Salt the Snow

by Carrie Callaghan

  He crossed his arms. His tortoiseshell bracelet smoldered a rich brown in the restaurant’s low light.

  She narrowed her eyes, then turned away.

  Milly danced two more songs with the other women, and on the third song, a few young soldiers in uniform joined them. Milly glanced over once, and Zhenya’s face was as opaque as the frozen river. She looked a second time, and he was gone. She closed her eyes and exhaled, then reached for a half-empty glass she’d placed on a nearby table.

  The band concluded and nodded to its Georgian partners on the other side of the room, and the music traded hands.

  Milly hooked arms with Jennie. Together they wobbled back to the empty table with Carol following behind. The soldiers laughed and teased the women, but Milly ignored them. One pinched Carol’s bottom, and she swiped his hand then planted herself in her chair.

  “Rascals,” Jennie said, and Milly couldn’t tell if she was being critical or appreciative.

  Carol reached into her large sack of a purse and pulled out a sketchbook. She propped it on her skinny knee and began drawing one of the Georgian musicians with his onion-shaped instrument.

  “Last time she did this she got kicked out,” Jennie whispered with wine-perfumed breath into Milly’s ear. They both giggled. Maybe it was for the best that Zhenya had left. Milly pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t meant to fight with him, not on his name day. But why couldn’t he relax with her? He was willing to break other social rules. Only, not the ones she wanted to break.

  A grim-faced man in a green sweater came to stand over Carol’s shoulder. She sketched away, her pencil flicking across the page. Another man joined the first, and then a woman in a gray wool dress. The Russian trio exchanged a few whispers, but mostly watched Carol draw. Milly emptied the dregs of the thin-tasting wine into her glass.

  When the Georgian band finished, Carol ripped the page from her book and stood. Milly squeezed the stem of her wineglass and leaned forward, while next to her Jennie took three quick pulls from her cigarette.

  Carol walked over to the musician she had been drawing. But before showing him the sketch, she spun around and displayed the portrait, about two hands’ breadth high, to the entire night café.

  It was a good likeness for a few minutes’ work, and Milly burst into applause.

  But she was the only one.

  The rest of the café remained silent except for the clicking of plates and forks. Then, a man coughed.

  “That is counterrevolutionary!” he yelled. “Bourgeois nostalgia!”

  Milly turned to see the speaker was the man in the green sweater. His cheeks were nearly crimson.

  Carol shoved the drawing in the musician’s hands and rushed to return to the table. Around them, a dust cloud of murmuring rose up.

  “Better pay the bill.” Milly raised her hand to summon the waiter.

  She forked over what was nearly a quarter of her monthly salary, then grabbed her coat. She bent down to reach for her boots, and as she did, a man at another table stood.

  “Troublemakers,” he called.

  “Let’s go.” Jennie grabbed the other two women.

  Up the narrow stairs and out the door they hurried, Milly still in her dancing shoes, and the cold came as a wave of shocking clarity. They clicked their way down the icy sidewalk. Behind them, the nightclub door opened again and the voices of the crowd bubbled, but the group had paused at the threshold.

  “You think you’re so special,” a woman yelled.

  “Come dance with me!” a man’s voice whined, and Milly wondered if he meant it.

  “Where are we?” Carol whispered as they rushed down the cold street as fast as Milly’s dancing shoes could take them. A hidden patch of ice snagged Milly’s heel, and Jennie caught her by the arm before she fell.

  “Not sure,” Milly said, panting. “But I think I know that steeple.” She pointed at an illuminated dome in the distance.

  The air buzzed and a loud thump sounded on the pavement next to them. Milly bent down to see what had fallen, when another projectile crashed into a snowbank next to her. She reached inside.

  “They’re throwing oranges!” She held one up in wonder. “These are, what, eight rubles? I should try to catch them!”

  Jennie hauled her to her feet.

  “You catch one of those with your head and you’re in the hospital. Come on!”

  Another orange skittered past them, and a man yelled something about spreading their legs.

  The women ran, short-stepping in their heeled dancing shoes, and trying not to slip.

