—Who’d ever fall in love with a girl like her?
I remember thinking that as if it was yesterday.
I was standing under a heavy, lead-colored sky, ashen snow drifting down from the clouds.
I was walking streets that were lined with huge metal pipes that looked like a giant’s intestines, which sang with the hot water running through them. It was like being at the bottom of a valley.
She sat at the approach to the kvartira <communal residences>, the numbers on the heels of her shoes on display.
She was maybe fifteen years old—about my age, I guessed.
Of course, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of my own age.
Just glancing at her, I figured she was older and a bit more mature than the older one of my little sisters, but definitely not older than me.
Her short, unkempt hair was a pale blond, but the snow piling on top of her head soaked it through. What a waste. That same snow had turned her white skin and rose-colored lips a pale purplish color, and she was shivering in the freezing cold.
She was wearing a white one-piece; the shoulders hung loosely, and she had to use a safety pin to hold them up, yet the sleeves were too short. Once in a while—whether from embarrassment or the cold, I didn’t know—she would tug at a sleeve in a vain effort to pull it down. Her arms were as thin as twigs, but the weird thing was that they still looked luxurious and soft.
To be fair, I was no prize pig myself. I was haggard, gaunt, and starving. I hadn’t eaten in days at that point. Not since I’d used the last of our flour to make some pelmeni dumplings, and my little brother and sisters had gobbled them up. There hadn’t been so much as a bite left for me. Instead, I’d guzzled a bunch of water and tried to convince myself it had filled my belly. Then I’d spent all day today running.
The PPSh that dangled from my shoulders was very heavy. The bandolier bit into my skin even through my jacket.
It wasn’t much of a jacket, anyway—it was awfully tight, and the Tokarev pistol I kept near my chest was always whacking my ribs painfully.
Despite all that, she kept staring at me. Frost had collected on her long eyelashes; she blinked rapidly, and I couldn’t help feeling bad when I saw how red her eyes were.
For a moment, I thought maybe she was a rabbit in the snow—not that I’d ever seen a rabbit.
“M-maybe you’d l-like to, um, w-warm yourself before you go?” she asked.
I was cold, I was hungry, and I had only a few kopecks in my pocket.
That’s why I said what I said, how I said it. I made my voice as hard as I could.
“Tsk,” I snapped. “I ain’t got any money.”
“Oh, um, well…”
It didn’t stop the girl from smiling at me.