Salt the Snow by Carrie Callaghan

Author:Carrie Callaghan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2020-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

PRESS INTERNEWS BERLIN VIA NORTHERN TELEGRAPH, JULY 28, 1936:

young wouldbe girl parachutist

vladivostok

caused crash

plane

her own death and death of two others in it stop

outstepping on wing

preparatory jump

girl lost courage

her hesitancy while on wing

she caused plane

lose balance

entering corkscrew

it crashed.

bennett.

19

JULY 1934

IN THE BROAD square, thousands of young men and women danced and paraded past. A man in the viewing stand jostled Milly, and she nudged him back with her elbow. Her hand reached into the pocket of her snappy new white sports dress, a cast-off from the wife of one of the newspapermen in town, and she fingered Zhenya’s latest letter. The handsome young people continued to march past, part of All-Union Physical Culture Day. Or, Make Milly Feel Washed-Up Day. She was alone, without her husband or friends—Carol had gone back to New York, and Seema was too busy with Bill these days. Milly left Zhenya’s letter alone in her pocket and scratched a few notes about the many colors of the shirts and bathing trunks the youth were wearing. When some young man, perhaps nervous to perform in front of Stalin, wobbled in his ascent of the human pyramid, Milly made a note. She had to turn this spectacle into a story somehow. Two, really, considering how much she could use the extra money she would make from selling another international story to the wire service.

“Milly,” a man’s deep voice called.

She turned to see one of the newer newspapermen in town, Lindesay Parrott. He handed her a paper cone filled with candied nuts.

“My.” Milly licked the sugar off her fingertips. “Thanks. Though I’m thinking this isn’t the right snack when we’re watching these musclebound youths. Or maybe you’re trying to fatten me up for the newspaper slaughter?”

Lindesay laughed, then looked her up and down.

“You’re perfect as you are,” he said, his voice burred by his slight Scottish accent.

It was as if he had plucked a harp string that ran through her core, and Milly turned away quickly, back toward a row of parading gymnasts. She handed the cone of nuts to a child next to her, and the girl looked up wide-eyed. Then the girl clutched the paper cone to her chest when she realized Milly was serious. Milly stuck her hand in her pocket and ran her thumbnail over the crease in Zhenya’s letter, where he repeated how he missed her, and could she please send a different kind of food in the next supply package? Milly gritted her teeth, and below on the street, three young women pirouetted past. She had tried everything she knew how to try, and she didn’t know how to get Zhenya out. The worst part was, it was almost like he didn’t mind his imprisonment. Sure, she knew his letters were being read by the authorities, and so did he. But as she scrutinized the letters, she could hear his real voice sounding out the words. He missed her, he wrote, but he was doing fine. Could she send some salami? Reading them, she frowned.

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