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were locked in a sweaty ball. He had discovered the boathouse one day while bicycling about the countryside, seeing faces in stones and hearing gasps of pleasure in the trees. At least he supposed it to be a boathouse, although it was hard to imagine who would own a private boat large enough for these premises. It was too small to have serviced the old river barge traffic, though the thing did look like it was pre-revolutionary. It’s dangerous, he thought but he liked that idea. There were holes in the rough-planked floor, mouldering corners and the whole thing teetered on two tarred, weathered posts that stood in the river. As a public official he should have the rat-infested thing condemned and removed. As Tanya’s lover he had greeted it gleefully.
The location was perfect. It was away from prying eyes on a narrow overgrown stretch of footpath. Anyone passing by might hear them but not see them. They’d be too worried about hooligans to come barging in. Nonetheless, they had to be careful. When he met Tanya that night before dusk at a prearranged spot—a lone birch tree on a little rise of land—he told her that he had a big surprise for her but she had to remain quiet, not only on her journey there, but—and he didn’t know how to convey the matter delicately to her—she had to stay quiet through the moments of her greatest ecstasy. Sounds, he knew, carried loudly over the river. Tanya had agreed to this restriction while on the walk. In fact, she had nibbled his ear and swore to speak only into its fleshy pink folds, filling his head with such thoughts that he wanted to pull her to the ground out there in the open.
When they reached the rickety building, she looked dubious, but he had already foreseen this problem and had fixed it up with some comforts. He had cleared away the rotting planks and debris, then stretched a clean blanket on the narrow strip of floor that surrounded the boat berth. On the blanket he placed an orange, procured at some expense from old lady Ullanova’s Moscow market contact. Tanya exclaimed and giggled at these attempts at ambience; they appeared to satisfy her somewhat, though she cast nervous glances at the dank, smelly corners.
She arranged the skirt of her summer dress up around her waist, and snatching the orange with both hands, dug her nails into the peel. Finally, she settled on the blanket, leaning back on her elbows. Her honey-brown eyes, slightly slanted like those of a Tatar, smiled at him and she slowly spread her olive legs, lay back and curved an arm high over her head, causing one breast to pop out of the dress.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 