Writing exercises are integral to the Green Mountain Writer's Conference. We keep our participants busy with workshops, readings and discussions. It's a full-immersion week. This page features some of the work written or revised during the Summer 2001 conference.
Mary McCallum
Jennifer Bagley 1
Jennifer Bagley 2
Annette Smith
Jane Mitchell 1
Nancy Nye
Mary Harwood
Micki Smith
Piper Leo
Chuck Clarino
Jane Mitchell 2
Jacqueline Steiner
Nadine Kramer
Burnham Holmes

Our first writing exercise, led by Yvonne Daley, showed a photo of the winners of recent Ernest Hemingway look-alike contests. Yvonne invited us to pick one of the winners and, in 10 minutes, write a bit of his story in any format -- description, poetry, dialogue, obituary. Here's a sampling of what came out of the exercise.

Mary McCallum wrote:

I remember the color of the mug I was drinking out of the morning I opened the newspaper and saw his face. The mug was blue and chipped, and I laid it down very gently to keep the coffee from sploshing on the table so I could study the photograph. My heart crunched in my chest. It was him up in the top right hand corner of the picture, hand lifted in greeting, or in a cheer, mouth parted in a smile.

I saw the raised hand as a farewell. Like the last time I'd seen him when he turned before hopping on the commuter train. He paused and gave me one of those snappy salutes and broad confident smiles that were his trademarks. "Mr. Terrific" they called him on the train, because when his commuter cronies asked him, "How ya doin' today, Tom?" he shot back every time, unswervingly, "Terrific."

The day he didn't return from his job in the city, and then the next day and the next, dug a widening gash into our family's life that swallowed up my mother and my brother and I that we never really clawed our way out of. I lived the rest of my teenage years trying to haul myself up out of that dark trench while my mother turned her face to the wall.

In the photograph he looked so much older, kind of foreign and debonair, the beard now gray, chin a little bit weaker. But still dapper, a Hemingway look- alike, hand raised in the joy of being a contender.

Mr. Terrific still.

Annette Smith wrote The fellow to the right of center is named Fred Smith. He usually attends the annual meeting of the Fred Smith society, and didn't really want to come to the Hemingway look-alike contest. He doesn't think he looks much like Hemingway, but his wife made him go. He'd rather be fishing. His son would rather be at camp fishing with him, too.

Fred is a good sport and does what the wife tells him. He's having fun anyway. He knows he's not going to be a contender. Yes, he has the beard -- it's nothing special compared to the other contestants. Fred is a retired machinist who spends his free time at home puttering in the basement. If he were here, he'd be offering to fix Yvonne's glasses. In fact, he feels so out of place among the Hemingway contestants, he won't be staying for the reception afterwards. The wife will acquiesce to his wishes -- that's why they've stayed married all these years. And he'll have a new story to tell at the next Fred Smith society meeting.

Jennifer Bagley wrote:

His name really is George He's never read a word by Hemingway. Doesn't believe in fiction and reads "inneresting articles" about history or the economy. Balances his checkbook to the penny every month.

But his German ancestry gifted him with a barrel chest, sturdy legs, ruddy checks and a firm beer belly. He prides himself on his full head of thick white hair and a handsome beard. Twinkling blue eyes and the extra space between two front teeth give him an earthy vigor, which helped him win the prize. Proud to be Papa. Maybe he'll even break down one of these days and read a novel by the fellow.

Jane Mitchell wrote:

I once read an article about how all humans begin as twins in utero, that the vast majority die in utero, and only one survives to be born live - that this accounts for the great loneliness and melancholia that many of us feel, that something un-named is missing. This year's winner is my brother's twin, the one who somehow survived, unbeknownst to the rest of us, the one who would make his life complete, if only he knew he was out there in the world- not the missing link, but his other half, the one who would return his smiles and draw him; from his depression the way neither his wife, not the sunshine of Australia, nor the miracles of modern medicine have been able to do. That squinty-eyed smile would be reflected back onto my brother's face - the man to his left has the same tilt to his head and is maybe the third of a threesome -- lonely souls, hard- drinkers, sad-eyed men who don't know they're brothers.

