The Boy on the Bridge

by Natalie Standiford

  She woke up early in the morning. No one had come in while she slept. Her shoe was propped against the door right where she’d left it.

  Anxiety gnawed at her. Could he have gone to the dacha? But what about his job?

  She dressed and hurried to the subway to get to the university in time for her first class. The metro was packed for the morning rush. The metro car smelled like sausage and stale breath and tobacco. Two old men stood near her in dirty work clothes, pickled in vodka. Everyone stared at her, just as they always did. She wanted to glare back, to stick out her tongue, to spit at them, to kick their fat shins. She hated them. She was so tired of being watched, of feeling strange, of smelling their stinky body odors. She was sick of their bad teeth, the fatigue on their faces, their weary slumping and pushing and shoving. Peasants. That’s what they were. Peasants who didn’t know how to take care of themselves, who needed authoritarian father figures to tell them what to do, who worshipped order and control over everything else, who had no imagination, who wouldn’t know what to do with freedom or choice if they had it. Their leaders bossed them around, and in turn they bossed one another around, passing brutality down from stronger to weaker until the weakest could barely stand being conscious and took refuge in a fog of drink. If they had heroin here, Laura thought, this would be a land of junkies.

  She ran to the Philology Department and reached her Phonetics class just as the last bell rang. Karen waited for her in the hall, worry on her face.

  “What happened last night? Did you find him?”

  “No.”

  “So what were you doing? Nina went to Dan’s room and saw that you weren’t there. She said she’s going to report you this time. She’s probably already done it.”

  “Let her. What can they do to me now? We’re leaving in a week anyway.”

  Semyon Mikhailovich came out and prepared to close the classroom door. “No gossiping, girls. Let’s get ready for class.”

  Karen and Laura went in and sat down with Dan and Binky. Where do you think he is? Karen wrote in English in Laura’s notebook. Laura just shook her head and wrote ?????

  This happens, you know.” Dan walked back to the dorm with Karen and Laura after class. “People disappear. Sometimes they come back, shaken and cowed. And sometimes they don’t.”

  “But why him?” Laura had heard plenty of scary stories about people being arrested for no apparent reason. But she still wanted a reason. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  But deep down she knew why he might be in trouble. He’d fraternized with foreigners. With her. And this was the answer she saw in Dan’s and Karen’s faces, too.

  “I can’t leave without knowing he’s okay.”

  “Go back and check on him again. Maybe he’s home by now,” Karen said.

  “And what if he’s not?”

  “Do you know any of his friends?” Dan asked. “Maybe they can tell you something.”

  Roma and Olga — if anyone knew anything, they would.

  * * *

  She went to Alyosha’s first — one last time, hoping he’d be there. She let herself into the apartment without bothering to knock. “Alyosha?”

  This time, things were different. Someone had been there.

  The place had been ransacked. In the kitchen the cupboard doors hung open, broken dishes littering the floor. An egg dripped down the wall, among bits of shattered shell. In the bedroom, the drawers had been emptied, his clothes and paints strewn everywhere. Laura stepped over a pile of socks and underwear. The books and records were gone. The painted tiles were smashed, the canvas paintings ripped. The portrait of her stood slashed and tilted on the easel.

  “Alyosha…” She sank onto a pile of papers and cried.

  * * *

  She went back to the center of town to find Roma and Olga. She remembered where they lived — she and Alyosha had stopped by their apartment on one of their walks. She rang their buzzer, and Roma let her in. He had just gotten home from work. Olga was starting dinner.

  “Laurenka, Laurenka.” Olga kissed her on both cheeks. “Come in. You’ll stay for dinner.”

  “I’m not very hungry —”

  “Nonsense.” Olga set a third place at the table.

  “I’m worried about Alyosha —” Laura began, but Olga stopped her, waving a scolding finger in her face and shaking her head.

  “Not here,” Roma whispered. They assumed their apartment was bugged.

  “It’s a nice evening,” Olga said. “Maybe you and Roma would like to have a walk before dinner.”

  Roma led her outside. They walked along the Moika Canal, the narrow streets once prowled by a sleepless, tortured Dostoyevsky.

  “Have you heard anything from him?” Laura asked. “Do you know what’s happened to him?”

  “No. I tried to call him, and when he didn’t answer after two days, I went to see him. He didn’t answer the door. His neighbor, a cranky old woman, peeked out and glared at me with suspicion. I hoped perhaps he’d gone away somewhere with you, some romantic trip.”

  “I was at his place just now,” Laura said. “Someone’s been in there. They tore it apart.”

  Roma plucked at his mustache, nodding as if none of this surprised him. “You must stay away from Avtovo. They are surely watching his building to see who comes and goes, and you are not helping him by going there.”

  “I didn’t realize….”

  Roma muttered something she couldn’t quite hear.

  “What?”

  “Don’t look for him,” Roma advised. “He knows where to find you. Just wait. If he wants to contact you — if he can contact you — he will.”

  “But the semester is almost over. We’re leaving next week.”

  “Give me your address. I will write to you if I hear anything.”

