Han Ong

Anastasia was a good singer, with a kind of gypsy chic in her voice.

She had small girlish breasts and a long nose, and was not as beautiful as his wife.

But Boris remembered her for a long time afterward.

She seemed to have purified him completely, picked him down to bone and tendon, and then put him back together.

Boris didn't remember ever having had that kind of power and stamina.

Anastasia, a doctor, left by boat on the fourth day of their affair, since she had a twenty-four-hour shift at the hospital where she was the head of her department.

The whole family saw her off, and as they stood on the shore, she sang, Marushenka washed her white feet,

and waved to them with her handkerchief from the boat.

She's so educated, but such a slut, Boris Ivanovich thought, both impressed and confused.

As though he'd read his friend's mind, Nikolai Mikhailovich told him, that's in Nastia's blood, her great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother fooled around with Pushkin.

On Transfiguration Day, they all went to church in Kashino, first by ferry, then by bus.

The trip was exhausting.

Your life is so anti-Soviet, he remarked in admiration.

No, Boris, it's just a Soviet, Nikolai Mikhailovich said laughing.

All summer, Boris watched the sun rise and the water lap the sandbank, which was covered in the empty mussel shells and decorative grasses that he had previously seen only on icons.

He hadn't known that they really existed.

Moved by everything he saw, he was happy.

Everyone foraged for mushrooms in the forest.

There weren't many in July, but by August they sprouted up after the sweet rain showers.

The days were long, the evenings with their endless tea-drinking were pleasant, and the nights passed in an instant.