‘Sure,’ Noah agrees easily, ‘but first breakfast.’
Breakfast is socca at a stall in the Cours Saleya market in the colorful old town. It is brought piping hot in the back of a scooter by a man. Turns out it is a traditional peasant snack and is basically a very large chick pea pancake with a lots of pepper. It is served on paper with no cutlery, and is surprisingly delicious served with a glass of local rosé.
Feeling pleasantly tipsy after the one and a half glasses of rosé so early in the morning, I lean into Noah’s hardness as we pass by a myriad of sounds and sights. We walk together, our bodies sometimes touching on the vehicle-free streets. The sun beats down on my head and I can taste the salty air on my lips. In the butcher’s window I see a tiny whole dead piglet tied up with string.
‘Oh my God. Look! Why would anyone keep something so gruesome in the window?’ I exclaim with surprise.
‘That’s prochetta. An Italian style specialty. It’s actually a hollowed-out pig filled with chunks of meat, fat, herbs, and lots of garlic before being roasted on a spit. They slice right through it and serve it in large thin slices as you would luncheon meat.
‘Ugh. Food with faces. Just no.’
‘It’s actually very delicious,’ he tells me.
‘Why did you buy a house here?’ I ask him nosily.
He shrugs. ‘The weather is pleasant and I like that there is a big Russian community here.’
‘Do you speak French?’
‘Nope. I get by with English and Russian. Do you?’
‘I studied it at school, but I’m rusty.’
‘Good, you can do all the speaking from now on,’ he says.
‘Tell me, what were you like as a child?’ I press. Left to his own devices, he says very little. I want to know everything there is to know about him.
He gives my question some thought as if no one had ever asked him such a question before. ‘Serious. Eager to please. Loyal, very loyal. And you?’
There it is again. Turning the conversation back to me. I look at him behind my eyelashes. Never mind, he cannot hide forever. Little by little I will teach him to trust me and reveal himself to me.
‘I was a plump, terrible, little thing. In the summer months I lay on the cool floor totally naked and refused to get dressed, and in the winter I ran around looking for places to hide so I could jump out with a great roar and frighten my mother and Baba.’
He laughs.
I smile. ‘Yup, I did that. They would pretend to scream and I thought that was hilarious, and I would fall about laughing. I mean, I would be clutching my stomach and rolling on the ground.’
‘I would have liked to have seen that,’ he says, smiling. ‘I’ll have to get you to hide in one of my cupboards.’
‘It won’t work. I lost the ability to laugh like that. Now I find it almost impossible to laugh uncontrollably.’
He stares into my eyes. ‘I never laughed like that even when I was a child.’
‘Why?’
‘Probably because my mother was always so sad. She never got over being discarded by my father.’
‘Do you ever miss Russia?’ I ask softly.
‘No.’
‘No?’
He shakes his head. ‘When I was younger I used to dream of my childhood days. I could even remember taking my first steps holding on to my mother’s finger. The memories came so close I could feel them breathing into my mouth, but there is nothing left of them now. The house, the people, the memories. They’re all gone … I don’t think of them anymore.’
Twenty-two
Tasha Evanoff
The church is located in a green area of the city, and you cannot see it until you are actually almost upon it. It has six onion domes and an exterior that is richly decorated in mosaic. Add those features to the fact that it is nearly hidden makes it seem foreign, isolated, almost an oasis in that bustling city.
There is a guard at the door, a man in all black. Even his glasses have black frames. He has a dour totally Russian personality, but strangely, he doesn’t speak Russian. He speaks to us first in French then in English. He is apparently there to enforce the rules. Basically, no taking pictures or videos. No talking loudly. No shorts. No naked shoulders.
I brought a scarf with me and use it to cover my hair before we enter the church. The interior is even more grand and fabulous than the exterior. There are no chairs, but it is very much a working church attended by the large Russian community that live in Nice. In the Orthodox Church the congregation stands.
It is full of stunningly beautiful and intricate icons and paintings. Hundreds of candles burn, adding to the hushed, otherworldly atmosphere. Religious artifacts include a huge hammered silver cross, and delicate icons made of silver and studded with semi-precious stones.