Alyona was one of only five Ukrainian kids in their class of twenty-nine. Shura, slight, pale, with dark braids and eyes that could narrow suspiciously, had played an evil stepsister. In their sixth-grade production of “Cinderella,” Alyona, with her shining blond head and biscuit skin, was cast as Fée Marraine, the fairy godmother. Chattering in broken French was how they got to pretend that they were more than provincial Soviet schoolgirls in a quasi-industrial railroad city. 6, French had been Alyona’s favorite subject, and, by extension, Shura’s. Last time we spoke, she was making veal the French way.”Īt School No. “So what’s their situation with groceries?” But she hesitated, not wanting to give the impression that she was disparaging his mother. “Oh, Pavel.” She sensed that he would tell her more if she egged him on a little. The long shift into a Canadian had turned him, Shura thought, more earnest, and a touch more righteous. Pavel had been more of a joker when he’d arrived in Winnipeg, twenty years ago. But I think he’d rather spend his old age living on canned tushonka than accept help from me.” Pavel said, “Mama I understand better than I do him. Her father’s family was from the Vinnytsia area her mother’s, from Donbas. But Alyona was Ukrainian, on both sides, as she’d proudly told Shura when they were girls. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Oleg, to be sure, was Russian, the son of a colonel. “Last time she was here, Mama said she didn’t find Winnipeg ‘cozy.’ ” Podcast: The Writer’s Voice Listen to Sana Krasikov read “The Muddle.”īut he wasn’t hurt, having some of his own bitterness to shed. She’d expected a bit more emotiveness-did they have groceries? Were they spending nights in their building’s basement, or in the metro? We’re alive. It should have taken the tension out of her lungs, but it only agitated Shura more. “We’re alive.” Two words in a pale-blue bubble. It had been a rather unpleasant chat, but now there was a war on and it seemed unnecessary to be holding a grudge, one of the very few they’d had in their sixty-odd-year friendship. From the security of her own house in Croton-on-Hudson, Shura tried not to think about the last conversation she’d had with Alyona. There was the battle at the Hostomel airport, and a rocket had crashed into a building in Obolon, but that was not near where Alyona and Oleg lived, in the Shevchenkivskyi district. If Alyona wasn’t panicked, why should she be? It was day three and there were still no Russian boots in central Kyiv.

Well, goody for her, Shura thought, and shut her laptop. Maybe she thought Shura was being dramatic-hadn’t she always thought so? With her digital silence, Alyona was making a big show of her own calm, doubling down on her refusal to treat anything as a catastrophe. Alyona had not posted recently, but she’d checked her messages, Shura could see that. It should not have been so hard to get hold of them. Shura was trying to reach Alyona and Oleg, first over Skype and WhatsApp, then Facebook, on which Alyona kept an account she barely used.

Walking papers blues song