Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

The stranger was sitting on the porch in front of the store when I pulled into the lot, slamming the car door and approaching noisily in my boots. Same knit cap on his head, same tan scarf pulled over his nose and mouth. Looking out, it seemed, over the long, undulating slopes of the mountains draped in fog. He gave a jerk when the car first appeared, rising to his feet with a wary look, as if he might run. When he recognized me, however, he sat back down and even gave a small wave.

“Hey,” I said neutrally, wiping my shoes on the cement and digging the key out of my pocket as I passed him.

“Hello!” His eyes were no longer feverish, but inquisitive, even merry. “Is something the matter? I thought your store was closed today.”

“It’s still not my store.” The deadbolt turned back with a satisfying thump. “And it is closed, but I thought you might be hungry.” I pushed my way in, dropping my coat and book on the floor. The lights came on with a flickering buzz. “What do you want?”

He followed me in, startled, looking like a courteous but starved wolf. “Oh, no. I don’t need anything.”

I crossed to the other side of the counter and folded my arms over my chest, trying to clear the last of the haze from my mind as I surveyed the terrain. “Egg sandwich? That’s probably the best I can do.”

He stood by the door, hesitant. “Well. If you really don’t mind. All right.”

“If I minded, I wouldn’t offer,” I told him bluntly, turning the knob on the grill. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Yes, tea would be delightful.” The hat had come off; he was staring, forming his replies slowly. “Thank you.”

“Sugar’s over there by the door. I’ll have to open some milk.” I flipped the switch on the coffee maker, which doubled as the hot water machine, and pulled two styrofoam cups from the pile. The grill began to heat, and I scraped it carefully, even though it didn’t need to be scraped. I could sense him behind me, watching, and suddenly became aware that my movements were a kind of methodical flurry, a hurried but well-practiced sequence of pushings and polishings and liftings and turnings, as if I had been programmed to do these things. Vaguely embarrassed, I slowed down.

“You’re from Russia?” I asked, doing my best to sound indifferent.

“What? Oh—no.” He cleared his throat. “That is to say, not really.”

“Not really?”

“My family is Russian. But I’m from Uzbekistan.” He paused. “It’s in central Asia.”

“I know where it is.” The eggs cracked neatly. “Or at least, I have some idea.”

“Really?”

I turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, really.” There was, in fact, a map on the wall in my room at my grandmother’s place, one I had tacked up years earlier so I could follow my brother’s deployments. Over time, I’d found that I’d gradually begun to absorb its web of rivers, oceans, borders, all those remote places reduced to blots of blue and gray. “You can sit down, you know. There’s a stool over there somewhere.”

The egg whites crackled and hissed in the oil. I smeared slabs of butter onto English muffins with the spatula, dropping the upturned halves onto paper plates. Unwrapped the cheese, poured the tea, slid the eggs onto the muffins and moved everything over to the counter. “Here.”

“Oh, I don’t need that much.”

“One’s for me.”

He drew the stool closer, pinching the hot sandwich between his fingertips and spreading a napkin on his lap, waiting for me to take a bite before he began. As we ate, our heads tilting toward one another, I tried not to stare at him—this stranger who was, indeed, so very strange.

“And you?” He swallowed a mouthful of the acidic tea, dabbing at his mouth politely. “Where are you from?”

I shifted, pressing the soles of my feet against the edge of a shelf beneath the register. “I’m from here.”

“Here?”

I gestured behind me. “Down the mountain. Centerville. It’s a small town—just a couple of houses, really. Well, and a fire station and a store and a library. That’s about it.”

The tea warmed my stomach. Through the steam, I could see him, the delicate-looking line of his scalp as he bent over his sandwich. The same slightly musty smell I had noticed the day before seemed to rise from his coat, and I found myself wondering if he’d slept in it. Then a troubling thought made me examine him more closely. “Was the heat on overnight?”

“You mean at the hotel?” He dabbed at his mouth again. “A little, maybe. Not really. But I had the blankets, of course.”

“I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes, frowning as I lifted the tea to my lips again. “I’ll fix that.”

“It’s all right. I may be leaving before tonight, anyway.” He was looking at me curiously. I was wearing a bulky hooded sweatshirt and men’s jeans, my hair pulled back in a knot that was already coming undone and mouth probably set in that severe, distant line I had recently begun to observe when passing mirrors and shop windows. Where had it come from, that sad, wooden expression? I wasn’t unhappy.

He wiped his fingers painstakingly on a paper towel. “May I ask what your name is?”

“My name? I’m Kathleen.”

“Kathleen—that’s a nice name. I’m Daniil.” He extended his hand carefully and correctly over the paper plates, and we shook. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

“It’s no problem. I’ll give you some soup you can heat up for dinner if you’re still here. That’s pretty much all we’ve got right now.”

“Thank you.” He nodded. “That would be nice.”

“And then I have to go. After I turn on the heat.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.”

After some searching, I managed to locate some cans of beef stew, which were so dusty I checked each one to make sure it hadn’t expired. He handed me a pair of creased bills that looked as though they had passed through many hands and counted out another dollar in dimes and nickels. Then, almost timidly, he stood with the bag dangling at his side.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, touching his waist.

“What?”

“Your—your side. Yesterday it looked like it hurt you.”

I stopped, standing behind the register, his money in my hand.

“No,” I said after a pause. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh. That’s good. This morning you seemed to be…” He hesitated. “Well, walking a bit unevenly, I suppose. When you got out of the car.” Heat rose to my face; I could feel it. I pressed my lips together. “No,” I said again, quietly but firmly. “I’m fine.”

“Yes, of course,” he said hastily, nodding in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. At any rate, thank you once more. It was very kind of you.” When I looked back at him without answering, he cleared his throat. “Well, have a good day, as they say.”

My eyes narrowed, I watched him go, the bag of cans banging against the door as he closed it behind him. For a moment, I stood there, drumming my fingers against the Formica. Then I locked the store—after all, I had no reason to stick around—and walked to the car, pulling off in the direction of town. I never really relished going there, but I had things to do—groceries to buy, my grandmother’s medications to pick up, all the little tasks that kept our lives moving like a second hand ticking around a clock.

I pressed my foot against the gas, letting the tires find the ruts in the snow that still hadn’t been plowed. The road cut through the trees, white and smooth, like a path in a fairy tale. The woods seemed to wrap themselves around me as I turned on the headlights. It had an undeniable power, this place, a kind of majesty. I tried to disappear into the feeling of it as the forest passed by outside my window, dense and motionless, a wall of slender brown columns.