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“LOOK AT HIM OVER THERE, silly man, writing in his diary.”
“What are you doing, Vasily? Crying like a woman and writing it down?”
“Leave Vasily alone. If he wants to record his poetry, that is his problem.”
I shook my head as I listened to the other dancers taunt me from across the locker room. They teased me frequently, and usually, I just ignored it. I figured they didn’t mean it. They laughed and jeered at me as they finished dressing and left the room. I turned back to my locker and the stack of mail I’d left there in my rush to prepare for practice. The top letter was stamped with the Opera Nationale seal. My heart jumped as I opened it, wondering if they had received my application to attend.
Instead, a letter stamped “alumni” dropped into my hand, followed by a small postcard. Disappointed, I turned the letter over to see not an acceptance or denial, but an invitation to correspond with injured dancers, straight from Paris, the Opera Nationale itself. I struggled through the badly translated Russian Cyrillic:
Mr. Petrov:
As you may know, the world of ballet and opera faces many accidents out of the artist’s control. For this reason, Opera Nationale Alumni would like to invite you to collaborate with other artists from around the world to connect with the injured, to give them hope in their time of need. If you could be interested in corresponding with any of our team, we have included a list of names in need of comfort. You may mail or email at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Opera Nationale Alumni
I pulled the sheet out of the envelope and glanced over the names. Their names and ages were posted, as well as physical addresses and emails. Most of them were men in their 30’s, a few even 40, which was old for this profession. None of the names looked Russian, and my English wasn’t the best. At the very bottom, I read: Jaquellyn Arnolt. What kind of name was that? It sounded exotic. Spanish, maybe? Or French? I could manage a letter written in French. I’d been the top of my class for three years in French as a second language—and the other danseurs would never let me forget my love of the “womanly” language. True, I had been the only man in the class, but it had opened the door to a better understanding of the arts, ballet especially.
I shrugged to the empty dressing room. “Maybe I could give it a chance,” My shoulder drooped, though. I had really counted on that acceptance letter; it had been three months. Why couldn’t they just deny me and get it over with? I wasn’t nearly as good as the dancers accepted there, and I knew it. I really just wanted out of Moscow. I hated this town, this country.
“Vasily!”
I looked up to see Igor Manschevitz, my best friend from ballet class. He was by far the worst dancer in our troupe, but as he had told me the first day we met, it beat having to play another sport. Given that Igor was 6’2 and 130lbs, sports were certainly his downfall. His dark Eastern European and Jewish looks gave him access to women galore, but he certainly wasn’t built for football.
Igor was, however, a certifiable genius. He won a full scholarship to the ballet school in Moscow, not just for ballet, but to also study foreign languages and linguistics. He was fluent in Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, German, French, and English. He also spoke a smattering of Arabic and conversational Greek, thanks to his long-time girlfriend, Amira.
I tried not to think about their relationship: a Jew and a Muslim. I wasn’t sure how that worked, but it was none of my business.
He slapped me on the back and ran his other hand over his close-trimmed beard. “Are you ready for that drink, comrade?”
“Comrade?” I shook my head. “Who says that anymore?”
He lifted and eyebrow. “Russians?”
“You’re not really Russian, Igor, your father just works here.”
“I realize such, but when in Rome, you do as the Russians do.”
“Is that a racist joke?” I laughed.
“It could be,” he smiled. “Hey, what’s that?”
“This?” I looked at the letter in my hand. “It’s nothing. An invite to write injured dancers or something. I’ll look it over later.”
“Come, Mira is waiting outside.”
I stood and grabbed my coat from inside my locker, tucking the letter in the inside pocket. “Let’s go.”
***
THE privnaya, local tavern, was an easy three blocks from the dorms. Mira met us outside, and her and Igor linked arms immediately. I smiled, hoping they wouldn’t see my sadness. I was always the outsider around them, though Mira did her best to include me. I enjoyed spending time with them, but women and I did not see eye to eye. They wanted the typical Russian male – aggressive, dominate, and an asshole. I was none of those.
“Two vodkas and a water, please!” Igor ordered immediately as the three of us slid into seats at the bar. I shrugged out of my coat and hung it on the back of the seat. It wasn’t crowded yet, but as the night wore on, it would be. As usual, the heat was cranked in here to ward off the icy fingertips of winter that crept around every corner, even this early in October.
Mira was busy adjusting her hijab, crimson red in color with tiny embroidered flowers this time, which she only wore when we went out. Igor and I had joked once she was one of the worst Muslims we had ever met. Mira had punched Igor and swore at him in Arabic, proving our point.
“Why do you even wear that thing anymore?” Igor threw back his first vodka.
I sipped mine, as always, turning to watch them engage.
“Why do you where the little circle hat on Saturdays?” Mira shot back, shoving her curly black hair back under the hijab.
“It’s called a yamake, Mira, I’ve told you a thousand times. And my bubbeh made it back in Bucharest.”
“Yet, you drink coffee every morning, and eat fish with me on Fridays.”
