Ice Road by Gillian Slovo

Author:Gillian Slovo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2009-12-02T23:00:00+00:00

The Queue (1)

The wooden shutter clatters up.

‘Name?’

This is the fourth day she’s been asked this self-same question. The right day. It has to be. She cannot be turned away again. This must be the day for the Ks.

‘Kozlov,’ she says.

And yes, finally, it is the right day, for instead of slamming down the window the clerk says:

‘First name, no short forms, patronymic, surname?’

‘Nikolai Vladimirovich Kozlov.’

The clerk looks down at a list. Says without looking up: ‘Who are you? Sister? Wife?’

‘I’m his wife.’

‘Papers?’

She pushes her permit forward and then is forced to jump back as he grabs it and, almost in the same movement, slams the shutter down so fast it nearly catches her hand.

Conscious of the line of women behind her, she stands. Standing and waiting, at first in patience and then less patiently, but it doesn’t matter how she feels, for she has no power over him, no power over anybody any more, and he still does not return. So standing, she thinks this must be another trick, like yesterday’s when she was told she’d come at the wrong point in the alphabet; or the day before when they insisted they’d not heard of Kolya; or the day before that when they were inexplicably closed. Now she thinks she hasn’t got much time. If she doesn’t go back to work, she’ll be in trouble. She can’t afford to stand here any more, she must leave and try another avenue and she turns and hears a voice:

‘Stay where you are. He’ll be back.’

She looks back down the line of women but can only see lips shut tight, unfriendly features, grey faces set in disappointment and in pain; snivelling children, whining babies. So many of them. So very tired. She wonders whether that’s the way she looks as well and wonders also how long they’ve been queueing here.

‘Your papers.’

The clerk is back, the shutter up. He shoves her permit across the divide.

She says: ‘Ko—’

‘The case of your husband, Kozlov, Nikolai Vladimirovich, is being looked into,’ and the shutter goes down again.

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