The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 tray dogs still run in packs in Moscow, an incongruous sight in such a large city and strangely reminiscent of a century ago when livestock wandered the streets. The dogs do not seem to belong in a civilized, modern capital, where eight lanes of traffic running through the city are clogged with cars and trucks at all hours of the day and night. But still, one would often see a group of nine or 10 mangy, scrawny dogs, lethargic due to lack of food, posing no real threat unless one ventured too close. Alice remembered one day when she and Ben had been out for a walk. A pack of dogs had been lying in a loose group, trying to gather some warmth from a late autumn sun. Lulled into a false sense of security that they were harmless, Ben had approached the group for a closer look. Startled at this unwelcome intimacy, the alpha male dog rose abruptly and charged a few feet, barking and snarling. Rattled, Ben and Alice had scurried away, nervously chuck- ling and looking over their shoulders to make sure fangs were not about to sink into their shins. But the large male dog had just as quickly collapsed back down, as if the exer- tion of that brief flurry of hostility had sapped the few ener- gy reserves he possessed that day. Ben died just a year after he and Alice arrived in Moscow for her two-year tour of duty at the embassy. He was fine one day, and then abruptly he was gone from a massive coronary. Alice went through the requisite duties — accompanying his body back to the U.S., the family meetings, the burial — all the events that she should have. and did take care of with quiet composure. It was only when she had returned to post and started back to work that she realized she was always bone-weary. Exhausted. This was normal, people soothingly told her. She was dealing with an emotional crisis, and she should just accept it. Get out more. Try to forget. Alice found herself moving slowly, cautiously, in a quiet, gray fog, which was reflected in the gray, white and black frozen landscape of a Russian winter. She retreated into a cocoon of stillness; she felt as if she might shatter if she moved too quickly, or if she encountered any jarring noise or activity. What a perfectly appropriate season to have half of one’s heart cut out, she thought. It would have been much more difficult to cope, she reflected idly one weekend morning as she lay in bed past noon, if she were posted in some lush tropical paradise with brightly colored flowers dripping down white stucco walls and a hot, sensual sun beating down. No, this climate was much more conducive, much more compatible with the tone of her life now — the color- A GAINST THE BLEAK , FROZEN LANDSCAPE OF A R USSIAN WINTER , AN A MERICAN WOMAN FINDS AN UNEXPECTED PATH THROUGH HER GRIEF . S B Y J OAN B ROYLES O DEAN This story won second place in the Journal ’s 2007 Foreign Service fiction contest. Other winning stories will appear in future issues of the FSJ. Joan Broyles Odean, an office management special- ist, joined the Foreign Service in 1985. She has served in Geneva, Bonn, Tel Aviv, Oslo, Moscow and Washing- ton, D.C. She is currently posted in Ottawa. FS F I CT I ON L UCKY