Murmansk-13

As she crossed the Oka river, from the Zarechnaya chast to the Nagornaya chast the crowds began to thin, the busy concrete city left behind against her back as she scaled the gentle hillside. Freed from the clamour, her mind played out what she would say, contemplated how she would deliver the news. Wondered what reaction would be elicited.

She’d been issued her placement. Most of her alumni at the Gorky Medical Institute had plumped for places in big cities, Moscow and Leningrad. Foreign assignments had been forbidden after last semesters defections, the friendship pact with America in tatters. By all accounts, Katja had scored the least desired placement of all despite being an average student. It had been the placement she requested.

The family mansion stood, an orange and white edifice in a suburb of Gorky, leafy in the short summer, set aback from imposing wrought iron gates. In truth it was a maisonette, a mock Petrine Baroque townhouse that had been wrestled from a city aristocrat and divvied up after the revolution. They owned the uppermost floor of the building that overlooked the city, still a much desired symbol of wealth despite the obvious signs of dilapidation. Over the decades the colourful paintwork had chipped and faded and the render showed hairline cracks that widened and grew more ragged with each year. Father always said he would fix it one day, but that day never seemed to come.

The hallway was draughty and dark, the cumbersome communal entrance door shutting with a clatter against the brittle wind. The ground floor neighbours would probably complain again, Katja didn’t really care. Her footsteps rung out as she ascended the scuffed marble staircase, the iron banister ice cold to the touch.

She could hear the radio before she opened the front door, a news reporter spoke with a sombre voice, mother was home early from the car factory again, work tailing off. Katja hoped the scenes of tension from the night before had dissipated as she quietly opened the door and slipped inside their home.

Katja struggled to breathe against the blast of dry electrical heat that roasted her street frozen skin. She shed her layers of furs and jumpers just as her lungs warmed to their normal capacity. The house smelt of burnt dust, cigarette ash and counterfeit flowery perfumes bought at the market.

“Kat is that you?” Her mother called from the dining room, her voice deep with age and a lifetime of smoking.