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“No, really, you do not understand how deeply those people, your family, care about their dream of a new life. I could feel it from them. It touched me and I wanted to show that I understood, that I care.”
“I care, too.” Jennifer was irritated. The air in the taxi had suddenly become stale, close, and she opened a window.
“You sit like a wet fish, nodding, when they tell you they want to leave.”
“What—?
“Yes, yes, I have seen this nodding before. When I asked you to help me leave the country that day—’I’ll do what I can.’” He parodied her voice on that Leningrad street at what seemed like light years ago. “You nod then you return to your pleasant group and laugh together, while I must go on with my life,” he finished dramatically.
“You selfish…I’m the one that’s getting you out of the country! Remember?”
“Only because your friend Paul suggested it. And when were you going to contact me to tell me to be in Moscow? Do you not think I need time to make plans, say goodbye? If I had not received the telegram from Lona, I would not be here today.”
There were so many accusations in that statement that Jennifer didn’t know how to begin to answer him but one thing jumped out. “You got a telegram from Lona?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “At first I thought it was from you, but it did not say ‘jazz with Ella’ so I knew it must be from Lona. She wanted to make arrangements for the painting, that is all. I sell it to her.”
“The painting… The painting from your room, the one of the women picking mushrooms? How did she know about it?” Jennifer was aware that she had put the bigger issues aside in her rush to pin the blame somehow on Lona for what was going wrong between her and Volodya. Inevitably she would have to confront the more fundamental problems.
“Simple,” Volodya replied irritably. “I meet her in the park while I wait for you one day. She is looking at a book about art. I ask her if she likes art. Does she want to see my old and valuable painting? We introduce ourselves; I realize that she is one of your group. All friends together, right? I offer to take her to my flat…”
A blinding wave of jealousy overcame Jennifer. That experience, so golden in her memory, was suddenly ruined. She had been special, the only woman visitor to his apartment, or so she thought…
Libros Libertad 