  Milly’s heart pounded in her ears, and all she could hear was her feet scratching the slick pavement as she trotted. Her breath was ragged.

  Beside her, Jennie slowed to a walk, then laughed. Milly stopped and turned around.

  “What a sight we are,” Jennie said, panting. “Carol, you should draw us.”

  They all giggled, nervous and exhausted, and then the absurdity of their shoes and the cruel cold and the quiet night around them tipped the women into uncontrollable laughter.

  “The Ruskies sure know how to toss a good party,” Milly giggled. She held up the orange still clutched in her numb, gloved hand, threw it a few inches into the air, then caught it in her palm, where the impact stung. “How nice to offer us breakfast on our way out.”

  Carol snorted with laughter, and Jennie clapped Milly on the back.

  “Let’s try to hail a cab. My piss is freezing inside my body out here,” Jennie said.

  “It’s not too far to my room,” Milly said, though she knew it was probably more than a mile. She wanted to think. “I’ve got my boots here in the bag. I think I’d rather walk.”

  “Suit yourself,” Jennie said. “I don’t have any boots, and that looks like a main street down there.” She pointed down a cross street, where on the other end, a few lights wobbled past. “Whaddya say, Carol?”

  “There’s no way I’m walking.” She snuggled her arms around herself. “Come on, Milly.”

  But Milly had already sat down on a stoop as cold as a block of ice and was working to quickly change her shoes.

  “I’ll be fine. You go on.” She needed the solitude, though she didn’t want to tell them that. “I like the city at night.”

  The other women looked at each other, then shrugged. “If Anna Louise asks, we’ll tell her we told you not to. Good night, Milly.”

  “Good night.”

  Milly stood and bounced up and down to restore the warmth to her backside while Jennie and Carol trotted toward the yellow lights blinking in and out of the dark. The streets were safe here, as long as she wasn’t being chased by a drunk mob, and now that she had her bearings, she knew where she was. She’d be fine walking back to the New Moscow Hotel where she was staying, after the dormitory had burned down. Maybe if she took enough time, Zhenya would be waiting for her.

  She shook her head.

  No, he wouldn’t.

  The sides of the shoveled sidewalks were piled high with snow fallen from the leaded roofs of the row houses nearby. In the windows of a few houses a candle or lamp glowed, but mostly the only lights were the illuminated nets cast by each streetlamp, waiting for Milly and then reluctantly relinquishing her as she passed through. There was still enough wine in her for the light to feel indistinct, as shifting as her thoughts.

  Zhenya had been right, sure. He was right to be embarrassed of her. She didn’t mind looking foolish because, deep down, she thought she was foolish. Ugly, unlovable by anyone except Zhenya. A shiver shot through her gut. For Zhenya, though, there was an element of performance in everything he did. She stopped walking. Even their marriage was a performance. Maybe he could never leave the stage behind, or maybe it was his yearning for applause—approval—that sent him to the stage in the first place. Milly kicked her boot into a snowbank and watched the crystals scatter and reflect the light before falling back into sameness. She knew about wanting approval and love. Wasn’t that why she had married him?
She tried to remember. That gaping hole of loneliness certainly was why she had let Fred hold her, make love to her, send her to get an abortion, and kiss her scarred body afterward, all while she never even suggested he might leave his wife.

  Love was only a plea to be needed. Her lower lip quivered. No one would need her.

  In the distance, she could see the headlines on the Izvestia building speaking silently into the deaf night. She was getting close.

  She turned a corner, and ahead of her shuffled a bundled figure. Milly slowed, cautious. He had a bucket slung over his arm and a sheepskin cap pulled low over his face. He dipped his hand into the bucket, then swung his arm, bent at the elbow, in a circle. He repeated the motion, scattering salt on the sidewalk like seeds on furrowed ground. As Milly approached, she could see the deep lines of his face, worn by the sun. He paused as she passed by, then continued wordlessly sowing the salt upon the snow of the walkway, as once he had surely sown seeds on some farm. Milly turned and watched as he reenacted that vanished life here in the city, sprinkling salt at midnight to keep the relentless snow at bay.

