Jump

My heart is ripped,

I don’t know where to go…
Should I live or let die
The life as I know it?
 

I can’t continue

To breathe without air,
There is none left in me
That I can share.

 

I’m looking for exit

But all are prop doors,
There is nothing behind them
Only more walls.

I’ll jump off the cliff

Into the murky unknown,
The air in flight
Will catch me in its throne.

I can make it I know.

I’ll have a long time to gather
All bits of my heart
That my jump has shredded.
 

But it will beat again,

With the new happy light.
I will breathe again
And help others take flight…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

KIEV

 

January 19, 1997        It’s going great! I got lost on the metro today, was late for the meeting in the Headquarters and found out I like this place a lot!  My cultural education has began. I got food poisoning, and I know what “borsch” is...

I was weighing the situation from last night and if I should tell anyone about the visit from a girl last night.  I came out for breakfast and that resolved my worries. 

“Hey, guys, you know, we have received very strange phone calls last night.  They called about three times, asking if I wanted a friend.  Are they checking us out, I mean like KGB maybe?  Did any of you receive that kind of call?” Ann voice was a bit shaking.  Bless her heart.  She was here with her husband.  They were the retirees in our group, and even though she was older, she was so naïve.

Some of the guys bursted into laughter. 

“Yeah, I got a phone call, alright,” said Joe.  “I think Sean did too, right?  Matt, did you get a call?”

“Ah-h, yeah,” I said after a moment of hesitation.  “What did you say to yours?”

“The only thing I can say, Ann,” said Joe as he ignored my question and was talking to Ann again, “they were not checking us out, and it wasn’t KGB who called!”  He laughed and winked at me, and I got a funny feeling as if he implied he in fact had invited a friend.

“What’s all the commotion here?” asked Mark, Ann’s husband, as he approached our table with a load of local pancakes, called “blini” on his plate.  They looked like Swedish pancakes to me or crepes.

“I was telling them about the strange phone calls last night,” said Ann turning towards him. 

They were great people.  I think this old couple has possessed what the definition of happiness is all about.   They were high school sweethearts, who went through life hand in hand and now, were here on their extended retirement adventure. 

Joe and Sean were still laughing.

“I told you I should have picked up the phone,” said Mark, “you would not be scared like this now.”

“I am not scared,” said Ann defensively, “the boys here think it was not KGB who called, after all.”

“Strange,” said Laura in a dreamy voice, “I wonder why no one called me?  I need someone to talk to and be my friend.”  She exhaled loudly and rested her head, propping it on her hands.

“Well,” Joe responded, “I don’t think that friend would be able to talk to you much.  You didn’t get your proper language training yet!  But if you need to talk to someone, hey, I am here and my ears are tuned in!”

“I’ll consider that next time, Joe,” Laura said with a look that could only mean something like “Dream on, jerk.”

The chatter about phone calls continued throughout the breakfast, but no one admitted if they actually had any communication with “friends.”  With that conversation, it seemed like everybody forgot to talk about the lack of hot water or heat, or other challenges that lay ahead of us.  Was that another psychological trick of some sort that someone played on us?  Distract us with these phone calls, so that we would not complain about more important things that were lacking?  

Soon our coordinator came and we were told that we would need to be at headquarters by ten to start our introductory training and complete more paperwork.  The hotel was almost an hour away from the headquarters if you drove a car, but we didn’t have cars, so we would have to use the metro system.  We were warned that all the signs in the metro system are written in Russian or Ukrainian.  Since none of us could read in either of these languages yet, we had to rely on our arithmetic skills to get from point A to point B.  The instructions that we received were something like “go four stops, get out on the fifth, change the metro lanes, get on the northbound train, go another three stops, get off on the fourth, then go downhill across the bridge, turn right and then left.”  All right, sounds easy enough, but it was easier said than done. 

We all headed out to the metro station in hopes that the directions would bring us to the headquarters.  

