Boy on the Bridge (6 page)

A
lyosha lived on the outskirts of the city, the second-to-last metro stop on the Red Line. He led her past an empty supermarket, down a winding path lined with piles of gray snow like Styrofoam, past block after block of run-down apartment towers that looked like housing projects. This part of the city had none of the beauty of downtown Leningrad — no prerevolutionary mansions, no palaces or churches, no river or canals draped with iron filigree bridges. But Alyosha held her hand for the whole walk from the metro, and suddenly Laura loved Avtovo.

They went into one of the high-rise buildings and rode a rickety elevator to the sixth floor. Alyosha kicked aside a wad of greasy paper littering the hallway and unlocked a door: 6A. Laura stepped inside, took a deep breath, and felt immediately at home.

The apartment was small, but neat and cozy. The furniture was simple, but Alyosha had warmed the place up with a red rug
on the wooden floor and books and art everywhere. In the hall just inside the door, Alyosha helped her off with her coat and winter boots and gave her a pair of slippers to wear. She followed him down a short hallway past two doors — the toilet and the shower — to the tiny kitchen. He put the Berioska bag on the little kitchen table. She glanced out the window, which looked out at a garbage-strewn lot dotted with an overturned couch, a dresser splintered into pieces, the burned-up frame of a Soviet Fiat.

“Come to the living room. I’ll get our picnic ready.”

Back up the hall to a larger room, the living room/bedroom, across from the bathroom. The bed, covered in a red wool blanket, was at the back of the room near the window. In the corner stood a drafting table with a ruler, a large drawing pad, and lots of colored pencils and paints. The front of the room was lined with shelves full of books, records, and paintings, with an East German record player holding the place of honor. Three chairs sat around a low coffee table that had been painted blue, trimmed with tiny white flowers.

“It’s nice,” she said. The Russian words came more easily now that they were relaxed and quiet.

“Sit down anywhere. I’ll be right back. Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.” Instead of sitting, she looked at the photos and paintings that lined the walls. The paintings were precisely rendered scenes of Leningrad street life, full of tiny details: a black
cat skulking in the background; an old man’s hunched posture; a pinched cigarette burning in a gutter; the porous, shell-chipped texture of an old wall. There were oil portraits of young people who looked like they might be art school friends: an arrogant young man with a walrus mustache and a kerchief around his neck; a beautiful blond boy with full lips and sensitive eyes; two lovely girls, one blonde, one brunette. The brunette was dark and smoky-eyed like a silent film actress, a beret perched jauntily on her wavy hair. The blonde looked bored and naked.

Alyosha returned with a tray of snacks and tea. “Did you paint these?” Laura asked.

“All except those two.” He pointed to a watercolor still life of fruit and flowers, and an oil portrait of himself in a style very different from the others — more disjointed and Cubist. “Tanya painted the watercolor, and Roma painted the one of me.”

Roma? Tanya? She guessed she’d find out who they were eventually.

He set the tray on the coffee table and nudged it closer to the bed. She reached down and took a handful of macadamia nuts as he showed her the photographs. “This is my school photo from first grade.” Six-year-old Alyosha — a red Young Pioneer kerchief knotted around his neck like a Boy Scout tie — grinned at the camera, missing his two front teeth.

“This is Mama and Papa.” They posed in a photographer’s studio, stiff and gray-haired, a stern, square-jawed man and a woman in her forties with kind eyes like Alyosha’s.

“This is my mother with her parents at their dacha, right before the war.” His mother, a little girl with a huge white bow in her hair, sat on her father’s knee in a blooming garden, while her mother shelled peas into a basket. The little girl and her mother stared solemnly at the camera, but the man smiled with fatherly pride.

“This is my father with his parents during the war.” This picture, in grainy black-and-white, was startling. Alyosha’s father was a skinny boy of twelve, his pale eyes as large as planets in his shorn skull. His parents were skeletal, eyes shadowed and exhausted. No one smiled. They posed on a rubble-strewn street in Leningrad, a bombed-out building smoking in the background behind them. Passersby walked past the building with barely a look, as if the destruction was nothing unusual, just part of their day. Alyosha’s father clutched a ball as if it was the most precious thing he owned, as if that ball could save the world.

