“Turkish?” he heard a laughing voice say, in English, right next to him.
Surprised, he turned, started to answer, “German,” and realized the man—kid, really, college kid—was talking to the speckle-faced, green-eyed, laughing redhead he was tugging behind him.
Food, Thomas realized. They were talking about food.
“This place is incredible,” the girl said. And then they were gone too. And Thomas was practically ripping his gloves off his hands, pulling out his phone and punching at the speed-dial.
“Jutta?” he said before she’d even spoken, had barely even answered. “Jutta, it’s me.”
“Yes, I hear that,” she said. Laughing.
His wife, laughing. Thomas almost hung up on her, too, almost threw the phone into the Neva, let it follow the bears. The dead and beautiful bears.
“And so?” Jutta was saying, her laughing voice filling his ear. “Did you find him? What has he got up to now?”
Oh, you know, Thomas very nearly answered. Killing some kids. Watching Russians Snapchat it.
“Can I talk to our son?” he said.
“Can you…” Jutta started, and Thomas thought she’d actually heard, understood. But of course she hadn’t. She was still laughing. “Here he is.”
Of course, Thomas had nothing to say to him, either. Except, in the end, “Hello.” And so, he said that. Then he said it again. And he went on doing that, in his mind, out loud, to his son, all the way back to Vitebsk Station to catch the next train home.
About the Author
GLEN HIRSHBERG received his B.A. from Columbia University, where he won the Bennett Cerf Prize for Best Fiction, and his M.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Montana. His first novel, The Snowman’s Children, was a Literary Guild Featured Selection. His collection, The Two Sams, won three International Horror Guild Awards and was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. Hirshberg has won the Shirley Jackson Award and been a finalist for the World Fantasy and the Bram Stoker Awards. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Glen Hirshberg
Art copyright © 2016 by Greg Ruth
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