Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [29]
“In my country women don’t do what you just did with Igor.”
“Yes, they do, you just don’t know about it.”
Jack looked down at the smeared remnants of his breakfast. He could hear Alli’s calm, even breaths as she slept, and he thought of what he’d told her about the past, that you only knew what happened to you, not to others around you, and even then wasn’t everything distorted by the unreliable lens of memory?
“Would you like me to tell you something about this city?” Annika said this in an altogether different tone, as if the last contentious exchange had never happened, or had happened to two other people.
“Yes,” he said, grateful to be brought out of his thoughts. “I know nothing about Ukraine besides its difficult history with Russia and the secret naval base in Odessa.”
“War,” Annika observed, “that’s all you men know.” She fished a cigarette out of her purse and lit it with a metal lighter, took a first, long inhalation, and let it out slowly and luxuriously.
She regarded him for a moment through the veil of smoke. Then she said, “Kiev, the mother of Slavic cities, was founded by nomads, fifteen centuries ago, if you can believe it. The name is derived from a man, Kyi, a knyaz, a prince of the Polans, a tribe of eastern Slavs who, along with his two brothers and a sister, felt this place on the western bank of the Dnieper was an ideal point on the transcontinental trade route, and he was right. Now, of course, the city spans both banks, but the left bank only came into being in the twentieth century.” She blew out another languid cloud of smoke. “That this story is shrouded in myth only makes the current inhabitants all the more certain of their beloved city’s origin.”
Just then, a pair of police officers entered the restaurant. Annika’s hand froze halfway to her mouth, the glowing end of her cigarette releasing its curl of smoke, rising toward the ceiling. Jack didn’t think they should stop talking, but just as he was about to open his mouth he realized that his accent was something he should keep to himself right about now. He could see Annika tracking the cops’ movements as they crossed to a table and sat down facing each other. They took off their hats, stroked the greasy hair off their low foreheads as if one were the mirror image of the other, and settled themselves to look at menus.
As a waiter arrived at the cops’ table to take their order, Jack was acutely aware of how vulnerable he and the women were without identity papers, of how fragile was the line between freedom and incarceration. All it would take was for one or both of the officers to saunter over and ask for their passports, and they would be undone. He felt a cold sweat creep out from under his arms, slide down his spine to rest like a serpent at the small of his back.
Annika had unfrozen and was now sipping at her coffee again. “Don’t look over there,” she said, smiling. “Stare into my eyes as if you love me. We’re a family, remember?”
He did as she asked, but the serpent, restless in its anxiety, kept coiling and uncoiling, creeping him out.
As if sensing this, Annika said, “I have the keys to a nice flat not far from here. An apartment, you Americans say.” Her smile broadened as if to help ensure that he would not look away. “From Igor. You see, he isn’t all bad.”
Jack was aware that he was still judging her decision on the plane. He didn’t like that in himself, especially under the current circumstances, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“It has two bedrooms,” she continued, “so the girl can have her privacy.”
“That leaves the other bedroom for us.”
“Yes,” she said, “it does.”
A dirty joke told by one of the cops to the other caused both to laugh raucously, and their voices never lowered, reverberating around the restaurant. They rose; they’d come in for coffee and pastry only, it seemed, and had wolfed both down in record time. As they passed through the open door, their voices faded slowly, as if reluctant to relinquish the vigilance of their