Laura had seen pictures of her own parents from this same period — her mother in saddle shoes on a swing with her best friend, her father posing outside his parents’ drugstore, a lollipop in his hand — but this looked like a different century, a different universe. Alyosha’s father and grandparents looked like refugees, which, in a way, they were. Leningrad was under siege by the Germans at that time, and people were starving and dying by the thousands.

Alyosha plucked an even older photo out from behind this picture. “I hide this picture here,” he whispered. “Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

The older picture showed three pampered children in rich satin clothes — two boys and a girl with a little white dog on her lap — posing on a velvet couch before a painting of a man on a horse. “This is my grandmother, my father’s mother, as a little girl, with her brothers, before the revolution. Around 1915, I guess. Their father was a merchant. He was killed by the Bolsheviks a few years later and their house was taken by the government and divided into tiny apartments. Grandmother’s brothers were killed as well. They let Grandmother live because she pretended to be the family maid.”

Laura took the picture from him and stared at it. “That is so sad. But why do you hide the picture?”

“It’s not good to have aristocratic roots. You know that.”

“But you can’t help what your grandparents and great-grandparents were.”

Alyosha smirked. “Tell that to the KGB.” He replaced the secret picture and took a silver-framed photo down from the shelf. “This is my father as a young navy captain.” There was the square-jawed man again, steely blue eyes, in navy whites and a captain’s cap with a gold insignia.

“Do you see your parents often?” Laura asked.

Alyosha shook his head. “My mother died a few years ago. And my father isn’t speaking to me.” He put the photo back on the shelf and sat down to pour out the tea. Laura sat beside him on the bed. She waited for an explanation, but he only smiled wryly and added, “Long story. Let’s eat.”

He’d made a plate of little open-faced sandwiches: tuna, sardines, a dollop of caviar on a thick bed of butter. The black bread was tangy and chewy. While she tasted the caviar, he put on a record. “Do you like Neil Young?”

“I love him.”

“So do I. He is my favorite American rock musician, the greatest.”

The warm, rich, funky-sad music filled the room. Alyosha’s hand brushed her forearm as he reached for the samovar. The fine hairs near her wrist rose as if pulled by a magnet. She suppressed a shiver and sipped her tea.

They sat quietly listening while Neil sang about how only love can break your heart. “I was whistling this song the other day,” Laura said, as if that had been some kind of premonition. Her heartbeat grew heavier, thudding in her chest along with the music. There was an electric tension in the air, magnetizing the foot of space between them so that she felt she couldn’t have pulled away from him if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t want to.

She wanted to kiss him.

This feeling caught her off guard. She hadn’t come to his apartment, as suggestive as that might have sounded, with the
intention of kissing anyone. She hardly knew him. She had no idea if he liked her that way.

But there it was. The feeling. Wanting to kiss. Him.

She dared to shift her head the quarter turn it took to face him. His profile was dramatic, almost Roman: a long straight nose, curving lips, deep-set eyes. She was glad he’d shaved off the mustache.

Now his head turned, too. Only inches separated their faces. She felt the faintest trace of his breath on her lips. If she leaned forward just a little bit, her lips would touch his….

Bzzzzt.

The sound jolted both of them, a quick intake of breath, their spines shooting upward, stiffening. “What’s that?” she asked.

“The doorbell.” He stood up, paused a moment as if he needed to catch his balance, and went to the door. He put his eye to the peephole. “Oh!” He opened the door.

“Hello!” A woman — the dark woman from Alyosha’s painting — leaned in to kiss him on each cheek. “Look what I have for you! I wanted to show it to you right away.”

“Olga, hello!” Alyosha stepped aside to let her in. She pressed a rectangular package wrapped in rough gray paper into Alyosha’s hands, took off her coat, and was unzipping her boots when she finally noticed Laura sitting on the bed in the main room. Laura could almost feel Olga taking in every detail of her hair and clothes as a slow smile spread across Olga’s face.

