PS_Winter_2013_PS Summer 12/2/13 10:35 PM Page 6
h . l . s .
n e l s o n
REVOLUTION he was blonde. Blue eyes. The kind of girl I had only seen in Riga. I could never get a girl from Riga. I was a dark-skinned Russian. A Kazak. A Chornee. With the American girl, I had a chance. Americans do not want to be racist. In Russia we do not care. We are racist. She was part of an American group who was going to learn Russian at Moscow State University. We were assigned to pick them up. There were two blonde girls. One girl was a red head. One girl had curly hair and glasses. We were four Russian guys. We all had the same thing on our mind. There was a chance that an American girl might think Russians were European. There was a chance we would have sex with an American girl. Having sex with an American girl was the ultimate sign of a successful revolution. I dressed up in clothes that I had bought in America. Before the promises of democratic revolution from Gorbachev, my father was friends with the Eisenhower family. He was a Soviet official. They invited us to their summer home. I bought American jeans and an American coat. I had outgrown the American shoes. I could still wear the pants because I had bought them big. I had my mother hem them. We met them at the airport. One of the blonde American girls smiled at me. Both of the blondes were attractive. But one had an eye that crossed when she smiled. I chose the other one. I stuck out my hand. “Privet.” She tried to speak to me in Russian. The Americans can never speak Russian. They come to the Russian universities to learn, but all they do is drink Stolichnaya vodka and help the Russians practice English. Americans are a generous people. “Privet.”
S
6
Wintered Love by Alexa Rae Liccio © 2013
