Revolution (fiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H.L.S. Nelson

REVOLUTION

Wintered Love by Alexa Rae Liccio © 2013

S

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.

I started speaking to her in English. I told her I had been to America before. I told her I had been to the Eisenhower ’ s. I told her that Henry Kissinger had sat in our living room. I could tell that she thought I was lying.

She smiled. “Henry Kissinger? The Henry Kissinger?”

I said, “Yes, my father was an official in the Soviet government. Very high up. ”

With a Russian girl, this would have been the charm, at least before the Soviet Union fell. For an American girl, the Soviet government was Lenin and Stalin. Americans wanted to believe in Marx. I was not sure there was a difference.

She asked, “He worked in the Soviet government? How does he feel about democracy?”

I told her the truth. “He ’ s afraid of what’ s going to happen. ”

She was like all the other Americans. “Won ’t things be better with freedom?”

Americans did not understand how “We have a different history. Peter the Great tried to turn us toward the West. It didn ’t work for Russia. It’ s how we got Lenin. I’ m not sure we ’ re ready for democracy. ”

She didn ’t understand Russians. I didn ’t really understand Americans. Especially when it comes to blow jobs. American girls will give blow jobs before they will sleep with you. I never slept with an American girl when I was in America. I had several blow jobs. But no American girl ever loved me. This time it would be different. A democratic revolution.

We took the metro from the airport to the university. The metro was a Soviet accomplishment. Efficient transportation for the masses. Beautiful art commissioned for each metro station. Kaganovich took credit. Krushchev expelled him from the Party. There were prostitutes and graffiti in the metro stations now. No one took credit for that.

She had one big bag. I carried it for her. Her bag was very heavy. She would be here for three months. She told me that she packed plenty of toilet paper. She thought we didn ’t have any toilet paper. She was right, but I told her my father had worked for the government. We still had toilet paper if she needed some. There were some things that the communists still had.

She was afraid in the metro. My friend Peter carried a gun in case the gypsies attacked. The gypsies spotted that she was American. The Americans carry dollars. A girl and a boy tried to surround her and beg. It was always the children of the gypsies who begged until the revolution. Russians used to be too proud. I swore at them in Russian. She smiled at me. She had nice teeth. Russian girls don ’t always have nice teeth.

We took a car from the metro stop. All the Russian guys had chosen the girls

Andes End by Linda Dubin Garfield © 2013

that we wanted. My friend Peter chose the wandering eyed blonde. He had a twitch that made him blink one eye too fast. She didn ’t seem to care. We each took separate cars. My driver was a former engineer at the University. He wasn ’t being paid anymore by the government. Sometimes Soviets made money by driving other people in their car. It was still a way they made money in the new Russia. He could see that the girl I was with was American. He offered to drive us. The power of an American girl.

“Kyda bbl?” he asked. “M.G.U. ”

I sat close to her in the back seat. I pressed my leg against hers. She noticed. She liked it too.

We arrived to the university when it was dark. Moscow State University was beautiful when it was pitch black. In the daylight it looked like shit. Lev Vladimirovich Rudnev had been the architect. He was a leader in Stalinist architecture. Now the building was falling apart just like Stalinist Russia. I escorted her inside. I let her walk in first. My mother told me that chivalry is not dead in communism or in democracy either. I took her inside. The guards were sleeping. The babushka that was washing the dirty floor with a filthy rag waved me on when I addressed her in Russian.

We could not take the elevators. The elevators couldn ’t be trusted to go to the correct floor. The elevators might stop in between floors and if you stepped out accidentally you would fall down the elevator shaft. Someone died that way. I didn ’t know him. Some people said it was suicide, but most of the suicides were committed from the top of the building.

We took the stairs. Dogs and cats lived in the staircase. Pets had been abandoned in democracy. No one could afford to feed them anymore. There was shit and garbage there too that the cats and dogs ate. Broken windows made the place stink less, but it was cold. The drug dealers lived on the ninth floor. She would be staying on the sixth. She was rooming with the wandering eye blonde.

I opened up the door and turned on the light. She screamed when she saw cockroaches scatter everywhere. I told her to sleep with the lights on.

The radio was blaring in the dorm room. The radio was always blaring. There had always been a communist message before the revolution. The radio station didn ’t know what to broadcast now that communism was dead. It kept playing the same messages.

I told her, “We ’ll have different stations soon. When communism ends. We ’ll have Rock and Roll. ”

She shrugged. “I don ’t mind. ”

She looked in the bathroom. “There ’ s no toilet paper. It’ s good that I brought some. ”

She unpacked her toilet paper. I told her to keep it hidden because the babushkas who cleaned around the University might steal it.

“Why doesn ’t anyone have toilet paper?”

I told her the truth. “I don ’t know. Maybe we ’ll have more toilet paper when

we have democracy. “

She nodded her head yes like she understood, but I’ m not sure there is any relationship between toilet paper and democracy.

“Do you want to go and see Moscow tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sure. “ She answered.

This is the way the love affair started.

I hired a driver in the morning. I flagged him down outside my flat. He knew I probably had enough rubles. We lived in the best apartments in the city. He had some time because he had lost his job in the factory. He said he could drive us around all day.

We picked her up outside the gates. She was hard to miss. She was wearing a Columbia jacket and Jordache jeans. She had real Nike running shoes too. She told me she had taken a jog in the morning. There had been a man jerking off outside the entrance. He was wearing blue pajamas. She reported him to the guards, but they didn ’t care. They told her that he did it every morning. Jerking off was not against the law. She said it still scared her.

She asked why there was no hot water when she showered. I told her that the government cleans the pipes in the summer. My mother said such nonsense isn ’t true. She said that the Soviet government was too cheap to pay for hot water. After the democratic revolution it was still true. No hot water. I told her she could wash her hair at my house. She said she would. She asked why they didn ’t clean the pipes in the city near Red Square. American girls are gullible.

We visited Red Square. At least Red Square was still beautiful. Stalin hadn ’t torn down the Kremlin and built a swimming pool like he had with the Cathedral of the Christ. She wanted to see Lenin. Some people want to see Lenin removed. Some want him to stay. My mother said he was a terrible man. My father would not say.

There was always a line to see Lenin. There were visitors and babushkas there. The old babushkas missed Lenin. They missed the Soviet Union too. They had lost their pensions when Gorbachev came to power. They were starving. They wanted Lenin back. She just wanted to see Lenin because she had studied the Bolshevik Revolution.

I had seen Lenin in the mausoleum when I was a boy. I begged my father to take me there. My friends told me that they thought Lenin had moved under the glass case.

My father said that Lenin made the Soviet Union what it was. I didn ’t know what he meant. He was not a man who liked to explain.

Lenin was still in a glass box. Some people say he is really plastic. The guards don ’t let you stay long enough to really take a good look. I don ’t care if he is plastic or not. He is still Lenin.

She held my hand in the mausoleum. One of the guards smiled at me. He could tell she was an American. Russians can always spot an American. When we came out of the mausoleum I told her that she needed to go to G.U.M. and buy some Soviet clothes so people wouldn ’t notice her Columbia jacket. I wanted her to be my girlfriend. Sometimes the Russian Mafia take the American girls and date them because they are rich. I didn ’t want that to happen to her.

She was hungry. She wanted to eat on the street from one of the stands. I told her that it might make her sick. Rumor had it that the meat was from stray dogs. I bribed one of the restaurants owners to give us a seat. There was no one there. The sign on the door said they were closed for cleaning day. Cleaning day is like no hot water in the pipes. Bullshit. The restaurant liked to keep the seating open for people with