After a ten minute walk, we took a ride on the longest escalator I have ever been on.  Literally you couldn’t see the end of it from the beginning.  I have never been that deep below the ground surface.  The metro station itself was beautiful!  It was decorated like a museum with mosaic, showing the pictures from Soviet era.  Is that what they mean by the “underground art”?

The metro station was packed with people, all kinds of people young and old.  I was looking at people in general and women in particular, and was surprised by how many of them were from simply good looking to gorgeous.  They were passing by in their morning rush and I have to admit I have not noticed any Olympic javelin throwers on steroids as I expected them to look like. Most of them were young slender girls looking kind of like the one that visited me last night by mistake.  Were they competing with one another in an unspoken beauty competition, wearing provocative outfits and high heels despite of cold weather and a thick layer of ice on the ground?  We were clearly misled by the way we perceived the women here until now.  Would there be a “Cold war” if we knew that the women here were hot?  Not that I minded the scene that was unfolding in front of me, but a question about the nations morals got raised in my head.  I think I know why the Ukraine was in the position it was.  It was ruled mostly by men and how can any man concentrate and be rational, when he is constantly destructed by so many beautiful women around?  Do you ever get desensitized to that? Moreover, if you do, then what?  I decided that I would not fall the victim to the charms that were radiating from everywhere, at least for today.

My mind got clearer when I saw some old women, wrapped in muddy blankets, some with dirty children sitting in the metro tunnels begging for money.  They looked like they were homeless, and I felt bad to see the amount of poverty they represented.  They were distinctively different from the crowd of morning commuters.

Having all those thoughts burning through my head I didn’t notice as I got separated from my group.  I saw some of them getting into a metro car.  I hurried up and squeezed through the crowd.  I was able to get in on the same train as others, but in a different car.  Did I mention it was packed?  I felt like a sardine jammed into a can.  Lucky me!  I got jammed into a wall next to a young couple, who didn’t mind my presence there at all and were kissing away, and I don’t mean bird pecks, they were almost eating each other!  I have never before been subjected to feeling the breath from other people during their kiss and I was not a part of it.  I felt sick to my gut and suddenly realized I missed my car back home, where I have my personal space and no one would violate it without my invitation and consent.  And here, now, there was no room to move, so needless to say I was anxious to get out, and I think I have miscalculated my stops. 

I knew I had to change the metro lines.  The arrows on the signs were pointing to both ends of the platform.  Of course the signs were written in Cyrillic alphabet.  I could’ve figured out what they said by comparing the letters of the note I had to the signs, but that didn’t work, because I only wrote down the name of the street for the Peace Corps headquarters in English. 

I had no choice but to go on my instincts.  I decided to go north, as I was supposed to catch a northbound train next, but the crowd that was moving in the opposite direction and carried me outside.  There was no other line! I realized that I got out on the wrong stop, too early, but going back into a packed train was not an option I wanted to take.   

I would expect myself to feel panicky in the situation like this, but surprisingly, I felt rather confident and safe in this strange huge city.  I had a pretty good sense of direction.  After all, the Boy Scout experience was under my belt!  It was time to put this experience into action.  The one thing I knew was how to get back to the hotel.  So, even if I don’t find the headquarters, I would be able to re-trace my steps and get back there.  An as to today’s meeting, well, it was not like anyone could really fire me if I didn’t show up.  I decided to go in the same direction the metro train would have taken me, in hopes to get to the next station. 

My path lay through a park that was surrounded by a tall iron fence.  I looked for an entrance.  It was a surprise to realize that the older heavy set woman, who sat in front of the gate, wanted me to pay for the entry.  I wondered, if I refused to pay her and went through, what would she be able to do to me?  She looked pretty defenseless herself.  I thought it was just a park, but since I had to pay for entry, I assumed it was some sort of botanical garden.   One could not really tell, because it was winter and all trees looked bare like any other trees, and there was no other indication that this could be a botanical garden, no parking lot, or visitor center, or anything like that.  The woman pointed at a sign with number “four” on it.  Was that the amount she wanted me to pay?  It was not expensive, but not planned.  I had some ghrivnias (name of Ukrainian currency) I exchanged at the hotel earlier this morning.  So I gave four to the woman, and she let me through the gate. 

