What Happened To Anna K. [antikvár]

SAUSAGE IMMIGRANTS A nna K. was not the only pale woman in a black shearling to glide along 108th Street in Rego Park, but she was the most striking. A Tajik shopkeeper, about to weigh a bag of unripe persimmons, paused in order to follow the course of Annas backside as it made its way down the block. What set her apart from the others, at least in her own mind? Her curls, for one—black, lustrous, caressing the bottom of her neck. Her green eyes, the color of leaves in midsummer. Her walk, perhaps, delicate, thought-through, her toes jutting slightly outward. The more observant man might notice the litheness of her torso, her proactive breasts, substantial hips, regal posture, a sharp, even precarious, gleam in her eye. She walked by the Russian groceries, where women abused store proprietors over the price of sausages. Anna passed stores she had not entered in years. There was European Fashions for Less, and across the street, International Couture and Parisian Chic, with their mirrored walls, their fur-swaddled mannequins, their sequined gowns with padded shoulders. Their saleswomen, who swore that only the most fashionable women of Moscow, Paris, London were stepping out in this leopard-print pantsuit, that fur-collared ballerina dress. Whose