Nancy Nye wrote:

Don Delay, you managed to finally win that contest. You were in Key West for the bonefishing -- up at dawn and out on the shallow water for hours, your fly rod at the ready. Checking with the old hands on the evening before, "What are they biting on? What flies you using?" But at the same time, keeping your own store of special flies on your canvas vest, watching the other fishermen to see where they go and what they are using. Most of the time you are watching the water and trying out your own stuff to see what the fish will take. You're a sly bastard. Always smiling your broad smile, nodding and listening to the rest of the fishing crew. All the while keeping your own techniques to yourself. And at the end of the day, coming in with the largest catch, outdoing all the others. Your deprecating ways and broad grin make everyone love you. The other fellows don't even know when they're being had.

So you went for the Hemingway contest the same way -- not looking like you were even trying, just happened to be there for the fishing. Your white beard and tanned face a close match to Papa, but it is the twinkle in your eye, the openness of your face that draws people to you. At 74 you're still big, can't break 220 even though you're working out almost every day. But you're more like Father Christmas than a tough guy. You just send out your smile like the fly on the end of your line and usually everyone bites. We're hooked on you.

Mary Harwood wrote:

He sits at the bottom right edge of the picture. Fitting, since beyond the beard and smile, Steve is about as far from Papa Hemingway as one could imagine. Sure, the beard is white, full, the cheeks round and Santa-like. But instead of white water rapids, elk and trophy fish and wives, Steve dedicates his life to cheese. Cheese. Sour milk turned to glory. Maybe it's prosaic, but this is what Steve does.

He actually thought of carving a bust of Hemingway out of Cabot cheddar -- like they do at the Fair each summer. Nancy has talked him out of that one, thank heavens. Instead, he's created a special blue cheese to honor his mirror image. The aging, veined, crumbly rich ball of cheese takes on the sense of a Hemingway story. Blue mold becomes the waters of the Caribbean. The soft, texture is the part of Hemingway that once cared so deeply, felt so strongly, thought so profoundly that his stories endure today. And the tang. The bite. The almost -- but not quite -- overpowering essence of cheese is the edge, the pain, the prose of the master.

Nancy thinks Steve is crazy. Cheese? That's ridiculous. But it works. After the photographer finishes snapping pictures and the reporter closes her notebook, all the look-alike gather round, their awards draped like Olympic medals on their chests, a glass of champagne raised in a toast -- and a piece of cheese to honor their eternal twin.

A Papa Hemingway Look-Alike Contestant (middle in rear with glasses) Speaks by Micki Smith

Yeah. I'm Papa! Just look at me, a perfect incarnation.

Go ahead, call me Papa. You know it's me, y'feel it. Right?

Oh sure, I was born Gene-Eu-Gene, really. Eugene Gordon. In Iowa. Now I'm Papa. They say everyone has a look-alike twin somewhere on this planet. Too bad I never met Ernest.

We'd a been good buddies. I'm a sure of it. Gone fishin' and a huntin'. Mostly I woulda liked the drinkin'! That's when he'd--the real Papa--would get to talkin' them fancy words and thoughts. Don't know if I coulda kept up with the drinkin'. Or the thinkin' for that matter.

That Papa. He could pick up a pen or go a peckin' at that old, rickety typewriter of his and just build a story. A story right out of nothin' but air.

Me? Well, I've more the gift of gab! Oh, I can tell a story all right but I'd most likely take you 'round the barn a few times 'fore I got to the point. No. I take more pride in lookin' like the old man. I've studied so many pictures of him; just a lookin' and a lookin' at his face. Like starin' in the bunk house mirror. I studied those pictures so I could get m'beard just right. See here? See the way it's squared off just a tiny bit here on the chin? Took a lot of practice, that did. Paid off though. I've won the contest twice; twice out of the nine years I've entered. I don't get rich, but it's a helluva lot of fun.