It was a rather nice park with paved curvy paths.  I was sightseeing and felt somewhat lost.  There was no one around, not even a squirrel.  Only bare trees, and a buzzing sound of the busy city in the distance were my companions here. 

After almost an hour and a half spent in the maze of the park, my feet started to feel numb from walking, and so did my head.  The sound of a busy street was getting more and more pronounced, and soon I reached the opposite side of the park.  Quite a contrast it presented to the emptiness of the park – like another world.  I didn’t know the name of the street, but on the other side of it, I saw an entrance to an underground.  It looked like a metro!  I was on the right track after all! 

Since I was able to find a metro again, I felt strong in my navigational ability now and decided not to go back into the station.  What I needed was a map to figure out the general direction I was supposed to head. I saw a magazine kiosk across the street near the entrance to the metro.  They should have a map there, I thought.  So I crossed the street. 

There was a little makeshift farmer’s market set up next to the magazine kiosk.  One woman was selling bouquets of flowers from a green bucket.  The flowers were gorgeous, but the bucket had chipped paint on it.  The other one next to her was selling potatoes.  Both of them sat on wooden crates instead of chairs.  How can one sit in one spot when it’s this cold? I felt compassionate towards their determination.  These women looked tough and reminded me of the stereotype I had about Soviet women.  They could have played in the NFL as line-men.  Fluffy grey woolen shawls wrapped their heads and torsos to keep them warm.  Next to them there was a stand with dairy products, from what I could tell.  The customers would come with their own glass containers, and the farmer would pour something white like buttermilk or sour cream into them from a huge aluminum barrel.  The barrels with dairy products were not sealed or even covered – everything was in the open.  Is this sanitary?   I am sure in the US there would be fines for this kind of distribution. 

Next was a bakery stand.  In contrast to the dairy stand, this one really looked appetizing.  It had some sort of fried doughnuts.  I could eat that!  I heard a growling sound coming up from my empty stomach.  The blini I had for breakfast were evaporated by my cross-park expedition. 

I pointed to the one I liked, and the vendor showed me a finger, the index finger.  I understood I had to pay one ghrivnia for it.  I looked in my wallet and saw the bills I had were all of much larger denomination.  The only small ones I had were given away to the park-lady.  I gave the vendor the smallest one I had with fifty ghrivnias written on it.  She took it, but apparently didn’t have enough change to give me. She gave the money back to me saying something very fast with frustration in her voice.  She shook her head.  I pulled out one dollar and gave it to her.  I can afford to pay a dollar for a piece of food, even if it costs twenty-five cents...  Why wouldn’t she take it?  I thought.  The vendor started saying something even faster and shaking her head.  I just stood there and watched her dumbfounded.  Finally she realized her ranting was not getting anywhere with me, so she put the dollar in her pocket and gave me the fried doughnut I wanted.  I thanked her in English. To my surprise this doughnut was not really a doughnut.  It was a fried dough pocket, stuffed with meat.  Well, even better for me!  Warm food refreshed my mind.          

The map! I remembered and started looking through the printed literature offered at the magazine kiosk.  I hoped I would recognize a map.  But nothing looked like one.  Black and white newspapers and a couple of colored magazines were the only printed products offered by this kiosk along with chocolate bars, some other type of candy, and paper cones with sunflower seeds.  Very weird combination of goods.  I gave up on the kiosk to be able to provide me with a map.  I looked around and saw a poster with... a map!  It was right on the entrance to the metro.  I studied it anxiously.

I assumed everybody in the PC Headquarters knew by now that I was late for the ten o’clock, as I hadn’t showed up there and was missing in action for over an hour.  And since I was already late, it would not make that much difference if I was even later.  Ramifications, if any, would be the same. 

