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“You too,” she said sincerely. “We’ll miss you.” She smiled at Vera who nodded. “There’s something I’d like to give you.” She reached into her purse and removed her wedding ring from where she had tucked it. “You might need this. Please take it. It brought me happiness for a while.” Paul nodded. Vera took the ring wordlessly. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Uh, aren’t you forgetting something else?” asked David.
“The leather jacket? It’s in my cabin—for you.” They all laughed.
“Hey, thanks. But I was actually thinking about what we should say to people back in Canada. Do you have any family at all, Paul?”
He shook his head.
“Any friends who might report you missing?”
“Not any who’d really care. Jen’s been my best friend. Oh, but you can tell Dr. Sommer at the Russian department what happened and tell her that she’s an excellent teacher. I couldn’t have done this without her. But otherwise, no, there is no one. My mother’s been dead a long time now, and so has my grandmother who was my guardian. My dad disappeared—probably because of gambling debts.”
By now Vera was crying openly. “You have family now,” she told him, and Jennifer was overjoyed to see how eagerly he hugged her.
★
Just three blocks away, their tour guide, Natasha Alexeyevna Kuchkov, was sitting on the warm cement buttress of a public fountain. Two other women dressed in sarafani, light cotton dresses, were dipping their bare feet in the fountain’s pool and giggling. Such behaviour was not for her. In any case, the telegram recently received from her director had induced a cooling effect right to the bone. Phone me directly you reach Ulyanovsk, it had ordered. They don’t know what it’s like in the field any more, she thought. When we arrive, I have visits to organize, vouchers to fill in, local staff to supervise. How much time do they think I have?
Thus she had been almost relieved when the rebellious students asked for some afternoon time off, though she wouldn’t admit as much to them. It had given her an opportunity to find the nearest postal and telegraph office where the long distance phone booths were located. She dialled her director on his personal private line and after some buzzing, whining, and several hang-up clicks, she was finally put through.
Manolis Aligizakis 