Love Is Never Past Tense... (3 page)

***

In that distant ’76, Serge found himself lying in a hospital bed for the first time, his leg raised and wrapped in bandages. His memory of meeting that enchanting girl, who was unlike any he’d ever seen, was as sharp as ever, dragging him back to ’73 and Odessa. He had already had one varicose vein removed from his leg, which was now probably buried beneath some landfill. He felt sad. It seemed his future had shrunk to the size of a little window. He only wanted to return to the warm sea, take her in his arms again, cut through the foamy waves, and take full advantage of the opportunity purely to be with her …

Around him, lying in partitioned-off beds, his fellow patients would usually fall asleep after lunch. After dinner, they fell asleep almost immediately. Many were given tranquilizers. In these hours, Serge would take to his notebook, and not paying too much attention to the beauty of the artistic word, would write, or more accurately record, a diary of those events of three years ago.

The old man remembered the contents of that diary almost verbatim, because he reread it over and over when he simply wanted to be with her, trying to understand why things turned out the way they did, and especially when life in a strange twist of fate drew them closer together …

***

The sun was shining with the full force of its rays. The beach resembled a bee hive. The warm, murky sea was lapping its waters against the shore. The heat
and humidity weighed down upon them. Serge lay flat on the towel. He slowly squeezed the sand in his hands and let it trickle in streams through his fist. She lay next to him, her gaze penetrating through the crowd of people into a place far off in the distance. Now and then, she would bring her cigarette to her lips and release a stream of smoke. Her hip pressed against his leg, and the spot of contact became moist. He sensed her body and wanted the moment to last for eternity. From the side, he could only see her profile. Barely turning his head, he could make out her beautiful nose, her full, extended lips, and her hair, which barely had a style and obviously knew nothing except a comb as it hung in charming disarray around her face. Round sunglasses hid her eyes.

Her long body tranquilly reposed on the towel, as if there was no heat, no people, not even him. At some point, he thought he was wasting his time. She was just toying with him. Next, she would say, “Bye, bye. Thanks for relieving me of my solitude.” Or perhaps something even more ridiculous. She would take her things and leave, saying she had to meet up with her friends, or that she was getting a headache, or that she had PMS … Shouldn’t he stay one step ahead of her and get up and leave? What was actually holding him here? Absolutely nothing. In fact, all he needed was a little vacation fling. This was what he needed, having been imprisoned on Oil Rocks in the constant company of guys and the Azerbaijanis, who barely spoke a lick of Russian. The only thing that gave him consolation was their general good nature and their ability to laugh at just about anything.

But it was time for him to get away from everything. He’d had enough of those guys. Just over twenty days were left until the beginning of the academic year. So, why waste time? Gosh, around were multitudes of charming and simple-minded girls swarming about like small fish pecking at the guys. He, for all intents and purposes, was not exactly a monster. In his pocket he had a bunch of ten-ruble bills, earned by his sledgehammer on Oil Rocks. He’d wander along the beach, take a seat somewhere, or strike up a conversation, and perhaps ask a girl out for a night of dancing—and he could finally put an end to wracking his brains all the time about what to do or say. But this one lying next to him, torturing him, was not such a simple creature. She was like a cat—independent. She couldn’t care less about the little boy fidgeting next to her. Seemingly accessible while in the sea, here she would keep her distance and then disappear in whatever fashion she deemed appropriate. What business should she have with a schoolboy who was oozing sexual desire?

Her hip was burning him. Some invisible little spiders quickly entwined them in a closely woven web. Young women, laying down or walking around, suddenly grew distant, and became minute and uninteresting. Next to him, there remained only her body—hot and powerful. There must have been a magnet setting at her core. It was buried deep, but revealed itself to Serge in a miraculous way … Serge knew he was not going anywhere.

Then he rented a boat, and he skillfully navigated to the shore. She stood in the water up to her knees. She was holding her velvet flats and beach bag in her hands. Bathers entering and exiting the water turned to look at her. She just couldn’t help drawing attention to herself. Her bathing suit was very daring, and her breasts clearly laughed at her vain attempt to cover them. It seemed that in due time the pitiful fabric wouldn’t be able to hold out and would burst into shreds, yet it held on with its very last threads.

The girl, not even considering the possibility of her straps giving out, effortlessly situated herself on the stern as Serge took up the oars …

When time was up, they returned and left the emptying beach behind them. On the way Serge took his things from the changing room lockers, pulled on his jeans and tee shirt, and smacked his bare feet along the hot asphalt, chasing Janna down. “Hmm, Janna! What a strange name. Not Tanya, or Olga—Oh, well …” At sea he didn’t even bother to move closer to her, or to touch her. Yet, oh, how he so badly wanted to climb down to the stern, tear off that damn bikini top, and well … just the two of them in the boat and nobody around. The moment was lost.

“Wow, I could devour anything that does not move!” she literarily and lucidly expressed herself. “Let’s go chew on something.”

On the terrace, where some wobbly chairs and tables stood, almost no visitors were sitting. They looked over the menu, but there was hardly anything there either, just a few dishes, thickly underlined with a dark blue pencil. Serge called over the waiter, who explained that the only thing left on the menu were
kupati
⁵
and that they were running out of wine. However, acknowledging the shortage, the worldly waiter advised them to run down to a nearby store. Needless to say, bringing alcohol from outside to a restaurant was strictly against the rules, and if you didn't believe it, you could just look at all the empty bottles lying under the tables. Laws in the Soviet Union were made to be broken. When Serge returned from the store, Janna was tearing into a fatty piece of sausage in such frenzy that it looked like she had been starved for a couple of days.

