Settling Slowly

Chapter 6 - Uninvited Guests

I nearly stopped in my tracks. He hadn't called me Zoya for months. He'd never used the Russian form of my name much in the first place, and when he did it was only because he was feeling at peace with himself. With us. They'd been rare relaxed moments when he'd forgotten all about Katya and felt like he'd found his place here. I hadn't expected to hear it so soon.

"What is it like?" I asked.

"There're lights everywhere," he began wistfully. "Our days are so short in the winter. It doesn't get light until ten and is dark by three. So there are lights everywhere. Every commercial building, most houses, strung up between streetlights and building to building. It's like... like living in a fairy tale land where magic chases the darkness away. The stalls are all in little wooden huts. Most of them are for tourists. They're filled with brightly coloured scarves, matryoshka dolls of all sizes, glittering key rings and jewellery, ushanka hats, music boxes with replicas of St. Basil's and the Kremlin... And there's snow. There's always snow. Lots of it too." He chuckled and looked down at me. "I see more snow in a season than you probably have in your entire life. Well... I used to. You can't imagine how much snow Russia gets."

"I'm not sure I want to," I said. I was cold anyway, and all this talking of snow was making me colder. "What's the fair like?"

"Like any other I guess. Small rides for children, food stalls, a big slide that goes round and round."

"A helter-skelter?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yes, helter-skelter. It's made to look a bit like a castle. A couple of years ago it was white and had some blue lights on the towers. There's a temporary ice rink too. We always spent a lot of time there. My brother, sisters and I. Mama stood at the side taking photos. And the GUM was all lit up and there was a set of lights that looked like a bow on a present. There were trees all around, all of them decorated differently and everyone was so happy."

"You miss it."

He nodded. "Always. Not as much as I used to and it gets a little easier each day."

I wondered if there was anything I could do in the long term to help. For now, I decided the only thing I could do was fall by on my old pal: humour. "It sounds pretty boring actually. I mean there aren't any really out there things like a vodka shot stall."

He laughed a little. "You could get mulled wine in a take away cup."

I felt my eye go wide. "Really?"

He nodded. "Sixty rubles a cup."

"How much is that?"

"Ah... sixty pence I think."

"So a ruble is about a penny?"

He nodded. "About. It keeps declining. Putin's an idiot."  

"All politicians are idiots," I said. "And lucky me I get to vote this year. I'll be picking the lesser of the evils. None of them know anything."

"Got a point there," he agreed. "But things are better here than in Russia."

"Yeah. I g-guess I can't c-complain."

I could complain about being cold though. The skies had darkened and the temperature had dropped again. I couldn't feel my toes, my nose was dripping and my ears were so cold they hurt.

"You're freezing," Grigory said and began to take his coat off.

"There's only a c-couple of stalls left, I'll b-be o-ok. Look, there's some m-mushrooms."

I hurried over to the stall before he could take his coat off. I left him behind or maybe he didn't follow me so that he could check something else out.