Excerpt from City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Overture

Call me a sinner,
Mock me maliciously:
I was your insomnia,
I was your grief.
—ANNA AKHMATOVA, "I HAVEN'T COVERED THE LITTLE WINDOW" (1916)

And it seemed to me those fires
Were about me till dawn.
And I never learnt—
The colour of those eyes.
Everything was trembling, singing;
Were you my friend or enemy,
And winter was it, or summer?
—ANNA AKHMATOVA, "FRAGMENT" (1959)

I FILL MY CUP WITH VODKA. IT TASTES OF THE STRANGE LONGING PECULIAR to flying into one's old city at midnight.

Outside the rounded window of the plane, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmer through the clouds. I remember then that it is the White Nights. Descending from the gray heights, the earth looks more like the night sky than the sky itself, and I have the brief sensation of falling toward a star field. I close my eyes, breathe, and reopen them slowly. The city is utterly familiar and unknown at the same time, like the face of someone you used to love.

Say you run into this person by chance, at a park or on the lobby staircase between the orchestra and the parterre, with a glass of champagne you bought in a hurry during intermission. You're going up; your lover is going

Outside the rounded window of the plane, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmer through the clouds. I remember then that it is the White Nights. Descending from the gray heights, the earth looks more like the night sky than the sky itself, and I have the brief sensation of falling toward a star field. I close my eyes, breathe, and reopen them slowly. The city is utterly familiar and unknown at the same time, like the face of someone you used to love.

Say you run into this person by chance, at a park or on the lobby staircase between the orchestra and the parterre, with a glass of champagne you bought in a hurry during intermission. You're going up; your lover is going down. You recognize him not by his features, which have changed, but by his expression. You're splintered by doubt that this couldn't be him, yet in the next moment you accept that this could be no one else. You take measure of his body, while wondering how you look—your makeup, hair, heavy rings and earrings that you remembered at the last minute of getting dressed, and for which you're now grateful. You still haven't made up your mind whether to meet his eyes, to be coldly indifferent, to smile, or to say something, when you pass by each other on the worn marble staircase and the bell rings to announce the end of intermission. It's already over in less time than it takes for the champagne to lose its effervescence.

"Your seat belt."

A flight attendant stands in the aisle and glares at me until I buckle up, gather the empty mini bottles of vodka, and drop them into her plastic bag. Earlier, one of the other attendants had asked for my autograph, and I'd declined. "You're really not Natalia Leonova?" She'd questioned once more before going back to the clutch of her colleagues standing near the kitchen area. After that, all the attendants pointedly ignored me, as if slighting one of them meant slighting the entire crew. I close my eyes to their sidelong glances and see the faces of those I left in this city.

When the plane lands, my reveries cease. All I can think of is hiding where no one—other than myself—thinks I'm a horrible person.

I check into the Grand Korsakov, my usual hotel off Nevsky Prospekt. Although the view from the balcony is the best in Piter, I pull my curtains shut against the White Night. On the coffee table, there is a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a vase filled with twenty-five cream-colored roses, and a card that says, WELCOME BACK, MLLE NATALIA. For a brief moment I wonder about the sender, but the hotel logo on the card lets me know the manager, Igor Petrenko, must have been more than usually excited to see my name in the reservations. No one else knows I'm here. I take off my clothes, open the champagne, and bring it to bed with my pills.

Excerpted from City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim. Copyright © 2024 by Juhea Kim. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.