Snegurochka Judith Heneghan (most read book in the world .txt) 📖

moan about the snow and the shopping and Rachel tells Suzie about the white goods shop she’s on her way to visit and Suzie tells her how to find a pharmacy in Lipki where they sell Nivea hand cream and Tylenol. Yet when Rachel gets up to leave, she knows they have both been play-acting. She came because of nappies, and Suzie is nobody’s fool.

* * *

The white goods shop is in a basement down a side street on the west flank of Khreschatyk. There’s no sign, but the new–looking steel shutters are raised and Rachel can see Hotpoint and Bosch stickers in the large picture window that rises up to the level of the street. The familiar names startle her with their confidence, their branded superiority. This is the place Vee told her about. She shunts Ivan’s carrier higher across her shoulders and reaches up to check that his mouth is clear of her scarf.

‘Washing machines!’ she whispers over her shoulder, as if they are about to enter Santa’s grotto or the frost cave of Ded Moroz.

The steps down to the doorway have been swept clear of snow, but there’s a shiny grey mass of impacted ice on the pavement at the top. Rachel treads carefully in her thick-soled boots, still adjusting to the weight of the baby she is carrying on her back. The doorway is lit from above and there is a security alarm instead of the usual dented sheet metal. She hesitates again. In this shop they’ll speak the smooth, sleek language of microwaves and spin cycles. The queuing, the spitting, the grit on the floor and the women saying nyet – she won’t find those things here.

Imposter Syndrome – that’s what Lucas calls it. He thinks it’s a joke.

A buzzer sounds as Rachel pushes open the door. Ivan starts to grizzle beneath his balaclava, but she is already distracted. The shop is full of machines. Some are encased in shrink-wrap plastic. A few are still boxed, while others are stacked up to the ceiling in twos and threes. Recessed lighting spreads its soft sheen over the ceramic plates of an electric hob, the curved glass door of a tumble dryer. No harsh fluorescent strips here. Rachel pulls off a glove, ready to touch.

‘Dobry dyen!’ A young woman, skinny in a tight blue dress with black hair and pale, pearlescent lipstick, appears from behind a row of air conditioning units. Rachel hides her hand in her pocket.

‘Dobry dyen . . .’ she says, her nerves returning. ‘Do you speak English?’

The young woman frowns. ‘Mykola!’ she calls, not looking away.

‘You see I’m doing a survey, a consumer survey. It’s for the UN and I wonder if you’d mind . . .’

The woman has disappeared; Rachel is now talking to herself. She peers round a box with ‘INDESIT’ printed on the side. A door is ajar, but she cannot see anything through the gap. It must lead to a back office, because there’s no desk in this part of the shop, no telephone, no paperwork; just the appliances, some packaging and a bentwood stand in the corner from which hangs a man’s dark overcoat and a lozenge-shaped hat. The hat is made of a black fur that undulates in silky soft waves like the coat of a newborn lamb. Astrakhan, or something like that. If he could reach it, Ivan would clutch it in his fingers, bring it to his mouth. She moves away, stifling the urge to run her forefinger along its rippled crown.

A man’s voice exclaims from close behind her.

‘A baby? Yes! A nice good little baby!’

She tries to turn round, but someone is scooping Ivan out of his carrier and the sudden loss of his weight makes her lose her balance.

‘Such beautiful cheeks – like apples! A boy, no? So strong . . . and it is so cold this afternoon!’

With a sharp shrug, Rachel shucks off the baby carrier and twists round to see Ivan in the arms of a man who is perhaps in his early forties – slim, balding, not tall, with a thick moustache and dark eyes fringed with full lashes. His face seems familiar, though this might be because there are many men with moustaches in Kiev. He’s wearing a suit, an expensive one, and Ivan is already crushing its lapel in his chubby little fist.

‘Please,’ she says, aware that this is not the first time she’s had to ask a stranger to stop touching her baby. However, this man isn’t like the caretaker. His eyes register her distress and he passes Ivan back to her straight away.

‘A baby needs his mother,’ he says. His voice is deep and accented, with an emphasis that suggests his delight in speaking English. He nods at the baby carrier. ‘It is good to visit places together. So,’ he stands formally, heels touching, ‘in what way may I help you?’

‘Oh.’ Rachel frowns. ‘Do you have a price list you can show me? I’m doing – I am conducting a survey.’ She fumbles with the flap of her bag, tugs her other glove off with her teeth and produces the thick file of paper. ‘It’s for the UN. A consumer survey to help them establish the cost of living for their staff in Kiev. I have to find three prices for everything. Food items, services, soft furnishings, electrical goods . . .’

The man doesn’t move. He is smiling at Ivan, who is wriggling, straining away from her as if he wants to be put down. Rachel forgets the rest of her carefully prepared speech.

‘You work for the UN?’ he asks, holding out his finger so that Ivan can grasp it.

‘No,’ she says, hoping Ivan won’t pull it towards his mouth. ‘I’m –’ there is an official phrase but the words veer away from her – ‘a third party. The UN always asks a third party to do the survey.’ She feels embarrassed now, just as she knew she would. It sounds so ridiculous, saying words like ‘the UN’ as if she’s their spokesperson or something.