  PART TWO

  PRESS INTERNEWS BERLIN VIA NORTHERN TELEGRAPH, JULY 28, 1936:

  young wouldbe girl parachutist

  vladivostok

  caused crash

  plane

  her own death and death of two others in it stop

  outstepping on wing

  preparatory jump

  girl lost courage

  her hesitancy while on wing

  she caused plane

  lose balance

  entering corkscrew

  it crashed.

  bennett.

  19

  JULY 1934

  IN THE BROAD square, thousands of young men and women danced and paraded past. A man in the viewing stand jostled Milly, and she nudged him back with her elbow. Her hand reached into the pocket of her snappy new white sports dress, a cast-off from the wife of one of the newspapermen in town, and she fingered Zhenya’s latest letter. The handsome young people continued to march past, part of All-Union Physical Culture Day. Or, Make Milly Feel Washed-Up Day. She was alone, without her husband or friends—Carol had gone back to New York, and Seema was too busy with Bill these days. Milly left Zhenya’s letter alone in her pocket and scratched a few notes about the many colors of the shirts and bathing trunks the youth were wearing. When some young man, perhaps nervous to perform in front of Stalin, wobbled in his ascent of the human pyramid, Milly made a note. She had to turn this spectacle into a story somehow. Two, really, considering how much she could use the extra money she would make from selling another international story to the wire service.

  “Milly,” a man’s deep voice called.

  She turned to see one of the newer newspapermen in town, Lindesay Parrott. He handed her a paper cone filled with candied nuts.

  “My.” Milly licked the sugar off her fingertips. “Thanks. Though I’m thinking this isn’t the right snack when we’re watching these musclebound youths. Or maybe you’re trying to fatten me up for the newspaper slaughter?”

  Lindesay laughed, then looked her up and down.

  “You’re perfect as you are,” he said, his voice burred by his slight Scottish accent.

  It was as if he had plucked a harp string that ran through her core, and Milly turned away quickly, back toward a row of parading gymnasts. She handed the cone of nuts to a child next to her, and the girl looked up wide-eyed. Then the girl clutched the paper cone to her chest when she realized Milly was serious. Milly stuck her hand in her pocket and ran her thumbnail over the crease in Zhenya’s letter, where he repeated how he missed her, and could she please send a different kind of food in the next supply package? Milly gritted her teeth, and below on the street, three young women pirouetted past. She had tried everything she knew how to try, and she didn’t know how to get Zhenya out. The worst part was, it was almost like he didn’t mind his imprisonment. Sure, she knew his letters were being read by the authorities, and so did he. But as she scrutinized the letters, she could hear his real voice sounding out the words. He missed her, he wrote, but he was doing fine. Could she send some salami? Reading them, she frowned. She wanted to believe the truth was hidden, but perhaps Zhenya’s true feelings were right there, scrawled in his looped, rushed handwriting.

  “That girl there, she did pretty work with the basketball,” Lindesay whispered in English over her shoulder.

  “Will you write your story about her? The Russian Amazon who launched a thousand balls?” Milly spoke without turning around, but she knew he could hear her, even over the din of the crowd and the brass band below.

  “I’m better waiting to see what you write, then besting that,” he said.

  Milly laughed.

  “You can try.”

  Truth was, he was a good writer, though she didn’t think he was better. He was lucky. He wrote exclusively for international news services and didn’t have to bother with the Moscow Daily News. The grubby, faithful, ever-derided Moscow Daily News.

  “Joe Baird and I are going to the Park of Culture and Rest,” Lindesay said when the band wheezed into a pause between their songs. “Would you like to join? Try to parachute jump?”

  Milly snorted. “These legs are for dancing, not breaking.” Then she turned to look at him. He had dark Clark Gable eyes and a nicely groomed mustache. She felt another tremor run through her.

  “Will Ursula be there?” His wife. Milly smirked a little as she waited.

  Lindesay laughed.