Wife? Ain't got no wife. She packed her gear years back. Oh sure, m' kids think I'm nuts. Gone 'round the bend even. But they've gotten used to it after all these years, I guess. Even call me Papa now-not Dad. Papa.

The Perpetual Winner By Piper Leo

I have the greatest advantage. Each year, I take the center of attention since all these guys try so hard to look like me. Actually, my name is Will Wood, but don't let on because it's been ages since anyone knew where I came from.

But let me tell you, these fellows trim their beards, dress like Papa, square their chins, probably dream they've been fighting in Spain, and they still can't bring forth that certain smile. I have it! 'Course if one comes real close to looking like me, I'll probably go home with him.

Other work by conference attendees: Three Poems by Jacqueline Steiner

CONSTIPATION

When my aunts said
--Have you moved your bowels?--
their diction was as eloquent as
--Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
with different vowels.

My reply was
utter prose, like No
or Just a Bit.
I thought that bowels
were the shit itself

and I was damned
if I would move that stuff
for them, those bossy dames
who stood above me
in the shower

scrubbing me hard between the legs
swinging their globular breasts
as if to crush me
with pillows
made of stone.

TRANSLATION FROM AN IMPOSSIBLE LANGUAGE

There is no word
for water
in my country

we have no words
only an alphabet

and I have no birthday

there is no nor willow
in my country

and the day of my death
will be forgotten

or duck or swim
or green

because there is no word
for memory

but we are a proud people

we have our alphabet

POLLINI PLAYING THE DIABELLI VARIATIONS

And Beethoven took the paltry pomp
of Diabelli's theme and made the world,
startling its premises into weeping,
buffoonery, games, monuments, singing,
from top to bottom of the piano,
pouring lava from his soul's volcano.

The depths beneath depths of the volcano
rose to envelop the strutting pomp
of the theme, making the piano
their playground, stretching out to the world
with trills, arpeggios, fugues, singing,
stutters, buffoonery that ended in weeping.

Consider Pollini's feats on the piano
as he changes buffoonery into weeping,
reaching out to the wider world
with astounding mysteries from the volcano,
starting with presumptuous pomp,
then mingling it with ineffable singing.

What was it to Beethoven, this singing
that surprised the pounding chords on the piano,
interrupting the bombast and the pomp
with the troubled gentleness of weeping?
When it is genius that roils in the volcano,
mathematics and music become the world.

We ride the tempestuous boat of the world,
not knowing if we'll be rescued by singing
or be consumed in the fires of the volcano.
What we listen to is more than piano,
it is the deep inconsolable weeping
that lies beneath the panoply of pomp.

And yet there's pleasure in all that pomp.
We need frivolity in this odd world.
Oh yes, of course there's place for weeping,
but what about laughing, cheating, singing,
vanity, pyrotechnics on the piano?
Time enough to face the volcano.

Beethoven knew of weeping, knew of singing,
scorned pomp with pomp, stood before the world
with hands on the piano, heart in the volcano.

Chuck Clarino wrote:
moma rainy afternoon

Light angles, falling down from grey sky in brush strokes,
flowing on walls of glass, distorts open-air gardens
empty in January slush. Raindrops patter
bouncing, refracting when caught by light
off stainless steel columns, shimmering like chrome,
floor to ceiling, crystallizing themselves through the spatter
on skylight, or jewelry glitter. Teeming masses drenched
Wiillowy blonde, pouting, with cowboy boots and hat, pushes
blue blazer in wheelchair who is spouting off on blue guitar,
as if Yankee caps, leopard skin pillboxes, platform shoes and shades
of black do not exist. Still, life glints off
steel-framed eye glasses that view Picasso and George Braque, side
by side, all angles, shattered, images. Wide white
galleries with sitting benches along the wall and hand towels on the windows
looking on out gris, grey, gunmetal streets.
Willem DeKoonig, Joan Miro, Joe Victoriano Gonzales sit in pools
of artificial light, observed. Walking though rooms, sharpening the focus
through the spectrum of sweiling stars in the night
sky or drooping clocks on a desolate plane,
seven forms of smooth wood, polished stone or burnished steel,
stand like vestal virgins waiting for the downtown bus. The spark in the almond
eyes of the Asian woman, panting, sketching as she holds onto the Dixon
Ticonderoga as if were Rodin himself, massive limbs, little dick.
Do diamonds still glitter when they are lost?
Au Bon Pain, cafe mocha, sweet, scanning pavement
in the gathering dusk looking down along the sidewalks,
the homeless view. Where is Jane Freilicher?
In bed perhaps, or at the Ten Spot, drinking Koch. Cold shivers
course through the soles of the feet to the tip of the ear hearing
the honk in the street, doormen keep vigil, while eyes remain
fixed imagining Jackson Pollock and Blue Poles.
- New York City, January, 1999

