Lisa Dickey - Bears in the Streets

The girls immediately changed into funny little yellow dresses. “What’s this about?” I asked.

“They want to do a photo shoot,” Lusya said. The girls scrambled over to a sheer cliff wall and proceeded to strike poses for the next hour, laughing and vamping. Lusya and I went for a swim, but the water was cold, so we didn’t stay in long. After we got out and dried off, the two of us went for a walk.

Lusya and I had been chatting intermittently all day, getting to know each other. She exuded a no-nonsense vibe, though this wasn’t off-putting; she just seemed like a woman who got things done. Her daughters obviously adored her, giving her flowers they plucked along the walk, asking for her help in fixing their hair for the photo shoot. She was constantly in motion, taking care of—well, whatever needed taking care of. Now, as we walked, she proved equally straightforward in conversation.

“Do you have a husband?” she asked. No, I said. “Have you ever?” I shook my head.

“Good for you,” she said, and laughed. She told me she and Sergei had been married for nearly 20 years, since she was 19. “Ah,” I said, nodding knowingly, at which point I suddenly realized that I could play this “no husband” card in a more empowering way. Rather than being the sad old American auntie who can’t find a man, I could be the libertine who’d had countless lovers over the years and simply chose not to settle down. I made a mental note to practice saying, “Why ever would I want a husband?” with a knowing smirk.

After their photo shoot, the girls wanted to take a quick swim. Sergei, Lusya, and I poked around in the tide pools, looking for crabs and starfish, and the three of us marveled at a giant jellyfish that pulsated nearby. There were dozens of these monster jellyfish, though no one was afraid to touch them, as they didn’t sting. Earlier in the day, I’d watched in awe as a woman swam through a cloud of them—another magical sight in a day that felt happily full of them.

Eventually the girls came ashore, dried off, and changed, and we began the long walk back to the car. Lusya asked if I wanted to join them for dinner, and I eagerly said yes—I really liked this family, and the girls reminded me of my nieces back home. Karina, the youngest, had told me earlier about her favorite restaurant in Vladivostok’s Chinatown district, and that was where we were headed now.

On the drive, the girls asked me if I was on Facebook. “Of course!” I said, and Nastya handed me her iPhone. “Put your name,” she said, in English—she wanted to friend me. I took her phone, then felt a pang of dread.

If she looked at my Facebook page, she’d see right away that I was married to a woman, as there were numerous of photos of Randi and me, including many from our wedding. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to me that this might be a problem on the trip, even though I’d known that Russians used Facebook. What to do? I assumed the girls would be shocked, and probably embarrassed, to find that I was gay. And I had to decide within the next 30 seconds what to do about it.

I handed her phone back. “I’ll find you later,” I said. “How do you spell your name?” It made absolutely no sense to do it this way, but Nastya spelled out her last name as I typed it into the memo app on my phone. “OK!” I said, a little too chipper, and put the device back in my pocket. Maybe, I thought, I’ll wait until I’ve left Vladivostok and friend the girls then. Or maybe I’ll just never do it —though the thought made me sad.

Arriving at Vladivostok’s Chinatown, I was surprised to find it was small, dirty, and enclosed by a tall metal fence. The Chinese presence in the city had grown exponentially since I first came here in ’95, when there were hardly any foreigners of any kind. By 2005, Chinese restaurants had opened up all over town, and one Russian woman informed me that most food products in the city were imported from there. “If it weren’t for China, we’d die of hunger!” she’d told me then. Now, ten more years down the road, the Chinese influence on Vladivostok was even more widespread, with vendors, markets, and even tourists visible throughout the city—so this modest little Chinatown felt unexpectedly small.

When we walked into the Dobrynya i Anya restaurant, the staff greeted us warmly, as Lusya and her family were regulars. At the table, Sergei took the lead, ordering a half dozen dishes while the girls and I went to wash our hands. By the time we returned, a bottle wrapped in bright green paper had appeared on the table.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Chinese vodka,” Lusya said. The waitress had put two shot glasses on the table, so Sergei waved her back over. “We need three,” he told her.

“Yes,” I said, gesturing to the girls. “One, two, three. For them.” They giggled.

Lusya tore off the paper and cracked open the bottle. Thus began a series of toasts while waitresses brought out dish after dish of what I can only call Russo-Sino-themed food. There were a couple of garlicky beef dishes, chicken in some kind of tomato paste, a sweet slaw, and a mayo-drenched salad. Eleven-year-old Karina got soup, into which she enthusiastically poured several packets of sugar. And of course, there was the Chinese vodka, which was one of the strangest beverages I’ve ever tasted—sharp and highly alcoholic, with a decidedly petrochemical edge.

We ate and drank until everyone was in a post-hike, postprandial stupor. At this point, the owner—the eponymous Anya, though she was Chinese—came over to see how we had enjoyed our meal. We had a nice little chat, notable primarily because it was fascinating to hear someone speaking Russian with a strong Chinese accent. Then Anya gestured at me and asked Lusya, “So, is this your mother?”

I stared at her, mouth agape. Really? Did I really look old enough to be Lusya’s mother—and, oh god, the grandmother of these children? Lusya, the fixer of all things, leapt in to say, “No, no. She’s only ten years older than I am,” to which Anya replied drily, “Aha. Maybe it’s the haircut. She should get a different haircut.”

I’m not especially vain about my looks, but as we got back in the car I was stewing. “You know,” I said to Lusya, “my friend who I live with”—meaning Randi—“is your age, and occasionally people ask if she’s my daughter. Strangely, it’s usually Asian women who ask.” This was true; when Randi and I had traveled in Thailand, we were asked several times if we were mother and daughter. I was horrified then, and horrified now, but I wanted to believe this was a cultural quirk rather than an accurate assessment of my appearance.

Lusya turned in her seat to look at me. “You live with her because you love each other, right?”

I stared at her. “Um… yes?” I said. Had she really just asked me that, so bluntly, in front of the girls? The conversation quickly turned in another direction, but I felt sure that Lusya knew, was inviting me to share, and didn’t really care one way or another.

Sergei drove us through winding streets, up and up, until we arrived at a scenic overlook. We all piled out of the car, and spread out before us was the whole of Vladivostok, lights twinkling in the night, reflecting in the dark water of the bay. The Golden Bridge was a bright ribbon through the blackness, its V-shaped supports lit by red lights, and its slender cables branching outward like delicate spider webs.

As we walked to the overlook, I caught Lusya’s arm. “When you asked me that, in the car… You understand, yes?”

“Yes,” she said. She told me she’d guessed after our conversation on Russian Island. “And I don’t mind at all. Neither do the girls. At their age no one cares.” Just then, Sergei meandered over and asked what we were talking about. “Girl talk,” she said, cutting him off, and she took my arm and walked me a few steps away.