“BLYADT,” NINA BREATHED as they entered the spacious double doors of Filene’s at Downtown Crossing. Ian could only imagine how strange it must look—how strange this whole, noisy, prosperous American city would look to a woman who had spent most of her life either on the far eastern edge of the world, in the Red Air Force, or in ration-locked war-torn England. She’d been astounded enough by the corner dime store off Scollay Square; now her eyes nearly glowed. “Everything just lying here? For sale, to anyone?”
“That’s the idea.”
“No lines out the door, no haggling, no rationing . . .” She stared at the perfume counter. “Even in England, is not like this. Shelves are empty, things are scarce. This is like . . .” She said a Russian word.
“Cornucopia?” Ian guessed. “Overflowing bounty?”
“Decadent industrialist filth. Everything my Komsomol meetings ever said, how the West is wasteful and corrupt. Der’mo, I wish I come sooner.”
“Try not to comment on capitalist or socialist anything where anyone can hear you.” Ian deposited his wife with a salesgirl in the ladies’ department and grinned to watch an exceedingly dubious Nina hauled into a dressing room with an armload of skirts. “Men always think women take too long,” the salesgirl twinkled, seeing him check his watch as she went off to find more clothes. Ian barely heard. Herr Kolb would be arriving home in two hours. If they could surprise him at his door, tired and off guard after a long day . . .
“Is what secretaries wear?” Nina came out of the dressing room in a flowered summer dress with a froth of crinoline.
“Definitely not. You need to look like a joyless soulless cow who hates everyone and everything, especially ungrateful little foreigners who lie about their war record. Surely you’ve met someone who—”
“My Komsomol leader from Irkutsk,” she said at once.
“Perfect. Turn yourself into her.”
“Nu, ladno.” Nina vanished back into the dressing room, her voice floating out. “Is another reason I like it here—no political meetings.”
“I assure you the decadent West does have them, and they’re every bit as boring. You’ve never been a cub journalist taking notes in the gallery as the MP for Upper Snelgrove drones on about combating district root rot.”
The salesgirl bustled back with an armload of blouses. “She’ll look ravishing in these—”
“No pink. No bows—” Ian rifled through the frilly stack. “Do you have anything in puce?”
“Your wife doesn’t have the skin tone for puce, Mr. Graham. To be honest I don’t think any woman has the skin tone for puce . . .” The salesgirl headed off shaking her head, and Nina came out in a flat brown skirt and short-sleeved blouse.
“Yes?”
“Longer sleeves. Something that covers up the fact that you spent years being strafed by Messerschmitts rather than taking stenography courses.” Ian knew more of the history behind those scars now—Nina had been so entertained by his astonishment when she told him about meeting General Secretary Stalin, she’d unbent into telling a good many more stories up on the rooftop.
“I see other men in this store sitting outside dressing rooms.” Nina vanished inside hers, already pulling the blouse over her head. “Is a thing American men do? Look annoyed while women try clothes?”
“Not so much an American thing as a marriage thing.” Ian leaned against the wall, realizing how much he was enjoying himself. “Russian men don’t wait for four hours as their wives try on dresses?”
“Russian men only wait four hours queuing for vodka.” A snort. “At least is better vodka than here. You Westerners, you don’t know how to drink.”
“You have clearly never seen a roomful of war correspondents playing seven-card stud in Weymouth.”
“Get some good vodka, and I drink you under the table, luchik.”
“Make it scotch and you’re welcome to try, you little Cossack.”
Nina swept out in a navy-blue blouse, long sleeved and high necked. “Yes?”
She set hands on hips and face in a steely scowl, narrowing her eyes. “You look like an executioner who knows her shorthand,” Ian admired.
“Is this hateful fucking blouse,” she agreed, looking in the mirror. “Deserves to die in an arctic gulag, this blouse. Deserves to wrap fish guts on a whaler and filter gasoline into jerricans.”
The salesgirl bustled up with something bright over one arm. “Are you sure you don’t want something more colorful, Mrs. Graham?” She held up the dress by Nina’s face. Red as a Soviet flag, and a hem that would show a lot of strong, curved leg. “Isn’t she just born