Amberjack Publishing
Hardcover: 304 Pages
ISBN: 9781948705646
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis
Salt the Snow follows the story of American journalist Milly Bennett. Milly has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries to get him released. But his arrest reveals
both painful secrets about her marriage and hard truths about the Soviet state she has been working to serve. Disillusioned, and pulled toward the front lines of a captivating new conflict, Milly must find a way to do the right thing for her husband, her conscience, and her heart.
Salt the Snow is a vivid and impeccably researched tale of a woman ahead of her time, searching for her true calling in life, and love. In today’s era of women speaking out, this novel take a fresh look at the extraordinary women whose legacies have been nearly lost to history.
Excerpt
“Stop making a scene,” Zhenya hissed in Russian. His face had grown pale. “This is not how people act.”
“It’s dancing.” Milly drained her glass. She smiled and wig- gled her hips. She hadn’t meant to spark a fight. “You’re a dancer, you love music. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Look around. You’re embarrassing me.” Zhenya tilted his head toward the large table of Russians over his left shoulder, all of whom were hunched over their plates and studiously ignoring the pair of dancing women at the back of the room.
“The band is playing these songs for us.” More importantly, she wasn’t embarrassing. Dancing shouldn’t be embarrassing, living shouldn’t be shameful.
He crossed his arms. His tortoiseshell bracelet smoldered a rich brown in the restaurant’s low light.
She narrowed her eyes, then turned away.
Milly danced two more songs with the other women, and on the third song, a few young soldiers in uniform joined them. Milly glanced over once, and Zhenya’s face was as opaque as the frozen river. She looked a second time, and he was gone. She closed her eyes and exhaled, then reached for a half-empty glass she’d placed on a nearby table.
The band concluded and nodded to its Georgian partners on the other side of the room, and the music traded hands.
Milly hooked arms with Jennie. Together they wobbled back to the empty table with Carol following behind. The soldiers laughed and teased the women, but Milly ignored them. One pinched Carol’s bottom, and she swiped his hand then planted herself in her chair.
“Rascals,” Jennie said, and Milly couldn’t tell if she was being critical or appreciative.
Carol reached into her large sack of a purse and pulled out a sketchbook. She propped it on her skinny knee and began drawing one of the Georgian musicians with his onion-shaped instrument.
“Last time she did this she got kicked out,” Jennie whispered with wine-perfumed breath into Milly’s ear. They both giggled. Maybe it was for the best that Zhenya had left. Milly pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t meant to fight with him, not on his name day. But why couldn’t he relax with her? He was willing to break other social rules. Only, not the ones she wanted to break. A grim-faced man in a green sweater came to stand over Carol’s shoulder. She sketched away, her pencil flicking across the page. Another man joined the first, and then a woman in a gray wool dress. The Russian trio exchanged a few whispers, but mostly watched Carol draw. Milly emptied the dregs of the
thin-tasting wine into her glass.
When the Georgian band finished, Carol ripped the page from her book and stood. Milly squeezed the stem of her wine- glass and leaned forward, while next to her Jennie took three quick pulls from her cigarette.
Carol walked over to the musician she had been drawing. But before showing him the sketch, she spun around and dis- played the portrait, about two hands’ breadth high, to the entire night café.
It was a good likeness for a few minutes’ work, and Milly burst into applause.
But she was the only one.
The rest of the café remained silent except for the clicking of plates and forks. Then, a man coughed.
“That is counterrevolutionary!” he yelled. “Bourgeois nos- talgia!”
Milly turned to see the speaker was the man in the green sweater. His cheeks were nearly crimson.
Carol shoved the drawing in the musician’s hands and rushed to return to the table. Around them, a dust cloud of murmuring rose up.
“Better pay the bill.” Milly raised her hand to summon the waiter.
She forked over what was nearly a quarter of her monthly salary, then grabbed her coat. She bent down to reach for her boots, and as she did, a man at another table stood.
“Troublemakers,” he called.
“Let’s go.” Jennie grabbed the other two women.
Up the narrow stairs and out the door they hurried, Milly still in her dancing shoes, and the cold came as a wave of shocking clarity. They clicked their way down the icy sidewalk. Behind them, the nightclub door opened again and the voices of the crowd bubbled, but the group had paused at the threshold.
“You think you’re so special,” a woman yelled.
“Come dance with me!” a man’s voice whined, and Milly wondered if he meant it.
“Where are we?” Carol whispered as they rushed down the cold street as fast as Milly’s dancing shoes could take them. A hidden patch of ice snagged Milly’s heel, and Jennie caught her by the arm before she fell.
“Not sure,” Milly said, panting. “But I think I know that steeple.” She pointed at an illuminated dome in the distance.
The air buzzed and a loud thump sounded on the pavement next to them. Milly bent down to see what had fallen, when another projectile crashed into a snowbank next to her. She reached inside.
