Free The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya Page B

this true? Maybe you’ve heard something yourself? Do you know anything about it?”
    She was the mother of a tenth-grader, but he couldn’t remember which one. Unsophisticated women often called him by the more common name Yurievich, rather than Yulievich, and this usually annoyed him. But now he was overcome with a strange feeling of humility, uncharacteristic of him.
    â€œNo, sweetheart, I haven’t heard anything like that. We’ll down a glass or two this evening for the repose of the soul and then get on with our lives. Why single out the Jews? They’re people just like us. Two bottles of vodka, please, a loaf of white bread, and half a loaf of dark. Oh, and two packages of dumplings.”
    He took his groceries, paid, and went out, leaving the women behind in a state of confusion: maybe it wasn’t the Jews after all, but someone else. It could have been anyone, they were surrounded by enemies. Everyone envies us, everyone is afraid of us. And their conversation shifted to another key, prouder and bolder.
    *   *   *
    Victor and his mother sat at the round table dotted with burn marks, a carafe between them. Ksenia Nikolayevna brought in the dumplings, overcooked as usual. She placed the pot on an iron trivet. Victor poured them each a glass. Suddenly, the doorbell rang in the hallway. Three rings—that meant they were calling on the Shengelis, not the neighbors.
    Victor went out to open the door and beheld a strange vision standing in the doorway. Wrapped up in a black lace shawl draped over a fur hat, wearing a man’s coat with a raccoon-fur collar reeking of mothballs and cats, odors harking back to a distant past, was Nino, his dead father’s cousin. She was an aquiline-nosed beauty, a singer, embroiderer, and nun manquée , who radiated warmth and laughter.
    â€œIs it really you?”
    The last time he had seen her was twenty years earlier. As a child he had stayed in her Tbilisi home, but an aura of doubt clung to this memory: Did that house really exist, or had he just dreamed it? But here she was, the same dear Nino, darling Niniko. She had hardly aged at all.
    â€œVika, my boy, you haven’t changed a bit! I’d have recognized you anywhere.”
    â€œMy goodness, Nino, how are you? How did you get here?”
    â€œWell, invite me in, don’t leave me standing here on the threshold!”
    They exchanged kisses, stroked each other’s hair, pushed away from each other to get a better look, and then kissed again.
    Ksenia Nikolayevna stood at the door to their room wondering indignantly—who could Vika be kissing out there? Good Lord, it’s Nino! The Georgian cousin, her dearly departed’s favorite! It was like she had just stepped out of the distant past. How is it possible? Come in! Sit down, sit down! But wash your hands first!
    â€œBy all means! Coming back from the graveyard, the first thing you do is wash your hands,” she said. Her Georgian accent was thicker than it had been before. Her voice was rich with celebratory laughter.
    She washed her hands, used the facilities, and washed them again. Ksenia Nikolayevna had already set the table for three. All their plates were old, chipped and cracked all over.
    Victor poured out the vodka.
    â€œFirst, let’s drink to our liberation! It’s like the forty years in the desert. He’s croaked, but we’ve survived!” she said, flouting the protocol at table that was strictly observed in Georgia. A woman—especially a guest—never spoke first!
    They drank. Nino broke off a small piece of a single dumpling with her fork, and popped it daintily into her slightly opened mouth. Victor recalled how she had taught him to eat, to drink, to sit down properly, and to greet people. He had clean forgotten all of it. Yet he still did everything just as she had instructed him to back then, without being aware of it.
    *   *   *
    â€œHow