Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [32]
“He loves you,” Olga explained, exasperated with my stupidity. “How can you not see it?”
I shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t—he clearly wants to spend time with me. It’s just that I am not sure why.”
“It is obvious,” Olga said and poured herself another cup of tea. There was so much steam in my little living room that the windows had completely fogged over. “Men want to spend time with the girls they like. And he is clearly an important man—I hear that Mr. Herbert is a brilliant politician, and knowing him is quite an honor for anyone. So that Mr. Bartram of yours is obviously a great catch—and he is certainly interested in you. The only question is, are you interested? Do you think you love him?”
“I cannot say that the question had occurred to me,” I mumbled, and bit into a lump of sugar like a peasant, chasing it with a sip of very strong tea. “How do you know if you love someone? How do you even know what love is—I mean, if you never felt it, how do you know what it’s supposed to feel like, and if you’re feeling it right, and if what you’re feeling even has a name?”
Olga stared at me in dismay. “You speak such nonsense, Sasha. What is it with you?”
I only shrugged. I never knew what it was with me, how things that apparently looked like simple questions and basic emotions to others grew enormously complicated for me—I felt as if I was tripping over my own feet, trying to disentangle meanings of words such as “love” and “interest” and “like” and “friendship.” They seemed simple on the surface, but the moment I attempted to use these words as measuring sticks against which to hold my emotions, they wriggled and slipped away, leaving only confusion and frustration behind.
Olga attempted to help—at least I think that is what she meant when she said, “All right then. Think about how you feel when you see him. If he were standing outside of this window right now—what would you feel?”
I smudged the condensation on the windowpane, clearing a sickle-shaped sliver of clear glass. There was fog outside, its tendrils rising from the ground and curling into the mist that already concealed everything from view, except the gas streetlamps and their reflections in the Neva. There were lights on the opposite bank but only vague and blurred, distorted by the fog like ghost lanterns. Jack was not there but I could picture him clearly as I said, “I would be glad, I suppose. A little embarrassed that he’s out there for all to see, so obvious. Maybe a bit angry because he is so conspicuous, as if trying to make me feel guilty for not returning his affection quickly enough. I would be curious too, and impatient to ask him about his friends, his work, what they want with the Chinese—or with the Russians, for that matter.”
Olga heaved a sigh and shook her head. “You are making it so very complicated, Sasha, and it doesn’t need to be. Life is really very simple.”
I nodded as if I agreed to avoid further argument, but my mind raced. It was nowhere as simple as Olga claimed. To her, life was people falling in love and marrying. But I did not understand love, as I did not understand its connection to marriage. Eugenia’s words from my childhood, forgotten until now—until I actually needed them—floated to the surface. “Marrying is not difficult,” she said. “Who isn’t smart enough to make babies? Only this is the thing, Sasha—love is nothing, it is empty. If you must marry, don’t marry someone you love—you’re too much of a fool for that; we all are. Instead marry a man who is kind to you and who would be your friend ten, twenty years later. Love passes by all too quickly, and if you must be stuck with someone, at least make sure you can stand him.”
“I don’t love anyone,” I told Olga. “I am much too preoccupied with other things. If I drop out of the university to get married, my aunt