“Hello.” She took her time removing her boots and sliding her feet into a pair of slippers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”

“This is Laura.” He led Olga into the main room. “Laura, this is Olga. We’re old friends.”

“Nice to meet you,” Laura said.

“Likewise.” Olga took a chair across the table from Laura and reached for a caviar sandwich. “Mmm, so tasty! Sardines! And tuna! Alyosha, where did you get all this?”

“Laura brought it over.” Alyosha wasn’t going to tell Olga about the Berioska adventure. He must have had his reasons.

Olga eyed Laura with more interest now. “Let me guess. You are Finnish? Or no — German?”

“American,” Laura replied.

Olga clapped her hands together. “How exciting! Alyosha, you have a real live American in your apartment!”

Laura tried to interpret Olga’s tone. Her voice rose as if she really were excited to see an American, but her sly eyes told a different story.

“I know,” Alyosha said with a hint of fatigue.

“And look at you!” She took in Alyosha, still wearing Dan’s borrowed American clothes. “Something is very different about you…. Are those new Levis?”

“I borrowed them,” Alyosha replied.

“Mmm.” Olga tossed Laura a meaningful look. “Lyosha, open the package I brought you,” she ordered.

Alyosha unwrapped the package. Inside was a book of rock album cover art. “Wow!” He held the shiny book by the edges, as if he didn’t want to smudge it with his fingerprints. “Amazing! Olga, where did you get it?”

“One of Roma’s contacts. He ran into some British kids and got a real haul in exchange for some of his Soviet army hats. I thought you’d like it.”

“It’s for me to keep? Thank you!” Alyosha kissed Olga on the cheek, an enthusiastic
smack
.

“I want some tea. Get me a cup?”

“Right away.” He scooted into the kitchen.

Olga curled up on her chair like a cat, her feet tucked under her. “So, Laura, is it? Where are you from?”

“Baltimore. It’s near Washington, D.C.”

“You speak Russian very well. Are you a student?”

“Yes. At the university.”

“Hmm. I thought so.”

Alyosha returned with a teacup before Laura had a chance to find out what that was supposed to mean.

Olga put the cup under the spout of the samovar and helped herself to tea. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, Alyosha. I didn’t think —”

“It’s okay —” Alyosha began.

Laura rose to her feet. “I’ve got to get back to the dorm anyway. We’re going to the ballet tonight.”

“Oh?” Olga asked. “What are you seeing?”

“I think it’s
Swan Lake
.”

Olga grinned. “What else?” She took another sandwich.

Alyosha walked Laura to the door. “That was fun today,” he said quietly.

“Yes. We’ll have to do it again sometime, Skip.”

“I don’t know about that. Marina might not let us get away next time.” He rested his hand on her lower back, then took it away quickly, as if suddenly realizing what he was doing, and reached for her coat. “Call me again soon?”

“I will.” She shrugged into her coat, shoved her feet into her boots, pulled on her hat. Alyosha opened the door for her. She lingered in the doorway. Something was called for, a gesture of some kind, a kiss. But now was not the time.

“Nice to meet you!” Olga half turned and waved, her mouth full.

“Nice to meet you, too.” Laura stepped into the hallway with one last look at Alyosha. She was leaving him behind with Olga, who was …
what
to him, exactly?

“See you soon.” He closed the door.

She rode the elevator down and found her way back to the metro. The neighborhood looked less appealing in the gloom.

H
ow did the Berioska heist go?”

She met Dan in his robe and flip-flops, a towel slung over his shoulder, on his way back from the shower. His curly hair was damp and his glasses slightly fogged. Unlike Laura, he’d skipped the ballet.

“We almost got caught. One of the salesgirls recognized him from school.”

“Bummer.”

“But we managed to escape without getting arrested.”

“Thank God for that. Hate to see you sent to the gulag for helping a Russkie impersonate an American.”

“Yeah, that probably wouldn’t be worth it.”

