Together in Paris

3.

"They gather at the old Yusupov Palace."

The voice of one of his spies brought him back to reality; he looked up from his desk on which his typewriter lodged, dusty. He hadn't used it for a while. Actually, since a few weeks, since he had met Anya. In fact, he had spent much less time at the headquarters: he had entered in the morning, had stamped, had stayed for a few hours and then, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he had gone away using the excuse of a patrolling turn and had found himself wandering on the Nevskij Prospekt, looking for the street sweeper that had intrigued him. Of course, during the last week he hadn't seen her much, often just running after her as she breathlessly told him she had little time and had to run to some kozyajka to make ends meet. And he, in spite of himself, had accepted it silently, waving to her, his heart sobbing as he saw her leave.
He had never happened to be so brutally misled from his work and his love for the Russian homeland without being able to retract his steps. He had been a boy too, that was true, but military life had taught him that little boy had to be restrained.

Absurdly, Anya seemed to awaken that child inside of him. The way she shook her shoulders and hair when she was upset, the light that lit up her eyes when she spoke of her future, her bizarre but extremely sophisticated way of walking, almost like the one of a dancer, and that tender smile on her lips had totally bewitched him. Her speaking with joy despite her economic and social problems, her cursing against some officers that bothered her -- yes, even in his presence -- and her laughing at nothing had made him feel young again, naïve and more interested in life than in duty. And he couldn't stop himself from finding that losing his days wandering around Leningrad throwing furtive glances at Anya and catching her observing him when he least expected it pleasant, sweet, almost marvelous. He could almost say he loved that doing nothing, lying on the cold afternoon grass by the side of the river Neva, not too far from where Anya lived.

"I'm taking you home." he had told her a few nights before. Anya had shaken her head, her little smirk had created a small dimple on her left cheek.

"Thank you, but you don't have to." she had answered tightening in her coat "My place is not far away from here. I just need to run a bit and I'm home."

"Where do you live?"

"Under a bridge." she had laughed, putting her cold hands in her pockets. He had laughed too, amused.

"Come on, seriously. Where do you live?"
And she, at that point, had given him a penetrating, almost wounded look.

"I wasn't joking." she had then coldly asserted, straightening herself despite the chill that hovered around them. He remembered very well what he had done then. Instinctively, he had taken off his coat and hat, had placed the garment on the shoulders of the young woman and had trod his soldier cap on her head. He didn't even know what had gotten into him. He simply had felt the need to do so. He had thus taken her back to her bridge and, reluctantly, had left her, running away as the humid Leningrad frost pierced his lungs and bones.

And so, there he was, in a common morning of work, with a dripping red nose and totally feverish, to the point of having fallen asleep on his desk. The intervention of his spy had made him awaken, and he really hadn't liked the fact of having been brought back to the human world, at the moment.

"Who?" he asked, rubbing his forehead nervously. A side of him that people and also himself liked very little was that any emotion had to be overwhelming to him. And most of the times, the emotion was anger. And his soldiers knew him very well; that was why, and he knew it, they avoided disturbing him when they saw him enter the headquarters in a bad mood. It didn't take a genius to guess how he was. One of his little flaws was actually being very expressive.
The spy curved his shoulders slightly forward, frightened by the inquisitorial tone he had taken.