Mother Russia Read Online Free Page A

it all Pravdin accepts the paper, folds it away between the bills in his change purse. “When I can do “something for you only ask,” he promises the Druse.
    “When you can do something for me,” Chuvash replies evenly, “you will know it without my asking.”

CHAPTER 2
The last wooden house
in central Moscow …
    The last wooden house in central Moscow, two floors of frayed eaves and awnings, looms at the dead end of an L-shaped alley off Trubnaya Square. Pravdin, nostalgic for the ordered sweetness of shtetl life he has never experienced, blinks back a rush of emotion as he sets down his rope-bound cardboard suitcases. Dear God in heaven, a building with soft edges and no right angles! Surrounded by a fence! White birch trees! Shrubbery! A garden! Weeds even! Next door, the faded paint peeling from its onion-shaped domes: a sixteenth-century Orthodox church that has been converted into a wine shop. Across the alley, towering over both the church and the wooden house: a line of prewarapartment houses, their backs to the alley, their windows silvery with reflected sunlight. Pravdin, fighting faintness, rests a hand on a birch to steady himself. Birds chirp. The sound of Mozart hangs in the air like moisture. The alley seems to swallow Pravdin as he approaches the house, swings back the wooden gate. Hinges squeal. Count your blessings , Pravdin almost weeps. You’re reasonably healthy, relatively wealthy and you’re moving into the last wooden house in central Moscow. Touch wood . (His knuckles rap against the wooden fence.)
    “Hello to anyone?” Pravdin hollers into the house, holding open the front door. “Someone home?”
    “Hello yourself,” a female voice calls from one of the ground-floor rooms. A moment later a young girl pads into the hall on bare feet. She has long matted blonde hair that falls to her waist, wears an American sweat shirt with “Make Amends” embroidered across the breast and jeans that flare at the ankle. She appears to be about fifteen. “I’m Ophelia Long Legs,” she supplies, cocking her head, studying Pravdin with childlike curiosity. “You must be the new attic. Wow! What a fantastic jacket. Where’d you ever find it?”
    “It’s an old Eisenhower jacket,” Pravdin starts to explain.
    “What’s Eisenhower? Say, do you eat meat?”
    “What kind of a question is that, ‘Do you eat meat?’ “
    “I don’t mean to be nosey.” Ophelia Long Legs glances up the stairs, lowers her voice. “The reason why I ask is because the ladies you share the kitchen with are vegetarians and they can’t support the smell of meat.” Ophelia giggles. “We don’t eat meat either but that’s because we can’t afford it.”
    “Who’s ‘we’?” Pravdin, always on the alert for new clients, wants to know.
    “ We’ is whoever happens to be in the room. We’re volosatiye—hairy ones—you see. Friends come, friends go. Some stay a day, some stay a month.”

    “What about residence permits? What about the police?”
    “Oh, the militia gives us a wide berth,” Ophelia boasts. She whispers again. “Some of us have fathers who are vlasti—you know, bosses. What’s your name anyhow?”
    “Pravdin, Robespierre Isayevich,” Pravdin draws himself up, soundlessly clicking the heels of his sneakers together, “at your beck and call.”
    “Hey, that’s cute,” Ophelia giggles, looking at the sneakers. “What kind of a nutty name is Robespierre? It doesn’t sound Russian.”
    “It’s French. A famous French revolutionary is whom I was named after,” Pravdin explains.
    “I thought France was capitalist,” the girl says innocently. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any French rock records, would you?”
    “I know where I can put my hands on some,” Pravdin ventures cautiously, “but they’re for sale, not for lend.”
    “Oh, we’ve got money when it comes to records, don’t you worry your head about that.”
    Pravdin drags his suitcases into the hall as the girl