“You also drink coffee with me, and I hate you tell you this, but you’re not going to make it into the seventy-two virgins.”
“Shut up!” She yelled at him, smiling, and punched him in the arm.
I sipped my shot. “You two are good entertainment.”
Mira looked around Igor. “What does that mean?”
“You fight like old women.” I finished my first shot and ordered another.
“Like you would know what old women fight about,” Igor turned to me.
“True.” I downed the next shot quickly, wincing as it burned. I didn’t feel like talking about my parents, God rest their souls, about now. “Go ahead, Igor, remind me I’m an orphan.”
Mira sipped her water. She reached around Igor and pinched my cheek. “Cutest orphan ever.”
I playfully slapped her hand away. She returned to her water, still staring at me.
“Ut oh.” Igor looked at her. “I know that face. You are plotting.”
“We need to find Vasily a woman,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she turned to view the room. “Something ... hmm ... the blond didn’t work out last time, so ...”
I resisted the urge to shudder. The blond she was referring to, my girlfriend of sorts last spring, was Annika. Annika loved long walks in the park, dogs, and being spanked with a flogger while dressed in black leather. Surprisingly, Annika and I only lasted the month.
“What about her?” Mira side nodded to a woman drinking alone at a far table. I followed her motion to see a woman, early thirties, light brown hair in a messy bun, dressed in a sharp business suit, cradling an orange drink.
“Too tourist,” I said.
“Or lawyer,” Igor added.
“Or a dirty secretary,” Mira winked.
I just sighed. She was incorrigible. As we watched, she was joined by a large blond man in a suit, who took her hand as soon as he sat down.
“Well, there goes that,” Igor sighed. He threw back another shot and ordered a whiskey.
“Her?” Mira pointed her drink to a lady at the end of the bar. She was short and thin, wearing far less clothes than the chilly air suggested was appropriate, and young. Maybe even younger than I. She whipped her black hair over her shoulder and gazed at us, waving.
“She looks very Russian,” Mira mused.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, confused.
“Well, I’ll find out.”
Before Igor or I could stop her, Mira slid from her seat and approached the girl. A few people pushed into the bar behind us, and we couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she pointed at us.
“Get ready, comrade, she’s bringing her over, I bet,” Igor nudged his elbow into my ribs.
I swore under my breath.
Sure enough, Mira and the new woman came over. “Vasily, this is Natalie. Natalie, this is Vasily and Igor, my boyfriend.” She spoke in English. Mira always introduced Igor that way, taking him off the market. Smart.
She offered me her hand and I shook it. “Nice to meet you,” I muttered.
“Natalie is an American at the university studying computers,” Mira added. She looked at me. “Vasily is a dancer at the ballet school.”
Natalie’s eyes went wide. “Ah, you’re not one of those gay boys, are you?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, back in Texas we don’t have much ballet dancin’. And I’ve had a few of these.” She hiccupped and sat the remnants of a pink drink on the counter next to me.
Mira pulled Igor up, and Natalie slid into his seat, ignoring them both.
“Let’s go dance, boyfriend,” I heard Mira say to him. He protested, but sat his drink next to me and let her lead him to the dancefloor.
I still had no idea what to say to Natalie. She was clearly drunk, and I wasn’t going to take advantage of a woman in her position. And she was American – they never knew when to shut their damn mouths.
To make matters worse, my English was bad. Very, very bad.
“Privet,” I stumbled over the English word, then. How did they teach us in English class? “Hello, it is nice to meet you.” I thought about what she said for a few minutes while she stared at me, and finally ordered another drink. “What is gay boy, please?”
She laughed and swatted my leg playfully. “You’re into girls, right?”
“Da?” I said, not sure if that was the answer she wanted.
She leaned forward. “Not that I’m complain’, but they just freak me out.”
I frowned. I knew a few gay men in the ballet. It wasn’t uncommon, but it also wasn’t talked about. The fact this American was being so open about it terrified me. Is that how all Americans were? Not thinking before they spoke? Speaking openly about homosexuality was generally not good conversation between strangers.
I ordered another drink. I was clearly too sober for this interaction.
Natalie prattled on about home, telling me about a thing called a ranch her parents lived on, and how she could ride a horse. I looked around for Mira and Igor, but they had disappeared on me. I was on my fourth vodka now, and it was starting to affect me.
Even slightly inebriated, Natalie didn’t interest me. I only understood every third word she said, and I couldn’t keep up with how fast she talked. Two more drinks in her, and she talked even faster.
I began to think about a plan to get her home. She was clearly too inebriated to be on the streets of Moscow alone, and I was afraid someone would take advantage of her. Before I could suggest calling her a cab, she slammed her drink down, set the empty glass on the bar where it fell over, and put both her hands on my legs.
“You wanna get out of here, Ruskie?”
I bristled at the slur. I was used to the jibs and jabs of my friends at school, and even Igor had called me that from time to time. But from an American? I swore under my breath.
