Despite the Falling Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

and now has a rhythm that is well held and infectious. Alexander notices that, in the absence of a drum or tambourine, almost everyone in the room is tapping a foot or a finger in time to the music. He smiles to himself, and as his eyes sweep back towards Misha, his gaze catches on something, and he turns back to look.
    She is sitting with two other girls at one of the groups of wooden chairs placed haphazardly around the edges of the room. Alexander watches her intently – he is trying to decide what is it about her that has caught his attention. She is beautiful certainly, but there is something else, something in the proud set of her shoulders and head, that sets her apart from the girls around her. She is talking animatedly, telling a joke or a story, and her friends are laughing, and so is she, but her laughter is controlled – she is smiling, but also watching her audience’s reaction. He strains to hear her voice, but he is a little too far away, and the people around him are noisy. He looks about him, with the air of someone who has just woken up, and he realises that he does not know how long he has been staring at her; but now there is a young man who has gone up to her, and who is talking to her, trying his luck, and obscuring Alexander’s view.
    “Sasha! Where do you wander off to in your head? Come, let’s get another drink.” Misha gives him a friendly slap on the back, and then looks across the room, to see what sight has turned his friend into a statue.
    “The blonde?” he asks, puzzled. He has never known a man less easily pleased with women than his best friend, and this girl looks like so many others that Alexander inevitably turns down.
    “No.” Alexander moves across a few steps, to see past the young man who is still standing in front of her. He pulls Misha with him, and they both look at the fine-boned, dark-haired girl. Misha’s eyebrows go up, and he laughs slightly, hesitantly.
    “If you’re going to fall, Sasha, don’t fall for that one.”
    “Why not?”
    Misha does not answer, and Alexander looks at him.
    “You know her?”
    “A little. Not so well,” replies Misha, with a shrug. “We grew up around each other. My parents knew her parents. They were university professors. They were taken. Years ago. During the war.” He hesitates, then makes the final comment, the one he would have held inside were it not for all the alcohol sloshing in his head. “Khrushchev’s speech came too late for them.”
    Alexander’s frown deepens.
    “For what reason?”
    Misha almost snorts with laughter. An excess of vodka is sharpening everything he feels, making him lapse into stating what they all already know.
    “For what reason! The same reason as everyone else. They were declared “enemies of the people”. For no damn reason. Some asshole who worked with them probably wanted their jobs, or their apartment or something, and turned them in.”
    “Imprisoned?” he asks.
    “No. They got their eight grams.” It has been a while since Alexander has heard that expression – the slang for the bullet in the head, the reference being to the weight of that bullet. Misha takes a last smoke of the remains of his cigarette and shifts his weight, as though he is suddenly restless.
    Alexander is looking back to the chairs where she is sitting. It seems that the young man has been sent away, sauntering with poorly hidden embarrassment back to his laughing friends, and the girl is now listening to the music, watching the guitar player with intent eyes. The musician has fingers that move lightly, flowing like warm water over the rippling strings. Alexander turns back to Misha because a thought has occurred to him.
    “Do you…I mean, are you…?”
    Misha waves a hand, one that is holding an empty glass.
    “No, no, not at all. She’s pretty, but a handful. Not for me. You go ahead. If you must.” He shakes his head. Alexander nods and pulls his tie back up to his collar and he starts off across