Katya Quotes

Reading books doesn’t even make someone intelligent. You’re reading a book right now and you’re dumb as hell.

Vodka is like Katya - Russian, low calories, and made of old potatoes.

It's not objective. It's subjective.” Katya hooks her bra behind her back. “It's just what you think, not the truth.

It's a god-eat-god world" - katya

Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.

Being an adult isn't a matter of age. It's a matter of responsibility.

Just because you're bigger doesn't mean you have to be a bully." "Just because you're a woman doesn't mean I'm going to let you get away with bullshit.

She was in love. In love with the same man she'd always been in love with-God save her.

Dev called Katya on the comm panel as soon as he was able. "How are you?" "Fine." Her lips curved. "Connor brought me a smoothie -he said you threatened to cut his legs off at the knees if he forgot." "Damn straight.

We all desire to be understood, but no one enjoys being obvious.

A black raven flew past me and landed on the back of the couch. Roman slapped his hand over his face. “There you are,” the raven said in Evdokia’s voice. “Ungrateful son.” “Here we go…” Roman muttered. “Eighteen hours in labor and that’s what I get. He can’t even pick up the phone to talk to his own mother.” “Mother, can’t you see I have people here?” “I bet if their mothers called them, they would pick up.” That would be a neat trick for both of us. Sadly, dead mothers didn’t come back to life, even in post-Shift Atlanta. “Nice to see you, Roman.” I grabbed Curran by the hand. The bird swiveled toward me. “Katya!” Oh no. “Don’t you leave. I need to talk to you.” “Got to go, bye!

There's no point in looking back.. There's also no point in looking forward.. That's why I close my eyes when I skateboard

İtiraf ruha iyi gelir, Montjean. Ruhu boşaltır, yeni günahlar için yer hazırlar.

Do you know that it can be a sin to give birth? I’d never heard those words before. Katya

Mmm.” The vibration in his chest pressed against her back shot sparks of hot lust through her. “I love you this way.” He guided his erection to nudge her entrance. “I love you every way.” Katya smiled and pushed back against him. “I love you, too.

I object! What? Bugger, was that acting? Is not courtroom, Katya. Shut up! I'm not good at having two conversations at once. And I hate Scott's plan! You mean you "object" to it.

What are we watching?" [...] [...] He hugged her closer. "The sacrifices I make for you -just watch." She was intrigued enough to pay attention to the screen. "Pride and Prejudice," she read out. "It's a book written by a human. Nineteenth century?" "Uh-huh." "The hero is... Mr. Darcy?" "Yes. According to Ti, he's the embodiment of male perfection." Dev ripped open a bag of chips he'd grabbed and put it in Katya's hands. "I don't know -the guy wears tights.

In the past I had often tried to escape the grown-up world of sorrow through my imagination- dreaming that a handsome young lieutenant would ride to my rescue or that a great empresario would discover my musical talents and whisk me away. I had envisioned knights in shining armor and happily ever after scenes to escape from rules or boredom or pain; including a vision of my mother walking through our front door whole and well again. Now I knew that a lifetime of escape led to a life like Aunt Bertie's. My imagination was a gift, but I had to live in the real world. My eyes had been opened this summer to poverty and crime and abuse and I needed to use my imagination not to escape, but to help people like Irina and Katya, to make my own contribution as the women in the women's pavilion had done. I couldn't do it in the same way Jane Adams and my grandmother and Aunt Mat were, but I would find my own way and my own time.

What do you want?” he asked. “End of the war, riches and fortune without having to work for it, the admiration of as many pretty people as possible?

Ripe for romance? Is that not only the self-conscious and sensitive young man's way of saying he was heavy with passion? Is not, perhaps, romance only the fiction by means of which the tender-minded negotiate their lust?

Tend to the things that are killing you in the order in which they are killing you.

A healthy relationship with your past is a balance between dwelling and denial.

Everything change with mine, Katya.

Now you're an adult, Katya!" he'd said, picking her up under the armpits like he'd been doing since she'd been born.

She felt oddly complimented. Petrov hadn't thought she's just a girl; he'd thought she might be a desperate criminal.

