The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

less landscape matching the somber color she carried around in her soul. It was tempting to stay in bed all day on the weekends, to use the excuse of her grief and the cold outside to insulate herself from condescending people and the inhospitable cli- mate. However, occasionally Alice would force herself to take long walks, both as a means to combat the claustropho- bia that would attack her when she hibernated too long in the quiet of her apartment and as a means to exhaust herself so that she could finally fall into the forgetfulness of sleep. It was a strange dichotomy — in one respect, she found the effort of moving almost overwhelming because her princi- pal desire was to remain buried in bed. On the other hand, the quiet and alone- ness of her apartment would crush her with its solitude and she would feel an irresistible urge to get out and be sur- rounded by humanity. She would venture out on side streets and explore the old, crumbling Ortho- dox churches, which still held remarkable beauty even though so many were in dis- repair. The bright splashes of blue or yel- low of their domes jarred the otherwise monochromatic winter landscape. One Sunday, Alice was walking down a busy thoroughfare, trying to keep pace with locals bun- dled against the cold who moved with grim determination to their points of destination. There was a light freezing drizzle falling. Really, she thought, she should start making her way back to her apartment before the sidewalks became even icier than they were. The thought of the warmth waiting for her there, no matter how sterile and alone, with a hot cup of tea in hand and a good book, became increasingly attractive. At the next corner, she spied a metro entrance, and she gratefully made her way down the fast-moving escalators — down, down, into the depths of the Moscow subway. The air became warmer, although gritty with swirling dust and dirt. Briskly walking down the corridor to her station plat- form, Alice was surprised to see a stray dog — a bitch — huddled under a bench, nursing a litter of new puppies. “Well I’ll be damned,” Alice thought to herself. “How in the world did that dog make it down here to give birth?” The scrawny dog looked meekly up at Alice, as if she expected to be roughly ejected from the station. Alice was moved yet looked away — as one would look away from a beggar on the street. The poignancy and desperation of the dog giving birth to new life in a place that was warm, yet surrounded by possibly hostile and certainly uncaring strangers, was heartbreaking. And the fact that Alice felt such compassion for the dog — after weeks of feeling noth- ing — made the intensity of the sadness stronger and more surprising. That night, back in her apartment, Alice lay in bed in the dark, thinking of the dog. How did it get water? Food? The desire to help the animal was so strong that, at one point, she actually thought of getting up and returning to the subway station. However, she pushed the thought out of her mind. Hopefully, the babushkas who cleaned the station at night, during the few hours when the stations were closed, would have some compassion for the dogs and feed them. The following Saturday, Alice returned to the subway station to see if the dogs were still there. Of course, they were not. There was no sign of them. She didn’t know if she felt relieved or even more dis- couraged because she would never know what had hap- pened to the mother and her puppies. At a loss what to do after checking on the dog, Alice decided to ride the subway the half-hour or so out of Moscow to the large outdoor market at Izmailovo. The out- door market displayed crafts and antiques. She wandered among the brightly colored stalls full of lacquer boxes, painted icons and brightly painted matryoshka dolls, nod- ding at some of the vendors who recognized her from past purchases. Ben had loved to come here, to admire and pur- chase the Russian crafts. This memory, of strolling the mar- ket’s aisles with him and the ensuing melancholy, along with the bitter cold, drove her back to the subway, and she began the trek back to the compound. Feeling restless, she left the subway earlier than her normal stop. Perhaps if she walked the rest of the way, she would be so frozen and exhausted that she could fall into dreamless sleep later in the apartment. Waiting at a street corner to cross, she looked across the street and saw a large dog standing alone, which was unusu- S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 Alice was surprised to see a stray dog — a bitch — huddled under a bench, nursing a litter of new puppies.