Snowdrops Read Online Free PDF

and a comparatively demure black jumper. Lipstick and mascara, but not too clownish like some of the others. Blood-red nails.
    I sat down opposite them. At the table behind me were half a dozen noisy businessmen, and with them seven or eight women who were young enough to be their daughters but weren't.
    Naturally there was nothing much to say.
    We looked down for longer than we needed to at the menus, with their time-consuming lists of meats and sauces (and next to them two columns of numbers: the prices and also, as in most Moscow restaurants, the weight of the ingredients in each dish, an up-front detail supposed to reassure diners that they weren't being ripped off). I remember how my eye involuntarily tripped on the prices for the Shashlik Royale and the Sea Surprise. Singledom can turn you frugal, even when you are flush.
    "So, Kolya," Masha finally said in English, using one of those cutesy Russian diminutives. "Why did you come to our Russia?"
    "Let's speak Russian," I said. "I think it will be easier."
    "Please," Katya said. "We need practice for our English."
    "Okay," I said. I hadn't gone to Dream of the East to argue with them. After that, we mostly stuck to English, except when we were with other Russians.
    "Tak,"
Katya said. "So. Why to Russia?"
    I gave the easy answer I always did when asked that question: "I wanted an adventure."
    That wasn't really true. The reason, I can see now, is that I found myself entering the thirtysomething zone of disappointment, the time when momentum and ambition start to fade and friends' parents start to die. The time of "Is that all there is?" People I knew in London who had already got married began to get divorced, and people who hadn't adopted cats. People started running marathons or becoming Buddhists to help them get through it. For you I guess it was those dodgy evangelical seminars you once told me you went to a couple of times before we met. The truth is, the firm asked me if I'd go out to Moscow, just for a year, they said, maybe two. It was a shortcut to a partnership, they hinted. I said yes, and ran away from London and how young I wasn't anymore.
    They smiled.
    I said, "My company asked me to come to the Moscow office. It was a good opportunity for me. Also," I added,"I'd always wanted to come to Russia. My grandfather was in Russia during the war."
    That part was true, as you know. I never knew him properly, but his war record came up all the time when I was a kid.
    "Where did your grandfather serve?" Masha asked. "Was he spy?"
    "No," I said. "He was a sailor. He was on the convoys--you know, the ships that brought supplies to Russia from England. He was on the convoys to the Arctic. To Arkhangelsk. And to Murmansk."
    Masha leaned over and murmured something to Katya, which I thought was a translation.
    "Really?" she said. "No jokes? He was in Murmansk?"
    "Yes. More than once. He was lucky. His boat was never hit. I think he wanted to go back to Russia after the war. But they were Soviet times and it wasn't possible. My father told me all this--my grandfather died when I was young."
    "This for us is interesting," said Katya. "Because we are from this city. Murmansk is our home."
    Just then the waiter arrived to take our order. They both asked for sturgeon shashlik. I ordered lamb, plus some of the Azeri pancakes that they stuff with cheese and herbs, the little eggplant rolls filled with a walnut mush, some pomegranate sauce, and half a bottle of vodka.
    At the time my grandfather having been in their hometown seemed an important coincidence or clue. I asked them why their family had lived up there. I knew Murmansk had been one of the special restricted military cities, where you only wound up if you had a reason, or if someone else had a reason for you.
    Masha looked me in the eyes and tapped the red nails of her right hand on her shoulder. I thought I was supposed to say or do something in response, but I didn't know what. After a few seconds I tapped my hand on