Ben geleceği hep yığınlar halinde 'bugün' olmayı bekleyen yarınlardan oluşmuş diye görürüm.

poisoning the environment by the littering of consequence.

Dedikodu bizim kadınlarımıza günahın tadını çıkarma olanağı verir. Kendi işlemeyecekleri, işleyemeyecekleri günahlar. Çünkü onları cesaretsizlikleri, hayal güçlerinin eksikliği ve fırsatsızlık engelliyor. Biz de bu eksikliklere namus diyoruz.

Poor Luka, he'll never know what it is to have six sisters trying to borrow his clothes" "Well maybe he will" Sasha joked. "Katya says she wants more, and maybe one day you'll have seven daughters of your own." "Please, don't curse me today, Sashenka," Marya sighed. "I've had a very trying morning, and I simply cannot bring myself to imagine such a dystopian future right now.

There’s a German term- heimweh, homesickness. It’s a powerful sensation, like a narcotic. A yearning from home, but for something more- a past self, perhaps. A lost self. When I first saw you on the street, Katya, I felt such a sensation… I have no idea why

Everyone reacted differently to being spoken to in a language they didn't understand. Katya got quiet and scared. Ivan leaned forward with an amused expression. Grisha narrowed his eyes and nodded in a manner suggesting the dawn of comprehension. Boris, a bearded doctoral student, rifled guiltily through his notes like someone having a nightmare that he was already supposed to speak Russian.

Katya laughed and shrugged. She was a hired girl; she said such things on order. Much of her life was this sort of semiskilled playing to other people, usually older people, with the hope of making them like her; making them feel that she was valuable to them; wresting some of their power from them, if but fleetingly. It was like provoking a boy or a man to want you. That could be risky, as Katya well knew.

We can stretch our sounds so that they reach the very tops of our tallest trees and down to the secret-filled earth and so that they tangle in the brambles and skim across the pond because this world is ours and we are alone. Just us. A pocket of people in a pocket of a world that's small as a marble. We are tiny and we are everything and we are wild.

For the modern woman, it can be quite difficult to make the time to relax, unwind, and unplug. Especially in today’s ultra fast-paced achievement-oriented workaholic culture. In some circles, if you weren’t working 80 hours a week in addition to a half dozen semi-professional level hobbies while dating 2 or three potential live partners between your volunteer shifts at the aquarium then you are basically good for nothing lazy piece of shit.

Fathers and Sons Arkaday watching Katya's face as she accepts his marriage proposal: Anyone who has never seen such tears in the eyes of a beloved one cannot fathom to what extent, all overcome with gratitude and shame, a human being can be happy on earth. Bazarov on his death bed: I am done for. I've fallen under the wheel. And it transpires that there was no point in thinking about the future. It's an old story, is death, but to every man it comes anew.

You still haven't told me what you're up to,’ she said at last. ‘One more minute,’ Tamani said, smiling against her lips. ‘We don't need minutes,’ Laurel said. ‘We have forever.’ Tamani pulled back to look at her, his eyes shining with wonder. ‘Forever,’ he whispered before pulling her into another kiss. ‘So does this make us entwined?’ Laurel asked, a sharp twinge of grief piercing her happiness as she repeated the word Katya had used, so long ago, to describe committed faerie couples. ‘I believe it does,’ Tamani said, beaming. He leaned closer, his nose touching hers. ‘A sentry and a mixer? We shall be quite the scandal.’ Laurel smiled. ‘I love a good scandal.’ ‘I love you,’ Tamani whispered. ‘I love you, too,’ Laurel replied, relishing the words as she said them. And with them, the world was new and bright-- there was hope. There were dreams. But most of all, there was Tamani.’ “ Aprilynne Pike Destined pgs. 284-292.

Give my life, gladly! I will never love any person on the earth like Katya again—not even close. She was the one. I would die and be happy for only one day with her. But—” pushing his sleeve back down—“you should never get a person’s name tattooed on you, because then you lose the person. I was too young to know that when I got the tattoo.

All this bunch of so-called 'adults' was doing was making enemies of one another when what they really needed to be concentrating on was how to get out alive.

The only way we are able to endure pain is by holding on to the knowledge that it will someday end.

