Salt the Snow

by Carrie Callaghan

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “Shall we get some popcorn?”

  “No thanks.” She loosened her scarf again but left her coat buttoned. It was chilly inside the theater.

  Victor exhaled and stood still, considering her, before he turned to walk toward the popcorn stand. He bought a bag and walked back to her. By now, the lobby was empty except for the two women selling popcorn, one who was stirring the brown kernels, and the other who was midway through some monologue.

  “Come look at this poster.” Victor pulled at her arm. He led her toward a poster near the entrance, where the cold seeped through the double glass doors, and he regarded the poster’s letters cascading across a single figure’s body.

  “You see how only his face and his accusatory finger are not covered by the repeating text? The Living Corpse. It was an excellent film. You should see it, if you can.”

  “Well, if they bring it back to the theater. What’s it about?” Milly hugged herself.

  “A man who fakes his death so his wife may think herself a widow and remarry. But then he is found alive, and she is charged with bigamy.” Victor ate a piece of popcorn and grimaced, then ate another. “Tolstoy wrote the original.”

  “I’m not sure I would like it. I prefer to laugh.”

  “You are in the wrong country, then,” he said, but couldn’t restrain his grin.

  “Russians have the same sense of humor as Americans,” Milly said. “We’ve more in common with you than the British. Should we go? Lieutenant Kizhe is probably starting.” She took a step toward the theater doors.

  Victor laid a hand on her sleeve, and a few pieces of popcorn from the bag in his other hand jostled onto the floor.

  “Tell me how he was.”

  Milly closed her eyes, then took her glasses off and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Happy. I can’t explain it.” Her throat tightened. She wanted to tell Victor how unhappy she was, how much she wanted to up and leave the whole damn country, how she couldn’t leave Zhenya, who needed her letters and her packages.

  Victor frowned, and a line furrowed between his chestnut eyebrows. Then he nodded.

  “That is Zhenya’s gift. To believe in the future.”

  “He’s not always like that.” Milly crossed her arms.

  “No one is always like anything. But you know what I mean.”

  “Maybe he likes summer,” she said.

  “Maybe.” A concession. “Winter will be a different beast.”

  They looked again at the poster, and behind them, the popcorn vendor rambled on in her anecdote.

  “All right, then,” Victor said.

  Milly nodded, and as she led the way into the theater, she wanted to tell him that she couldn’t give him what he wanted. She couldn’t give him Zhenya’s or her forgiveness. She couldn’t.

  In her seat, her hands balled into fists. She let the words of the movie wash over her, without paying them any attention.

  All she could hear was the easy breathing of the slim man next to her.

  22

  DECEMBER 1934

  MILLY CLOSED THE door to Olga’s apartment, and the click echoed down the quiet hallway. Behind her, inside the apartment, Olga was probably releasing the tears she had stoppered up while she and Milly read Zhenya’s latest missive, which Milly now carried in her pocket. He was touring with the agitprop group, telling Soviet peasants whatever fable the Soviet leadership wanted them to know, and he was enjoying it. Or so he said. He had written a separate letter for Olga, which she shared with Milly anyway. He was also doing hard labor, he confessed to his mother. Breaking rocks apart with a hammer and spike. Milly couldn’t imagine how cold it must be to do that work outside. Zhenya didn’t talk about the weather. Milly folded and refolded her letter as she walked, as if somehow she could multiply the happy words there and send them to vanquish the news in Olga’s letter. She felt so useless.

  Milly walked down the building stairs and nodded at one of Olga’s neighbors. Milly visited once a week, bringing Olga what produce she could find in the Union store and whatever spare luxuries she could afford. An extra pair of socks, a pretty blue candle, a small pot of honey. They didn’t speak much, except to read Zhenya’s letters—which Milly knew Olga read as soon as they arrived, but she pretended to believe the woman when she acted as if opening them for the first time. The hour or so together was companionable nonetheless, with Milly frying up an omelet or moving whatever pieces of furniture Olga wanted shifted a few inches here or there in her room, while feeling comforted in their partnership whenever one of the more transient residents of the apartment showed up. Together, at least, they could feel his absence, like a bruise they relished probing.