  “I can’t leave like that,” she insisted. “I can’t leave without seeing him again. I have to know what happened. Maybe we can still get married, if he comes back soon enough —”

  Roma shook his head. “Not this time. You’ll have to come back.”

  They walked in silence along the canal. Every curve in the water, every ripple, saddened her.

  “Roma,” she pressed. “What do you think happened to him?”

  Roma kept his eyes on the cobblestone street, his worn shoes, and their threadbare laces. “I think his life may be more complicated than you understand. His relationship with you, and wanting to leave, and all his black market American clothes and books and records, and his unacceptable dissident art — none of those things are in his favor. But anything could have happened. One of his neighbors might have seen you at his place too many times and accused him of colluding with foreigners. Someone might be trying to get at his father, or his father might have turned him in for some reason. One of his friends might have betrayed him, as revenge for some perceived slight. He might have been arrested for a crime he is completely innocent of. It doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t look innocent. He is not a member of Komsomol. He avoids all Party activities and in fact makes fun of them. He lives on the fringes of society. His tastes are decadent: rock music, T-shirts, American books, American girls … If the authorities want to harass him, they have plenty of reasons to do it. And they don’t need a reason.”

  He turned around and they headed back toward the apartment. “Are you hungry yet? Let’s have dinner. Olga’s making cutlets.”

  “This is all my fault. I have to make it right somehow.”

  “Laura, my dear, that is not in your power. You must do as you’re told. You have no choice. American temper tantrums will not do you any good right now. Accept your fate and his, and go home to your plush and easy life. You will forget about us soon enough.”

  He stopped in front of his building and held the door open for her. She shook her head. “Thank you. Maybe another night. Tell Olga good-bye for me.”

  She walked down the street and turned toward the river. Roma was wrong. She would never forget about them. She was insul
ted he would think so.

  The American students took their final tests and received Certificates of Achievement at a special ceremony in the great hall at the university. They packed up their stuff, said good-bye to their friends, and prepared to fly home to the States. The semester would be over in five days.

  Laura felt disoriented, waking from one dream to find herself in another dream, where nothing felt real. She wrote an essay, she studied her vocabulary and memorized her Pushkin, but whether any of this was sinking in, she had no idea. She lived in a fog of heartbreak and guilt and all she could think was Alyosha Alyosha Alyosha.

  * * *

  She stood up from the round table in her dorm room and stretched, walked to the window, and looked out at the street. The tram rumbled past on its way over the Builders’ Bridge. The river flowed, calm and blue. Laura remembered her first view out this window, the snow piled along the streets, the sparks from the tram glowing in the frosty air. Now it was spring. Everything was different.

  “I need a break,” Laura told Karen. “Want to take a walk?”

  Karen looked up from Oblomov. “No, I never want to leave my couch, ever.”

  “Seriously, Count Oblomov.”

  “Seriously. This book makes me feel lazy.”

  “I’m going out. Want anything?”

  “Cookies. You know the ones.”

  They were addicted to these puffy, soft cookies with a sweet white glaze. She put on her jacket and went outside. The city shined. She caught the tram over the Builders’ Bridge, across Vasilievsky Island and over the Palace Bridge. She got off in front of the sleek, space-age Aeroflot office on Nevsky and started walking. She didn’t think about where she was going until she recognized the bronze globe of Dom Knigi a block away.

  She went inside, one last time. She wandered the aisles, staring at old manuscripts and maps protected by glass cases. She found herself drawn to the poetry section. And there he was.

  For a second she thought she was seeing a ghost. He was thin and pale, his hair shaggy and dirty, with deep circles under his eyes. Alyosha gave her a sad smile and put his finger to his lips. He was holding a copy of Anna Akhmatova’s poems. He put the book down on the shelf, still open to a page. Then he slipped away.

  She wanted to shout, Wait! but she didn’t dare. She went to the shelf and looked at the book. He’d left it open on “Summer Garden.”

  She closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Then she left the shop and walked up Nevsky toward the river.

  He was waiting for her in the Summer Garden, under the funny statue of Lust, the woman with the bird on her arm. She nodded at the spot next to him on the bench — was it okay to sit there? — and he nodded back. She sat down beside him. He touched her hand briefly, then pulled away.

  “It’s okay to be seen with me?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “But this is okay, for a few minutes. We are simply two strangers occupying a park bench.”

  “What happened to you? Where have you been?”

  He tucked his hands into his pants pockets. “I was arrested by the KGB. They questioned me about you and many other things. Some things I know nothing about. But that is normal.”

  She’d known this was probably what had happened, but she couldn’t hold back a gasp, the nervous pace of her heartbeat at the word arrested.

  “Alyosha, I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

  “My sweet Laura, it is not your fault. None of this is your fault. Someone reported me for antipatriotic activities, and I can’t deny that I have engaged in quite a few of those. Not all of which are you.”

  “But who reported you?”

  “I don’t know. It could be anyone.”

  Laura thought of Nina. Could Karen have let something slip to Nina, or to one of their professors? To Stein and Durant, who would certainly want to stop her from marrying on their watch?

