. They nodded, as only sage Russians do, nu i nu, well well…

In those knowing nods were encapsulated all their past trysts, all her wee morning visits, the first kiss, the first lovemaking near the basement tile. There, in the quick toss of the head, was congratulation for another close call, another brush with destiny, successfully evaded. We survived, was the telepathic message. We did it.

Mitya stepped into his bedroom for a cigarette and went up the stairs and through the side exit. Rada remained seated on the couch, still chewing. Then she jumped up and followed him out. He sat on the step of the second side door, smoking his cigarette and drinking his Pepsi. Rada walked along the side of the house toward the driveway in front. On the curb-side ahead was Mitya’s red Dodge minivan. She peeked carefully around the corner and saw that the driveway was empty. Her parents’ Chevrolet was gone. She turned back and sat down next to Mitya. Her legs still quivered.

“Relax,” he said, stroking one of them gently.

“I think they’ve left,” she said. “I’m not sure, though; the car might still be in the garage.”

He smoked silently. She was quiet for some moments as well, not touching him, only taking nips at her jerky.

“I told you before: don’t fall in love,” he said to her, not unkindly.

“It’s not like I can control it,” she said and looked away, feeling the weight of that old, gentle nagging. “It’s only you I love. I can’t fall in love with any of those other boys; just you.”

Mitya made no reply, but continued inhaling and exhaling smoke.

Rada turned on her cell phone and noted she didn’t have any missed calls.

“Well, I’m leaving you,” she said drily. “I have to call my friend, but I think I’ll go upstairs first.”

“Why? You said she would call you. Let her call.”

Rada looked at Mitya. “Alright.”

He finished smoking and stood up. They walked downstairs into the blissfully-empty basement. Rada went into the washroom to put her hair in order, saying, “Bah, I’ll have to check if they’ve gone.” But Mitya reached the foot of the staircase to the first floor before she did. He said, walking back to meet her, “Nope, they’re still there; better for you to stay for now.”

“Are you sure?” She asked. “Why don’t I check?”

“There’s no need. Trust me, they’re still home.”

The sly devil, she thought. There was no sound of footsteps above them. The house was clearly empty.

She did not have a chance to finish chewing her second-last mouthful of jerky, and there was that nub left, but Mitya had kissed her deeply again and was leading her back into his bedroom. She swallowed her mouthful mid-kiss and dropped the small chunk on the counter near his door, stepping backwards, Mitya pushing her with the force of his jaws. They went inside, and Rada deftly, wisely pulled out the keys and deposited the jingling mass on his dresser. Mitya locked the door, but Rada noticed that he hadn’t shut it completely. Though the lock was fixed tight, an easy pull on the stiff doorknob rendered the door open. She gave it a strong push and twisted the doorknob from side to side, and pulled and pushed at the door with all her strength. She turned around to face him.

“Mitya!”

With that one word she scolded him for his carelessness.

“It’s a test,” he put his hands under her shirt, “only a test,” and kissed her deeply.

They resumed their lovemaking again, flinging their clothes off and falling into bed with purest abandon.

“We did it,” Mitya said, as Rada bent over him and gave his forehead a kiss, “we fooled everybody.”

“Aren’t we clever,” she answered and, struck by how unusual it was for him to express any kind of pride in himself, squeezed her thighs tighter around him.

Nobody bothered them, not even in those dewy moments when they lay unmoving together. The walls and furniture slowly came back into focus, as reality replaces a dream. And yet they lingered in that midway line between reverie and reality for a bit longer. Mitya lay on his back, one arm bent under his head, the other around Rada. Her head was in the crook between his neck and shoulder, and her body was turned to his, against his, under the blanket. She nuzzled his neck and held his cheek in her hand. There was nowhere else she would rather be. She wished they could stay as they were until evening came. He kissed her cheek. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. He must have sensed it, because he sighed and said, “Rada, if you don’t want to get hurt, don’t fall in love. You have to look at relationships with clear eyes, and choose someone who can give you his own time. Don’t just look at people’s physical appearance – but you’ll do that anyway. Pay attention to what they say. It’s intelligence that counts; it’s the pleasure you get from being and talking with them. Use your head, not your heart.” Rada clenched her teeth in spite of herself. She had heard lecturing of this type from him before. Why couldn’t he just tell her he couldn’t go watch a movie with her, after all? Why all this philosophizing?

“If I were ten years younger,” Mitya said, “things would have been different.”

“Oh, but our relationship would have been something else entirely!” Rada exclaimed. No more stealth, no more secrets, no more risks of discovery, she thought. Boring!

“Daah…” Yes, he said. “I was very talkative when I was younger. Not like now, where I don’t say a word if something irritates me. Back then, if something was off, everyone would hear about it from me.”

Rada wondered, briefly, if she was a cause of irritation to Mitya. She imagined Mitya as paler, younger – with glowing skin and proud, energetic movements when he walked. She compared this vision with the burnt-umber god beside her, with his monolithic imperturbability and quiet, soothing touch. She could not have loved that younger man and he, likely, would hardly have taken notice of her anyway.

“Right,” she said at last. “But I like you the way you are, even if you never take me out.”

He laughed his raspy smoker’s laugh and turned to slide his arm from under his head to around her waist.

“Small, ickle thing,“ he said in mock baby-tones and kissed along her jaw. “Masinkaya, masinkaya; sladkaya, sladkaya.” Tiny, tiny; sweet, sweet.

When it was time for Rada to leave, he let her go with a hug and a kiss – she gave him a jab in the ribs for finishing off her jerky when she wasn’t looking. He could go back to bed for a well-earned slumber. She, however, could only make her way upstairs thinking, That settles that. No movie for me.