The Russian Word for Snow by Janis Cooke Newman

Author:Janis Cooke Newman [Newman, Janis Cooke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adoption, Personal Memoirs, Family & Relationships / Adoption, Family & Relationships, Biography / Autobiography, Adoptive parents, Biography, Case studies, Intercountry adoption, Russia, United States, Family/Marriage, Newman, Janis Cooke
Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press
Published: 2001-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

knife before Alex would turn his head just enough to watch the butterfly opening and closing its wings. The entire song played through twice before he would sit up.

When the music wound down, stopping in the middle of a phrase, Ken rewound the ball, and put it in Alex's lap. For almost an hour, until Yuri came to tell us it was time to go, we watched Alex make little grabbing motions over the clear plastic, as though trying to release the butterfly caught inside.

After the orphanage, we drove in Volodya's shiny car to a restaurant near Red Square to have lunch.

It was freezing inside the restaurant, the air conditioning a hard wall after the warm mugginess outside. Disco music with Russian words blared from speakers screwed into the ceiling.

"Paht!" Yuri shouted at the maitre d'. He held up five fingers.

The maitre d' studied a reservation book, and then surveyed the empty dining room. He turned his body all in one piece, his shoulders and torso and legs seeming incapable of independent movement. When he revolved back to us, he was shaking his head, and I thought we would have to leave. Then he picked up a stack of menus and led us to a table in the center of the room.

Ken and I ordered vodka and caviar with blinis. Volodya waited until Yuri had ordered, and then asked for the same thing: a rare steak and a beer. Anna said, "A small salad, please," and pressed her lips and the edges of her menu together.

The five of us sat in the cold dining room surrounded by music intended for dancing. Ken stared off into the middle distance, and didn't notice when I touched his leg under the table. Anna folded her hands so they made a neat ball on the cloth. Volodya gave me a smile that made me think of a crocodile.

"How do people feel about the election?" I shouted across the table. "Do they think Yeltsin will win?"

"I think so, yes." Yuri said.

Volodya nodded his head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.