“What did you call me?” Natalie slurred at me. She tilted sideways and almost fell out of her chair.
I grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling, and held up my hand to Alexie, the bartender, motioning to my head with my thumb and pinky splayed, our indication a car was needed. This was one of the only bars that had that service, mostly because of the international students in the area. They couldn’t hold their liquor like us Russians.
Alexie nodded at me and picked up the phone behind the bar.
“Come on, let’s get you some air,” I said, helping her stand from the stool.
“Ooh! I feel beautiful!” She slurred again, followed by a disgusting belch.
I wanted to curse Mira right about now. She tried to get me with another drunk woman. When would she learn the bar was no place to find a nice, intelligent girl? I helped Natalie out the front door and sat her down on the curb.
“What ... what’s going on?” she looked up at me as I stood over her. “Are you gonna kidnap me or something?”
“No, I’m taking you dorm,” I said, stumbling over my English. “University?”
“Uh...” She fell over sideways, and I held her up by her shoulders. “I had too much to drink. My friends ... they went to another bar. Can you help me find them?”
I shook my head. “Nyet, you to University.”
She patted my arm. “You’re a nice fella.”
I didn’t know what a fella was, so I didn’t bother answering.
Just then the black cab pulled up, and I opened the door and shoved her in. The drivers asked me for directions, and I gave them. I knew every inch of this city, luckily for her.
I wasn’t sure how she ended up across town, but the University was a fifteen-minute drive. It was almost twenty-one hundred, early for the drinking crowd, and the streets were mostly deserted.
“What dorm number?” I tried to ask her. She slurred some numbers, but I was barely able to understand her. The driver asked if I needed help with her, but I just shook my head.
When we got there, I pulled her drunk ass out of the cab and half dragged, half walked her up to the dorm entrance. She was so far gone she kept asking who I was.
An official in a black suit coat greeted me at the door. “Natalie! Again?” He spoke in English, his voice exasperated. “Let’s get you up to your room.”
I asked him if he spoke Russian, and he responded in kind. “If you don’t mine, I’ll take her up. What number is she in.”
The man frowned at me. “Natalie, do you know this man?”
In a brief moment of sobriety, Natalie looked up at him, her eyes widening. She clawed at my arm. “Ralph, I’m fine,” she tried to stand, but swayed into me. She tried to push me away and started up the steps, falling to her knees on the second one, where she proceeded to lose the contents of her stomach.
I backed up suddenly down the stairs, resisting the urge to throw my hand over my nose. Instead, my fists curled at my sides and I shocked them in the pocket of my jeans.
Unaffected somehow, Ralph reached for her. “Come on, baby, let’s get you to bed.”
My English wasn’t good, but I saw the look in his eyes. Baby wasn’t a term we used for women, and I doubt he meant it with honorable intentions.
“I’ll take her up,” I repeated, immediately concerned. Drunk or not, Natalie was clearly concerned about this man. I pushed aside my disgust, swallowed hard, and stepped between them. I started to panic, thinking he would push me aside, so I puffed out my chest as much as I could. Fighter I was not, but a dancer’s body was nothing to mess with.
“Okay, whatever bud,” the man replied in English again. “Second floor, to the right. She’s in 203.”
I nodded and gently dragged Natalie up the stairs and into the dormitory. A sign pointed to the elevator on the right, and we stepped in. I pushed the number two.
By the time we reached her dorm room, Natalie was clinging to my arm with a death grip, and tears were running down her face. “Thank you,” she whispered. “He’s a bad man.”
“Kakiye?” I asked what she meant.
She shook her head. “Lock the door when you leave, please.” She flopped on her bed, face down. I reached for the blanket at her feet and covered her up.
“Spat, Natalie,” I urged her to sleep. I let myself out, firmly locking the door behind me as I closed it.
Ralph was nowhere to be found when I got back to the main level. As soon as I exited the main doors, I flipped my cell phone into my hand.
“Politsiya,” a gruff voice answered.
“Hello, I’d like to report a crime,” I said, “there’s an awful man assaulting women on the University campus.”
“Derzhites' pozhaluysta.”
I waited while they put me on hold.
“Name?” He said after the longest five minutes of my life.
I hoped he meant the suspect. “Ralph. He’s some kind of resident assistant, I suppose.”
“Spasibo,” the voice thanked me. “Your report has been recorded. We send out an officer to investigate.”
“Spasibo, dobroy nochi,” I bid the officer good night.
I decided to walk home. It was sad these streets were safer for men than women. Doubly sad Natalie hadn’t been safe in her own university.
She had called me a nice fella. Huh. I guess I was, whatever that meant. No matter, she had picked the right man at the bar to talk to. I wasn’t sure anyone else would have seen her safely home, tucked in, and then locked the door to protect her.
Did I ever have a story to tell Igor and Mira the next day.
It wasn’t until I got back to the dorm that I realized I’d left my coat, along with the letter from Opera Nationale, back at the bar.