Elliott Holt - You Are One of Them

IN THE MORNING I called Svetlana again. I didn’t reach her, but this time instead of leaving her a voice-mail message I decided to go to her office. I was tired of being strung along. I wanted more than focus groups. I skipped my Russian class and walked all the way to Ulitsa Petrovka. Inside her building, the guard demanded my passport as usual. I told him I was there to see Svetlana Romanova. “I was just here yesterday,” I said in Russian.

He wanted to know if she was expecting me. I was proud that my Russian had improved so much that I could understand him. “Nyet,” I said. She wasn’t expecting me, but if he called her, I was sure she would be happy to see me. I smiled at him, as if I were a regular in a restaurant greeting my favorite waiter. But he remained impassive. I watched him dial the red phone, listened to him describe me as an “American girl.” When he hung up, I expected him to wave me past. Instead he said that Svetlana wasn’t there.

“Where is she?” I said.

“You can’t stay here,” he said.

“I’ll wait,” I said. “She’ll come down eventually.”

He told me I’d have to wait outside. I took my passport and returned to the cold. It was nearly eleven. I figured that Svetlana or one of her colleagues would step outside for lunch, that I wouldn’t have to wait long. I was wrong. Two hours later I was still waiting. I jumped up and down to keep warm.

It was Andrei, not Svetlana, who finally came out of the building. He was wearing a suit—dark gray with pinstripes—and a navy blue tie, as if he’d been costumed to play a stockbroker. A camel-colored scarf gave him a dash of European flair. “Nasha Amerikanka,” he said. Our American. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to Svetlana,” I said. “She didn’t answer the phone.”

“She isn’t here,” he said.

“Where is she?”

“Yaroslavl.”

“Why Yaroslavl?” I had only a vague idea where the city was. South, I thought, in the provinces somewhere. I imagined a grimy place with a colorless ache of sky.

“Sampling,” he said. “Taste tests, on the street. Unmarked cans, to see what people say.”

“When will she be back?”

He shrugged. “A few days. Why? You have the big idea for us? Sveta says you are helping with the Czar campaign.”

“Not really,” I said.

“You are still looking for your dead friend?” he said with a smirk.

“I’m not sure she’s dead.”

“Either she is dead or she is alive. Are there any other options?”

“That woman at the focus groups ...” I said.

“Who?”

“Zoya,” I said. “She reminded me of my friend.”

“Zoya is my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“Sure, we go way back. Our fathers worked together. I introduced her to Sveta. Now they are thick as burglars.”

“Thieves,” I said. “Thick as thieves.”

“Ah, yes. Sometimes I forget these expressions.”

“If she’s your friend, why was she at the research yesterday?”

“They are paid for the focus groups. We needed people and she needed money.”

“Let me guess: This is information that can’t be shared with Richard.”

He smiled. “You are clever girl. Walk with me. I am going to buy cigarettes.”

I fell into step with him. We turned right onto Ulitsa Kuznetsky Bridge. Passersby carried plastic bags from designer stores—Gucci, Prada, Versace. These empty “packets” were sold on the street to people who could never afford to shop in such places but who wanted to tote designer labels. The bags were wrinkled and worn after being used again and again.

“You don’t ever smoke?” Andrei said.

“I used to,” I said. “Sometimes. In college.” I always felt like I was faking it even during the six-month period when I smoked every day. It was an attempt at cool that never quite fit.

“You have the boyfriend?” He so rarely mixed up his indefinite and definite articles. The boyfriend, I thought, as if there could only be one for a lifetime.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?” he said.

“I guess I’m defective,” I said.

“What is wrong with you? You have an extra toe?”

“No,” I said with a half laugh. “Just ten the last time I checked.”

“You look like a normal girl to me. Absolutely normal American girl.”

“You don’t have much basis for comparison. How many American girls do you know?” I said.

“I lived in USA,” he said. “I saw my share of Americans in Washington. Maybe I was looking through the fence of the embassy compound, watching the girls go by. Maybe I saw you in your school kilt.”

“How did you know I wore a uniform to school?” How grown-up Jenny and I had felt at the start of fourth grade, when we started wearing those itchy tartan skirts.

“Lucky guess,” he said.

“What about Zoya?” I said. “Where in the States did she live?”

“She was also in Washington.”

“At the embassy with you?”

“Not with me,” he said. “Our families were not there at the same time. She was already back in Moscow when I went to Washington.”

“Was her father a spy?” I said.

“Sarushka,” Andrei said. “You are an attractive girl, but this suspicion is not becoming.”

“Doveryay, no proveryay,” I said. Trust, but verify. It was Reagan’s philosophy when dealing with the Soviets.

We had reached a kiosk near the Metro. Andrei asked for a pack of Marlboro Reds. The woman behind the counter reluctantly put down her magazine to fulfill his request. She shoved the cigarettes at Andrei.

“My friend Maxim is having a birthday party Friday night,” he said. “You should come with me.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a party.”

“You cannot spend all your time with foreigners,” he said. “Don’t you want to see real Moscow?”

I did want to see the real Moscow, whatever that meant. But I hesitated. “It’s only Tuesday,” I said. “Give me a few days to think about it.”

“Sveta will be there,” he said. “She’ll be back from Yaroslavl. You can talk to her.”

“Okay,” I said. He promised to pick me up outside Corinne’s building.

IN RUSSIAN CLASS THAT WEEK, we were expressing hopes and desires. “I would like to be a mother,” said the Dutch woman. “I would like to visit Egypt,” said the Chinese diplomat’s wife. Irina waited for me to share my desire with the rest of the class. I hesitated, then said, “I want to find my friend.”

“Kakuyu podrugu?” Irina asked. Which friend?

“Podrugu myertvoyu,” I said. The dead friend.

Irina looked frightened. So I pretended to have mixed up my vocabulary words. “I meant podrugu kotoroyu ya poteryala, ” I said. The friend whom I lost.

I could make a list of all the things I’ve lost over the years. Library books, parking tickets, swim races, my virginity, my temper. My grandmother’s charm bracelet, which told her life story in gold baubles—a San Francisco cable car, a tennis racket, a tiny Eiffel Tower—fell off my wrist one spring afternoon while I was riding my bike around the neighborhood. My favorite jeans disappeared from the laundry room in my dorm sophomore year. And I lost a friend when my first serious boyfriend began sleeping with her—“an unexpected turn of events” he called it, as if he were as surprised as I was to find her in his bed. It was the only time I’ve been angry enough to throw something—an organic-chemistry textbook—at anyone. He ducked, but the book hit the mirror behind him and shattered glass all over his floor. “You fucker!” I said. And he, looking at the discarded condom wrapper on the bedside table said, “Well, yeah.”