Boy on the Bridge

  “Olga, come back and sit in your chair,” Roma said.

  “You’re not my boss,” Olga snapped.

  “I’m your husband,” Roma shot back. “That means I am your boss.”

  “Okay, then, prove it. Make me move.”

  The Neil Young record chose that moment to cut off. In the tense silence that followed Olga’s challenge, Laura heard the click of the needle arm settling into its saddle. To cut the tension, Alyosha strummed the guitar.

  “Move over, Olga,” he said, softly but firmly. “I don’t have room to hold the guitar.”

  Olga stormed out of the room. The bathroom door slammed.

  Alyosha stretched out his arm and began to strum for real.

  “I didn’t know you played the guitar,” Laura said.

  “There is so much you don’t know about me.” He smiled enigmatically.

  “Hey — there’s a lot you don’t know about her, too,” Karen put in a little too forcefully. The vodka made her louder than usual. “Did you know Laura has a black belt in karate?”

  “What?” Laura said.

  “Is that true?” Grisha asked.

  “No, it’s not true,” Laura told him.

  “I’m just trying to buff up your image,” Karen said.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Alyosha said. “Her image is nice enough already.”

  Laura turned toward him, surprised but pleased. She pressed her arm against his. He pressed back. All the vodka warmth seemed to concentrate in that arm.

  Olga returned from the bathroom and took her seat next to Roma as if nothing had happened. Alyosha launched into the first chords of a song everyone but Karen and Laura seemed to know. Soon all the Russians were singing an old folk song. Laura managed to catch a few phrases: “It’s evening, I couldn’t sleep … I tossed and turned, I had a dream … someone interpreted my dream and said … you will lose your wild head.”

  “That is beautiful,” she said when it was finished.

  “It’s called ‘Stenka Razin’s Dream.’ ” Alyosha sang it again slowly, while Grisha explained the words as best he could in English. Stenka Razin was kind of a Cossack Robin Hood, who dreamed that his horse bucked and danced and went wild underneath him. A colonel told him that the dream foretold his death. “You will lose your wild, untamed head,” he predicted. Then an evil wind blew from the east and knocked Stenka’s hat off his wild, untamed head.

  “Guess who I saw the other day, Lyosha,” Olga said. “Speaking of wild and untamed. Tanya.”

  That name again — Olga seemed to love to bring up Tanya. Alyosha looked down, nodding, and Roma, Vova, and Grisha stopped clapping and joking. An inch of space suddenly materialized between Laura’s shoulder and Alyosha’s.

  “Well, how is she?” Roma asked. “You didn’t tell me this before.”

  “I didn’t speak to her,” Olga said. “I saw her come out of the Hotel Astoria and get into a car. She glanced at me but didn’t say hello. I know she saw me but she pretended she didn’t see me. Why would she do that?”

  Alyosha plucked distractedly at one string of his guitar.

  “Who’s Tanya?” Laura asked.

  “An old friend of Alyosha’s,” Roma said.

  “An old girlfriend,” Olga corrected.

  “Oh.” Laura glanced at Karen.

  “Here’s a picture of her.” Olga got up and rummaged through some of Alyosha’s paintings until she found a portrait of a beautiful blue-eyed blonde with bare shoulders.

  “Olga, put that away.” Alyosha thrust the guitar into Roma’s hands and snatched the painting from Olga. Too late, though: Laura had already seen it. The blonde was the same girl she’d seen in a nude painting earlier. So that was Tanya.

  Roma strummed the chords of a Beatles song. “Let’s sing something the American girls know.”

  Alyosha set the painting down, facing the wall. He was scowling. A triumphant smile played on Olga’s lips.

  If she’s trying to make me jealous, it’s not working, Laura said to herself. But it was working a little bit.

  “Come on, girls, sing!” Grisha keened out “And I Love Her” in a nasal Russian accent. Laura and Karen belted it out along with him. It felt good to sing in English, to know the words.

  Next, Roma started strumming a song that was eerily familiar to Laura. She wasn’t sure at first what it was, but she knew she knew it in some deep, unconscious way, the way you know songs that you’ve heard on the radio or in the supermarket your whole life without ever really listening to them.

