The Boy on the Bridge

by Natalie Standiford

  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.”<
br />
  “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.

  Everyone chattered and laughed in Russian. Laura sipped a small glass of vodka, struggling to keep up with the conversation. It went faster than she was used to, peppered with unfamiliar slang and expressions she didn’t understand. She glanced at Karen, who looked a little blank, too.

  Roma refilled Laura’s and Karen’s shot glasses with vodka. “Don’t sip it,” he warned. “That’s how you get sick. Down it all at once — oop-ah!” He threw his head back and tossed down another shot to demonstrate. “Go on, girls. Oop-ah!”

  Laura looked to Karen, but she was no help, saying, “Come on, girl. Oop-ah!” They clinked glasses and drank their shots in one gulp. Laura gasped and reached for a slice of cucumber. She felt a surge of warmth.

  Alyosha turned his Neil Young record over and “Southern Man” played. “I heard Kukharsky sing this song at Café Bluebird,” Vova said.

  “He sang Neil Young in public?” Grisha asked. “And it was okay?”

  “I hate Neil Young,” Olga said. “His voice is whiny.”

  “This song is government approved,” Vova said.

  “Because it criticizes the American South,” Karen guessed. “I can see why they’d like it.”

  “Exactly.” Vova nodded.

  “Alyosha, take this whining record off and put on the Beatles.” Olga pouted.

  “It will be over in a minute,” Roma said. “Did you girls know that the Beatles played a secret concert here in 1970?”

  “It was 1969,” Alyosha said.

  “I heard ’68,” Vova said.

  “What happened?” Laura had never heard this story.

  “Their plane landed at Pulkovo” — the Leningrad airport — “very briefly,” Roma explained. “And the Beatles climbed out onto the wing and played three songs.”

  “With acoustic guitars,” Alyosha added.

  “Very fast, before the guards snapped out of their stupors and stopped them,” Vova finished.

  “Wow,” Karen said.

  “It isn’t true,” Olga said.

  “It is,” Vova insisted. “My friend Kolya saw the concert himself.”

  “The Beatles were very taboo back then,” Grisha said. “My uncle was kicked out of the university just for having a Beatles tape in his room.”

  “They’re more tolerated now,” Vova said. “A little bit.”

  “The police used to arrest guys for having long hair,” Roma said. “They’d arrest you and cut your hair, then let you go. After giving you a scare.”

  “They still do that sometimes,” Alyosha said.

  “Not as much,” Vova said. “But sometimes.”

  Olga feigned a yawn. “Let’s talk about something else.” Her eyes took in Laura’s corduroys and Karen’s jeans, their bulky sweaters. “What are they wearing in America these days, girls?”

  Karen shrugged. “This, I guess.”

  Olga scowled, not believing her.

  “Have you heard this one, girls?” Grisha asked. “A man walks into a butcher shop and asks, ‘Do you have any fish?’ ” The Russians laughed in anticipation of a punch line they already knew. “So the butcher says, ‘Here we don’t have any meat. Fish they don’t
have across the street!’ ”

  Everyone laughed and toasted Grisha. Laura started gulping mineral water; the toasts were catching up to her.

  “Now tell us an American joke,” Vova said.

  Laura tried to think of a joke that would work in Russian, but all the ones she thought of depended on plays on English words, like “Because Seven ate Nine” or “I left my harp in Sam Clam’s disco.”

  “Here’s one,” Karen said. “But I think it will only work in English.”

  “Go ahead,” Alyosha said. “I’ll translate.”

  “Okay.” Karen cleared her throat and said in English: “A nose walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender says, ‘Sorry, I can’t serve you. You’re already off your face.’ ”

  Laura laughed. The Russians gave her blank stares.

  Karen tried to explain in Russian. “See, in English off your face is slang for drunk…. I thought you might understand because of the Gogol story, you know, ‘The Nose’? Where a man’s nose detaches from his face and walks around town …?” Karen trailed off.

  The Russians nodded. “Oh yes! Gogol. Great story.”

  Karen sighed. “Jokes never work if you have to explain them.”

  Alyosha got up and slapped Karen on the back. “No, no! It was funny! Very, very funny.”

  He went into the kitchen to get more food. When he came back, he squeezed next to Laura on the bed. Their arms touched, elbow to shoulder. Karen sat on her left side and their arms were touching, too, but somehow it didn’t have the same electric feeling. Vova was on Karen’s left, but their arms weren’t touching … yet.

  Olga grabbed Alyosha’s guitar and put it in his hands. “Sing us a song, Lyosha.” Now she squeezed onto the bed, close to Alyosha. The bed was crowded. There were two empty chairs across the table. Roma and Grisha looked lonely.

  “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.