Once or twice each summer they came
across the lake in a war canoe,
twenty of them, with a counselor
in the back calling strokes,
but they might just as well
have come from across the ocean.
The counselor called our mother "Ma'am" when he
asked permission to use the beach and
she said, yes, she supposed so, just this once,
seeing's how they'd come so far, as long as
they stayed way down at the end.
They wore evil-looking bathing suits,
turquoise and black and maroon,
tight, clinging synthetics,
nylon and rayon;
thin, pale boys with religious medals and pink
rubber nose clips hanging around their necks,
boys who blessed themselves before swimming, as if
they feared drowning in that shallow place.
Graceless, they thrashed
in the water, came out shivering and shriveled
with goose bumps, wrapped themselves in
thin towels, the kind that came free
in boxes of soap powder, suitable for drying
dishes in some city kitchen.

Childhood fascination:
mother sprawled in the tub
lolling in suds
generous floating breasts
casual washing of private parts
complicated revulsion

My adolescent critique:
cellulose thighs
nape-of-neck curls
matching nighties and slippers
crackling mane of silver hair
a wrist-thick braid
demure, simpering faux swim

Adulthood:
tell-tale liver spots high collars that cover wattles
tight tee shirts abandoned
for waistless dresses,
camisoles and calf-high hose
transform her: a little old lady.

With arthritic pilgrimages into
a blue bubbling hot tub
(looking at Mom, nude, again)
she exorcises the twinges.
Thick brown spots record the decades:
loose flesh burbles in chlorine glory.
I see scant white hair
sagging jaw line, thighs, stomach and bosoms.
Yet still the sweet soft shoulder line,
the delicate high arch of foot,
the shapely curve of waist and hip,
the hot red polished toenails.

She emerges pink and breathless
into my terry cloth embrace- small and fragile,
a woman still.

Family Tradition

1952

She sits cradled in her father's arms
An eight-year-old solemn at sunset,
One pigtail silhouetted against the mizzenmast.
Windswept, sunburned and at peace,
They both gaze intently into the camera's eye.

1972

He perches on his grandfather's lap at sunset,
Blonde curls bobbing in the breeze,
One restless hand a blur by the cockpit wheel.
The man regards the toddler
Poised to dissolve into restless motion.

1980

She reclines against him like the brother before her.
Blonde disheveled curls askew in the harbor wind.
She appraises the camera with her mother's solemn gaze
Comfortable on a sailboat at sunset with the patriarch,
Who gifted me with these captured images.

Reflections on Finding a Photo of Me and My Christmas Doll
"Sugar and spice and everything nice
Snaps and snails and puppy dog tails."
That's what little girls and boys are made of.

I hated that poem, thought it was rough
that the boys got to do all the fun stuff
who wants to be sweet and nice, with ruffles and pink
when climbing trees and scraping knees
and catching frogs is what I think
is really the way a girl ought to spend her summer days.

Billy Battery and I rang doorbells and ran
spied on the neighbors, the Clancy clan
toyed with chemistry in his Mom's laundry room
played "kick the can" by the light of the moon
Three local boys broke their arm in my tree
which I climbed to the roof of the garage, scott free.
I mashed leeches on rocks, gutted perch that I caught
played Cowboys and Indians with the six guns I got
for Christmas the year they gave me the Doll
whose hair I butchered and figure regretted
then threw in the old black suitcase unfretted
Yeah, I was a tomboy, frizzled braids and all
forget the frills, forget the doll
that demure little girl in the photo ain't real
the dress, the curls, the delicate feel
of wonder and awe in my eight year old face
disappeared from my memory, without a trace
of sugar and spice and everything nice
like frills and lace and tea party grace.

