Portraits

Octobrina is old before her time and bone dry and brittle like a fallen leaf or a fallen angel. When it comes to people or politics, she is a kettle at perpetual boil: the water sizzling inside, the tin cover rattling overhead. When it comes to material things, she exhibits a carefully nurtured ineptitude: she is awkward when ordering in restaurants, graceless when introducing people, forgetful about paying bills. When she pays for something out of pocket, she cups her hands and holds out whatever coins she finds in her purse. (Dancho occasionally tests her by taking a few coins too many, but if she is keeping count, she never lets on.) She smokes American filter cigarettes through a long ivory holder, gripping the holder between her thumb and third finger and barely putting it in her mouth. In the winter she smells of moth balls, in the summer of lilacs. She smells of lilacs now.

- From The October Circle by Robert Littell