All Russians Love Birch Trees Read Online Free

quickly. I tied my hair back and went into the kitchen. I tried to imagine all the things I could do now that Elias wasn’t there, but couldn’t come up with any. And therefore I also stopped doing the things I used to do in his presence: every surface was cluttered with open packaging, newspapers, used mugs, bowls; the trash was overflowing and of course I’d not bothered to separate out paper, plastic, compost, metal, electronic appliances, and bulky items. I turned on the radio and translated the morning news into French while I rinsed out the stovetop espresso maker and soaked a crescentroll in a bowl of milk. The phone’s ringing startled me and I choked on the roll, which I hadn’t bothered to bake prior to consumption. The display showed Elisha’s number.
    “Already awake?” I asked, surprised.
    “What do you think? They wake us up at six a.m. for the ward round and stare at us like rabbits pulled out of a hat. And if somebody sleeps through the magic trick, they’ll come back.”
    “How are you?”
    The line crackled.
    “Are you in pain?” I asked again.
    “No,” he replied.
    Both of us knew this was a lie.
    “Do you think you could come earlier today?” he hesitantly asked.
    “Yes.” I tried to sound tender, and just then recalled that I had a seminar today. But it was too late. I had already agreed to come.
    “Thank you.”
    “No problem. Should I bring you anything?”
    “Warm clothes—I have to keep the windows open here.” He murmured something into the telephone that I didn’t understand and then continued in a normal volume: “A scarf and a pullover if possible, the black one and the light gray cashmere one.”
    “Do you want anything to eat?”
    “God no. I’m constantly being force-fed here. I’m starting to beef up. But you could bring me the books and the lens from the dresser, first drawer on the left. This time the right one, please.”
    “You hardly need all your fucking equipment there, do you?”
    I hung up and tried to fish the soggy piece of bread from the cereal bowl. It turned out to be easier to just drink everything. I was furious. With Elias, with myself, with the entire world.
    I wandered through the art academy library that was so very different from the one in my department. Again and again I pulled a book from the shelves and leafed through reproductions of old Flemish masters and descriptions of happenings. Holding in my hands the catalog for the Sonic Youth exhibition, I asked myself whether my life had taken the right course. Languages come easily to me. I quickly grasp the patterns and have a good memory, but in the last few years I had hardly done anything other than learn technical terms and grammar constructions. I was disciplined and hungry for success. In school I had studied English, French, and a bit of Italian, then I had spent a year as an au pair in France to perfect my French. Afterward, I’d enrolled to study interpreting. In my free time I studied Italian,Spanish, and a bit of Polish, but I never managed to work up enthusiasm for the Slavic languages. Nonetheless, I spent a semester at the Lomonosov University in Moscow, then did internships with international organizations in Brussels, Vienna, and Warsaw. A scholarship had freed me from having to work on the side. But by then I had compiled a respectable CV and was familiar with the use of Ritalin and other substances that facilitate an easier learning process. I finished college in record time and started taking Arabic lessons. Sami had been a good teacher, but he returned to the United States. A year later I met Elias.
    We’d been together for a mere two months when we decided to travel together. We were on the road for almost four months, crossed France, into Italy, from there on to the Balearic Islands and Spain, then to Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey. During the trip Elias took pictures for his thesis show. Upon our return he disappeared into his darkroom and I started a double master’s