Boy on the Bridge (5 page)

“Have you ever been inside one?” Laura asked.

“No, of course not. How could I? They check your passport.”

“They’ve never checked my passport.”

“That’s because you’re obviously American.”

“Well … what if you were obviously American?”

He lifted his eyes from his bowl. “What do you mean?”

“What if I borrowed some clothes from one of my friends and we dressed you up as an American guy? I could teach you a few English phrases to say in case anyone talked to you, and maybe we could sneak you into the Berioska.” Dan Knowles was just about Alyosha’s size, she thought.

He grinned, then shook his head. “No. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous? How?”

“We’ll get caught, and we’ll both be in trouble. You could get sent home. And I’m not ready for you to leave yet.” Laura’s
American chaperones, Dr. Stein and Dr. Durant, were always warning the students about infractions — from missing curfew to associating with the wrong people — that could get them sent home. But how did Alyosha know about that?

“What about you?” she asked. “What would happen to you?”

“To me? It’s hard to say. I’ve had friends who have been arrested for less.”

“Arrested!”

“I had a friend in art school who sold fur hats to foreigners on the black market. He made a lot of money until he got caught. The militia arrested him and when we saw him a few weeks later he was a different person. Very skinny, quiet. Broken. He was kicked out of school, of course.”

“This isn’t worth getting arrested over,” Laura said. “But how would we get caught? We’re just shopping. If you stay quiet, no one will know.”

“They’ll know,” Alyosha said. “Somehow they’ll know.”

His mood had turned quickly from puckish to grim. She wanted to call back that mischievous spirit.

“Don’t you want to see a Berioska Shop for yourself?” she asked.

“I have to admit I’m curious.”

“Then let’s do it.”

He hesitated.

“Come on. It will be an adventure.”

He lifted his glass and clinked it against hers again. “To adventure,” he said. “Our next adventure together.”

Y
ou’re going to do what?”

Karen was having trouble understanding the plan. Maybe it was too ridiculous to be understood.

“I’m going to dress Alyosha in American clothes from head to toe and bring him into the Berioska Shop with me. What size sneakers do you think Dan wears?”

“And what are you going to do when he opens his mouth and says, ‘Khallo, please to show me some rrrecords’?”

“His accent’s not that bad. And anyway, I’ll do all the talking.”

Karen shook her head. “You are going to get into so much trouble.”

“No I’m not. Besides, it’s a good deed. He’s never been inside a Berioska! He’s very curious about it.”

“Sure, they all are. That’s why you’re going to get walloped.”

Laura knocked on Dan’s door and explained her plan. Dan blinked at her, owlish behind his round, wire-rimmed glasses.

“I love this,” Dan said. “I’ll give you whatever you need.”

She borrowed socks, shoes, a shirt, a pair of jeans, and a jacket. She considered borrowing underwear, just for pure authenticity, but Dan assured her they wouldn’t be checking Alyosha that thoroughly.

“You’re going to get into major trouble for this,” he said. “You know that, right?”

She refused to believe it or care.

* * *

On the day of the Big Adventure, her classes felt endless. In Phonetics, Laura’s favorite class, they were learning jokes.

“Our Physics teacher talks to himself. Does yours?”

“Ours does, too. But he doesn’t know he’s doing it. He thinks we are listening.”

Ha ha ha.

“Okay, Karina and Lara, read the next joke, please,” the Phonetics professor, Semyon Mikhailovich, said.

Laura read the first line: “What are you doing, my little daughter?”

Karen: “I’m writing a letter to Olya.”

Laura: “But you don’t know how to write.”

Karen: “So what? Olya doesn’t know how to read.”

Karen stared at Laura for a second with a wry expression in her eyes. Then they both burst out laughing, mostly to please the teacher, but also at the absurdity of the class.

“Very good.” Semyon Mikhailovich’s eyes danced when he
laughed. He was young, tall, and refined, with dark hair and round black glasses. Laura couldn’t be sure if he laughed because he thought the jokes were genuinely funny — in which case, he had the lamest sense of humor ever — or if he saw the absurdity too, and didn’t know what else to do but laugh.

Laura wondered if Alyosha had heard that one. She’d tell it to him and see. He probably knew much funnier jokes.