  Now, though, Milly was anxious to leave Olga’s dark room behind. She had, and there was no other word for it, a date with Lindesay Parrott.

  Who was married.

  She was a goddamned fool. Especially after what had happened with Fred. But when Lindesay had run his finger across her wrist and asked if she would dine with him sometime—well, she had wanted to throw her lonely bones in his lap right then and there, at Seema and Bill’s small Thanksgiving party. She would have been willing to do it if he’d let her. She didn’t mind the gossip; what she did mind were the lonely nights. Then, as soon as she thought that, she pinched her eyes shut in disgust. Zhenya was in frigid Siberia, freezing as he traveled to perform “Intervention,” whatever that was. His letter hadn’t said.

  Outside the bitter cold clawed at the inside of her nose and throat, and she ran unsteadily when she saw the tram coming down the street. Panting, she climbed on before the car moved along, and then in the press of bodies, wondered if she would smell of sour sweat.

  Lindesay was standing outside his building on the busy Sadovaya-Karetnaya Street, near a strip of public gardens, and he smoked a cigarette in the dark, as if it weren’t deathly cold outside. Milly hadn’t even asked about his wife when he had suggested coming over before the ten forty-five p.m. showing of Chapaev, the only showing they could get tickets for. Milly knew from Seema that Ursula was traveling, visiting her sister in London for the next month. Lindesay broke into a huge grin upon seeing her and dropped his cigarette into the snowbank. Milly’s insides trembled with recognition. Still, she hugged her arms against the cold and brushed past him into the lobby.

  “Is winter over yet?” She stomped her boots to loosen the snow inside the gray, low-ceilinged lobby.

  “Ursula is traveling, so I think it must be spring.” He gave a crooked smile.

  Milly looked at him and didn’t smile back. She knew enough to be wary of a man who professed to hate his wife. What would he say about Milly when she wasn’t around?

  “Come on.” Lindesay took her mittened hand in his. Through the cold wool, the warmth of his palm pressed against hers, and she shivered.

  They walked up two flights of stairs and down a long hallway, nodding at a drunk man who was slumped against the wall but still followed them with his eyes.

  Lindesay and his wife had the one-room apartment to themselves, and as soon as he shut the door behind Milly, he spun her back against the wood and pressed his lips to her ear.

  “Take your coat off,” he whispered. “And have a drink.”

  The warmth of his breath against her ear made her shiver. She wanted to insist on taking more than her coat off, but she clenched her jaw shut. He stepped away, and she shrugged out of her coat and scarf. The wool sweater beneath clung to her breasts.

  “I’ll have the champagne,” she said.

  Lindesay laughed.

  He pulled a bottle of vodka off the open shelves of the pantry in the corner of the apartment and poured two glasses. He handed one to Milly.

  “Cheers,” he said. They each took a sip.

  Milly dropped herself onto the brown horsehair sofa, next to a curtain that she supposed concealed Lindesay’s bed. Her stomach grew warm.

  Lindesay sat next to her, close but not touching.


  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  She frowned.

  “What?”

  “The drink,” he said with a half-smile.

  She blushed.

  “Sure, I like vodka.”

  He took another sip.

  “I met Ursula young. A group of us went to swim at a set of pools, natural pools they were, where we lived. I must have been fifteen, and I was the only one of them who’d never had an ale before, much less a whiskey. Then I challenged one of the boys, Sam maybe, to fight me for mastery of a rock in the middle of the pool. Sam agreed, but Ursula, who’d had a few whiskeys herself at that point, said he should let a lady have a chance first. So I climbed up on that rock and held out a hand for her to climb up too. She grabbed it, pulled me into the water, and situated herself on the top. That’s when I first noticed her. Should have been a hint.”