  “You know what this is, don’t you?” Karen grinned at her mischievously.

  “It’s so familiar….” Laura strained to catch the melody in her memory.

  The Russians came to the chorus, and at last she recognized it.

  Feelings! Whoa whoa whoa feelings … whoa whoa whoa feelings … Again in my heart …

  “Oh my God, I hate this song,” Laura said to Karen in English.

  “But right now, you’re loving it,” Karen said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “That’s a great song,” Grisha said. “I love that song.”

  Karen and Laura looked at each other and laughed.

  “What is so funny?” Vova asked. “It’s American pop. Super fantastic.”

  Karen suddenly grabbed Laura’s wrist and looked at her watch. “Whoa! What time is it? Eleven o’clock!”

  “We missed curfew,” Laura said. They’d been told they could get sent home for missing curfew. But surely they were allowed one mistake….

  “What time does the metro stop running?” Karen asked.

  “Midnight,” Alyosha said.

  Laura and Karen stood up, and Laura said, “We better run. Sorry to leave so suddenly, but we’re supposed to be in our dorm by ten.”

  They kissed everyone good-bye and promised more parties soon. Alyosha helped them into their coats and showed them to the door.

  “I’ll walk you to the metro,” he said.

  “We can find it,” Karen said. Laura was getting a wave of hurry hurry hurry from her — she really didn’t want to get caught breaking curfew.

  Laura knew she had to go, but she wanted to stay. She hadn’t gotten the answer she’d come for. She’d met Alyosha’s friends, but what did that mean? Had he simply wanted to show off the random American girl he’d met, a foreign curiosity? Or was he trying to show her something about who he was, to bring her into his life?

  It was hard to tell. But they had to leave. Karen tugged on her elbow.

  “Thank you, Alyosha,” Laura said. “It was wonderful!” She offered him one last opening. “See you again?”

  “Call me soon.” Alyosha kissed her once on each cheek. He hesitated for a second, then impulsively kissed her lightly on the lips. “I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

  An answer at last. Not to every question, but to the one question that had most been on Laura’s mind. She still didn’t want to leave, but now she could go with a lighter heart.

  “Soon,” she told him, and tried not to feel too disappointed when the door had to close.

  The girls ran out into the frigid night, all the way to the metro, and caught the last train back to the center of town. “Shoot,” Laura said as they took a seat in the half-empty car. “I forgot to get Dan’s clothes back.”

  “Dan can kiss those clothes good-bye,” Karen said. “And he knows it.” The lights of the subway tunnel flashed across her face. “So what was going on between Olga and Alyosha?”

  “I have no idea. Do you think she’s in love with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Karen said. “But that whole thing with Tanya? You got what Olga was hinting at, didn’t you?” On seeing Laura’s blank look, she added, “When she said she saw Tanya coming out of the Astoria. A foreigner’s hotel. She was implying that Tanya’s a prostitute.”

  “What? That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “Natia told me, and I think it’s true,” Karen said. “You know how they sa
y if a Russian is willing to go into our dorm it means he’s either KGB or a dissident so desperate he has nothing to lose?”

  Laura nodded. Their chaperones, Dr. Stein and Dr. Durant, had warned them about this.

  “According to Natia, you can also add that a Russian woman hanging around a tourist hotel is either a tour guide, an informant, or a hooker.”

  “So maybe Tanya’s a tour guide.”

  “Maybe. But Olga’s tone suggested otherwise.”

  “So you’re saying Alyosha’s ex-girlfriend is a hooker.”

  “I’m not saying that — Olga is.”

  Was Olga trying to hurt Alyosha, or was she telling the truth? And what did it matter? Alyosha couldn’t control his ex-girlfriend’s actions.

  “Whatever. I don’t care.”

  The walk from the metro stop to the dorm felt endless. The night air had a bone-rattling dampness, a frozen fog that enveloped them as they walked, filled their lungs and made it hard to breathe. At last they reached Dorm Number Six. The guard’s light was out. It was midnight.

  “We’re going to catch hell for this,” Karen predicted.