Give me snaps and snails any old day
Once a tomboy, a tomboy I'll stay.

Dancing in the Kitchen of Memory
By Nadine Kramer 20001

"We need more water in the pot," I say, peeking under the lid.
"Use what's in the kettle," my mother says over her shoulder, as she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She has just begun to mince the onions. At sundown tomorrow, our family will begin our celebration of Passover. I have come to New York from Cambridge, Massachusetts, five hours on the train, to help my mother make gefilte fish.
It is a balmy Wednesday in April. The sun embraces my mother's small but well- appointed kitchen, hugging the spotless stainless steel sink and white Formica counter. Through her tenth floor window, I look down on rooftops, wrought iron staircases and the rooftop gardens of the buildings below. Usually, at this point, I would turn toward my mother and comment on the quaint, almost Parisian scene outside the window. It is a perception we find comfort in sharing. But today I refrain because my mother and I are deep in the dance of the small kitchen. I don't want to distract from the intricate, intimate series of signals that allow us to work together in the narrow space. It is a dance which my mother and father had perfected over the years into an art form. I am here today both as myself, and as a stand-in.
"Mom, let me do that," I say. We are both aware that mincing onions used to be my father's job.
"No," she says, "I can do it."
"Of course you can," I say, taking the knife out of her hand and nudging her gently with my hip, away from the wooden cutting board. "Humor me."
For the past two years my family has been eating fish balls that my mother had purchased at Balducci's, a well-known emporium of fine foods down the street in the Village. We took solace in the fact that the gefilte fish had been prepared by hand in the neighborhood, if only by Italians. The gefilte fish you buy in a bottle is unacceptable in my family. Even though, if you smothered it with horseradish, it would have been better than no gefilte fish at all.
That first year, we ate store-bought fish balls because my father was becoming increasingly frail. Mixing huge amounts of ground fish and forming the cold balls by hand was beyond his capacity. Eli's hands, always dark, as though with a tan, now had darker spots like the mould on pages of an old book. Blue lines like rivers of ink ran over the backs of his hands. They told an ancient story in barely decipherable hieroglyphics on paper-thin skin, which sometimes looked almost translucent. His hands were like oiled parchment, upon which was written the truth, the cold truth we didn't want to see.
Everything now was an effort for him, but we still did not allow ourselves to realize the serious nature of his condition. Eli sat at his usual place at the head of the seder table, opposite my mother. He had lost a lot of weight and seemed smaller than ever in his dark Armani suit that he saved "for good." His kipah floated on his thinning silvery hair like a water lily. Eli looked down at his plate and then around the table of eager faces. He turned over the unopened haggadah several times, uncertain what to do next. After a long pause, he looked at my mother across the white damask tablecloth and silver candle sticks with a mixture of fear, confusion and innocence. There was a long tense moment; then my mother, with her impeccable sense of grace, asked my brother-in-law to say the first berachah (blessing).
Eli was not a religious man. He had not even become a bar mitzvah. But at the seder table, Eli had always been our leader. The leader breaks the top matzah; the leader dips the greens in salt water. This year we had a seder by committee. We prompted and cajoled our way through the celebration. Passover is not just a story about the Jews being brought out of bondage; it is a universal story of liberation.
We raised our glasses of wine more often than usual. We hurried the story along, skipping pages. We counted the plagues in rapid succession, "locusts, hail, morraine," placing a pinkie-finger drop of wine for each onto our plates. This year, my plate looked like a river of bloody tears. We sang "Hagadya," the humorous story about a goat. We went "la la la" as we did every year because we didn't know all the words. But this year not knowing all the words felt unbearably painful.
Last year, my father was not at the seder table. We ate gefilte fish again. It was a quiet seder. My mother scurried to and from the kitchen, though my sister and I begged her to let us help. "No, no," she said. "I can do this myself." It was her way of coping. None of us had been able to stop the inevitability of my father's death, but she could still, single-handedly, put on a great seder.
"Where did you hide the tissues?" I ask with a sense of urgency, tears rolling down my cheeks. I have stopped mincing, and am leaning on the counter. My eyes are closed against the stinging of the onion smells.
"Here they are," my mother says, handing me one. "Are you crying?"
