A/N: I realized that I neglected to mention that this story is set in the 1970s. Any constructive criticism, comments, or insight into soviet life in the 70s is welcome! As a side note I had to settle on a lingua franca for Roman and Franziska, I chose Albanian. Although it has far fewer language learners than say Italian, its integral to Franziska's character development and I just couldn't picture her and Roman speaking Italian for the life of me.
If you want a reference for Roman, I suggest the Russian actor Daniil Strakhov. He's the person I pictured when I read Frostbitten.
I own nothing except for Franziska and Vittorino. Everything else, including Roman, is property of Kelley Armstrong.
Glossary:
Po = Yes
miremengjes Zonjushë = Good morning Miss
Faleminderit = Thank you
Vito left early for an appointment at his university, leaving behind rumpled sheets and a still warm cup of coffee. He also took all the metro tokens. I dressed in a hurry, red lipstick that I scraped out of the tube with my pinky finger and whatever clothes and shoes I happened to cross paths with.
The line at the ticket window was a nightmare starring old ladies and people with two too many kids pointing sticky fingers at their faces. When it was my turn I swallowed even though my mouth was dry. My Russian was awful because I didn't make any effort. The same way I didn't try to speak Italian until I was five years old. Since we moved here I spent my days wandering, taking the train to the end of the line. Forcing myself to go to an audition for the opera, an audition I'd only gotten through a supernatural connection of Vito's literature professor. I took off in a jog right after the piano played the last note during rehearsals. I left the market, ticketing buying, and any interaction with humans to Vito. But he'd been pushing me. The man behind the window cleared his throat and I just stared at the metal tray under the grate where the person before me had abandoned his receipt.
"Italianskii?"
I was greeted with silence. I raised my eyes to the booth and there was a stern eyebrow raise glaring back at me. He wasn't handsome or sexy that was never a word I'd waste on him. Dark hair and a strong jaw peeked out from the hat of his uniform. He was striking, regal, like he'd been plopped in the wrong century.
"Fuck this, Shqip''
I don't know what made me ask if he spoke Albanian, because I'd spent much of my life up until that point trying to bury it, and the odds of anyone knowing it were slim to none.
"Po, miremengjes Zonjushë "
Yet somehow he'd beaten them. His Albanian wasn't perfect; it was mechanical and rigid, like the spine of a textbook. But I wasn't used to hearing it from foreigners. When I looked at him again, for a second I forgot about the goddamn tickets. His cheek twitched and he took his lower lip into his mouth.
"Zonjushë."
—Roman—
I saw her even in the back of the line drawn in by a flash of coppery red hair cutting through the queue of gray woolen coats. She was a good head taller than most of the people waiting. I crossed my fingers that she would be in my line, silently preparing to ask the teller next to me to stall. I didn't need to. Two windows freed up at the same time with a tinny chime and a brief flashing of lights. She marched right up to mine, grey eyes cautiously flitting up to my face. She wasn't Russian. Her hair was a dark red, long, static charged pieces clinging to a tanned face, and a hard mouth. Red lips, and a crooked nose that didn't quite match. Her speech confirmed it. She had an accent so rudimentary and bizarre that it was jarring.
"Italianskii?"
I was so enthralled by the odd way she pronounced her words that I'd neglected to listen to what she was actually saying. And then she cursed, foul and rough and asked if I spoke Albanian. I bit back a smile. It was fortuitous at best. Of all the ticket sellers in all the metro stations in St. Petersburg waiting with clean starched shirts with millions of tiny paper cuts scarring their fingers and shiny brass buttons providing a distorted image of uniform, clean-shaven expressions. Of brimmed hats shading tight pinched lips. She had chosen the one who spoke Albanian, who had learned it as an ephemeral curiosity because it sounded so musical so unlike any other language he had ever heard.
"Po, miremengjes Zonjushë "
She arched her eyebrows in shock.
"Ten, faleminderit."
I studied her while my fingers counted out the tokens, almost mechanically. The way her mouth twitched as she bit the inside of her cheek in her oversized trench coat. When she paid our fingers both got trapped beneath the acrylic gate long enough for me to feel a static shock.
"Next time, come straight to my window."
She grabbed the tokens and receipt by the fistful and threw them into a canvas shopping bag. I watched her leave and imagined the sound of her shoes clicking on the floor until an impatient customer rapped on my window, snapping me back to reality.