Dan stopped in front of his room. “Care to come in? Sergei’s upstairs and I’m practically naked. All I have to do is let this pesky bathrobe fall to the floor and —”

Laura laughed. “I should get to bed —”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.” He opened the door and stepped aside to usher her in. She shook her head.

“I must be crazy to resist such a tempting offer, but not tonight.”

“Okay. Your loss.” He tossed his towel on a chair. “Do you have my clothes?”

Right — the clothes she’d lent to Alyosha for the heist. He’d still been wearing them when she’d left. An image of them tossed to the floor — mingled with Olga’s wool skirt and sweater — flashed involuntarily through her mind. Highly unpleasant. She shoved the image away.

“Sorry — Alyosha still has them. I’ll get them back as soon as I can.”

“All right, but don’t take too long. That was my only pair of sneakers.” Dan picked up the towel and rubbed his wet hair. “Sure you don’t want to come in? Last chance …”

She shook her head, smiling, and walked back to her room. Nina’s corner was dark, her slow, heavy breathing the only sound. Karen was in bed, reading in a pool of light from her lamp. When Laura walked in, she raised her eyebrows to indicate the unspoken question:
Well?

Laura shrugged, hoping it conveyed the unspoken answer of
So-so
. The heist had been fun, but she would have liked to have ended the day differently. Like, without another girl in the room.

She changed into her pajamas and sat with Karen on her bed.

“I’m a little surprised to see you tonight,” Karen whispered. “I thought you might … you know …”

“We did go back to Alyosha’s apartment,” Laura said. “But he had an unexpected visitor.”

Karen waited to hear more.

“All I know is that her name’s Olga, and she’s a friend from art school.”

“Friend? Or girlfriend? Or former girlfriend?”

“No idea. She’s got some kind of claim on him, though. She’s very comfortable in his apartment.”

“Hmm. Are you going to call him again?”

“He asked me to.”

“Do you like him?”

Laura thought of Alyosha’s profile, so close as they sat together on his bed. The way the curve of his nose seemed to point to his curling lips, saying,
Look
.

“I have to find out more,” she said.

“Then call him,” Karen advised.

Laura went to her own bed. Karen turned off the light. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Laura lay awake in the dark, blinking at the ceiling. Across the room, she heard Nina sigh and roll over in her sleep.

“Good night, American girls,” Nina muttered.

* * *

Laura went to the usual phone booth after classes on Monday afternoon. It was deepest February, the snow banked high along the streets. As she stepped inside the booth, she noticed him
again: the same man in the fur hat and black glasses who’d been there before, walking his dog.

He must live around here
, she thought.
I keep coming to call Alyosha at the same time of day, after classes … and that just happens to be when he walks his dog.

A reasonable explanation. But still.

He’s already seen me here in the phone booth. And he can’t hear what I’m saying from across the street. So I might as well go ahead and make the call.

But she resolved to walk to another phone booth, even farther away, the next time, in case the man decided to follow her. Did he know she was American? She wasn’t trading on the black market like Donovan. But a lot of students did, and she’d heard that the Soviet authorities sometimes sent out undercover agents to stop it.

She dialed Alyosha and was glad to hear his voice when he picked up.

“Laura! I’m so happy you called. Olga had a great idea. I’m having a party on Friday night, so you can meet my friends. Will you come?”

So he was having a party, but it was Olga’s idea? That sounded like a girlfriend move. Still, he was inviting her. And Olga wanted her there … but that might just be for the social coup. She knew some Russians liked to show off their Western friends at parties, as a status symbol. If only it were that easy to be cool at home.

She’d never understand what was going on if she didn’t go.

“Yes, I’d like to come,” she said. “Can I bring one of my friends?”

“American or Russian?”

“American.”

“Of course! Yes. All Americans welcome. Russians must pass a security clearance first.”

“I don’t really know any other Russians, Alyosha. My roommate Nina is Ukrainian. But she’s no fun at parties.”

“Well, on Friday night you will meet many more Russians, and they are all fun at parties. Who are you bringing?”

