estimate of our military strength would be distinctly low.”
He didn’t know anyone who expressed herself the way Galina did. Leonid was used to the barking of the men in his battalion, who spoke a good deal but hardly ever said anything. Sometimes he even forgot that there were other ways of speaking Russian besides soldiers’ slang.
“Well, what shall I do with you now, my stalwart drum major?”
He was upright again, but his head was still heavy with sleep. “So you were very busy?” It was all he could think of to say.
“Two premature births brought on by the mothers’ overwork.” She started toward the exit. “I was able to save one of the babies.” She waited for him to push open the swinging door. “Then there was a thumb amputation, followed by a case I’d rather not describe to you if we’re going to get something to eat.”
They stepped outside. The streets of the capital were empty.
“Two-thirty,” Galina said, looking up at the illuminated hospital clock. “We won’t find anything open.” Pensively, as if there were a range of possibilities, she peered down the street. “What do you say to the following option? I invite you to my place.”
The night had turned a murky gray that the streetlights made even murkier. An icy half hour later, they were sitting at the cozy table in Galina’s apartment, which would not have been out of place in a novel from before the Russian Revolution. The double windows had been handmade by joiners who’d skillfully fitted the component parts together without using either nails or screws. Leonid marveled at the construction of the inner sashes, into which a tiny, rectangular opening had been set for purposes of ventilation. The living room was paneled in a way he’d never seen outside of a museum. Within minutes, the small, coal-burning stove had diffused so much heat that Leonid removed his uniform jacket. “How did you find this jewel?” he asked.
“Find it? I rescued it.” She brought beer, some green liquid, and water to the table. “The housing combine was just about to tear out all this junk, as they called it, and replace it with modern materials. I had to sign a statement in which I agreed to accept various anachronistic items.” She poured him a drink. “It breaks my heart to give up this apartment. I won’t find anything like it in Yakutia.”
“When’s your duty here over?” He watched as she diluted the green liquor.
“In four days,” Galina sighed. Noticing his curious gaze, she held her glass against the light. “The green fairy in absinthe. Have you never tried it?”
He took a sip and grimaced in surprise. The thought that this was probably their last meeting made him gloomy. “Where did you learn to talk like that?” he asked. “I don’t know anybody who gets so much out of our language. Who taught you that?”
“My head.” Galina sank back in her chair. The strain of a long day fell away from her.
“Your head may be the tool, but who sharpened it?”
“A dangerous counterrevolutionary,” she said with a smile. “At the time, he was already a very old man, and I was just a tiny little thing. My grandfather, the former governor-general. I learned everything about poetry and about our writers from him. My outlawed dyedushka even taught me the little I know about playing the piano.” She threw two lumps of coal into the stove. “I was born in Yakutia. By that time, my family had already come to the end of their odyssey. It had led them through several prisons and an eastern Siberian penal camp that must have been truly awful, because not one of my people ever told me anything about it. In the end, since my family had accepted everything without protest and Grandfather had affirmed from the bottom of his heart that the epoch-making, revolutionary changes that had taken place in our country were nothing short of fantastic, the powers that be apparently grew tired of punishing us for having been born with silver spoons in our mouths. My father was banished to the most desolate corner of the world and given an underpaid job, and there, finally, my grandparents were allowed to live in peace. Soon, however, the war broke out. It probably would have gone unnoticed in Siberia if the demand for coal hadn’t doubled. And not long afterward, I came into the world.”
She went to the kitchen to prepare some soup. Leonid stretched out his legs;