Winter Garden

Though her mother says nothing, the look in her dark eyes is easy to read: he is gone.

Olga touches Vera, whether for support or in comfort, Vera is unsure. “When do we move?”

“Tonight. Before the landlord comes to collect the rent. ”

Once, Vera would have talked back or argued. Now she sighs quietly and goes into her room. There is little enough to pack up. A few clothes, some blankets, a hairbrush, and her old felt boots, which she has almost outgrown.

In no time, they are outside, dressed in layers that represent almost all of their clothing; they trudge through the snow toward their new home.

At last they arrive. The building is small and it looks unkempt. A stone façade on the stoop is crumbling away. Cheap fabric curtains hang at odd angles in several of the windows.

Up the stairs they go, to the last apartment on the second floor.

The woman who answers is heavy and sad-looking, wearing a floral housecoat that has seen better days. Her gray hair is covered by a pale green kerchief. She is smoking a cigarette, and her fingers are discolored where it rests between them.

“Zoya,” the woman says. “And these are my grandchildren. Veronika and Olga. Which is which?”

“I am Vera,” she says, standing tall beneath her new grandmother’s scrutiny.

The woman nods. “There will be no problem with you, yes? We do not need the trouble you have had. ”

“There will be no trouble,” Mama says quietly, and they are shown inside.

Vera stops dead. Olga bumps into her and giggles. But her laughter stops abruptly.

The apartment is a single room with a small wood-burning stove and a sink, a wooden table with four mismatched chairs, and a narrow bed pushed against the wall. A curtainless window stares out at the brick wall across the alley. In the corner, a half-open door reveals an empty closet. There is no bathroom; it must be a communal one for the building.

How can they all live here, crammed together like rats in a shoe box?

“Come,” her grandmother says, grinding out the butt of her cigarette in a saucer overflowing with ashes. “I will show you where to put your things. ”

Hours later, on this first night in their new home, in the room that smells of boiled cabbage and too many people, Vera makes a bed of blankets on the floor and snuggles close to her sister.

“A man from work will bring our furniture over tomorrow,” Mama says tiredly. Olga begins to cry. They all know that furniture will not matter much.

Vera takes hold of her sister’s hand. Outside, a cart crashes into something, a man yells out a curse, and Vera can’t help thinking that they are the sounds of a dying dream.

After that, Vera is angry all of the time, and although she tries to hide her displeasure with life, she knows she fails to do so. She is sharp-tempered and quick to criticize. She and her mother and Olga sleep together in their narrow bed, crammed so close that they must turn in unison or not at all.

She works from dawn until dark, and when she gets back to the apartment it is more of the same. She cooks dinner with her mother and grandmother, then carries firewood to the stove for the night and washes the dishes. Working, working, working. Only on Fridays is it different.

“You should quit going there,” her mother says as they leave the apartment. It is five in the morning and dark as jet in the streets.

As they pass a café, a group of drunken young noblemen stumble out, laughing and hugging one another, and Vera feels an ache in her chest at the sight of them. They are so young, so free, and yet they are older than she, who trudges along beside her mother and sister going to work at dawn instead of drinking coffee and arguing politics and writing important words.

Her mother reaches out and takes Vera’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

Rarely do they touch on the truth of their lives or the loss. Vera squeezes her mother’s hand. She wants to say, I know, or It’s okay, but she is afraid she’ll cry, so she just nods.

“Well. Good-bye, then,” her mother finally says, turning toward her trolley stop.

“See you tonight. ”

The three of them go their separate ways to work.

Alone, Vera walks the last few blocks to the Great Hall of Justice. She enters the long queue and waits her turn.

“Name,” says the goblin at the desk when it is her turn.