“They’re throwing oranges!” She held one up in wonder. “These are, what, eight rubles? I should try to catch them!”
Jennie hauled her to her feet.
“You catch one of those with your head and you’re in the hospital. Come on!”
Another orange skittered past them, and a man yelled some- thing about spreading their legs.
The women ran, short-stepping in their heeled dancing shoes, and trying not to slip.
Milly’s heart pounded in her ears, and all she could hear was her feet scratching the slick pavement as she trotted. Her breath was ragged.
Beside her, Jennie slowed to a walk, then laughed. Milly stopped and turned around.
“What a sight we are,” Jennie said, panting. “Carol, you should draw us.”
They all giggled, nervous and exhausted, and then the absurdity of their shoes and the cruel cold and the quiet night around them tipped the women into uncontrollable laughter.
“The Ruskies sure know how to toss a good party,” Milly giggled. She held up the orange still clutched in her numb, gloved hand, threw it a few inches into the air, then caught it in her palm, where the impact stung. “How nice to offer us break- fast on our way out.”
Carol snorted with laughter, and Jennie clapped Milly on the back.
“Let’s try to hail a cab. My piss is freezing inside my body out here,” Jennie said.
“It’s not too far to my room,” Milly said, though she knew it was probably more than a mile. She wanted to think. “I’ve got my boots here in the bag. I think I’d rather walk.”
“Suit yourself,” Jennie said. “I don’t have any boots, and that looks like a main street down there.” She pointed down a cross street, where on the other end, a few lights wobbled past. “Whaddya say, Carol?”
“There’s no way I’m walking.” She snuggled her arms around herself. “Come on, Milly.”
But Milly had already sat down on a stoop as cold as a block of ice and was working to quickly change her shoes.
“I’ll be fine. You go on.” She needed the solitude, though she didn’t want to tell them that. “I like the city at night.”
The other women looked at each other, then shrugged. “If Anna Louise asks, we’ll tell her we told you not to. Good night, Milly.”
“Good night.”
Milly stood and bounced up and down to restore the warmth to her backside while Jennie and Carol trotted toward the yellow lights blinking in and out of the dark. The streets were safe here, as long as she wasn’t being chased by a drunk mob, and now that she had her bearings, she knew where she was. She’d be fine walking back to the New Moscow Hotel where she was staying, after the dormitory had burned down. Maybe if she took enough time, Zhenya would be waiting for her.
She shook her head.
No, he wouldn’t.
The sides of the shoveled sidewalks were piled high with snow fallen from the leaded roofs of the row houses nearby. In the windows of a few houses a candle or lamp glowed, but mostly the only lights were the illuminated nets cast by each streetlamp, waiting for Milly and then reluctantly relinquishing her as she passed through. There was still enough wine in her for the light to feel indistinct, as shifting as her thoughts.
Zhenya had been right, sure. He was right to be embarrassed of her. She didn’t mind looking foolish because, deep down, she thought she was foolish. Ugly, unlovable by anyone except Zhenya. A shiver shot through her gut. For Zhenya, though, there was an element of performance in everything he did. She stopped walking. Even their marriage was a performance. Maybe he could never leave the stage behind, or maybe it was his yearning for applause—approval—that sent him to the stage in the first place. Milly kicked her boot into a snowbank and watched the crystals scatter and reflect the light before falling back into sameness. She knew about wanting approval and love. Wasn’t that why she had married him? She tried to remember. That gaping hole of loneliness certainly was why she had let Fred hold her, make love to her, send her to get an abortion, and kiss her scarred body afterward, all while she never even suggested he might leave his wife.
Love was only a plea to be needed. Her lower lip quivered. No one would need her.
In the distance, she could see the headlines on the Izvestia building speaking silently into the deaf night. She was getting close.
She turned a corner, and ahead of her shuffled a bundled figure. Milly slowed, cautious. He had a bucket slung over his arm and a sheepskin cap pulled low over his face. He dipped his hand into the bucket, then swung his arm, bent at the elbow, in a circle. He repeated the motion, scattering salt on the sidewalk like seeds on furrowed ground. As Milly approached, she could see the deep lines of his face, worn by the sun. He paused as she passed by, then continued wordlessly sowing the salt upon the snow of the walkway, as once he had surely sown seeds on some farm. Milly turned and watched as he reenacted that vanished life here in the city, sprinkling salt at midnight to keep the relentless snow at bay.
Salt the Snow is available from Booktopia or your favourite retailer.
About the Author
Praise for Salt the Snow:
“With meticulous research and insightful prose, Callaghan lifts American journalist Milly Bennett's voice free of the sexism and censorship that often stifled her words in 1930s Moscow and beyond. Honest, vivid, and bold in the face of historical truths, Salt the Snow is a captivating story of a woman whose vulnerability and hopeful idealism resonate even today."
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