I walked down the hill and through another smaller park.  This one didn’t look as empty, and there was no charge to get in.  It was near a university or a college campus of some sort as I saw crowds of young people drifting through the park.  All of them either carried books in their hands or had book bags.  They must have been college students.  Again, the number of pretty girls passing by struck my eyesight.  I was admiring the scene represented by both the landmarks and the locals. 

Well, if I have some time to explore now, why not to explore the people too, I thought to myself.  I didn’t speak neither Ukrainian nor Russian and felt like a mute.  If this was one of my challenges, it was time to face them head on.  I saw a group of cute college girls.  Cultural emersion here I come!  Looking at this group of girls was like looking at a bouquet of wild flowers. All of them were slender and pleasant in appearance.  I pulled out the handwritten note with the address I received from our coordinator at breakfast, and approached them.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” I asked a blond girl in a short red leather jacket.  By the way, this would become my main pick up line for the next two years.  Momentarily the eyes of all the girls in the group were on me.  It was evident they studied me with high interest.  The girl, I directed my question to, shook her head shyly, but the other one, a brunette with big blue eyes was not as shy.

“Yes, I speak English,” she said.  She spoke with an accent, but it was not as bad as they portrayed in James Bond movies.  The other girls started giggling and whispering something into each other’s ears, while I was talking to the brunette. 

“Great!” I said.  “I am new here and I am lost.  I need to find this is address.  Could you help me?” I showed the piece of paper with address on it to the girl.  Now all girls looked at the address and started discussion I could not understand, but I am assuming they were figuring out the best way for me.

“You need to go straight, and turn right on Shevchenko Street, go three more blocks and you find it,” the brunette said with an inviting smile.

“Well, I am not very familiar with the area at all.  It is my second day here.  Are you very busy now?  Do you think you could walk with me and show me the way?” I asked the brunette, not hoping for the positive response.  It was a long shot, but one couldn’t get anything unless one asked for it.  If I tried to pull a trick like this in the States, the cops would probably be called on me.  I would never do it there, but here everything seemed to be so different, and people’s expectations and standards were different.  It gave me courage.

“No, I am not busy, I can walk with you,” she said to my amazement.

“Oh, thanks!  That’s great!”

The brunette whispered something to her friends – probably something like goodbye – and exchanged meaningful glances with a couple of the girls from the group. 

  “Bye girls!” I waved at the group as we were leaving them.

“Okay, where are we headed?” I asked.

“That way,” said my new companion pointing toward the intersection.  We walked in silence for a while.

“What is your name?” I finally asked the girl, who was kind enough to become my guide.

“Yulia,” she said.

“Youla” I tried to repeat.

“No,” she said, “Yulia!”  making the “L” sound so mild, I could not repeat.  My tongue just doesn’t do twists like that.

“Nice to meet you!  I am Matthew, but my friends call me Matt.”

“It is nice to meet you, Matt, too,” her word order added to her accent, which sounded pretty.

“Do you go to school here? Are you a student?”

“I am a university student.  This is our building,” she pointed to an impressive building with columns and Baroque molding.   Why everything looks like a museum here?

“Cool! It is very beautiful,” I tried to keep my speech as simple as possible, as I didn’t know how good her English was and I didn’t want to confuse my new friend.   

“Yes, it is nice.  It’s called Kievo-Mogilyanska Academy.”

“Oh, please don’t make me repeat that!” I said and she giggled.

“Where are you from?” Yulia asked.

“I am an American,” I was proud to say I was.

“I see,” she replied, and shook her head, but I felt like she meant much more by that gesture then I could comprehend.  “What do you do here?” she asked, but I didn’t answer right away.

I noticed couple of little cafes along the way.  It was almost lunchtime and I was getting hungrier by the moment.  The sight of bakery stand was still in my head.

“Would you like to have lunch with me, before we get to my destination?  I promise to answer your question then.  How much time do you have?”

“I need to go back at one o’clock,” Yulia’s speech had a little bit of British flair in it.

“Oh, we have plenty of time!”

We turned off the street to one of the small eateries.

“I hope this place is good!” I said rubbing my hands in anticipation of getting warmed up.

“It’s not bad,” said Yulia. “We come here often after classes.”