“My roommate Karen.”

“The
negrityanka
? Really?” She had mentioned Karen in one of their talks, how she was stared at more than any of the other Americans because she was black and cut her hair in a short, new-wave flattop that Russians — even complete strangers — were always trying to touch. Karen looked kind of like the disco goddess Grace Jones — if Grace Jones wore glasses and went to Oberlin.

“Yes. Is that all right?”

“That’s fantastic! Extremely wonderful! Wait until my friends hear. They will meet a real American
negrityanka
in my home!”

“Yeah, it’s thrilling all right.” Laura muttered in English. Her Russian wasn’t quite good enough to convey her mixed feelings. She worried now about how comfortable Karen would feel. But Karen was getting used to being seen as exotic.

“What did you say?” Alyosha asked.

“I said, it will be a big excitement,” Laura replied, returning to Russian.

“Indeed. Come at seven. See you Friday.”

“See you then. Good-bye, Alyosha.”

“Good-bye, Laura. I’ll anxiously await you on Friday.”

She hung up. Friday! It was only Monday. Why didn’t he want to get together for coffee or something sooner?

The man with the dog had crossed the street and was walking past the phone booth just then. She waited until he reached the next corner, then she stepped out. When she got to the corner he was gone.

* * *

Laura and Karen rode the steep escalator down into the Gostinii Dvor Metro Station, as noble workers fighting for freedom glared down at them fiercely from a gigantic stained-glass mural. It was like descending into an underground palace. The gold-and-marble walls of the metro platform gleamed in the light of crystal chandeliers.

“Have you ever been to New York?” Karen asked. “Because this is not what the subway looks like in New York.”

The last time Laura had been in the New York subway, a rat had run over her foot.

The train arrived with a quiet
whoosh
and they got on, carefully watching the stops to Avtovo. Laura felt all eyes in the car on them, and especially on Karen. Some people looked away
when she challenged them by glaring back, but others stared openly and shamelessly.

It was a long ride to Avtovo. They ascended and walked along a rutted road of frozen mud, past the decrepit grocery store with cans of beets arranged pyramid-style in the window. Five stories above them, a woman with a scarf in her hair and fat arms dumped the contents of a trash can into a courtyard.

“Is that allowed?” Karen dodged a rotten cabbage.

Laura shrugged. “Think of the garbage as adding color to the landscape.”

“Remind me again: Who’s going to be here tonight?” Karen asked. “Besides your friend Alyosha, I mean.” Her friend Alyosha. She couldn’t claim that he was more than a friend, not yet. But she was hoping, maybe …

“Olga, who he knows from art school. And some other friends. He didn’t specify. But he seems to run with an arty crowd.”

“Okay. That’s good.”

Laura felt Karen trying to catch her eye. She kept her gaze glued to the sidewalk.

“Afraid you’re going to slip on the ice?” Karen asked.

“A little.”

“No you’re not.”

Laura gave in and looked up. Karen wanted to ask her something annoying. She could feel it. There was no escape.

“Exactly what are you hoping will happen at this party?” Karen asked. “I mean, should I expect to go back to the dorm by myself, or —”

“No! Alyosha’s a friend, like you said. Besides, we have to get back for curfew. The rules and all.”

“Right, the rules.”

“But … do you ever find these Russians hard to read?”

“Totally,” Karen said. “There’s the language problem of course — I know I’m missing all these subtleties, jokes and things just flying over my head. But their relationships are so dramatic! All their friendships look like love to me. Boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls, children and their grandmas — all so romantic. So touchy-feely.”

“I know! They’re always kissing. I can’t tell what’s what.”

“Spill it, Reid,” Karen said. “What’s really on your mind?”

“Nothing. I’m telling you the facts to the best of my knowledge,” Laura insisted. “Everything beyond that is pure speculation.”

“I speculate that you have the hots for this Alyosha guy.”