If u got one foot in the past and other in the future you're pissing on today

If this was a flirtation — and it felt like a flirtation — it was like no other flirtation in Katya’s experience: with a man old enough to be her grandfather?

Katya liked the asshole-Wulf, she admitted to him. She liked that he was brash and blunt and even sometimes rude.

NO KISS FORGOTTEN; it resides in the memory as in the flesh, and so Katya many times felt the press of Marcus Kidder’s warm mouth on hers in the days and especially in the nights following. And her heartbeat quickened in protest: How could you! Kiss him! That old man! Kiss him! Let him put his arms around you ad kiss you and kiss him back! The old man’s mouth and Katya Spivak’s mouth! How could you.

She gestured with her head toward Andrew. “You know how they are. I’m basically invisible right now.” Katya wasn’t totally sure who they meant—startup guys? men in general?—but she nodded in agreement.

Even a perfect makeup application can’t change everything. You have to like yourself. You have to understand that a blue eyeshadow won’t shave off fifty pounds. Brighter undereyes won’t fix your dark childhood. But a good red lip will get you laid at your high school reunion and that is proof enough that makeup is God.

Now I happened to be there, in the chewy maelstrom of his life, by his side. He taught me how to live in this fucked up environment. East Oakland. How to deal with the people. Which ones to avoid. The new currency was trading out what you have for what you need. And then maybe trading up for what you want. The new time was not told by the sun. Light or no light, we lived as things happened. I would soon realize there was no other way.

He chuckles and the rumble feels decadent as he takes one breast into his mouth, teasing the nipple with his tongue. My hips start to swivel, my need for sensation growing. I run my fingers through his hair, throwing my head back to press my breasts into his kiss. Trailing kisses across my chest, he mumbles, “You are most definitely my catnip.

When the Warrior pulled her half onto his lap and she felt the hard bulge of his erection thrusting up from his groin pressing into her hip, Katya grew nervous. She pulled away, gasping, and pressed him back with her hand on his chest. “Wait! Wait.” She licked her tingling lips and touched them with her fingertips, wondering what she’d been thinking to awaken this sleeping giant. What had happened to her vow to fight him off with all her strength? Turan’s dark eyes glowed like two banked coals ready to ignite into flame. “Please. More,” he begged hoarsely. “Please.” She suddenly realized that, despite the fact he could snap her in two if he wished, she was the one with the power. He didn’t intend to hurt or force her.

She feel these hands tremble, and she could feel Mr. Kidder’s excitement. How eager she was to be gone from this room. Her heart was beating in mild revulsion from the man’s touch, but Katya forced herself to remain still, politely unresisting. In Mr. Kidder’s eyes, which brimmed with moisture, Katya saw such tenderness for her, such desire, or love, she felt that her throat might close, she might begin to cry. Gravely Mr. Kidder lowered his face to hers. Katya held her breath, but he just brushed his lips against her forehead and did not try to kiss her on the mouth.

The best part of being a nanny, Katya thought, was reading children’s books aloud to enraptured children like Tricia, for no one had read such books aloud to her when she’d been a little girl. There hadn’t been such books in the Spivak household on County Line Road, nor would there have been any time for such interludes.

Katya talked about how the Russian language is being destroyed by poor education and by the sloppiness of nonnative speakers who ignore case endings and have no conception of verb aspects and don't care. You find the worst speech in the street markets, she said. She called the new, bad Russian that's spreading everywhere "market language" (bazarnii yazyk).

Rose looks at me anxiously, waiting for me to smile back. I do, but I wish she'd stop handing me a knife to cut her with. It's only a matter of time before I'm not able to resist.

However, little by little, I am coming to the view that what I mistook for humility was, in fact, an accurate evaluation of your worth.

It is my story and it is our story and it isn't perfect and it isn't finished but it is whole.

Beauty is a lovely thing to possess, like dual citizenship or a will to live.

Wall Street does not release its disciples cost-free. First it makes sure they’re mental and emotional cripples, and then lets them decide if they still want to leave.

For a trader — hell, for any American — being empty of promise is an abomination.

