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show for Christmas Dinner. He has invited about thirty guests.” She grimaced, and speaking in English for the first time that day,
said, “I never fit in with those people. They are like the Russian Mafia or something,” she finished sarcastically.
Roman choked, coughed a little, and didn’t say another word until he finished his soup. Tanya smiled to herself as she demolished
the remains of her borscht. This was going to be fun, she thought. And he was so cute. She stood up, motioning for Roman
to do the same. They both got dressed into their bloody, soiled clothes, and without saying another word, went outside.
The pig was waiting inside a truck trailer, and when it saw the humans approaching, it squealed in protest, and soiled the trailer with what must have
been its dinner yesterday. Roman grabbed a looped rope, and taking a big breath, threw and slung it around the pig’s neck. He pulled, dragging the unfortunate
creature out of the trailer. The pig squealed even louder; so loud that all the dogs in the neighborhood began wailing and barking in response. The animal
resisted Roman’s rope, dragging its feet; its hooves digging into the frozen ground and screeching to a halt, refusing to budge any further.
When the pig finally rested on the ground, exhausted from its struggles, Roman, still holding the rope that tethered the pig around the neck, reached for the nearest knife.
Before he could grab it, the animal twisted with such strength that it pulled him away and must have wrenched his arm in the process. Seeing this, Tatyana, without thinking,
ran to the table on which lay the instruments, grabbed the knife, and plunged it into the defenseless neck of the pig, severing an artery. The animal started to gurgle
and choke on its own blood, squealing louder still, a high keening sound that made Tatyana press the knife deeper and deeper, until the animal finally went quiet, its blood
streaming in a dark red current across her arms. As if waking from a dream, she looked at her bloody arms, then at the hands that were almost fully submerged in the gaping
hole that used to be the neck of the animal. She tried to pull out the knife. She could not do it because it was embedded in the bone of the spine. She tugged again.
“Romchik, help me pull this thing out,” she said calmly. When there was no answer, she looked up and saw him staring at her in either
horror or astonishment, she could not tell which. Sighing, she got up, braced her foot on the shoulder of the motionless pig, and pulled
with all her might, jerking out the blade in such a rush that she fell on her butt in the puddle that had formed from the pig’s blood. Cold bloody
mud started seeping in through her pants, shocking her skin with its soggy chill. Tatyana stumbled to her feet and throwing the knife on a dry
patch of soil, slapped her hands across her posterior, coloring her already drying, blood-caked hands with a fresh layer of russet mud.
“What are you staring at?” she yelled at Roman, seeing that he had not moved an inch. “Help me with this thing,” she ordered. “The sooner we are done,
the better. Then we can say good bye to the pigs.” The youth numbly followed her order, and, approaching little by little, grabbed the knife from where she threw
it. He rinsed it, and once it was clean, proceeded to cut off the head of the pig, sawing away at the bone which Tanya had already marked with her killing blow.
“What are you doing?” The girl ran to stop him, but was too late. “We are supposed to clean the hide
first. Now it’s going to be really hard to clean the edges where you cut off the head.”