A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer Dubois Page B

he asks, the better for him.”
    The girl snapped her fingers in front of Aleksandr’s face. “What?” she said. “Do you talk, by the way?”
    “I talk.”
    “Oh.” She looked disappointed. “I had a bet.”
    “What are you doing?” he said. “I don’t think the old woman comes to her door in the mornings.”
    “She’ll come this morning. I don’t care how bad her hangover is. Worms came out of the faucet. This is a problem.”
    “What kind of worms?”
    “What kind of worms? What the fuck does it matter what kind? I go to turn on the hot water. I’m used to no hot water. No hot water does not surprise me. I know we don’t know each other very well, tovarish, but
little
surprises me. But worms seem, you know, excessive, I think.” Her brown hair was flying all around her face, and she swiped it from her eyes so hard that Aleksandr wanted to reach out and gently protect her from herself.
    “Yes,” he said. “Certainly excessive.”
    “So, I don’t know, I thought I might ask the old woman about this.” She resumed pounding, making her knocks sharp and arrhythmic for maximum annoyance. “It’s just that I’m coming back from a long night, you know? I work nights.”
    “I know.”
    “You know,” she said, then knocked again, harder. “Yes, I suppose you do know. Just like I know that you are the chess prodigy from Siberia—”
    “Sakhalin.”
    “Yes,” she said.
    Aleksandr was struck, still, by her careening indignation. Her knocking was the knocking of a person who had been terriblywronged. It was pretty bad, the worms in the faucet. But it could not possibly have been the worst thing.
    “Which one are you?” he said.
    “What?” She turned to face him, and when she moved, he heard clicks and clinks, the unidentifiable feminine shifting of heels and various bits of jewelry. She was dressed in black, although he thought there might be multiple components to her outfit—a shirt, and a short jacket, and a skirt, maybe? Her face was pretty, but maybe not pretty enough to sustain the attention that came from wearing only black. The outfit was like a drum roll.
    “Are you Sonya, or are you the other one?” said Aleksandr. He couldn’t remember the other one’s name, and he couldn’t remember, either, which of the things he thought he knew about them were true and which he’d made up himself. They really were prostitutes, he thought. He wasn’t sure about the parakeet.
    “I’m the other one. Elizabeta Nazarovna.” She rested her head forlornly on the door. “I think she’s not home.”
    “I’m Aleksandr Kimovich Bezetov.”
    “Okay,” she said, not taking his hand. She lowered her voice and started muttering cruelties at the door. “You tramp. You ape. You dirty, double-crossing, overcharging, collaborative bitch.” She stopped, and Aleksandr wondered if she was out of insults.
    “Do you think maybe you should try not to make her mad at you?” he said. She could kick Elizabeta out, probably, or throw all her things out the front door, like she’d done with the university lecturer. He thought of Elizabeta’s things scattered across the bare front yard: books and perfume bottles; black indistinguishable garments; flecks of silver jewelry.
    “Please. She sells winter things out of the basement every year. I know because all my mittens are from her. She’s like a spider. She’s more afraid of us than we are of her.” She turned again to the door. “And like a spider,” she hissed, “you lurk in the dark even in the daytime, you are unpleasant to look at, and you are universally reviled. Hey.” She turned back to Aleksandr. “Do you smoke?”
    “Cigarettes?”
    “Yes.” Now he would have to start.
    She nodded. “Well, pretty much all Sonya and I do is smoke and tell lies. So if you ever want to come over for that, feel free. I know you don’t really do anything.”
    “I do things. I’m busy. I go to the academy, you know. I have a trainer,” he said. He’d