FEMME FATALE
I held Alyona’s hand as we walked down Red Army Street, past the sidewalk meat- pastry sellers, with their wares bulging under cloths on aluminum trays, like tiny dead bodies, past the old ladies with jars hand-labeled “Amazing Pickles” and “Incomparable Mushrooms.” Someone had a bathtub, filled with water, and was selling live fish; nearby, a Tajik beggar kneeled on a piece of oilcloth and crossed himself left-handed when a black man dropped him a coin. I thought about how warm the breeze could be in spring, and was trying to conjure up the smell of unpaved dirt.
“You should go to England,” Alyona said. “See Tatyana Litvinova in person; she’s a complicated person, she won’t tell you everything she knows until you find a way. Or — just think about it! — I could come up with
