My mother and I had been in the apartment four days when the sink broke and Zelensky came by to fix it. He had lived in the building for seventeen years — much longer than anyone else, as I understood it — and had some kind of arrangement where he helped out the landlady, who was unmarried, with basic maintenance.
The problem with the sink was the cold water wouldn’t turn off. It just gushed and gushed. I was home alone and answered the door, and there was Zelensky. He was old, seventy or so, the craggy skin and white hair and all that, but with blue eyes that were bright and alert. He wore a shabby gray sweater, even though it was June, and plain brown trousers, the kind you never see on anyone under sixty. In his hand was a big ring of keys; I guess he was just going to let himself in if no one had answered. He smelled like leather shoes and clove cigarettes and some kind of old-man aftershave, with a whiff of whiskey. On his head was a fedora, which he took off and pressed lightly against his chest.
