She motions for me to follow her around the back of the house. “That’s the fence” she says, in Russian. “Yep. Fence,” I think. She tells me, “This is a well,” but the word escapes me as soon as I hear it. I already understand that this is a well. It greets me every day (along with that kooky dog and its muddy paws) with its closed mouth, painted the same blue as the house’s trim. She opens the well’s mouth till it gapes stupidly like a trout and I peer down to its bottom. I yell to hear the echo and she laughs. “Echo?” I say in a Russian accent, hoping the word is a recognizable cognate. “Da, echo” she responds. Yes! Triumph! She leads me to a door and tells me the word for cellar. I peer down its steep steps. I want desperately to see barrels of potatoes and jars of tomatoes, suspended motionless like the kittens that slept soundly in formaldehyde in my high school biology class. Maybe another day.
Reply