Present Imperfect by Ayesha Kagal Natasha Perova

Author:Ayesha Kagal, Natasha Perova [Ayesha Kagal, Natasha Perova]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000308020
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

The Game

IRINA POLYANSKAYA

I SAW THE GIRL for the first time near the Pushkin monument. It was the beginning of October and the city was immersed in a thick, gray fog, broken only by intermittent drizzle. Trees with yellow leaves shone weakly. A group of schoolchildren, restless and bored, surrounded their teacher or tour guide, who was pointing toward the monument, but the children were ignoring her lecture and having more fun studying the pigeon perched on the bronze curls of the figure on the pedestal. I was waiting for someone and all my thoughts were focused on him. Only my eyes, alert and perceptive in those moments of bitter indecision and fog, were taking in the people around me. I was glancing at the identical faces of the children, wanting to single out at least one to interrupt my train of thought, when I saw her. Fate presented me with her face. A girl came up to the monument. She was in her teens, I think, and everyone who saw her that day must have remembered her and told their people at home, "We saw a crazy girl walking around town today."

Despite the cold weather she wore a short pleated skirt, a T-shirt, nylons and high-heeled patent leather shoes. She was holding herself upright, as if her back, spine, and entire soul were withstanding a colossal trial that could crush anyone but her. Looking at her I recalled a motto from our youth: "The important thing in life is to hold your head high." Such a stupid motto for stupid girls like us. The most important things were not what we thought they were. Life, with the tenderness and insistence of a mother bathing her child, taught me differently. You could read the girl's face. "I am not aware of anyone around, I came here only to see YOU." This was addressed to Pushkin. The solitary flower she held in her hand was for HIM. A rose, giving off a radiance that his glum face was lacking. There was animation among the schoolchildren who noticed her and began nudging each other.

The teacher stopped her well-memorized recitation momentarily. The people sitting on the benches and the passers-by registered her presence but were better mannered than the students. I felt I knew everything the girl was going to do, as if she was acting on my orders and with my blessings. I felt as though we were there together. I was the only one who could understand her, and so precisely that it was impossible to smile or be surprised or even look at her. We were rehearsing a scene.

She stood there for a while, just looking up at HIM (the capitals are hers, not mine). She then bent her rigid back to place the rose at the foot of the monument and stepped back a pace. Again she stood there motionless, trying, as it were, to come to an agreement with the skies above HIM.

I already knew what she was going to do next.

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