The apartment was still and quiet. It was easy to take a quick accounting of everything, since it was so minimal and I had so few things. And it was a relief to see that the few things I had were still in the places where I had left them. The pack of cigarettes and the bottle of beer in the refrigerator were still there, unopened. My cell phone, still lying on the kitchen table, the charge dead, though.

A veteran journalist I once met here, who had served as a correspondent during the Soviet times, told of stories of how when he would return from home leaves to Moscow, the KGB would leave signs of having been in his apartment, usually through foul odors, by leaving the ice-box unplugged so that the meat inside would rot and fester, or filling his toilet with feces and the stench of shit.

But my apartment, quiet, had no smells. Nothing moved around, tidy in the way I would leave it, or the way that Tyotya Leeza, my landlady would leave it, with everything squared away.

The place was hot and stuffy. I turned on the old Soviet air conditioner, that made loud humming and rattling noises. I turned off the lights, lit up a cigarette, sat at my beloved perch on the kichen window, drew the curtain to see a sky full of stars and a crescent of a moon, the likes of which I had not seen in some time. I was happy to be back, happy to be alone.

Labels: alone at last

  ¶ 4:30 PM