kostya

Kostya was one year younger than I, smaller in size, quiet in appearance, but actually a scapegrace and a rogue.

But as he pressed toward the door he saw the larger gangster waving to him, a leer on his square face, and Kostya did not resist.

For the Los Angeles Olympics, Kostya would be twenty-three, which, in Emil's estimation, was the ideal age for a middleweight.

He had died when Kostya was still young, but Kostya could recall sitting with him as he related stories of the Great Patriotic War.

Occasionally, when he felt the urge in his back and shoulders, Kostya returned to the gym, but once there he felt like a guest.

He lifted his eyes to Kostya, as if seeing him for the first time.

Kostya interpreted this as a signal to drive faster, but when he accelerated Ivetta told him to slow down.

Kostya waited for a few moments to see if he would say anything else.

On his way back, Kostya paused to transfer a set of brass knuckles from his breast pocket to his left trouser pocket.

The idea was tempting; Kostya had no attachment to Toronto or to the Russian Riviera, but, at thirty-four, he was no longer a boy.

When Kostya told her as much recently, she had led him from the bed to their reflection in his mirrored closet door.

As the door swung shut, Kostya's thoughts turned to his own grandfather.

Up until that afternoon, Kostya had been prepared to do just that, but now he couldn't imagine how it was possible.

The expression on her face made Kostya wonder if she had misheard what he had said.

Kostya did not know what the uniform signified, but it looked official.

The trainer, widely known to be the son of an enemy of the people, had invited himself to Kostya's apartment to meet with his parents.

host: Kostya, what did it mean to you, to be entry international boxing hall of fame on sunday?

When Kostya laid his hand on her, Ivetta related the painful details of her argument with Luda.

"If it was possible, I would have done it, " Kostya said.

If he had been able to step outside or find a quiet corner, Kostya thought that he could contain the feeling.

From his position on the floor, the larger gangster gave Kostya a look of animal hatred.

Kostya rose from his seat and walked the length of the bar to Skinny Zyama's office.

He promised Kostya a postcard from wherever it was that he landed.

As Kostya eased the van onto the street, Ivetta looked up at her mother's office, on the second floor of the Ballet Academy.

For Kostya, the non-Russian world existed only in the various gyms where Emil took him for their workouts.

On the train back to Omsk, Emil admonished Kostya for showing too much sympathy.

While he had been answering her grandfather's questions, Kostya had watched her face darken with hostility.

The smaller gangster was seated on his barstool with his legs bent, and Kostya could see holes in his socks, exposing white, hairless skin.

"You could be beautiful together with someone else, " Kostya told her.

host: Kostya, congratulations, the former world junior Welterweight champion going into the international boxing hall of fame sunday.

Kostya considered pointing this out but knew that it would only irritate her further.

Not long after Kostya settled in, Emil drove him to meet their benefactor.

Kostya stayed with her for three nights, until his flight departed for Peru.

That same night, Kostya moved into Emil's one-bedroom apartment in the north end of the city.

Partly because the Peruvians did not demand a visa, Kostya bought a plane ticket to Lima.

It occurred to Kostya that he could leave the gangsters to be discovered by Skinny Zyama or someone else.

Professor Kostya Novoselov told the Independent: 'Electrons in graphene have huge mobility, they travel very fast.

Initially, their conversations centered on Kostya's boxing and his life in Siberia.

She seemed to be contemplating something, but Kostya couldn't imagine what.

When he'd finished, he moistened a towel in the sink and handed it to Kostya.

In the parking lot, Kostya felt the impulse to apologize for his car and, in the apartment, he wanted to apologize again.

By the winter of 1984, Kostya was the middleweight champion of Omsk.

"He can't go to his right, " Kostya said, "and his mother has cancer of the pancreas. "

Even as she spent increasingly more time in the apartment, she never once suggested that Kostya replace the table or the bed.

Afterward, by way of congratulations, Skinny Zyama handed Kostya a Russian Riviera matchbook.

But when the plane set down for the connection in Gander, Newfoundland, Kostya was invited to exit along with everyone else.

And, even if Zyama could be persuaded, Kostya's conscience would not allow it.

Which meant that, as alternatives went, Kostya had two: he could work or he could quit.

"Mosley, who has always challenged the best fighters in the weight classes he occupied. . . " in fact the he ducked Kostya Tszyu.

Many of these Russians were also Jews, though Kostya couldn't particularly tell the difference.

The night that Ivetta finally went home with Kostya, they left the restaurant in separate cars.

To placate Kostya, Emil posed a rhetorical question: If Bomka has forgotten about us, why are we still getting monthly checks?

She kissed Volodya affectionately, and seemed to take no notice of Kostya until Volodya turned inclusively in his direction.

At the nearby park and at the playground, Kostya heard as much Russian as English.

Emil secured him a job at a furniture plant, whose director, a boxing supporter, made generous allowances for Kostya's training schedule.

After Emil finished his tirade, he stalked back to Kostya.

Kostya waited for the postcard, but it never came.

In the communal kitchen, Kostya's mother served tea and condensed milk.

Cursing Skinny Zyama, Kostya took a step in the gangster's direction.

"The show is an hour away, " Kostya said.

Most of the other passengers on the plane were Russian, and Kostya wondered how many of them had the same intentions he did.

Kostya drove ahead in Emil's van and Ivetta followed in a new Nissan Maxima.

"This isn't going to end well, " Kostya said.

Even before Ivetta went home with Kostya, people had started to comment.

"But if you had written me six years ago, " Kostya said.

But although Kostya spent most of the next five years in the gym, his parents didn't get to go to Moscow.

"It depends who you ask, " Kostya said.

"Very nice to meet you, Kostya, " Ivetta said.

"You should finish your drinks and leave, " Kostya said.

"It does if you stay, " Kostya said.

When Ivetta's mother confronted her, Ivetta fled to Kostya's apartment in tears.

Kostya thought that he would have liked such a letter.

"But I am a doorman, " Kostya said.

He had never belonged in Canada, Emil had told Kostya, and he'd felt, every day, an exile.

"This is my good friend Kostya, " Volodya said.