"No," I say, "just the onions." Then after a pause, "You know the gefilte fish from Balducci's?" My mother crinkles her nose, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly. "Well, you know, everybody said it was so good." I look to see if she's with me, "but these are gonna be great." She smiles, relieved. Her eyes are also moist.
I hand her a tissue, "The onions," I say.
"Yeah," she says, daubing her eyes.
In the autumn between these two seders, my mother, who at her own admission is "her best in a crisis," most uncharacteristically phoned to ask me to call the doctor and help her figure out what to do about my father's deteriorating condition. The next week, my mother, sister, and I had a powwow with the urologist. The day after that, my father had an appointment to see an oncologist and hospice services were put into place.
For many years, my father had been going for BCG, chemotherapy treatments administered through his urethra. Asked about the treatments, Eli would shake his head and say, "It's not an exact science." This became his favorite saying, which he used at every opportunity. When my flight to New York was delayed, he'd say, "It's not an exact science." Burnt toast: "It's not an exact science." It never failed to lighten things up.
Toward the end, the treatments had been more bearable, administered by a pretty nurse, who laughed when told her job "was not an exact science." My father had a way with salesgirls, and now nurses, making little jokes that made them smile.
He liked his coffee without cream or sugar. When asked by a waitress, "How do you like it?" he'd say, "naked," with a twinkle in his eye and a shrug of his shoulders, and the innocence of a kid learning to ride a new bike. I had watched this scene unfold many times, watched many waitresses blush as they poured his coffee.
"Did I tell you the story of buying the fish?" My mother's words bring me back into the kitchen. "You know you need three fish: a pike, a carp and a white fish." She gives me one of her knowing looks. It is of the utmost importance that I learn to make gefilte fish.
As we unwrap the ground fish from its paper sheath, it looks pinker than I had expected. When cooked, gefilte fish becomes a creamy white. We add eggs, water, minced onions and matzah meal.
"Keep stirring." My mother is firm and definitive in her command. My arm feels heavy from stirring, but I continue. My arm begins to really ache. The pain gives me the courage to break the tacit injunction and speak. "I wish dad was here," I blurt out.
My mother nods, then adds one ingredient after the other, checking after each addition in the classic cookbook, The Art of Jewish Cooking by Jennie Grossinger after each addition.
As I continue to stir, he fish starts to take on a sheen, like the sheen of my father's silvery white hair in the last photograph taken of him. His face, slightly blurred, appears large, taking up half the foreground on the left side of the image. His hair is mussed. His dark brown eyes are not focused on anything. My mother appears small as she looks toward him from the gray rectangle of the kitchen doorway.
By the time this photograph was taken, it had become difficult for me to recognize my father. He was not his old self anymore. He barely spoke to anyone but my mom. I did not know what to say to this new self of his. He just wanted to sit on the couch, holding my mother's hand for hours, his head slumped forward against the debilitating effects of the painkillers. I didn't know what to do. Saddened, to suddenly feel like an outsider. I am roused from my reverie by the deep rich aroma of the fish broth. It has been simmering in the big soup pot on the stove, while we have been putting the other ingredients together. Now is the crucial moment. We rinse our hands under running water at the sink to keep the fish from sticking. We begin to form the balls before placing them gently into the waiting broth. "What size, Mom?" I ask.
"Like eggs," she says. My mother's are longer and flatter, mine, more round and plump. My father would have said, "It's not an exact science." As we work the fish into balls with our hands, it becomes even more translucent.
"Look, Mom, aren't they beautiful?"
"Yeah," she says. "Incredible."
I scoop a bit more fish out of the stainless-steel bowl and begin to cup it into shape. "He's here," I say.
She scoops some fish and pats it. "Dad?" she says.
"Yes," I say, plopping my ball into the broth.
"Yes," she says, plopping hers.
After several more silent immersions, I say, "I'm glad I came," my words catching in my throat.
"Yes," she says, and turns toward me. I lean forward and we are touching foreheads, our hands sticky with fish juices.
"I'm gonna cry," I say, letting the tears come with several chest-rending sobs. We embrace, rocking back and forth, tears wetting hair. Our arms wrap themselves around each other, but our sticky hands are held out limp and open. Even in grief, we do not allow ourselves to get too messy.
Making gefilte fish or making peace with death - it's not an exact science.

