Elena Orlova
visual artist

I remember a woman who once lived in our building — bright, ample, and splendid. Aunt Kapa. Kapitolina Panteleyevna. Every morning from April through October she would step out onto her balcony in a silk robe covered with enormous roses and drink coffee from a tiny cup, her little finger coquettishly…

“Addressed to a friend, the little song goes round in circles, because...” sang the radio. I did not manage to hear the rest: someone knocked on the window. 

I terribly did not want to wake up. It was a day off; the day before there had been so much to do that it seemed it could never all…

I used not to know how to cook. Grandmother ruled the kitchen. She cooked borscht, baked pies, salted cabbage.  She tolerated no one beside her in her kitchen kingdom. The most I was allowed to do was turn the handle of the old kitchen meat grinder when minced meat was needed for cutlets or a meat…