Saving Anna Karenina
Part 6
Start with Part 1, and read a short synopsis of the the original book.
THE DAWN WAS MIDWAY when Seryozha woke. The house was still. He felt no pain or weakness, only excitement, and he had almost forgotten their discombobulated arrival until he smelled the urine on his pants. He was hungry. He couldn’t wait to ride the train. Anna would want him to study with the tutor in the morning but he knew there wouldn’t be a tutor in America. So he would go out just like he was going to see a tutor and come back when he normally finished with the tutor. It was a shame to smell like urine.
He took off his trousers and underpants and went into the bathroom where a strange contraption hung above the tub. There was a basin, and water came out when he turned the nozzles. The water burned! He almost shouted but then he put his good hand over his mouth and shook the burned hand. There was another nozzle and he turned that to get ice-cold water. He ran the soiled part of the trousers under the water. The underpants were completely ruined. He would not wear them anymore, so he stashed them under the tub. He splashed water against his body, shivering. There were no bath towels in the room, unlike in Russia, where Annushka always brought in warmed towels after the bath. He wrung out the wet part of the trousers as hard as he could over the tub. He put them back on. He saw his hair in the very plain mirror on the wall and it was sticking up in the back. He tried to smooth it but the hair would not stay down.
He crept down the stairs and found the kitchen empty. There were many cupboards, which he quietly opened, looking for food. He was lucky, because the first one he opened had a package of white bread inside. It was already sliced. If he could only find butter. Usually butter was on the counters in the kitchen on a plate, but he didn’t see it here, only jars and jars of spices. He opened all the cupboards, finding plates and boxes with English writing on them until he came to the last cupboard, which was not like any cupboard he had ever seen. It was silver. He pulled the big long silver handle and the door resisted him; it was stuck. He yanked a second time as hard as he could, and when it opened he fell to the floor.
The cupboard breathed cold air. Inside were many kinds of nice food. Butter on a plate and sliced meats in see-through bags and vegetables in see-through bags and sauces in bottles and also milk. Seryozha had already found the glasses in another cabinet, so he took one down and poured it full of milk. He took the butter and the bag of pink meat like no meat he had ever seen, took four pieces of bread and he found a knife and put the butter on the bread and many pieces of meat and he took his first sip of the milk. It was thin milk, like water, and so sweet! He took the biggest bite possible of the bread and the meat. The meat was salty and the bread was bland. But he wolfed down four slices with meat and downed the sweet milk.
As soon as the air hit his loins, the wet pants chilled him, even covered by his big coat. He almost ran down the sidewalk past the dirty old snow towards the subterranean staircase they had emerged from the day before. Surely it would be warmer in the underground train.
He climbed down into the earth with a stomach tingling with excitement. A few serious women descended too, wearing what looked like their finest clothing, and they didn’t pay him attention. He didn’t have tickets, but yesterday he had seen a boy hop over the bars. There was no station attendant. He got a running start, hopped over and ran downstairs to the platform, where a train was arriving.
ANNA WOKE SOMETIME IN THE MORNING. She saw an industrial pole, a green velvet divan, and below the ceiling were rustic beams, as in a barn. Then she remembered: New York. She had nothing to wear but the black gown she had arrived in, and the long, purple, wool coat. She went to the small bathroom in the hall. It had a spout above the bath, at eye level. She needed to bathe, but she dreaded the feeling of the same dirty gown on her clean skin. First she would go shopping for soaps, powders, perfume, undergarments, a provisional wardrobe. She needed a tailor.
For now, she neatened her hair, tucking back curls into the pins that had fallen out overnight. She had no pigment or powder to freshen her face, but her eyes retained the black pigment she had applied before leaving.
Elena was in the kitchen downstairs, feeding her daughter. Anna greeted them, kissing the child as Seryozha had done.
“Café?” Elena said, extending a silver contraption that must have contained it.
“Si, grazie,” Anna said, remembering a little Italian.
Elena smiled and poured coffee in a small white cup. Looking at Pipa reminded Anna of her own daughter, who was an infant in Italy. What a wonderful time they had spent there with Vronsky. Anna remembered the baby’s rosy cheeks and dark brown eyes, and the gurgling noises she made. By all accounts Annie was a cherub. But she didn’t want to think about this now, in her new life. She drank her coffee fast and asked for more. Coffee had worked before, with Dmitry. It must work again.