The eatery was located in the basement of an old building.  We took the stairs down and ended up in a rather cozy little place.  The lights were dimmed down.  Green wallpaper and dark wooden molding around the doorframes and between ceiling and walls brought intimate feel to this place.  About six tables covered with striped tablecloths and little white vases didn’t really complement the rest of the interior, but I was not about to complain.  We sat at one of the tables.  A laminated one-page menu the server gave us didn’t give me much information, as I could not read it.

“So, what’s good here?” I asked Yulia.  She was looking at the menu with confidence.

“Have you ever had borsch?”

“What’s that? Borsh?” I tried to imitate the new word. Yulia laughed at me or at my pronunciation.  I am glad she found me entertaining.  I bet she has never seen someone as clueless about her culture as I was.

“It is a kind of red soup.  It has beets and you eat it with sour cream,” the sight of the sour cream stand came to my memory.  I hope the sour cream they use here was not purchased the same way I saw it done just a little while ago.

“That sounds... different.  Okay I’ll try that.”

“You might also like pelmeni,” Yulia added with a smile.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know how to explain in English.  You can try and find out!”

“That sounds like a plan,” I smiled back at her.

The waitress came up and Yulia ordered for both of us.  How lucky for me!  Without her I would go hungry!  I should say the women in this country ROCK!

“You promised to tell me why you are in Kiev,” Yulia reminded.  She seemed like a really nice girl and I appreciated her being so trustful to me.  I would never be able to score a lunch with a pretty girl like her so quickly back home.

“I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Do you know anything about Peace Corps?”

“No,” she shook her head.  I saw an opportunity for a moment to shine, so I gave her a speech about the history of the organization, and used some of the patriotic slogans our country advisor used back in Washington for his motivational speech.  Yulia seemed to be very impressed.

The waitress came back with our food.  She brought dark rye bread and two bowls with red soup and a dab of sour cream in the middle.  She asked Yulia something and then left.  I don’t know if I was that hungry, but the borsch was actually pretty good.  I usually don’t like soups, nor do I eat beets, but this dish impressed me.  After we were done with the borsch, the waitress brought pelmeni.  They turned out to be a version of dumplings or ravioli without the tomato sauce.  The dressing for the pelmeni consisted of sour cream once again, mayo and ketchup.  Interesting.  Different.  I liked it all.  Possibly having lunch in a good company had a lot to do with it.   Yulia’s presence had intensified the positive emotions I was experiencing from simple food consumption.

It was my turn to question Yulia. 

“You’re very pretty, and your English is really good, Yulia,” I complemented her, and she blushed. “Do a lot of Ukrainians speak English as well as you do?  How did you get so good?” I had to find out more about communicating with locals.

“Some do.  English is most popular language to learn, when you are at school.  I finished English school. We did many English classes.  So that helped.”

“I hope I’ll get as good with my Russian soon enough.  We are going to Cherkassy for a cultural and language training,” I said and noticed the expression on Yulia’s face changed a little.  Was she sad?  She didn’t even know me, and she was sad because I was leaving.  I pretended I didn’t notice the change.

“Can I have your phone number, so that when I’m in Kiev next month I could call you?  Would you give me such an honor and be my personal guide again?”

Yulia smiled and agreed.  She asked a waitress for a pen.  The waitress gave her a dirty look, but it seemed Yulia didn’t care.  She wrote her number on the same piece of paper that brought us together.  The paper with the address reminded me about the purpose of today.  It was time to go if I ever wanted to make it to the PC Headquarters.

“Thank you, Yulia.  Do we want to go?” I asked her.  “How can we get a check?”

“I’ll ask her to give check,” said Yulia and called to the waitress.  Of course I would not let Yulia go Dutch on me after all her willingness to help.  And she didn’t express any intentions to pay either.  I paid the bill, which was very reasonable – another nice surprise of the day.

“How far do we have to go?” I asked Yulia when we were outside once again.

“The Saksaghanskogo Street is behind that bridge and around the corner.”

