Men, she is finding, like to cast themselves as teachers, as protectors, as mentors passing down life-lessons to the young in their charge. Particularly to wide-eyed girls.
She knows. She's already been living it. Taking a moment to lose herself in translation here, to dance there. She learnt it during the War, when a bomb she could do nothing about might land on her, when a bullet might get lucky - and she learnt it before that, when her parents were alive. Her parents taught her to be careful of the ears in the walls and the eyes in the streets, and they taught her to read. Her father would pick up his violin, and she'd dance with her mother in the safety of their room.
She knows, but to say so could all too easily be taken as a rebuff.
(Her parents taught her to calculate and plan, too.)
So Natasha smiles, a little, and nods. "Go to the circus when you can," is what she says, out loud, where there is always the chance that someone else might overhear.
no subject
She doesn't say it.
Men, she is finding, like to cast themselves as teachers, as protectors, as mentors passing down life-lessons to the young in their charge. Particularly to wide-eyed girls.
She knows. She's already been living it. Taking a moment to lose herself in translation here, to dance there. She learnt it during the War, when a bomb she could do nothing about might land on her, when a bullet might get lucky - and she learnt it before that, when her parents were alive. Her parents taught her to be careful of the ears in the walls and the eyes in the streets, and they taught her to read. Her father would pick up his violin, and she'd dance with her mother in the safety of their room.
She knows, but to say so could all too easily be taken as a rebuff.
(Her parents taught her to calculate and plan, too.)
So Natasha smiles, a little, and nods. "Go to the circus when you can," is what she says, out loud, where there is always the chance that someone else might overhear.