Page 15 of Crimson

“Yes,” Nadia said.

“I’m already bored over here,” Maxim complained. “My aunt is trying to stuff me full of pelmeni. And my cousin Grigory keeps trying to show me his turntables, as if I give a fuck about bass levels. He thinks he’s a DJ. I told him my favorite musician is Justin Bieber just so he’d leave me alone.”

Nadia couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s pretty bad over here, too,” she admitted. “I haven’t even seen my grandfather yet. But the house is filthy and falling apart.”

“I told you Russia is shit,” Maxim said.

“You can’t blame all of Russia for our relatives,” Nadia said.

“Well, don’t worry, I’ve got plans for us tonight.”

“What?” Nadia asked.

“There’s a party. Grig told me about it.”

“I don’t know if I should go,” Nadia said, hesitantly. Rashel might be offended if she went out the very first night she arrived.

“Come on,” Maxim coaxed. “They probably go to bed at eight o’clock anyway. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

“Well...alright,” Nadia agreed.

“Dress sexy,” Maxim said.

Nadia didn’t bother to respond to that. That’s what he always expected.

* * *

7

Nadia

A little party never killed nobody.

Fergie

Once Nadia had taken her clothes out of the suitcase and hung them all up in the elaborately carved wardrobe, she had no more excuse not to walk down the long, dark hallway to her grandfather’s rooms.

She paused outside the door, knocking, and entering only once she heard Rashel’s voice saying, “Come in.”

Nadia was relieved to see that her grandfather’s suite, at least, was fairly clean and tidy. She supposed the nurses kept it in good order. They were still permitted to come to the house, as evidenced by the hospital-style bed upon which her grandfather was laying, and the medical equipment occupying the majority of the room.

Rashel sat in a large, overstuffed armchair next to her father’s bed, reading a Gogol novel. She must have been reading out loud to Stanislav, as Nadia thought she’d heard the murmur of steady, regular speech as she’d approached the door, and Stanislav certainly wasn’t talking.

He lay on his back in the bed, gazing up at the ceiling.

Nadia knew he had once been a tall, imposing man, broad-shouldered, with that well-trimmed dark beard.

Now he was nearly as shrunken and frail as Rashel herself. His hair, what little of it was left, had turned snow-white, including the stubble on his shaven face. His eyes had faded to no particular color at all, and they stared blankly upward, rarely blinking, not seeming to perceive anything at all.

Nadia forced herself to approach the bed, and even to take her grandfather’s gnarled hand from where it lay on top of the blanket.

To her relief, his hand was not overly unpleasant to touch—it was warm and dry, at least.

“Privet, Ded,”Nadia said.Hello, Grandfather.

She thought at first that he wouldn’t respond, but, extremely slowly, he turned his head and fixed his faded gray-brown eyes upon her.