Irene's Voice

Daniil. You came today to listen. I hear you sit down. Thank you for sitting evenly.

It is now Tuesday morning here. On the kitchen the kettle. Musya at the window — she’s been with me for the thirteenth year by her count, and she knows that on Tuesday I cook potatoes; she herself doesn’t eat them. She waits for milk to be put down for her after. I have milk today. Lida brought it for me yesterday from the market on Sovetskaya. With Lida, after the titmouse that flew to the windowsill last Friday, the sense remains that something will soon be decided in her room. I don’t explain this sense to her. She doesn’t need it.

Last week Lida’s shelf in the corridor broke. The one on which she kept books about Afghanistan (her father served there, and she takes care of the books). The shelf was on dowels from ’40 which had long since crumbled in the wall, and on Monday she went to the hardware store to buy new ones, but they didn’t have what was needed. Yesterday I took some from the neighbor on the second floor; he has a whole jar in his closet, from Gorbachev’s time. I put up the shelf myself. Lida said “well, Irina, you’re gold,” and went to brew us tea. She has tea with thyme. I love thyme; that’s still from Murom, in ’09, where we went with Mom to relatives.