  Or Olga, she thought, and she didn’t know why. She could imagine Olga betraying a friend, if she had a reason.

  Her own thoughts made her shudder. How had this happened? She was suspicious of everyone.

  “It’s true. I like Americans,” he said. “I like being friends with them. They’re funny and crazy and they’re not afraid. They talk about interesting things, things we never hear about here, like new music, all the strange things one can eat, what’s happening in the rest of the world. They think everything is funny. And they really are my friends, and they weren’t all girls, you know. Lots of times I picked out a guy to be friends with, if he looked like someone who loved rock music or art.”

  She nodded and bit her lip.

  “But you are different. I’m in love with you. That never happened with the other Americans. It has never happened to me before, with anyone.”

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  “I understand your dilemma,” he went on. “You think I want something from you. You see it all around you. People will do anything to get what they want. They are petty and ruthless. They will turn in their own cousins to get an apartment, they will knock a woman to the ground for a piece of meat. They lie and cheat, and when something valuable crosses their path they take it quick, before someone else does. I’m Russian, too. Why should I be any different?”

  He stopped there. He did not claim to be different. He did not defend himself. His brown eyes were wet and they looked straight into hers, not defiantly but affectionately.

  Nothing about him was petty or ruthless or greedy. She couldn’t read his mind, but she knew how he had treated her from the first day they met: kindly and generously. Always.

  “So — you are free now? Will everything be all right?”

  He nodded, but he looked so drawn and tired. He looked ten years older. Her dear Alyosha.

  “You’re so thin,” she said. “Delicate and wispy. Like a cloud in trousers.”

  “I am a cloud in trousers, transformed by love for you.”

  The first time they met in the bookstore felt like years ago.

  “I still want to marry you, Laura. More than anything. I wish we could get on a plane and fly straight to San Francisco right now.”

  “I will marry you,” she whispered, desperate and hoarse. She wanted to shout it. “I will marry you, Alyosha. I’ll do anything to save you.”

  He pulled his hand from his pocket and swiped it over hers, pressing her palm for a second. “It’s too late, little fish. I have a record of dissident activity now. Even if you marry me, the authorities will never let me leave. You will apply and apply for my exit visa, over and over again for years. And year after year they will say, ‘No, he cannot leave, he is a criminal, a dissident, he must stay here where we can watch him….’ ”

  The tears came without effort, filling her eyes to their borders and spilling over down her face like a river recently thawed.

  “Still, we could try,” she said.

  He nodded sadly. “We would have had a beautiful life together in California. I would find us an apartment with a view of the bay, and every day I would make a new painting of you, bathed in sunlight.”

  She’d once resisted the idea of marriage, but now it sounded lovely to her, and she longed for this fantasy life he described more than she’d ever longed for anything.

  Alyosha continued. “Someday, through some miracle, I will get there.”

  “I’ll meet you there, Alyosha.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, crying. She wished she could throw her arms around him and cover him with kisses, drink up his tears, but she didn’t dare. The park was green now, birds sang melancholy songs in the trees, and couples strolled arm in arm down the lanes. The green, the birds, the spring made the moment even sadder than it would have been in the ice and snow. Everything was open, ready to bloom, but they had to hide, keep their feelings to themselves amidst this beauty.

  “I remember the night you told me the story of the fisherman and the little golden fish,” she said at last.

  He smiled. “You fell asleep before th
e end.”

  “That’s right — I never heard how the story ends. Will you tell me the end of the story?”

  “Well, you remember how it begins, right? The fisherman catches a little golden fish who can talk, and the fish offers to do him a favor if the fisherman will free him. But the kind fisherman frees the fish without asking for anything. When the fisherman’s wife hears about this, she sends the fisherman back to find the fish and ask for bigger and bigger things —”

  “A new washtub, and then a house, and then to be a lady, and a czaritsa,” Laura said. “Little golden fish, grant me a wish…. I think that’s where I fell asleep.”

  “The fisherman’s wife finally asks to be ruler of the sea and all its denizens, including the golden fish himself. This is too much. So without a word the golden fish swishes his tail and swims away, deep into the sea. And when the fisherman goes home there is nothing left of his wife’s wishes. She sits on the steps of their old shack, holding the broken-down washtub. They had found a golden fish, a fish who could grant wishes, but in the end they are left as poor as they began.”

  He sighed.

  “We’re leaving on Saturday,” she said. “When will I see you again?”

  He didn’t speak, just shook his head and pulled a small package out of his coat pocket. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Open it when you are alone.”

  She took the package. It was the length of her finger, square and flat, like a tiny painting. “Is it okay if I write to you?”

  “Please write to me. I don’t know if I’ll get your letters, but try. And I’ll write to you, too, every week.”

  “I promise to write every week, too.”

  “You’d better go now. You leave first, and I’ll go later.”

  “No —”

  “Laura, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. But you must go now. Please go. And hide the gift I gave you well. Find someplace in your suitcase where customs won’t look too hard.”