But the truth is that the fantasy is often better than the reality. I had just learned that lesson. Most men eventually learn that lesson. Mystery may have thought he wanted to live with two girls who love each other as much as they love him, but chances are they’d get on his nerves, team up against him, and eventually make him just as miserable as he’d been with Katya.

Chloe, wake up. I really, really, really need to pee.” I moan and sink deeper into Jorge’s arms, pulling my hand back. “Chloe, wake up. I’m dying here. I have to pee.” Ugh, why won’t that voice go away? I crack my eyes open and see Ringo by the bed prancing around doing the doggy version of a potty dance. Ringo starts prancing toward the bedroom door. “Thank goodness. I’ve got to go.

Would the young men called to arms laugh and joke and exchange hearty platitudes in imitation of popular fiction, while they waited to be mutilated by the stupidity and arrogance of aged politicians?

Why did I submit myself to the butchery of the trenches when I might have served in the echelons as a medical officer? Even the most rudimentary knowledge of Doctor Freud would suggest that I was pursuing a death wish

My eyes glue to him in fascination as he cleans his flogger. He’s shirtless since the room is above comfortable temperature. I watch as a drop of sweat creates a path down his back, gliding around all those perfect striated muscles. The drop disappears beneath his low-slung, leather pants. A shiver rocks my body at the thought of it sliding down the crack of his bitable ass. “Katya, snap your mouth shut, close the door, and have a seat,” Dexter commands and I listen.

Indeed, my first interest in the pioneer work of Doctor Freud sprang, not from a concern for persons wounded in their collisions with reality, but from my personal curiosity about the nature of creativity and the springs of motivation. So

I sometimes think that it’s the only way evil can truly express itself—that is, by distorting religion. It doesn’t surprise me that your killer is using Islam in his perversions. Evil tries to destroy that which is most sacred—and it always fails.

The rules are strict but simple: Poker asks, nay, commands all its adherents to cut the bullshit and embrace reality. It will toy with the deluded — those who have everything figured out — with the playful cruelty of a cat toying with a mouse. Bring all of your convictions and credentials, your anger and insecurities to the poker table and the Poker Gods will tease you and mock you and fill you with false hopes and send you to the ATM a few times before releasing you, broke and steaming, at 5am.

History has proven that trickle-down economics didn’t pan out for the working class, and the same applies here: Trickle-down soap and shampoo will not clean those gams, so do yourself a favor and give your soiled stems the due diligence they deserve.

I want to know all of your family—your aunt and her husband and her son and also your uncle the pastor. I anticipate your uncle the pastor! He will try to convert me, maybe?” “Are you kidding? Uncle Theron couldn’t convert a kitten.” “Theron,” Pyotr repeated. He made it sound like “Seron.” “You are doing this to torture me?” “Doing what?” “So many th names!” “Oh,” Kate said. “Yes, and my mother’s name was Thea.” He groaned. “What is the surname of these people?” he asked. After the briefest pause, she said, “Thwaite.” “My God!” He clapped a hand to his forehead. She laughed. “I’m pulling your leg,” she told him. He lowered his hand and looked at her. “I was just kidding,” she clarified. “Really their surname is Dell.” “Ah,” he said. “You were joking. You made a joke. You were teasing me!” And he started capering around the cart. “Oh, Kate; oh, my comical Kate; oh, Katya mine…” “Stop it!” she said. People were staring at them. “Quit that and tell me which syrup you want.” He stopped capering and selected a bottle, seemingly at random, and dropped it into the cart.

I'm sorry about what I said about the police," she said. "I know your friend works for them." "You have reason," he said. "You don't know what they'll do, and when they become known for doing crazy things, you have no reason to trust them. That's their fault, not yours.

She could feel these hands tremble, and she could feel Mr. Kidder’s excitement. How eager she was to be gone from this room. Her heart was beating in mild revulsion from the man’s touch, but Katya forced herself to remain still, politely unresisting. In Mr. Kidder’s eyes, which brimmed with moisture, Katya saw such tenderness for her, such desire, or love, she felt that her throat might close, she might begin to cry. Gravely Mr. Kidder lowered his face to hers. Katya held her breath, but he just brushed his lips against her forehead and did not try to kiss her on the mouth.

