Read The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight for Free Online Page A

Alas, just dots. Tanya sighed. Flipped through her notebook. Took consolation in an old scribble:

Violet in early November, shirring the sightline. Day and night meet in that hue for five minutes. With their barks the dogs in their courtyards measure the lengths of their chains. Outside the city the hills burn with trash fires and the smell of outdoors creeps indoors. This is the smell of the service coat, the one you were wearing when you came home. The patch with your name burned to
a crisp and you asked me if I could tell you who you were.
    Had she remained more alert she might have detected the sounds of umbrellas scraping the walls as the students from number 37 came bursting through the lower entrance of the museum and filed past the ticket-counter kassa, where phlegmatic Ludmilla slid their tickets under a window. Then she might have heard their stamping and tromping of their many boots and galoshes, the thump of book bags unstrapped and dumped on the long wooden counter that separated her world from theirs.
    At the same instant that the children of number 37, in a wave of human noise and coats, pressed against her counter, Yuri's group of tourists—all fifteen of them—descended from the stairs that funnelled past the lavs and deposited them directly in front of Tanya's counter.
    'Wake up!' a teacher barked, her brows stitched together in permanent disapproval.
    '
Devushka!
' another woman shouted with the too-stern tone of a teacher. Tanya jolted and her notebook slid from her lap to the floor. Strange how with the simple word 'girl!' her body snapped to the posture of primary school, her legs lifting her up and out of the chair, though her ears knew already from the sound of the woman's voice that it was too late—she had already failed.
    'Hey!' Two men in suits, regulars who only came to the
museum on account of the chess sets in the mezzanine café, waved their claim disks at her.

    'Please!' a woman shepherding two humpbacked pensioners cried. Adding to the bleating of the women was the din of the children, elbowing one another, jockeying for counter space, enthralled at the spectacle of noise.
    At the end of the hallway, Head Administrator Chumak materialized, a severe expression gathering on his face, his clipboard pressed to his side—the result being that Tanya, who tended to fluster easily anyway, went completely off the rails, handing the contents of rack 1131 to the holder of disk 1311 and the overcoat with the drooping buttons, 1717, to the bearer of disk 1771. To the businessman went the woman's shawl and to the wilting attendant of the old ladies, the most businesslike worsted wool coat. And on and on until the crush of human bodies, coats and noise dissipated and Tanya was left with Yuri, standing at the foot of the stairs and systematically wringing his hands. Next to him, shifting his substantial weight from his good foot to his leaden prosthetic foot, was Head Administrator Chumak.
    Head Administrator Chumak studied her for a long moment. Then he began—
thump—slide, thump—slide
—to climb the stairs. 'Follow me,' he called over his shoulder.
    Tanya collected her purse, her notebook, her coat, the packets of sugar she'd taken from the café, everything she'd need and possibly would not be allowed later to retrieve once he'd fired her.
    Inside Head Administrator Chumak's office the interior
gloom dampened the attempts of the last light at the windows. Tanya stood at the threshold and waited for Head Administrator Chumak to position himself with dignity behind his desk. He snapped on his desk lamp. From behind the desk loomed a tall soap carving of a frowning Zhilinsky, a painter Tanya had never liked.

    'Sit down there, dear.' Head Administrator Chumak's face softened and Tanya noticed for the first time that the splotches dotting his shiny head were, in actual fact, freckles.
    Chumak opened her work file. 'I see you've completed university studies and received