“How to say that again? Seksa… what?” I asked Yulia, more for amusement for I knew I would fail to say it right.  I should note, the name of this street suddenly reminded me of something else… 

She giggled again and said, “Repeat after me: Sak-sa-ghan-sko-go…”

“Sak-sa-ghan-sko…” I said, trying hard to make it sound right this time.

“That’ll do,” she said. “I have to go back now.  You are very close to address you need.  Just walk straight across the bridge and turn left into that first street over there.”  She pointed to the gap between the buildings on the other side of the bridge.   

“Well, Yulia, my new friend,” I said as I took her hand in mine.  She didn’t take it away and was just looking into my eyes with a smile. “It was a pleasure to meet you.  Thank you for your company, and thank you for being my guide today.”

“You are welcome,” she said. 

I kissed her cheek, and she blushed.  Is everyone as friendly in this country? 

“I’ll call you,” I promised her as I was walking towards the bridge and she headed in the opposite direction.  I wondered if she skipped a class or something to be able to help me today.  As I was on my way, I kept thinking about Yulia and I smiled to myself.  I wondered what lay ahead.    

Soon I crossed the bridge, turned right into the alley, and was surprised to feel the tension leave my body, as I stood in front of a gated building with an American flag in front of it.  It was like I was holding my breath for a long time and finally was able to breathe again.  I made it to the headquarters!  It wasn’t as attractive from the outside as I imagined it would be.  It looked something like an old apartment building.  A tall iron fence and many mature trees surrounded it.  Most of the trees had the bottom few feet of their trunks painted white. Was that supposed to add to the landscaping, which otherwise was absent?  Or were they trying to camouflage the trees in preparation for winter?  I really got a strong feeling of being on American territory once again as I got inside.  The technology was there, and the staff members were very professional.  I knew what to expect once again. 

It turned out I was not the only one who got lost that day.  I hoped that the experiences of others lost were as enriching as mine.

The receptionist, who greeted me as I walked in, was another attractive local woman.

“Are you with the new group?” She beamed at me.

“Yes, I’m Matt Herr.”

“Oh, great… Mr. Herr,” she said and blushed a bit.  “I heard others mentioning your name.  Did you have any problems finding your way?”

“Yeah, I got lost for a while.”

“Well, I am glad you made it.  My name is Tania.  Let me know if you need any help around here,” her English was pretty much perfect.  “You can go upstairs and take a left to the conference room.  I’m sure your group members will be glad to find out you are okay.”

“Thank you, Tania.  It was nice to meet you.”  I gave her a last glance and headed upstairs.

“Where have you been?”  Laura jumped at me right away with her questioning like I owed her an explanation.  I was quite surprised by her charge, and my surprise must have shown, for she backed away.  “We started to worry about you,” she said with less intensity in her voice.

“Oh, I got lost.  I got kicked out of the metro too early and had to find my way in on foot,” I said.  Why do I feel I have to explain myself to her?   

“Ann and Mark got lost too, but they were able to make it in two hours ago!” Laura’s tone got more demanding once again, and she turned her pretty face away from me.  She started to sound like my mother.  To smooth things over, I told her and James, one of the other guys from our group sitting in the room, my story about the passionate couple in the metro and a part of my adventure, such as botanical garden.  I didn’t say anything about Yulia.  Laura kind of made me feel guilty about slacking off on the very first day.  Whatever, Laura… I would not let her spoil my bad day that turned out so good.

Others came into the room, and we prepared to listen to another motivational speech.  This time it was from our country Peace Corps Director.  He reminded us again to carry ourselves professionally, as we were here to represent our country and to do the best we could.  We were also instructed on what we could and couldn’t do.  He actually turned out to be a very nice man, who sincerely appreciated us being here. 

Later we were asked to fill out more paperwork.  We submitted our applications for diplomatic cards.  I guess we would have some diplomatic status in this country, and the cards were supposed to serve as picture IDs and to protect us from local militia. So far, so good.

