The Bronze Horseman Read Online Free PDF Page B

she going to do with this caviar? But it’s none of my business. I’m buying oil. And matches.”
    “Buy some salt,” the older woman said wisely. “You can drink tea without sugar, but you can’t eat porridge without salt.”
    “Don’t like porridge,” the younger woman said. “Never liked it. Won’t eat it. It’s gruel, that’s what it is.”
    “Well, buy caviar then. You like caviar, don’t you?”
    “No. Maybe some sausage,” the younger woman said thoughtfully. “Some nice smoked
kolbasa
. Listen, it’s been over twenty years that the proletariat has been the tsar. I know by now what to expect.”
    The woman in front of Tatiana snorted loudly. The two women ahead of her turned around.
    “You
don’t
know what to expect!” the woman said in a loud tone. “It’s war.” She gave a mirthless grunt that sounded like a train engine sputtering.
    “Who asked you?”
    “War, comrades! Welcome to reality, brought to you by Hitler. Buy your caviar and butter, and eat them tonight. Because mark my words, your two hundred rubles will not buy you a loaf of bread next January.”
    “Shut up!”
    Tatiana lowered her head. She did not like fighting. Not at home, not on the street with strangers.
    Two people were leaving the store with big paper bags under their arms. “What’s in them?” she inquired politely.
    “Smoked
kolbasa
,” a man told her gruffly, hurrying on. He looked as if he were afraid Tatiana would run after him and beat him to the ground to get his cursed smoked
kolbasa
. Tatiana continued to stand in line. She didn’t even like sausage.
    After thirty more minutes she left.
    Not wanting to disappoint her father, she hurried to the bus stop. She was going to catch bus Number 22 to Elisey on Nevsky Prospekt, since she knew for sure they sold at least caviar there.
    But then she thought, caviar? We will have to eat it next week. Surely caviar won’t last until winter? But is that the goal? Food for the winter? That just couldn’t be, she decided; winter was too far away. The Red Army was invincible; Comrade Stalin said so himself. The German pigs would be out by September.
    As she rounded the corner of Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, the rubber band holding her hair snapped and broke.
    The bus stop was across the street on the Tauride Park side. Usually she got bus 136 from here to go across town to visit cousin Marina. Today bus 22 would take her to Elisey, but she knew she needed to hurry. From the way those women were talking, soon even the caviar would be gone.
    Just ahead of her, Tatiana spotted a kiosk that sold ice cream.
    Ice cream!
    Suddenly the day
was
filled with possibilities. A man sat on a little stool under a small umbrella to shield himself from the sun as he read the paper.
    Tatiana quickened her pace.
    From behind her she heard the sound of the bus. She turned around and saw her bus in the middle distance. She knew if she ran, she could catch it easily. She stepped off the curb to cross the street, then looked at the ice cream stand, looked at the bus again, looked at the ice cream stand, and stopped.
    Tatiana
really
wanted an ice cream.
    Biting her lip, she let the bus pass. It’s all right, she thought. The next one will come soon, and in the meantime I’ll sit at the bus stop and have an ice cream.
    Walking up to the kiosk man, she said eagerly, “Ice cream, yes?”
    “It says ice cream, doesn’t it? I’m sitting here, aren’t I? What do you want?” He lifted his eyes from the newspaper to her, and his hard expression softened. “What can I get you, dearie?”
    “Have you got…” She trembled a little. “Have you got crème brûlée?”
    “Yes.” He opened the freezer door. “A cone or a cup?”
    “A cone, please,” Tatiana replied, jumping up and down once.
    She paid him gladly; she would have paid him double. In anticipation of the pleasure she was about to receive, Tatiana ran across the road in her heels, hurrying to the bench under the trees so she could