  He stood and walked back to the kitchen corner, where he refilled his glass.

  “More?” He held up the bottle.

  “No thanks. Not yet.”

  He walked back and sat down next to her, this time a little closer.

  “I don’t know how to swim,” Milly said.

  “But you liked Hawaii. How can you live there and not swim?”

  “I was doing other things.”

  She took a sip, set down her glass, then leaned over and kissed him.

  His lips were rough, and his mustache chafed at her skin. She pressed herself against his chest, and as they kissed, she felt him stretch to set down his glass. Then his hands were on her breasts, and she sighed with pleasure. Zhenya never touched her there, not like Lindesay was now, caressing her curves then slipping his hand under her sweater to brush his fingers against the bare hill of her skin under her bra.

  She pulled away.

  “Tell me why you came to Moscow,” she said, her voice husky.

  “For you.” His eyes were heavy lidded, and he reached for her again.

  “Cut it out,” she said with a laugh, and leaned farther back. They’d have more fun if they paced themselves. “Really.”

  He raised his eyebrows, gave a slow blink, then took another drink from his glass on the side table.

  “Honestly? It was a good career move. Get my name on the international pieces. Maybe next I can cover Whitehall.”

  “But you’ve been here a year, had your name on plenty of yarns by now. Why do you stay?”

  He looked at her, then looked beyond.

  “I want to know what happens next.”

  She leaned close and gently nipped at his neck, below his jaw.

  “Next?” she said.

  “I surely want to know what happens next.”

  Then she took his face in her hands and kissed him again, and soon she threw one leg over him, straddling him with her clothes on yet rocking herself against him. He grabbed her buttocks and pulled her tight, so she could feel his hardness through both of their trousers. She could step away now, she knew, now was the last moment, before she surrendered to her hunger and her hopes. He slid a hand back under her sweater, and she rolled her hips against his, miming what it would be to take him inside her. He groaned with wanting.

  The phone rang.

  They ignored it, letting the rings fade into silence, and Milly maneuvered her fingers under the leather of his belt. She loved unhooking a man’s belt, feeling the thick leather slide under the metal clasp of the buckle to lay bare the man who lived inside, hungry, vulnerable, and hard.

  The phone rang again.

  “Dammit.” He rolled out from under her, then stood and went for the phone.

  Milly turned onto her back and pushed her hair from her eyes while she tried to calm her racing heart. Across the room, Lindesay frowned.

  “What do you mean?” he said in Russian, and adjusted the crotch of his pants. “Go there now?”

  Milly sat up. She straightened her sweater.

  Lindesay listened, wrote something down on the notepad on the table, then hung up the phone.

  “Someone’s been shot,” he said. “I don’t know who, the censor wouldn’t tell me, but it must be a big deal. He wants me to meet him so he can tell me in person.”

  “Aren’t censors supposed to keep news secret?” Milly crossed her arms over her chest. A bit of horsehair from the sofa poked at her back, but she ignored it.

  Lindesay shrugged, then stood and grabbed his overcoat.

  “This one’s a friend, or something like that,” he said. “And everyone needs someone to tell their secrets to.”

  “A newspaperman is a strange choice.”

  “You go ahead to the show, Milly. I’ll hang on to my ticket and slip in after it’s started.”

  He took a step toward her, then glanced at his wristwatch and turned back toward the door.

  “You don’t need to lock it,” he said, the door now open. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Milly slowly gathered her jacket and made her way to the movie theater. She showed her ticket and maneuvered through the crowded lobby into the theater, where she flung the coat across the empty seat next to her.

  He never showed.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Milly arrived early at the newsroom, though her eyes were dry and the morning darkness weighed on her like a blanket, begging her to go back to bed. She wanted to know what had happened the night before.