“Pure speculation…”

They wove their way along cement paths lined with dirty snow until they found Alyosha’s address. Laura was about to press the buzzer for his apartment when Karen pointed out that the door was propped open. They went inside and found the elevator waiting.

“It smells like pee in here,” Karen whispered.

The elevator rattled to the sixth floor. Laura paused in front of Alyosha’s door and took a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

She knocked. Alyosha threw open the door and grinned. He wore Dan’s jeans and a T.Rex T-shirt.

“My guests of honor are here! You’re the first ones to arrive.”

“Really? But you said seven o’clock.”

“I know, I know. My friends are always late. Come in. Let me take your coats.” They went inside. The Beatles were playing on the turntable.

“This is Karen Morrison,” Laura said. “Karen, Alyosha.”

Alyosha shook her hand and said in English, “So pleasure to meet you.”

Karen smiled. “So pleasure to meet you, too.”

Laura presented him with a bottle of Georgian wine. “Lovely! Thank you! Thank you!” Alyosha rubbed his hands together and took the wine into the kitchen. “Sit down! I bring out
zakuski
.”

Laura led Karen into the main room, set up for a party with extra chairs. Laura sat on the bed while Karen flipped through Alyosha’s record collection.

“Does he have this place all to himself?” Karen asked in a low voice.

“I think so,” Laura said. She hadn’t given it much thought, but Karen’s surprise made her wonder. There was a housing shortage in Leningrad. Karen had been telling Laura about her
friend Natia, a Georgian artist she’d met at a poetry reading, who was divorced but still lived with her husband because he had nowhere else to go. They shared a communal apartment with two other families. Most of the other people she’d met lived in
kommunalki
, too. Having an apartment all to yourself was a privilege — or a piece of great good luck. How had Alyosha — a sign painter for movie theaters — gotten so lucky?

He carried in a plate of pickles, cheese, and bread; the wine; and three glasses. He poured some wine and gave each girl a glass. “A toast. To our friendship.”

Friendship.
Laura checked a wince at the word, and on Karen’s meaningful glance sent back a psychic message:
pure speculation.

“To friendship.” They clinked glasses and drank. The doorbell rang.

Alyosha sprang to the door and soon ushered in Olga, dark eyes heavily lined in black pencil and carrying a bouquet of flowers. Laura caught Karen’s eye:
That’s her.

“Lyosha, dear!”
Kiss, kiss.
“I found daisies! This time of year! Am I the first to arrive? I’ll get a vase….”

She marched toward the kitchen with a glance into the living room. “Girls! Hello! I’ll be right there.”

Another look — sympathetic — passed between Laura and Karen. Why did the sight of Olga send Laura’s mood plummeting? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected to see her.

“Now we have a party!” Alyosha rubbed his hands together with gusto. “Where’s Roma?”

“Right behind me!” Olga called from the kitchen.

A stocky young man with a bushy mustache and thick hair, like Stalin’s, burst through the door and grabbed Alyosha by the shoulders. “Aaaach!” he grunted happily, waving a bottle of vodka. “Alyosha, my friend.” He gave Alyosha a smacking kiss on each cheek.

“This is Olga’s husband, Roma,” Alyosha said to Karen and Laura.

Laura’s spirits suddenly rose as she and Karen went to greet him. “Olga’s husband! How nice,” Karen said.

“This is Karen, and this is Laura,” Alyosha told Roma.

“The American girls!” Kisses all around. “Olga and I went to art school with Alyosha,” Roma explained.

Olga came out of the kitchen with the vase of flowers. “I spent more time posing than painting.” It sounded like she was bragging. She set the flowers on the table and took the vodka from Roma to put it on ice.

“She posed for all of us,” Roma added. “But she was Alyosha’s favorite model.”

“After Tanya,” Olga said with a flirtatious bat her of eyelashes.

Laura was tempted to ask, “Who’s Tanya?” but Olga’s tone made her bite her tongue. She didn’t want to hear the answer from Olga.

The doorbell rang again and two more men came in, introduced as Vova and Grisha. Vova was blond and cute, with a trim beard. Laura caught Karen checking him out.