Why is it that we claim to want certainty? Only fools and cowards seek certainty. Certainty is a dead end; it’s a rich old widow living out the rest of her days on the Upper East Side with a little dog and big memories. Unless you are a senior citizen, you’ll go nuts after a few weeks of knowing what the rest of your life will bring. You’ll die of boredom. But uncertainty is what keeps us alive. It is that flip of a coin, that brief moment when it’s in the air or spinning on its side, that snaps us out of our daily stasis. Some invisible Odds Gods are giving you a chance to become better, smarter, richer. What fun it is to get paid if you earned it by the skin of your teeth, by the close call. And how dreadful it is to shoot fish in a barrel. Exposure to uncertainty earns you membership in a select tribe: You are a Padawan mastering the Force. Once the trade is on, once the die has been cast, you’re in a parallel, auspicious universe.

At one point in school, they studied fractions, and Mitya had a tough time understanding that halves are just that, halves, 0.5, 50%, ½. What if one of them is bigger than the other. Mitya is not good at math, as you can see. But he’s good at imagination. Mitya is utterly convinced that no one has ever looked at two halves long enough, or attentively enough.

The years passed unnoticed and unremembered, and one autumn morning I found myself suddenly forty-five years old. It was a time for weighing youthful hopes against mature accomplishment, for it was quite certain that I had by then done all I was ever going to do. Sitting alone at my desk that evening of my forty-fifth birthday I asked that least original of introspective questions: Where had it all gone? And the somewhat less banal question: What, after all, had it been? My

gün olup beni seveceği düşüncesiyle avunamazdım. gençtim, romantiktim ama,aşkı zamanla büyüyüp gelişen bir şey olarak göremiyordum. maddelerine uyulacak bir anlaşma değildi aşk.ya bir bütündü, sizi tümüyle içine alırdı ya da aşk değildi. başka bir şeydi belki.daha mantıklı,daha sakin bir şey. kendine göre yine güzel bir şey... ama o şeyi istemiyordum ben." "bana da acımakla vakit kaybetme montjean. ben hayatta kendi durumumu dikkatle saptadım. ne fazla mutluluğa, ne de fazla acıya yer bırakıyorum. kendime güvenli ve kararlı bir yüzeysellik edindim. zevklerim var ama iştahlarım yok. gülüyorum, ama pek seyrek gülümsüyorum. beklentilerim var, ama umutlarım yok. esprilerim var, ama mizahım yok. çok atağım ama hiç cesaretim yok. açık sözlüyüm ama içtenliğim yok. çekiciliği güzelliğe tercih ederim. rahatlığı da yararlılığa tercih ederim. güzel kurulmuş bir cümle bence anlamlı bir cümleden iyidir. her şeyde yapaylığı seçerim!" "henüz hiçbir şeye teşebbüs etmediğim için, kendi yetersizliklerimden haberim yoktu. bir şeye cesaret etmemiş olduğum için de, cesaretimin sınırlarını bilmiyordum.

Asha drops to her knees, gathering up the limp little body in her arms, frantically pressing her hands to the places that are bleeding. She looks across at where the BeiTech troops are mustered, her face painted with ash and blood and grime. "She's just a little girl!" she screams. Silence. "She didn't ask for this! None of us asked for this! We're just people. You used to be too, remember that? How do you sleep at night? How do you live with yourself? Is this what doing your duty looks like?" She's rocking, her body curled over Katya's, the whole field paralyzed by her fury, by the force of her will. Not one of them moves - not a soldier, not a miner. Even the fighters overhead have somehow vanished, their attentions turned elsewhere for this moment. "You're people," Asha shouts again, her voice breaking. "Every one of you has a conscience. How about your duty to that?" It's impossible to know what the BeiTech pounders make of her words. They're all hidden behind their ATLAS rigs, faceless, indistinguishable from one another. As if by making themselves all the same, they're relinquishing the humanity she's trying to force upon them.

