Yet there she was, large as life, larger even, flashing an uptight smile that had no relation to humor, her tits sagging into a brassiere that had been washed so often it looked like a dust rag, the dust rag of a brassiere clearly visible through a rayon shirt that had turned yellow with age, her eyebrows plucked to the bone and arched in anxiety. My mistress from St. Petersburg, Axinya Petrovna Volkova, come to coax God knows what from my reluctant flesh. “Zdrastvui, Lemuel Melorovich.” “Yo! Axinya! Shto ti delaesh v’Amerike?” “Horoshi vopros, “she said excitedly. “Where can we talk?” Speaking Russian felt awkward. I racked my brain in vain for the equivalent of “Z’up?” or “Don’t have a cow.” “It depends on what you have to say,” I finally told her. “Your Russian has grown rusty,” she remarked. “You speak with an accent.” I could see she was tense.