  “If she wants, though I doubt she does. I can rarely get her out of the house, and when I do it’s to go to Torgsin so she can buy more wool for another dress.”

  “A girl can’t have too many frocks, if she can afford them.”

  Milly turned back around to watch the parade, and she made a show of pulling out her notebook again to scratch a few notes. In the distance, if she squinted, she could make out Stalin on the grandstand. She tried to figure out which groups he chose to wave at. Or maybe it was merely every third. Not that she could write about that.

  “Have you met the man?” Lindesay asked.

  “No.” Milly wrote down something about some dancers. “You?”

  “No. But I want to, before I leave.”

  “Good luck getting in. You should ask Anna Louise. She’ll tell you eight times straight about her one visit with Uncle Joe, and by the end you’ll swear you were there too.”

  Behind her Lindesay blew out a puff of air, and Milly knew he was smiling.

  “Speaking of tough broads, are you covering the Mrs. McLean visit?” His voice seemed to brush against her ear.

  “Is she rich and American?”

  “She owns the Hope diamond.”

  “Then that’s my beat,” Milly said, a little mournfully. Writing about rich Americans, not socialism in practice. More and more, Borodin and Axelrod insisted she write about other Americans. After the fire in the dormitory, they’d blamed her for the loss of the typewriters—utterly unfair, she protested—and taken away her management of the translators. Now she wrote glossy pieces about visiting luminaries and sometimes did copyediting.

  She shifted her weight and felt the curve of her backside brush against Lindesay’s hip. She hadn’t realized he was so close, but she didn’t shift her weight back. She made another note about the parade.

  “I’ll see you at the train station, then,” Lindesay said, and she felt the pressure behind her step away. “I’ve got to go file a story on all these handsome youths now.” Milly looked over her shoulder again, and Lindesay tipped the brim of his hat in her direction.

  “I should do the same,” Milly said, but she stood in her place and watched him weave between the people crowded in the viewing stand, and then down the stairs. She knew what he wanted, she wasn’t an idiot. Part of her wanted it too. Below, on the street, a young man with bulging arms lifted a smaller man up onto his shoulders so they stood two men high. Even Zhenya might have struggled with that li
ft, and Milly made a note of it in her notebook. While watching, in the moment, it always seemed like she could never forget any of the details. But she knew they would begin to fade as soon as she stepped away, and would continue to fade the longer it was that she waited to write her story. Again, she thumbed the letter in her pocket. When was the last time a man had placed his hand upon her unclothed waist? She couldn’t remember.

  That night Milly filed one story for Moscow Daily News, but when she cabled her second to the Internews Service, she received a telegram a few hours later that they already had a story on the All-Union Physical Culture Day. Lindesay really did beat her to it. She crumpled the thin blue paper of the telegram message and dropped it in the office wastebasket.

  Two days later, the clerk at the front desk at the New Moscow Hotel, where she was still staying, telephoned her in her room.

  “You have a visitor,” the clerk said, his voice stiff with suspicion. He hung up before Milly could ask any more. She fluffed her hair, then decided to swap the ratty skirt she was wearing for one of the two new frocks her friend in New York had recently sent her. The blue cotton had shrunk in the wash, her friend wrote, so she figured she’d see if Milly could wear it. Happily, Milly had whispered in response.

  Now she rushed down the red-carpet hallway and waited impatiently for the elevator. Not many people knew she was at the New Moscow, and she liked the peace and quiet. Usually.

  The elevator clanked as she reached the lobby, and the operator took his time in winding back the grate. The lobby seemed louder than usual; someone was having fun at the bar, she supposed. She wouldn’t mind a drink either, for that matter.

  This lobby wasn’t as elegant as the Metropol’s, with its geometric tiled floors and its soaring wooden archway near the entrance, but the wooden floors and yellow-painted walls here had their charm.

  Milly walked to the front desk, where a clerk with sagging skin under his eyes pointed toward the entrance.

  There, by the revolving door, stood Victor, clutching his hands together. Milly’s shoulders drooped. The last time she had seen him, she was wallowing in her birthday drinks. And steaming with anger at him.