Lisa Dickey - Bears in the Streets

We toasted to our meeting, and as I felt the alcohol warm my chest, I hoped that a couple of drinks might loosen Valentina up a bit too. We ate and drank, and I explained that Vladivostok was our first stop on a planned three-month trip across Russia. I told them we were hoping to show, through photos and stories, how people really lived here, and then Gary demonstrated the magic of his digital camera. Vasily refilled our glasses and offered another toast—to friendship!—and, in spite of herself, Valentina smiled. Then we toasted again. And again. And soon everyone was not only smiling, but laughing too. By the end of the meal, Valentina even agreed to let us come back later in the week and take a few photos.

The couple didn’t have a phone, so two days later, we just showed up at dawn. No one seemed to be awake, so we meandered down the narrow gravel “cat’s tail” path to the lighthouse, where Gary took pictures just as the sun’s rays began to shimmer on the water. As we walked back, we saw Valentina scurrying into the generator room, a small separate structure that housed, among other equipment, a two-way radio. Vasily had shown us this room on the day we arrived, explaining that as part of the couple’s duties, they were required to radio in weather data to the Vladivostok Meteorological Institute every three hours.

I wasn’t sure how Valentina would react upon seeing us, but to my relief, she broke into a big smile and waved. Encouraged, Gary asked if he could take pictures while she called in her report. “Oh, no,” she said, “Of course not.” His face fell. Then she said, “Not in this,” and gestured to the old housedress she was wearing. “Come back in a half hour.”

We took another walk, and when we returned, Valentina was wearing a lacy dark blouse and pressed jeans, and she’d put on eyeliner, blush, and coral-pink lipstick. She’d also wrapped her hair in a kerchief-style scarf, giving her the look of an exceptionally stylish farm girl from an old Soviet poster. She posed holding the radio transceiver in one hand and a pencil in the other, and Gary took several lovely photos as sunlight streamed in through a window, backlighting her face.

When the photo session finished, she led us back toward the house as we surreptitiously high-fived behind her. We’d won her over! We were good.

And so we were, until the soldiers showed up.

Valentina had reported our presence to the authorities the day we arrived, as she was required to do. Now, to her apparent shock, two men in uniform had come to check out the situation. Seeing the men before they saw us, I heroically pulled Gary behind a shed to hide. But it was soon clear that they had no intention of leaving, so reluctantly we slunk out. My God, were we really in trouble already? Would our grand adventure be over before it began? The men asked who we were, and whether we had the proper visas to visit Russia. When we answered that we did, they simply shrugged and headed back to their vehicle.

I hoped that passing muster with the soldiers would ease Valentina’s fears, but she was spooked by their visit. She avoided us the rest of the day as we talked with Vasily and the couple’s 18-year-old daughter Lusya, both of whom seemed to find the whole episode rather funny. As the afternoon light began to fade, Vasily once again invited us to stay for dinner, even breaking out a bottle of samogon —homemade berry-infused vodka.

Valentina eventually rejoined us, and as her husband and daughter teased her, she pooched out her lower lip. “I was just following the rules,” she said peevishly. But as before, the alcohol and conversation loosened her up; it was obvious that she preferred being friends to being at odds. Soon, she revealed a mischievous smile and a disarming cackle, and when I showed her photos I’d brought from home, she oohed and aahed and even got a little teary-eyed at one of my young niece. At the end of the evening, she disappeared into her bedroom, and when she came back, she pressed a small object into my hand. It was a silver ring.

“I can’t take this,” I said, but she closed my hand over it with both of hers.

“I want you to have it,” she told me. I couldn’t believe how completely she had turned around; this Valentina was a different person from the scowling woman we’d met 48 hours earlier. By the end of dinner, as Gary and I finally wobbled drunkenly toward the dirt road, I found myself wishing we could have spent more time with her. Then we heard her voice pipe up behind us. “You know,” she said to Vasily, “I’m actually kind of sorry to see them go.”

Ten years later, I came back. On September 3, 2005, I walked down that same steep dirt road, this time with David Hillegas, to find out how Valentina and Vasily were doing.

The lighthouse was still there, a slender white sentinel perched in the blue-black sea. But the narrow spit of land leading out to it, virtually untouched in 1995, was now packed with girls in bikinis and bronzed men chatting on flip phones. I could see a few dozen cars, a ferryboat, and even a small café situated on the shore nearby; the smell of sea air was now tinged with SUV fumes.

Tokarevsky Cape had morphed from edge-of-the-earth solitude to beach blanket bingo, but off to the side I could see the couple’s house, looking much the same—though now it was surrounded by an imposing metal wall rather than the old wooden fence.

As we approached, I saw Vasily puttering about in the yard. “Hello!” I yelled, and he looked up. He motioned for us to walk to the door of the metal wall, and when he pulled it open I blurted, “It’s me! The American journalist who came here ten years ago!” For an excruciating moment, he looked at me blankly, but at last his eyes glimmered with recognition. “Ahhh, yes, I remember you,” he said, then cocked his head. “Was it really ten years ago?”

He waved us in and latched the door behind us. And as we followed him toward the house, he called out as before, “Mother! We have guests!”

Valentina was on the small patio at the rear of the house, vigorously stomping barefoot on sheets in a giant tub of soapy water. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Liza!” she said, using the Russianized version of my name. [1] I’m fortunate to have a name that’s easily Russianized, from Lisa to Liza (pronounced “Leeza”). My name is also mildly amusing to Russians, since the word lisa means “fox,” and dikii means “wild.” Hello, I am the wild fox. Nice to meet you. “Is it really you?” She hopped out of the tub and came to give me a sweaty hug. Then she said, “Wait a minute, let me clean myself up,” and disappeared into the house.

Now 61, Vasily was thinner and grayer, and he had a new mustache that helped camouflage the fact that he’d lost a few teeth. Valentina was aging well, her cheeks rosy and her hands and arms strong. I’d brought a gift of printed photos from the first trip, and as we sat down on the porch to reminisce, I asked what was new since I’d seen them last.

“For us, everything is the same as it was,” Valentina chirped. “Oh, wait. Back then we had one grandchild. Now we have four.”

She thought for a moment. “Some other things are different too. Before, when you came, I was afraid for some reason. I felt like I had to call my boss to report that you were here.” She smiled. “But now it’s more free. You can come and go as you like, take whatever photographs you like.” At this, she waved her hand grandly toward the lighthouse, as though I’d just won it in a game show.