Free Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia Page B

filled to bursting, and I thought it would be best to not further contemplate these things for a while, not if I hoped to avoid crying in a public place.
    “He seems nice,” Olga said. “He does follow you all the time — I think he fancies you. Dasha and Larisa, they both were saying there are a lot of Englishmen in St. Petersburg this year.”
    “Indeed,” I whispered. My thoughts tumbled, directionless, unable to reconcile the contradictory elements. The British had just made truce with the Chinese, and the emperor thought the Chinese were spies. And His Imperial Highness was greatly infatuated with all things British, and Jack was greatly infatuated…
    “Sasha!” Olga gave me a troubled look. “Are you all right, Sasha? You are… drifting. Are you all right?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not exactly all right. I just feel there is something happening all around us, as if there are heavy stones waiting for us… imagine what a grain of wheat feels like — it sits there, listens to some distant rumbling, and before it knows it, it is ground into flour by some millstones it never knew existed.”
    Olga’s eyes had grown as large as those on Byzantine icons. “Such strange things you say,” she whispered, clearly concerned.
    I managed a smile and got to my feet. “I’m not trying to frighten you, Olga. I’m warning you — to not be ground up.”
    The sky above us changed color — from cornflower blue, it silvered like the side of a fish, and slowly darkened into leaden. We hurried toward the university buildings, looking apprehensively at the sky swelling with imminent rain. “Nothing will be well again,” I whispered to myself; I wasn’t sure if Olga heard.
     

Chapter 5
     
    The rest of the exam week was uneventful. All the girls, undoubtedly spurred by the same sense of necessity as myself, passed. I did better than I expected but not as well as Eugenia would’ve liked — human biology was the only class in which I rated “excellent”; most of the rest were “good,” with “satisfactory” in philosophy. Jack Bartram teased me about it, but gently.
    I decided not to go home for the break. It was only a week long, and my fervor to see my aunt and mother had abated due to a part of me — a brand new part that had not existed until recently — that felt the time would be best spent getting to know Jack Bartram and figuring out exactly what his position was, as well as why the British crown was interested in Chinese students in St. Petersburg. Luckily, Jack, deprived of our daily walks from the university to the dormitory, showed keen interest in standing outside my domicile in plain view from my windows. On the first day of break, I slept late, greatly aided by an interminable drizzle. When I eventually looked out the window, I saw all of Vasilyevsky Island was weeping — the buildings and the trees dripped water the same ashen color as the sky. There was a man standing outside, and even though his collar was raised, I recognized Jack Bartram by his gaunt physique and soft-brimmed hat. He huddled under his black umbrella and smoked a long thin cigar, thick clouds of smoke drifting and twining with the fog.
    “Your suitor’s here, miss,” Anastasia informed me helpfully as she peered over my shoulder.
    “He’s not my suitor,” I said. “At least I don’t think he is… ”
    “He sure ain’t here to enjoy the weather,” Anastasia pointed out. “Maybe you should invite him in then — he seems to get wetter and sadder by the minute.”
    Natalia Sergeevna was in a kind mood that morning, and allowed a visitor, so Anastasia ran outside to extend the invitation while I put the kettle on. When Anastasia returned, she was disappointingly alone.
    “He’s too shy,” she explained. “He just asked me to give you this.”
    I unfolded the piece of paper Anastasia handed me. It was an invitation to a concert of chamber music to be held in a club called Northern Star. I could not help but