  Anna Louise and Borodin were standing in the morning-dark newsroom, talking, and Anna Louise had her fingers in her hair. Axelrod had left the paper four months earlier, leaving the two of them to run the operations, and Milly to finally breathe a little easier. In the low light, the plaster ornamentation on the mansion’s battered walls took on gruesome shapes. Anna Louise turned to pace, and in doing so, saw Milly.

  “Have you heard? It’s terrible,” she bellowed.

  “What?” Milly left her boots by the door.

  “Kirov! He was shot. Killed.” Anna Louise shook her head.

  “Who’s he?” Milly looked to Borodin, whose face was blank.

  “Sergei Kirov. A promising Party leader. Senior politician, but young,” he said.

  Anna Louise shuffled through some papers on the desk nearest her, Seema’s, and pulled out an old copy of Moscow Daily News. “Don’t you read your own paper, Milly? Look. He’s an important leader in Leningrad.” She held up the broadsheet.

  “Was.”

  “Was!” Anna Louise agreed. “And he was so promising. Rumored even to succeed Uncle Joe someday. Oh, it’s such a loss.” She clutched the paper to her chest.

  “He was a good socialist,” Borodin said.

  “Are we doing a story about it?”

  He glanced at Anna Louise, who pulled the paper from her bosom to look at it again.

  “No,” he said. “Let the local papers cover this first. The killer has already been arrested.”

  “Some madman by the name of Nikolaev,” Anna Louise said. “May his body rot.”

  “Before we publish anything, I want to find out if there’s more to the story than him,” Borodin added.

  “Isn’t that our job? To find out.” Milly walked over to her desk and picked up a red pencil. She tapped it against her knuckles.

  “We’re not in Leningrad,” Anna Louise said.

  “I’d go. I will go.” The space from Lindesay might be helpful, as dangerous as he was, and she would love to recapture the thrill of chasing a murder story from her old days in San Francisco.

  Borodin shook his head.

  “Not a chance. We stay put and listen.” He walked over and turned on the radio propped against a window. A frantic, crackled voice came on. Milly heard the name “Kirov” easily.

  “There will be more to this than one arrest,” Borodin said, his countenance sagging.

  “The killer can’t have worked alone,” Anna Louise added.

  “Why not?” Milly strained to understand the broadcast.

  Anna Louise shook her head.

  “There’s too much tension now,” Borodin said. “In times like this, no on
e works alone. Every loss has a dozen fathers when there is someone to find them. Not like what you Americans say.”

  “Failure is an orphan,” Anna Louise said with a dark laugh.

  Borodin waved his hand. “That’s right.”

  IT WAS MORE than two weeks later when Lindesay called Milly from his apartment.

  “Ursula came back early, but she’s out with the Swede tonight,” he said. “Again. How about we take advantage and have dinner? At your place.”

  Milly, sitting at the secretary’s desk in the newsroom, twirled the telephone cord around her finger. The secretary, another new one, this time from Boston, had winked at Milly when she beckoned her over to take the call, and then the young woman tactfully vanished.

  “It’s been two weeks, Lindesay.” She had glimpsed him in the mansion, coming and going from his office downstairs, but they hadn’t been close enough to speak. He hadn’t sought her out, and she hadn’t gone after him. She wasn’t trying to get her heart broken, and if he wanted something, he should be the one to make his intentions clear.

  “And I haven’t stopped thinking about you. I told you, Ursula came back early. Did you get that wire from the New York Times editor I sent over? Are you going to take the job?”

  She sat down in the secretary’s chair.

  “Yes. I told him I’d write the story. Thanks, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  She could imagine him leaning back to better focus his farsighted eyes upon her face.

  “It feels like you’re trying to make me feel better.”

  “Milly, I am trying to make you feel better. To apologize. Please?”

  She looked up at the ceiling, where the light from the fixture splintered into yellow rays across the plaster. It had been so long since she’d had a man in her bed.

  “Eight o’clock,” she said. “Bring dinner.” She hung up the phone.

  Borodin approached the desk and tossed his small notebook onto the bare surface. This new secretary was much neater than her predecessor.