Bitter Remedy Read Online Free PDF

giggled, and Olga laughed uproariously. She asked them about passports, cash, and, in detail, about their family situations, even though she seemed surprisingly well informed already. On their third visit, Olga offered them nothing to eat or drink, cracked no jokes about men or anything else, and told them she had made arrangements for the New Year. They were to be ready by then.
    Nadia’s mother did not even bestir herself from her bed when, a few days before Christmas, Nadia announced that she was leaving. On 2 January, Anul Nou , she left Romania and her toothless, useless mother.
    Looking back, Nadia could not quite remember at which point she had allowed herself to be properly deluded. She had walked into the trap with her eyes open. She wondered about Alina, who really spoke as if she were going to work with Vidal Sassoon in person. Their friendship seemed as deep as ever, deeper even now that they knew they were going away together, but somehow their conversations about the future skated along the surface of things. Neither of them seemed to want to be the first to confide her fears, to admit that she knew what they were getting into, because then they would have to back out, and what would be left?
    Alina’s ignorance may have helped. She did not even notice that the coach that was supposed to take them on the first leg of their journey to Italy was headed east. As they crossed the Moldova border, Olga cheerfully told them and the six other girls, one of them no older than fifteen, that they were going to Odessa, where they would catch a boat.
    Alina put up her hand, which is something she had never done in the classroom, and said, ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘What is it, my pretty thing?’
    ‘Nadia and I, we’re going to Italy. We’ve paid the fare.’
    ‘Ah, yes,’ said Olga. ‘But you didn’t pay very much, did you? You don’t think that was nearly enough to get a plane all the way to . . . where was it, Rome?’
    ‘Milan.’
    ‘Oh, Milan. I envy you. It’s a great city. But I am afraid it will be a long journey. We’ll be stopping off before we reach it.’
    ‘Where?’ asked Alina.
    ‘Ports of call. I don’t suppose you can name them, can you?’
    Geography had never been Alina’s strong point. Nor had much else. She shook her head, brushing Nadia’s face with her red hair.
    ‘Odessa, Istanbul – perhaps we’ll stay a day or two there. Thessalonica, probably, but it might even be Athens! Then a short ride across to Patras and a ferry to Bari. Don’t worry. I have your passport here.’ Olga patted her massive bust as if it was filled with all the passports she had taken off the girls, and the girls before them and the girls before them.
    They rattled their way across the uneven roads of Moldova. They somehow managed to fall asleep and missed the border crossing into the Ukraine, but Olga handled everything. No one even came on board to check.
    Finally, Odessa. Nadia had not expected it to have so many impressive boulevards and trees. Banks, luxury hotels, boutiques, prosperous people everywhere. The buildings looked like they belonged in France or Italy. She nudged Alina awake.
    ‘This place is like Milan. Maybe we could stay here.’
    Alina stared grumpily out the window, just as the coach, its wheels making a plopping sound on the cobblestone road, passed a row of boarded-up shops. ‘You’ve never been to Milan, how would you know,’ she said crossly, and tried to fall asleep, using Nadia as her pillow.
    Nadia shrugged viciously, causing her friend’s lazy head to hit the broken armrest between them. ‘At least I knew Milan wasn’t in the Ukraine.’
    The coach pulled into a parking area and stopped beside a lump of slate with 1941–1945 inscribed in it. The air below them glinted and sparkled, and Nadia felt her heart leap with excitement and possibility.
    ‘Look, Alina, the sea!’ She grabbed her friend’s hand in excitement. Maybe it was going to be a great adventure after