Eagles and Partridges

The novel from which this piece is excerpted is a coming-of-age story narrated by a young Soviet Jewish woman who leaves Kiev for Moscow in search of true poetry and love.

“Soul,” said Lidochka, sixteen, frail body, a heavenly face of a little demon. “That’s the most important sex organ!”

She spoke with the urgency of drowning, lips wet, voice hoarse, a rebellious spirit prowling for a quick breach of morality.

Back in those horrific times, all of us – girls, philosophers, drunks, and even our friend Dürer – were blindingly beautiful. We were brighter than the stars, our faces ablaze with blissful ignorance. We resembled dessert sweets: fruit-topped blancmanges, syrupy streams and sugary divinations. And if you were a young woman, a little caramel, you would inevitably end up surrounded by manure flies bent on soaking up your vitality like candied Mao Zedongs.

On the very first day, armed with a bottle of champagne, Lidochka read to me her “Futuristic liturgy”, liquid jumping out of the glass, Lidochka out of her armchair. In conclusion, she launched into a discourse about shame, moved on to callousness, and inquired if I had ever kissed anyone on the lips.

“I don’t remember,” I said thoughtfully. Pigeons roamed the adjacent roof. In tiny coquettish steps, a pigeonette retreated further and further away from a plump pompous pigeon, who, with his pathetic feathers cocked, wanted to pass for an eagle.

“I don’t remember if I ever I kissed anybody on the lips,” I hesitated. “But I am in love with...