Now the moment had arrived. Birgit took her place beside him in the command car. She pulled up her large striped cotton dirndl skirt made by her fellow national, Katya of Sweden, and looked around with an excited smile. But to onlookers it was more like the strained expression of a Swedish farm woman in a Swedish outhouse in the dead of a Swedish winter. She was trying to restrain her excitement at the sight of all those naked limbs in the amber light. From the shoulders up she had the delicate neckline and face of a Nordic goddess, but below her body was breastless, lumpy with bulging hips and huge round legs like sawed-off telegraph posts. She felt elated, sitting there with her man who was leading these colored people in this march for their rights. She loved colored people. Her eyeblue eyes gleamed with this love. When she looked at the white cops her lips curled with scorn. A number of police cruisers had appeared at the moment the march was to begin. They stared at the white woman and the colored man in the command car. Their lips compressed but they said nothing, did nothing. Marcus had got a police permit. The marchers lined up four abreast on the right side of the street, facing west. The command car was at the lead. Two police cars brought up the rear. Three were parked at intervals down the street as far as the railroad station. Several others cruised slowly in the westbound traffic, turned north at Lenox Avenue, east again on 126th Street, back to 125th Street on Second Avenue and retraced the route. The chief inspector had said he didn’t want any trouble in Harlem. “Squads, MARCH!” Marcus shouted over the amplifier.

Before I even finished the letter, Nurse Natalya and Nurse Katya barged in with a new mattress. I watched them remake my bed for three painful minutes. Then I said: “It’s because I’m bored.” “No explanation necessary,” said Nurse Natalya.

This is a story about friendship and tragedy in the overshadow of an American city. Two brothers, three sisters, and a kid named Go. Fighting. Seeking. Looking after one another. Outsiders, doing what they can to survive. Kell has gone missing. Trust has been decimated yet loyalty runs deep. Ame searches for her little sister in all the strange places a junky might hide, painting the landscapes of identity in a world gone mad, where social fabric spills off counters in thrift stores on deep discount. This is a story about the lost and found. Alchemy and the turning of fear into vitality. Being real no matter what, even when you look bad. Colorful, in black and white. Fiction not fantasy. This is a story about heartbreak and redemption. About caring in a careless world. An oddity, out of step from mainstream literature, found its own rules and rhythm, placed into circulation by one who lives to tell.

In therapy Katya realized how much her relationship with her son had been burdened by the shadows of her childhood, and memories of her mother came back to her more and more clearly, memories of the way she had refused to relate to her eldest daughter. Katya was now able to feel her infant needs and express them in a diary, from which her friend sent me an excerpt after Katya’s death:

Even then Katya remained blind to the fact that as an adult she had ways of escaping her dilemma, that she could have separated from her husband.

A man doesn't know a friend until he knows his friend's anger.

That afternoon was the first time I felt... I don't know how to describe it exactly. My head was in Dad's lap and all the happiness that I'd missed was being compressed into that moment. I looked up at him and I was no longer me. I was Mom, but not as I knew her. This wasn't her forcing her darkness on me, like a bag over my head. No, this was something else. I'd become Mom from many years ago. Dad felt it too, I could tell. Maybe it would have lasted longer if not for Edie, talking and talking, pressing and pressing. She wanted to take me back to the other mother. The one in the mental hospital who needed me brought to her, tied and quartered, like a sacrifice.

Nighttime Twitter was different from daytime Twitter only in that the content shifted from people in her timeline making dumb jokes about tech news to people making dumb jokes about TV. Katya

It wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore. Where did Isabel Taylor get the idea that identity was so malleable? Not that Katya wanted her identity to be malleable, but it was fascinating how some people thought that the world would just go along with whatever they decided their lives were like at any given moment.

Only in the Soviet Union did women carry arms and engage in routine front-line combat duty on a large scale during World War II. There were numerous Soviet women infantry soldiers, and at least two female combat pilots achieved ace status. Katya Budanova and Lilya Litvak each shot down more than a dozen Luftwaffe aircraft.

People are like trees in a forest; no botanist would think of studying each individual birch-tree.' Katya,

The twist of her mouth revealed what she thought of that idea. It made Lisa restrain a smile: it was also Katya’s moue, and Lisa’s son Julian made the same face when he was concentrating.

