A Russian Sister by Caroline Adderson

Author:Caroline Adderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2020-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

A WINTER TRAIN JOURNEY TO UKRAINE WAS LESS PICTURESQUE than a summer one, the countryside doubly lost under snow and behind a rimed window. She placed the flat of her palm against the frost and melted it with her angry heat. A peephole to look out. Snow was the hardest thing to paint.

She dreaded most seeing Georgi, who had been away during Masha’s brief visit to Luka in the summer. But he was there now and would be shooting her pitying looks, lugubriously accompanied, until her rescuer showed up. The buffoonish King of Persia. Antosha knew that Smagin was interested in her. Why had he put her in this awkward position? Did he want Smagin to propose? Why? So he could say no again?

Natalia was waiting on the platform, waving her arm. At first Masha failed to recognize Georgi standing beside her, staring off at nothing. Despite his furs and Cossack hat, he seemed slighter, hands in his pockets instead of playing the air.

“You’re growing your beard again,” Masha said.

Georgi touched his face, still not meeting her eye. “I forgot to shave.” Then he went ahead to tell the driver to unbutton the sledge cover.

If Masha had been worried that her feelings for Georgi would inconveniently reignite, she needn’t have. He clearly despised her. Her impulse was to return the sentiment.

The Ukrainian cold lashed out as she and Natalia left the station. Frost sugared the horses’ muzzles and clung to their tails. Natalia tucked the furs around them. Masha was in the middle, trying to put a space between her and Georgi. They’d given her the warmest place, yet already her eyelashes were freezing together.

Finally Natalia stopped fussing. “I have to warn you, Masha. We’re living strangely these days.”

Zinaida had died more than three months ago, in October. Their mother still couldn’t be comforted, Natalia said, not even by Schopenhauer. Elena seemed to be trying to join her sister by working herself to death.

“At night she wanders about muttering. At first I thought she was reciting a poem. But when I asked, she said it was the names of all the patients she’s lost. She’s kept a list, and Zinaida’s on it now. And Georgi? Tell her what you’ve gone and done.”

“I cancelled my concerts.”

“He practised so hard!”

How stupid Masha felt then. Georgi’s behaviour had nothing to do with her. Couldn’t she distinguish grief from animosity? For the rest of the ride, she shivered with cold and inward blame.

When the sledge drove up to Luka, evidence of the promised strangeness came into view. The fir branches that signified their bereavement still hung above the door. They should have been burned ages ago.

Entering the house, they tracked the desiccated needles inside with them. Elena and Mrs. Lintvariova came to greet Masha. Behind them stood the Borzois, their lovely heads hanging, as though they too were heartbroken. Georgi disappeared.

Elena asked Masha to thank Antosha for the obituary. “‘In her presence everyone was reminded not of her approaching death, but of our foolish unawareness of our own.

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