The chinook lasts a few days, the wind warm and always blowing, all day long, down from the mountains. The sky a blue band above the mountains, in an arch, under the high clouds.

We sell lemonade all morning, on Christmas vacation. We don’t pack everything back into the garage before nine. Heck, we don’t even start selling lemonade until after nine. We sit behind the table, our scarves up over our noses. Mullen pushes dimes on the table with his mitts, can’t quite pick them up, to stack. We keep the lemonade jug in one of Mullen’s dad’s beer coolers, to keep it from freezing. When we open the lid, the lemonade steams in the cold, frost around the rim of the plastic.

Solzhenitsyn walks up the street, his thick toque crooked on his head, his collar up around his raw face. He sees us and stops. He walks up the walkway. Stands in front of our lemonade table and watches us, then sits down in the snow. Pulls his knees up against his chest.

You kids sell much lemonade?

We haven’t sold any lemonade in a week, says Mullen.

Solzhenitsyn pulls off a black wool glove. Leans over and digs into his pocket. He finds a key or two, a pencil stub, a lottery ticket. A few nickels.

You know, Solzhenitsyn, it’s been a bad few weeks. We can cover you, says Mullen. He opens up the cooler. Pulls a cup off the stack. Solzhenitsyn sits in the snow, arms around his legs. We pour him some lemonade – no ice, though. Sure it’s a chinook, but it’s still cold. He takes the cup of lemonade, has a long sip. Swishes it in his mouth, swallows. Smacks his lips, has another sip.

That is a damn good glass of lemonade. Tart. Awfully refreshing, tart like that. He has another sip.

It’s pretty cold for lemonade, though, he says.

Yeah, yeah it is.

You just get the water out of the tap?

Of course we do.

Solzhenitsyn nods. Pretty good water in this town. I noticed that first thing when we showed up. I’ve lived a lot of places where the water wasn’t so good. We had to boil it, in Petersburg, a lot of the time. You never knew what someone might have poured down the storm sewer.

Do you miss living in Russia? asks Mullen.

Solzhenitsyn shrugs. I like curling a lot. You don’t get curling clubs in Russia. And your dad can carry on a good conversation, even if it is in this foreign language.

What foreign language?

English, says Solzhenitsyn. I don’t know how you people do with so few vowels. He drinks some lemonade.

For a while, in Edmonton, I did instrumentation at a refinery, out past Leduc. A ways out into the field. You’d show up at the mobile shed, you’d be all sweaty and filthy, days’ worth of dust worked into your clothes. You showed up to the shed for a drink of water, and they keep the water cooler beside the propane heater. Do you know that smell? That sour, pinched smell of a propane heater? Which is all you can taste, of course, when you drink the water.

Solzhenitsyn drinks some lemonade.

Milo Foreman’s brother coached bantam hockey in Okotoks. Coaches, I mean. I mean, he still does. We liked to go and watch the games. They played good hockey, those bantams. None of this banging on the glass, none of this drilling kids on dump and chase, hit and wait. Milo’s brother had them skating. I like that good skating hockey, carrying it in off the wing, like back home. Fast and loose.

I liked this one restaraunt in Okotoks, I think it closed. Up a flight of stairs, in an alley, low ceilings and thick steaks. Milo and I would head there after the games, while his brother got all those kids home, talked down the parents, made everybody happy. I can’t recall the last time we went out there, Milo and I. I guess his brother must still coach hockey.

You should really show those Pentecostals next time, says Mullen. Really let them have it.

Yeah, laughs Solzhenitsyn. Drinks some lemonade. Really let them have it. Really show them.

Any time I smell a propane heater, I get depressed. I hated that job, twisting pipes out past Leduc. I smell propane and it’s first thing in the morning, cold, waiting to start work, and you can’t warm up for hours, and when the sun gets high then there’s no cooling down, and even when you want a glass of water, it smells like propane.

He finishes the last of the lemonade. Holds up the cup, lets the last drop drip onto his tongue.

Hey, do you kids want to see something?

What have you got? asks Mullen.

Solzhenitsyn takes an envelope out from his jacket. A thick brown kind, like you get at the post office, probably all padded inside. The flap torn open. He hands it to us. From Toronto, it says, addressed to Vaslav Andreiovich Kurskinov.

What is it?

Look inside.

Did you open it already? Did Vaslav?

Just look inside.

We pull out the red paperback book from the plastic bubble padding. Mullen holds it up, reads the title out loud.

THE TENDEREST TEMPEST
ANDRE KIRK
Uncorrected Proof

He’s always on about his pseudonym, says Solzhenitsyn. Who’s going to read Vaslav Andreiovich Kurskinov’s book? he always says. I think he spent more time coming up with that name than any other part of the stupid thing.

The paper cover is shiny and thick, the letters of the title pressed out, gold. Mullen opens the first few pages, looks for the start.

Troy Deville had the world, Mullen reads, slow and careful. The biggest estate in Louisiana, a house with forty rooms. He had marble columns and high glass windows with black wrought-iron ledges. Across his hundred acres would stroll the livery men to the stables, the gardeners about their business, and even an iridescent peacock. Often Troy Deville would sit in the highest window and gaze down the hill, to the port where his ships waited, their precious cargo to be unloaded. Troy Deville had all of this. But he didn’t have Lucia, so he didn’t have anything.

I look at Solzhenitsyn. That’s her name? Lucia?

I guess that’s her name, says Solzhenitsyn.