Katya stood in the doorway at the rear of Mr Kidder’s studio and could not seem to step out onto the terrace and run away. Panting like a dog that has been trained by his master and can’t break out of his training, though his training has hurt, humbled, humiliated him and enslaved him.

Looking up, Katya's eyes adjusted to the desolate road they were on: Nothing except a flat road for miles, leading to a horizon that looked like a painting of the end of the earth, the pale crisp sky kissing the land in a kind of romantic hopelessness

When Konstantin had first married Oksana, I’d been excited about getting a sister-in-law, but I should’ve known Konstantin would never allow us to be close. His constant abuse slowly broke her down until she was a ghost of who she’d once been. The drugs took care of the rest. “I hope your new husband isn’t like your brother, but if he is, do whatever you have to do to survive it, and if you get the chance to run, take it, Katya. Run and get as far away from these bastards as you can.

I need you to know that I’m not going to hurt you.” “You’re not the first man to say that and have it turn out to be a lie,” I say before I can think better of it. “I’m not lying, and when I give my word, I mean it, Katya.

There’s something between me and Katya, and I don’t know what in the fuck to do about it. The plan was to annul this and never speak of it again. Move on and pretend it never happened, but when I walk into the bedroom and see her curled into a ball on the bed, fast asleep and looking so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest ache, the last thing I want to do is let her go.

I remember hugging Chronos at night and burrowing my face in his fur, letting his purring replace the static that her words had left in my head.

Katya

If you go home with somebody, and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em! Don’t sleep with people who don’t read! via John Waters

Misha burns his tongue on the tea. Katya burns her tongue on the soup. Katya smiles at Misha, unsure why. Misha smiles back, unsure how.

Yeah, she said, Is that your girlfriend, and I was like, We have sex, and we’re in love. Someday, when we have a baby, we’re going to name her Sue Ellen after my mom. No, Daphne. I didn’t tell her we’re sleeping together. Petra told her I’m living with my new girlfriend. I’m just guessing Katya might do some high-level deduction here. But if you want me to go ask whether she thinks we’re having sex, I can.

Svetlana looked at her father’s dacha with loathing. His rooms were ugly. In cheap frames on his walls he had huge photographs cut out from the magazine Ogonyok: a little girl with a calf, some children sitting on a bridge. Strangers’ children. Not a single photograph of his own grandchildren. The unchanging rooms—a couch, a table, chairs; a couch, a table, chairs—frightened her. The little party went off well, but Svetlana felt her father’s response to her daughter was indifference. He took one look at Katya and burst out laughing. Svetlana wondered if her father would have liked to be a family again. When she had fantasies of herself and her children living under the same roof with him, she realized that he was accustomed to the freedom of his solitude, which he claimed to have come to appreciate during his long Siberian exiles. “We could never have created a single household, the semblance of a family, a shared existence, even if we both wanted to. He really didn’t want to, I guess.”37

There was a kerfuffle before Svetlana’s departure. Joseph’s wife, Elena, had grabbed Svetlana’s overnight bag to hand it to her. She’d shouted, “Don’t touch that!”26 Elena didn’t know that it contained the porcelain urn carrying Brajesh’s ashes. Joseph was angry at his mother’s sharpness, Elena looked offended, and Svetlana was distraught. She hadn’t had time to give more than a peck on the cheek to Katya. She had mismanaged her farewell.

She was thirty-five. It is not a comfortable age. If one is still alone, one believes one will stay alone. Her children, now sixteen and eleven, were at school. Katya had her compulsory Pioneer meetings, and Joseph had joined the Komsomol. Svetlana recalled, “I was melancholy, irritable, inclined towards hopeless pessimism; more than once I had contemplated suicide; I was afraid of dark rooms, of the dead, of thunderstorms; of uncouth men, of hooligans in the streets and drunks. My own life appeared to me very dark, dull, and without a future.”2 Beneath Svetlana’s carefully controlled exterior, there existed sorrows and suspicions, rages and frustrations, psychic wounds that she did not know how to face, let alone heal.

The dangers of knowledge are threefold.” I nodded to Katya. “There is the danger of not learning; the danger of learning too much; and the danger of not understanding,” she answered.