  “What are we going to do?” Laura asked.

  “You want to sleep outside tonight? We’re going to wake up Ivan.”

  They pressed the buzzer and waited. Nothing happened for a while. They rang again. A light came on, and soon the door was opened by old Ivan, who scowled at them in his nightshirt and felt slippers.

  “You’re late,” he grumbled, locking the door behind them as they scurried inside and tried to warm up. “I’ll have to report you.”

  “We’re sorry! We’re sorry!” the girls cried. “It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s right, it won’t,” Ivan said. “Next time I won’t let you in. Good night.” He stomped away into the back room where he slept.

  They ran upstairs to their room. “He didn’t stop in the office to write down our names,” Karen whispered. “Maybe he won’t report us.”

  “Maybe by morning he’ll think he dreamed the whole thing,” Laura said. “And now to deal with the wrath of Nina.” Donovan had told them that all the Soviet roommates in their dorm had been specially chosen for their willingness to report on the foreign students’ activities, and Laura had no reason to doubt him. She was beginning to see that reporting on neighbors greased the gears that made the Soviet system work.

  They opened their door slowly and quietly. The room was dark.

  “She’s asleep,” Laura whispered.

  They undressed in the dark and got into bed. Like magic, the spot where Alyosha had kissed her was still warm on Laura’s lips. The long walk in the cold hadn’t made it go away. Nothing could make that feeling go away.

  “Stenka Razin’s Dream” drifted through her mind as she fell asleep: “You’re going to lose your wild head…”

  Too late, she thought sleepily. My wild head is lost.

  Laura opened her eyes the next morning to find Nina already up, sipping tea and studying. Karen snored softly in her bed. Laura turned over. Nina looked up.

  “Oh. You are awake,” Nina said coldly.

  “Mm-hmm.” Laura sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her tongue was a wool sock, and tiny elves seemed to be hacking at the backs of her eyes with mini icepicks. Karen stirred at the sound of their voices.

  “You missed breakfast this morning,” Nina said.

  “Oh no,” Laura said. “What will I do without my morning gruel?” Breakfast in the university cafeteria consisted of weak coffee, strong tea, and gloppy gray kasha. That beat lunch, which, last time Laura had bothered to show up, featured fish head soup and mystery meat. It was best to stick with black bread and margarine.

  Nina’s face showed no reaction beyond an almost imperceptible narrowing of the eyes. She slurped her tea. Karen lifted her head.

  “What? What?” She looked around the room, smiled at Laura, let her head fall back on her pillow. “Morning, girlies. I’m too sleepy to speak Russian.”

  “I’m glad you are finally awake, Karen.” Nina may not have understood Karen’s English, but in any case she ignored it and plowed ahead in Russian. “I have something to say, and this way I can say it to both of you at the same time. I will not have to repeat myself.”

  Laura sat up and slid her feet into her slippers. “Can it wait just one minute while I run to the bathroom?”

  “It won’t take long,” Nina said.

  Sadist, Laura thought.

  “I went to bed at eleven o’clock last night and the two of you were not home yet. I don’t know how you got in after curfew but I’m glad you did. I’d hate for you to freeze to death on the street. I know that happens often to homeless people in America, but we don’t allow it here.”

  Laura and Karen blinked at her, too sleepy to argue, just wanting the lecture to end so they could get on with their lives.

  “The rules are very clear,” Nina said. “You must sleep here in the dorm every night. You must be in your room by ten o’clock each night. If you’re not, I’m supposed to report you. If the university wants a reason to send you home, they can use this.”

  “We’re sorry, Nina,” Karen said.

  “Yes, we’re sorry.” Laura hoped that would satisfy her.

  “I like you,” Nina said. “I want to be friends.”

  “So do we!” Karen said. “We just lost track of time, and, uh, the metro was late.”

  “The metro is never late.”

  Laura couldn’t argue with that — she’d never known the metro to be anything but punctual. “We won’t do it again, Nina.”

  “We promise,” Karen said.

  “All right,” Nina said. “I will make you some tea.” She stood up and moved out of the room with a cowlike slowness that had an odd, heavy grace.

