Katiusza

The evening was turning late and the water cold. Or so it felt as she huddled into a corner, tracing the cracked tiles that had graced the bathroom for more than a century. Her husband was gone. She was sure he was, because the apartment took on a lighter appearance despite the shadows that now fell upon the rooms and their confinement. She walked with light steps over to the piano that stood in a forgotten corner in the bedroom. It was now merely used as an improvised shelf for half empty perfume bottles and photographs in silver frames – black and white, grainy they told of a different time. A time she longed for. Before the likes of Facebook and Internet had corrupted what was left between her and her spouse. She longed for when it was considered romantic to take your girlfriend out to the cinema, or surprise her with an impromptu picnic. When life was holy and only shared between two bodies, their minds both master and guard of the weak flesh.

She opened the fall board and struch a few chords, as she remembered the opening of Katiusza – her grandmother’s beloved jewel from a country she had left many years ago.

Yes the flesh is weak she thought. There had been the occasional woman, colleagues she suspected. She didn’t dread them so much as the humiliation of the whispers of deceit. Or the drunken nights spent in the arms of bar girls and other females of questionable character. But it was all part of a game, an image she knew must be cultivated to achieve something…if only she knew what that something was…

She had bought into it – yes she had. Swallowed her pride whilst waiting for her husbands return. Some days the return didn’t come until the crack of dawn when she pretended to be asleep – turning the pillow to disguise the tears that had penetrated the cotton fibers and now laid hidden deep within. But he never noticed. Perhaps that was a blessing after all. Because as the rays finally penetrated the fine, almost threadbare, muslin curtains, sleep came closer and closer until he mind drifted off to oblivion. The only thing she could hear were her grandmother’s voice singing gently Katiusza in Russian.