Nobody needs what I produce.” He laughed grimly. “I haven’t met my quota. The committee will scold me.”
Anna said nothing and contemplated the carpet hanging on the opposite wall, her only wedding present. While Leonid was still living with them, Viktor Ipalyevich had done better at keeping his drinking under control; it was embarrassing for him to let himself go in front of his son-in-law. Anna’s eyes wandered to the shelves where her father’s books stood. Above the shelves hung the wall light in the gilded sconce, which had its own odd history. She gazed at the rusty radiator and the velvet cloth that hid the sleeping alcove. She’d neglected to wash the curtains in the fall; now, yellowish and heavy, they’d have to wait until spring.
“Lunch is almost ready,” she said. When she stepped past Viktor Ipalyevich, she could smell his rotgut liquor. In the kitchen, she turned off the gas, put the meat and sauce on a platter, and carried it and the plates into the other room.
“Will you clear the table?” Without waiting for her father’s consent, she clapped his notebook shut. His gloominess took her breath away, and she could hardly wait for her appointment with Rosa.
“How long do I have to stay down here?” Petya asked, coughing as he spoke.
“Just a little while longer.” Anna served her father and herself and started eating. “For the most part, the beginning of a poem comes to you fairly easily. And you write the ending quickly, too.” She pointed to the closed composition book. “It’s just in the middle where you have problems, isn’t it?”
“What do you know about how a poem gets written?”
“Nothing.” She chewed slowly. “I know nothing about it.”
“Then don’t tell me anything about it, either.” He picked at his food. “How often is Petya supposed to have these inhalation treatments?”
“No more!” The red face appeared from under the table. “I just had one, I don’t have to do it anymore.”
“Again before he goes to bed,” said Anna. She put some food on the boy’s plate and took away the pot of water. “You’ll feel better tomorrow,” she told Petya, looking at the kitchen clock. “Does the brave boy want a treat?” She returned to the room with a cookie in her hand. Then she put on her scarf and grabbed her coat. “Errands,” she said, answering Viktor Ipalyevich’s questioning look.
“You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Put it in the oven for me.” She was already out the door.
The bus took Anna from west to east. She got out at the Lubyanka Theater stop, took longer than she liked to find the right street, and stopped to stare in amazement at an old man who had piled bundles of dried green twigs against the wall of a building. He turned his sign—OAK 50 KOPECKS, BIRCH 45 KOPECKS—so that she could see it. She shook her head, thanking him, and looked for a spot where she could wait undisturbed. Ten minutes passed. Rosa’s tardiness annoyed Anna, and she resolved to give her friend five more minutes before she went off to have a glass of tea on her own.
Rosa Khleb had turned out to be the most refreshing and, at the same time, the most disastrous acquaintance that Anna had made in recent years. She couldn’t imagine a more interesting friend, but Rosa was also a she-devil who often made Anna wish that they had never met. Two years previously, in June, around the time when her affair with Alexey had begun, Anna had gone to buy bread at a bakery on Kalinin Prospekt that offered five different kinds. In no hurry, she’d moved forward in the line, mentally going over her remaining errands.
“But it’s back there,” she heard a man at the counter say.
The girl behind it held out a loaf to him.
“That’s at least five hours old. I’d like some of the fresh bread back there on the trays.” He pointed toward the ovens.
“Next in line.”
“Wait a minute, I’m first!”
“You want some bread from back there, right?” said the shop assistant, imitating him. “That’ll be available in an hour.” Disregarding the man’s protests, she signaled to a woman with a child to step up to the counter. The woman wasn’t choosy; she took the proffered loaf and thrust it into her shopping bag. Furious, the man pushed his way out of the crowded shop.
Only then did Anna notice the pretty woman standing in front of her in the line. She was wearing a striking summer dress, dark