Karen and Laura crossed the crowded hallway to their next class, Translation. Translation was not as much fun as Phonetics.

The professor, Raisa Ivanovna, passed out sheets of onionskin paper so thin that the
O
on her typewriter had poked straight through. “Here is your homework for tomorrow. Translate this article into Russian. Let’s go over some of the more difficult vocabulary.”

Laura glanced at the article, “Siberia: A Land Reborn,” and quietly groaned. Karen pointed out one sentence: “The programme for the economic development of the Baikal-Amur zone, drawn up by scientists of the Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, makes up a multivolume encyclopaedia.”

“Bedtime reading,” Karen whispered.

Raisa Ivanovna explained vocabulary words like
gas reserves
and
hydropower stations
. Laura’s mind wandered. This was her last class of the afternoon. As soon as it was over, she would cross the river on her way to meet Alyosha, and they would have their adventure — if she didn’t die of boredom first.

* * *

“Wait.” Alyosha stopped her just outside the European Hotel. “What’s my name?”

“Oh. Your name. Right.” She stopped to consider him in his American down jacket, blue jeans, and oxford cloth shirt. They were Dan’s clothes, but he didn’t look like a Dan. He looked weirdly preppy.

“You’re Skip.”

“Skeep? Is that a name?”

“It’s a nickname.”

“Really? It sounds funny. Okay. I’m Skeep.”

“Not Skeep. Skip. Skip.”

“Skee-ip.”

“Uh, yeah. Leave the talking to me.”

She pushed through the revolving door, nodding at the guard just inside. “Passports,” he barked.

“Passport. Sure.” Laura answered his English with hers, giving the impression of someone who couldn’t speak Russian if she tried. She opened her bag and pretended to rummage around for her passport. “We just got into town and I’m so disorganized….”

The guard stared impassively, scrutinizing Alyosha’s face and clothes. Laura resisted the temptation to glance back at Alyosha and see how he was holding up under the pressure.

“Here it is.” She produced her passport. The guard opened it, studied it, compared the photo to her face, and returned it with a grunt.

“Thank you.” She took Alyosha’s hand and pulled him inside with her, but the guard said, “Wait. Your passport, please, sir.”

Laura hoped the guard didn’t notice the flash of panic in Alyosha’s eyes. He patted Dan’s coat, pretending to search his pockets.

“Did you leave it in the hotel room again, Skip?” Laura scolded. “He keeps doing that. It’s gotten us into so much trouble. You’ll let us in, won’t you? We’re just going to spend some money in the Berioska Shop. You know — dollars.” She opened her passport case and let a twenty-dollar bill fall to the mosaic floor of the hotel entrance. Whoops, dropped one. She pretended not to notice. “We’re leaving town tomorrow, so we’ve got to get some souvenirs today. I promised my aunt Lucy I’d get her an enamel box, and she’ll kill me if I go home without one, right, Skip?”

Alyosha opened his mouth to speak. She could see the
D
of
Da
forming between his teeth. She winced —
no, Alyosha, don’t say it….

He saved himself at the last moment with a silent nod.

The guard subtly stepped on the bill on the floor and waved them inside.

“Thank you! You’re a lifesaver. I’ll be sure to tell Aunt Lucy how nice you were!” She dragged Alyosha along before the guard could change his mind.

Alyosha’s hand, sweaty and shaky, gripped hers. She gave him an encouraging smile, but he stayed stone-faced.

“Don’t be nervous,” she whispered — sticking with English, just in case — as they crossed the hotel lobby.

“I’m not,” he insisted, but she knew he was lying. Being brave for her.

She opened the curtained door to the Berioska Shop, then smiled and waved at the guard who sat just inside. “Hi!” The guard let them pass without a comment. So far, so good.

For one second Alyosha stood frozen in place at the entrance, unsure what to do. He gazed around the gleaming room at the glass cases full of luxurious objects he had no access to. Laura tugged on his hand and pulled him toward the food section.

“Let’s go on a binge,” she said. “We’ll buy whatever you like.” She didn’t have a lot of money, but this seemed like something worth spending it on.