  “Close one.” Karen sat up and switched into English. “I have a hangover.”

  “Me too.” Laura could still taste the vodka in the pores of her tongue. She remembered Alyosha’s kiss and touched that spot on her lips. Still warm. She pulled on her robe and snatched her towel off the armoire door for the trip down the hall to the bathroom.

  She passed Nina in the kitchen, gossiping by the stove with Alla, Binky’s roommate. On her way back from the toilets, she spotted Ilona slipping out of Dan and Sergei’s room, her blond hair very mussed. Hmm … Dan or Sergei? Laura suspected Dan. He was deceptively suave for a skinny geek in John Lennon wire-rims.

  Laura returned to the room to find the table set with three glasses of tea and three small bowls of oatmeal. “It’s like the Three Bears’ house,” Laura said. Nina didn’t get it. “Where did the oatmeal come from?”

  “Alla’s roommate … Pinky?”

  “Binky.”

  “She gave this to Alla, who shared it with me. It’s from America. Magic oatmeal.”

  “Magic?” Laura tasted it. Apple cinnamon. “You mean, instant?”

  “Yes. It’s good, no?”

  “Very good. Thank you, Nina.”

  “A peace offering,” Nina said.

  Karen caught Laura’s eye. Peace offering, or bait to lull them into complacency? Laura knew Karen was suspicious. But what could they do? It was oatmeal. It tasted good. They ate it.

  * * *

  A few days later, Alyosha invited her to go for a walk. She set out on the tram for their usual meeting spot.

  She nabbed a seat next to a young woman. A man stood in the aisle next to her, hanging on to the strap. He was dark and goateed and wore a fake-leather racing jacket. Something about him made her think of Atlantic City and cheap casinos. He winked at her. A gold tooth flashed when he smiled.

  Laura looked away, determined not to meet his eye again. She was against winking as a general principle, but in this case it was especially unnerving. What did a wink mean? It could mean anything from “Hey, baby” to “I know what you’re up to and you’ve got nowhere to hide.”

  “You speak English?” the man asked in heavily accented English. “Where you from?”

>   She ignored him, but he wouldn’t stop. “From England? From Germany? From France?”

  The woman next to Laura got up, and the man took over her empty seat. “You very pretty.” He pawed at her glove. “I kiss your hand.”

  She yanked her hand away. “No! Please leave me alone.”

  “America? You from America?”

  “Yes, okay?” She tried to be polite, but she didn’t understand what he wanted with her. She got off the tram before her stop but it was no use — he followed her off and dogged her down Nevsky Prospekt. She had to lose him. Whatever was going on with this strange man, she didn’t want to get Alyosha involved.

  “Come to bar with me, yes? We practice English.”

  “I can’t,” she said in Russian. “I’m meeting someone.”

  “Please,” he said. “I’m nice guy. I must talk to you. I’m in trouble!”

  Great, he was in trouble. Whatever that meant — if it was true — it was sure to mean trouble for her, too.

  But what if he really needed her help? She looked at him, but was quickly overcome by waves of skeeviness like cheap cologne. She couldn’t help him. He might not be in trouble at all.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He tugged at her elbow. “Please! Stop and listen to me for one minute!”

  She was desperate to get rid of him. They approached the European Hotel and suddenly she knew how. She nodded at the uniformed guard out front and pushed her way through the gleaming glass doors. Inside, another guard stopped her. “Passport, please.”

  She showed him her passport. “Are you a guest in the hotel?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she lied. The guard stepped aside to let her into the lobby. She glanced back through the door. The strange man paced outside the hotel. How long would he wait for her there? If he hung out in front of a foreigners’ hotel for too long, he’d look very suspicious … unless he was KGB, in which case he could do whatever he wanted.

  She sat down in the lobby to wait him out. The desk clerk squinted at her. She smiled and nodded at him as if she were completely at ease. She watched the guests come and go: a sleek German couple in expensive coats, four ratty British students underdressed for the cold, and a tall, handsome, oddly familiar-looking man with gray-blond hair … Who was he? When he spoke to the clerk in a crisp English accent she recognized him as an actor she’d seen on Masterpiece Theater.