The train ride back from Yekteraslav was hell. Zelach brooded, pouted, almost sucked his thumb. He shifted and squirmed and demanded more attention than a petulant child.
Porfiry, Sarah said. I’ll heat you something. Girls, said Rostnikov. Go into the other room and pretend you are doing homework. You can listen from there.
The worst thing,' she whispered to the cat as she stroked it, 'is not to be useful.
Girls, said Rostnikov. Go into the other room and pretend you are doing homework. You can listen from there.
You fantasize too much. It will make you dream. Dreams will turn to hopes. Hopes will turn to longing. Longing will turn to despair. Despair will turn to laughter. And laughter will get you in trouble...
According to my Glendale high school days, the road along the ocean that stretched from San Diego to San Francisco was staked out in the 1780’s or so by the Spanish. The Spanish were afraid the French...
Karpo, as always, was dressed in black. His leather coat was black. Even his scarf and fur hat were black. Rostnikov thought that clothes reflected the people who wore them. Rostnikov himself dressed...
Moscow, he said, was built to make people feel small against the magnificence of the revolution. The streets are eight lanes wide, the statues are five stories high, the buildings are as big as mounta...
Once again he cawed four times and was about to caw again when he heard the sound of humans coming through the woods. The bird turned on the window ledge, flapped its black wings, and rose slowly towa...
A good wife is a stone to hold one down, said the Wolfhound. A rock to rely on, Rostnikov corrected gently. Da, the Wolfhound said seriously, returning to Russian. A rock to rely on. The American idio...
I am going to move to St. Petersburg, Boris said, his voice a crisp rasp. You have relatives there? Rostnikov said, ignoring the non sequitur. No, never. That is why I want to go there.
It was a typical Soviet ploy. People were forever quoting Lenin, much of the time with a great deal of creativity, knowing that even scholars had a difficult time identifying quotations from the mass...
This was fine with Katrina Vross, a weary, short, baggy-eyed chain-smoker with the put-upon air of many Russian bureaucrats whose attitude suggested that any question you might ask was a major imposit...
You may return to Odessa to spread the news that Fedot the cousin of fond memory was a walking blind erection that managed to be unable to locate me for the past four years. He was, however, more succ...
At the end of the top of the desk, the sickle caught the phone and the tip of the blade broke off. There are days, thought Rostnikov, where fate denies a man even the most meaningless of dramatic gest...