She took a basket and led him down the aisles of packaged goods, cookies and sardines and tuna and caviar. He seemed afraid to touch anything, so she helped him by taking his hand and forcing it to grip a bottle of olives.

“Laura, I don’t like olives,” he whispered. The Russian words seemed to spill out of him involuntarily. No one was close enough to hear.

She laughed and put them back. “Ha! Neither do I. What about macadamia nuts?”

“I don’t know what those are.”

“We’ll try them.” She put them in the basket. They went to the meat counter. She followed Alyosha’s eyes as he took in the varieties of sausages and cutlets and ordered the ones he seemed to linger over.

They bought Dutch cheese, French wine, an amber pin for Alyosha’s aunt. Alyosha stared at everything, afraid to say a word. The salesgirls stood around yawning and gossiping, helping out grudgingly when asked.

It’s working
, Laura thought.
We are actually getting away with this.

“Okay, Skip — have we got everything we need?”

Alyosha nodded, but his eyes fell on something beyond her shoulder that seemed to trouble him. She turned around. A pretty brunette shopgirl was showing dolls to a German woman. The girl looked at Alyosha curiously, as if she knew him.

“Alyosha?” the shopgirl asked in Russian. “Is that you?”

Alyosha started. Laura pulled him aside. “Who is that?” she whispered in English.

“Marina. I went to school with her,” he replied in Russian. When he was nervous, his English failed him. “She recognized me! What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry.” She spoke Russian to make sure he understood. “Just keep to the plan. Remember: You are not Alyosha. You’re Skip.”

“Okay.”

The girl — Marina — repeated her question. “Alyosha?”

Laura said in English, “I’m sorry — are you talking to us?”

Marina left the German woman with her dolls and came out from behind the counter. “It is you.” She spoke to Alyosha in Russian. “Alyosha, what are you doing here?”

Laura squeezed his hand hard, reminding him not to speak. “We’re Americans. Do you speak English?”

“Yes, of course,” Marina said. “I’m sorry.” She stared at Alyosha, certain she knew him.

“I’m Laura, and this is my friend Skip. He’s been sick — laryngitis — so he can’t really talk today.”

“Oh. I see.” Marina stepped back, returning to her professional demeanor. “It’s funny, but he looks just like a boy I went to school with. Very much like.”

“Really?” Laura faked a light laugh. “That’s so funny, because he’s not the least bit Russian. He’s full-blooded Irish. Skip O’Rourke is his name. His ancestors came from, uh, Tipperary.”

Marina looked baffled. The German woman beckoned to her impatiently. “Miss, will you please come back and help me?”

“Excuse me.” Marina hurried back to the counter. Alyosha’s stiff smile relaxed a bit.

“We’d better get out of here,” Laura whispered. She paid for the loot with traveler’s checks. As they started out the door, Alyosha stopped, turned, and waved at Marina.

“Good-bye, Marina!” he shouted in Russian. “See you around!”

Laura yanked him away and they ran through the hotel lobby, slowing down to approach the guard at the front door so they wouldn’t look suspicious. Safely outside on the street, they ran around the corner, laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.

“I can’t believe you did that!” she gasped in English.

“I know,” he replied in Russian. “It was foolish.”

They had developed a kind of crisis pidgin language, half-English, half-Russian, depending on what popped out of their mouths first. Awkward, but it worked.

Laura walked with him to the metro stop and handed him the fancy plastic Berioska bag. “Your loot, sir.” She had learned the Russian word for
loot
from an article they’d read in Translation class on race riots in the US.

“Thank you. Thank you, Laura, for taking a risk with me.”

“It was fun.”

“Sorry if I ruined everything with Marina, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“I think we’ll be okay.”

“You know, I can’t enjoy all this food by myself. I think you should come home with me and have some.”

“Now?” It was late on a Tuesday afternoon. She had homework to do, and there was a class trip to the ballet that night.

“It’s too cold for a picnic in the park,” Alyosha said. “But we could have a picnic in my apartment. If you’d like to.”

“Well …” She made a pretense, to herself, of thinking over his offer. But in reality, she knew exactly what her answer was.

“I
am
in the mood for some macadamia nuts.”

“Let’s go.” He took her hand and led her deep down into the metro. Off they went to Avtovo.