Natasha at the Door
By Burnham Holmes

"I may be hard of hearing, but even I can hear this infernal racket," mutters Natasha to no one in particular. Outside in the hot street Con Ed jackhammers over the usual hum of traffic. The worker from social services won't arrive for another hour, so Natasha will have to wait for her morning cup of tea. The handle over the deeply stained double sink defies her to turn it.
Cupping her chin in her hand, Natasha recalls her first visit to the building, the tallest structure in a fashionable area later known as Spanish Harlem. By World War II when Natasha grudgingly acknowledged middle age and quietly admitted to herself that Mr. B would never notice her wobbly plies, the six- floor tenement had fallen on hard times. The high ceilings of Natasha's railroad flat of six rooms sported huge fissures and some of the scalloped light fixtures had been painted over, but not in recent years because paint powdered off the walls. The once fashionable neighborhood had also sunk to such a state that her women friends did not dare visit after dark.
"No, no, no," the sister of her almost fiancé had remonstrated. "I don't travel to nose bleed country when I can't see past my nose."
But by Natasha's old age, the building had really slipped into disrepair. Slabs of concrete slid into the street like chunks off icebergs and the once proud terra cotta Chinese dragons guarding the heavy metal black doors stood chipped and forlorn. Drug lords freely roamed the wide marble hallways.
When Tom, her seventh social service worker that year, arrived in a state of panic, he breathlessly reported that pools of blood covered the tiled entranceway. "Not on the tiles," moaned Natasha. She had always admired their intricate pattern for they reminded her of Father's shaving mug back in Moscow. But then it seemed that everything these days related to her past. The older she became, the farther away she felt from the here and now.

I don't know where he could be," thought Natasha. "It isn't like Alexander to be so late."
Then she heard the slight tapping on the door. Although a tall man, his fingers tapered to the end like candles in the nearby Russian Orthodox Church where they had met just last Christmas.
She threw open the door and there he stood. From his sleek beaver hat to his polished black boots he looked every inch a Cossack. This thrilled Natasha, even though she knew her stern father would have forbidden this friendship, if he had not been cut down at Stalingrad.
"Please come in, Alexander. Do you want the neighbors to think I don't have the good sense to invite a gentleman to take off his muffler and great coat."
"Oh, Natasha, you look lovely this evening. What have I done to deserve this good fortune in my life."
"You...smiled at the right time." She received his muffler like the laying on of a holy vestment. "You...said the right words." Taking his great coat her weakened left knee buckled slightly, so she swirled about to cover the imperfection as she had learned to do when she had been the ballerina for more than just an empty coat. "And most importantly, you know how to make me feel...like a woman."
Alexander bowed deeply and gazed upward, his eyes shining with expectation behind his long lashes.
"Please, what kind of a hostess am I? Mother would have been as horrified as Father, except for entirely different reasons."
Alexander smiled at this as she led him by the hand to a table set sweetly for two. At ground zero of their courtship, Alexander and Natasha nervously knew that back in the old country both families would have forbidden everything, except the solemn vow never to see each other again. Although neither ever gave word to it, it loomed like an unseen predator at the edge of the dark Russian wood.

"Natasha," said the pony-tailed young man, "it's time for your tea and pills."
"Yes," said Natasha wistfully. "I'm ready for you now."