Definitely Maybe: A Manuscript Discovered Under Strange Circumstances

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Excerpt 1…. the white July heat, the hottest it had been in two hundred years, engulfed the city. The air shimmered over red-hot rooftops. All the windows in the city were flung open, and in the thin shade of wilting trees, old women sweated and melted on benches near courtyard gates.

The sun charged past the meridian and sank its claws into the long-suffering bookbindings and the glass and polished wood of the bookcases; hot, angry patches of reflected light quivered on the wallpaper. It was almost time for the afternoon siege, for the furious sun to hang dead still in the sky above the twelve-story house across the street and fire endless rounds of heat into the apartment.

Malianov closed the window—both frames—and drew the heavy yellow drapes. Then, hitching up his underpants, he padded over to the kitchen in his bare feet and opened the door to the balcony. It was just after two.

On the kitchen table, among the bread crumbs, was a still life consisting of a frying pan with the dried-up remains of an omelet, an unfinished glass of tea, and a gnawed end of bread smeared with oozing butter.

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