"Sorry, I didn't wait for you. I just couldn't hold out any longer."

Serge poured the port into a couple of glasses, the sweet aroma gushing into their noses.

"Well, here's to our acquaintance …" but his toast was quickly cut off.

"I can't stand banal phrases as ‘to our acquaintance’, or ‘to meeting up’ … ugh … they just make me nauseous. Let's try without all that mess, all right, Serioga?
⁶

"We could just get drunk and crawl over to those bushes without all these banal phrases."

"That's just plain vulgar! That's just as bad for my stomach as banality."

"Hell, it is impossible to approach you closer than a mile.”

"Then don’t try to please …"

Serge grinned and polished off his wine. She too rather brazenly dried up her glass."Yuck, what garbage," she praised Serge’s choice.

"Sorry, you buy what they sell."

"Fine then. If my cavalier doesn’t offer anything better, he could at least give me a cigarette."

Serge opened up a pack of freshly bought
Opal
(a foreign brand, so they had to be good). She took a drag and began coughing. She recovered and suddenly began to laugh. Her laugh hardly resembled one of a lady, but it was very infectious. When she laughed, those around her could not help but join in. This was something already quite familiar to Serge, having witnessed this more than a few times.

"You know, ha … ha … ha, I've been thinking about our boat trip. If you had drowned, they probably would've put me behind bars. They'd say I struck you on the head with an oar …"

"You surely would have squirmed your way out of it. You'd just tell them that I accosted you and badgered you with my stupidity, or even that I raped you. They'd surely believe you."

"Hey! What's with you?"

"What?"

"What's rape got to do with it? You were diving, sailor!"

“She tortures me now, becomes bold, when she isn’t the least bit threatened,” Serge thought to himself.

"Now I see … maybe you’re a eunuch? Hah-hah-hah!" as she threw back her head and laughed.

"All right, I'm taking off. I need to clean up and get a change of clothes. If you want, we can meet in an hour and a half …"

She took her purse, ran up to the road, and in a minute she was sitting in a
Zhiguli
,
⁷
explaining something to the taxi driver.

***

In the evening, when nightfall had enveloped the city, the two found themselves on Chicherina Street next to a little half-subterranean restaurant.

Janna was dressed in a short, thin leather skirt and was wearing the same velvet flats as earlier. Suspended across her shoulder was the same little purse from the beach, matching her skirt. In her eyes (this time she wasn't wearing those sunglasses) shined a happy spark. She gave off an aura that said: "I've come to be entertained, let the festivities begin!"

Serge's appearance, however, hadn't changed. He languidly dragged himself home to his cousin’s, with whom he was staying. To march almost to
Privoz
,
⁸
iron his pants and run at full speed across this sultry city? What for? She would think—that I want her to like me. “No, I don’t. And the problem is not in the clothes. Was I walking after her outfit this morning?”

With all these thoughts, Serge hobbled to the agreed-upon spot, gorging on ice cream along the way. They sat on the tram, which rumbled along towards Arcadia, a well-known place for evening walks and a hangout spot for youthful escapades.

The alleys and paths were already teeming with partiers of every shape and color—beach life is always a holiday. Coming to such an atmosphere, Janna and Serge immediately became infected with the desire to “worthily” spend their time together. But what to do was not clear. They stood in a fairly short line to buy some smokes and two bottles of Crimean wine. Although this hadn't quite answered their question as to what to do, it calmed them slightly. In any case, Serge thought, “We'll find a nice spot to sit, drink some wine, and maybe lie down for a bit … and so on …”

As they went down an alleyway, Janna came up with a game: who could best imitate a passerby. The premise was that you had to walk up behind a pedestrian unawares and begin to parody his gait. The entire public was witness to this spectacle. People grinned as a vacationer turned around to see Janna in his face, unceremoniously drowning him in her drawn-out laughter.

One elderly woman, hunched over and helping herself along with her walking stick, shuffled along a roadway. What a perfect target! Janna followed closely behind her all doubled up. Her movements were so precise, that Serge's ribs folded over with his laughter. The buxom, well-bred, young woman trailed behind the old woman, flashing her thighs now and then, groaning and murmuring something barely audible. One could discern the replica from the original only by looking at their ages. The old woman turned back and looked all around, but Janna shuffled along in her shoes. The old woman cheerfully swung her cane, aiming for the back of her prankster. But the prankster cleverly dodged the blow, hopped back a few feet, and flashed her bright teeth at the old woman.

Serge, like a young Pioneer
⁹
, decided to support the initiative. Staggering up from the beach below was a man with his trousers hanging below his stomach. His head was covered by a handkerchief, tied at the corners in little knots. He'd clearly gotten sunburned and was drunk on beer or port wine. All the same, he seemed to be in good spirits. On his shoulder he carried a transistor radio, which rustily erupted with some invigorating melody. Serge began to beat out the rhythm and then, breaking in, came up directly under the guy's nose, inviting Janna with a gesture. They began to dance around the dumb-founded vacationer. But considering his condition, the man quickly understood what to do. He placed the transistor on the asphalt and began to spin on his not entirely vertical axis, every now and then clapping his hands over his head and then below his knees. He began to sing "Ochi Chernye”…
¹⁰
while the speakers jingled the rhythm of a march. The onlookers began to gather. Serge got excited. Janna began lifting her legs high as if she were marching in a parade, at the same time making faces and saluting to passersby. Serge grabbed the bottles by their necks and began beating them on his hips. But the march was cut off abruptly; a slow, rather melodic sound had taken its place, most likely something from Paul Mauriat.