I met some of the other people who worked at the Headquarters, and spoke with some of the guards.  They were Ukrainians who spoke good English.  I found out that most of the guards used to be in the KGB during the Soviet era, but now they had to change their career and guard us, their former primary enemies!  Wasn’t that ironic?  Among them, there was this one guy, Zhenia, who obviously still had connections.  One would never be able to tell of his influence by his appearance.  He wasn’t tall, but he had a strong built.  His hair of unidentifiable dark color mixed with traces of gray, topping his dark face.  Deep wrinkles covered his features, the kind people get from long sun exposure. His small black eyes seemed to look straight through you when he spoke in short precise sentences.  He didn’t wear a uniform of a guard, but instead wore a dark blue jogging suit with white side stripes.  I didn’t know if it was his weird sense of fashion or if his attire meant something else, like a secret uniform.  He smoked constantly, just like most of the other guards. 

The day was coming to an end, and it was time to go back to the hotel.  We would have to come back the next day to meet more personnel, like doctors and others who were there to help us in our mission.

I felt slightly melancholic.  Yulia’s phone number was in my pocket, and I was wondering if I would be pushing my luck that day to get her to see me again before we left Kiev.  Laura interrupted my thoughts. 

“So do you need assistance to get you to the hotel?” she asked slightly sarcastically.

“No, I think I’ll be okay.” I pulled a smile over my lips to be polite to her.  Besides, she was the only really attractive girl in my group, so I guess I should appreciate her for that, even though I was getting to know her better and was not feeling too comfortable with my discoveries.

“Hey guys, are you going?” James approached us casually.

“Going where? To the hotel?” Laura asked with surprise in her voice.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?  The secretary, I guess that’s who she is – the local girl downstairs – is inviting our group to her house for dinner,” James explained.

“Is that normal for people here to invite a bunch of strangers to their house the day you first meet them?” My question went unanswered as apparently it was not directed at anyone in particular.

“No, I didn’t know that, no one told me,” Laura said, “Did you hear anything about this Matt?”

“Nope,” I said, “it’s the first time I hear about this.”  I thought of the blond pretty receptionist, who’d greeted me at the entrance this afternoon.  I would go to her house!

We went downstairs.  No Yulia tonight, I suppose.  The wooden steps of a narrow stairway squeaked under our feet.  About five people from our group were already waiting. 

“Oh, did everyone meet Tania?” asked Ann, looking at us as we approached the group. She continued with introductions all around. “And this is Matt.  He needs extra help, he gets lost easily,” Ann joked, but I could only produce a frown in response to that kind of introduction. 

“Hi,” I said to Tania, “Yeah, we met this afternoon.  Thanks for the invite.  Do we need to bring anything?”

“Oh, no don’t worry!  I have it all set up.  Today I’ll treat you to some vareniki.  I do a welcoming party for every new coming group,” she replied. 

Zhenia, the guard, pulled over in his minivan.  It reminded me of the hospital transportation service vans.  He was our transportation to Tania’s house.  I guess she really had it all taken care of.  The transportation was provided as well. 

I took a seat in the back by the window, and Laura followed me.  The van took off and took us in an unknown direction.  At least, unknown for me.  I would not be able to find my way out, even if my life depended on it.  

I was starving again and my stomach produced a loud growl to give me away.  Laura pushed me with her elbow. 

“Didn’t you have your Wheaties today?” she asked. 

“No, I left them in my car,” I smiled back at her attempt to joke with me. 

“Your car?  You bought a car here?” Laura was looking at me with her eyes wide open.

“Back home, I mean,” I corrected myself.

“Oh, I see.  I though you meant you bought a car today, and that’s why you were late for the class,” she said a little bit embarrassed.

“Yeah, I bought a car today with the hundred ghrivnias I have in my pocket,” I shook my head laughing at her. “You are the most gullible person I have ever met, Laura!”

“Well, it was you and not me who was mysteriously gone for a good chunk of the day.  And you are keeping to yourself all the time, so I would expect anything from you!”

“Laura, I told you my story.  I got lost.  The park was huge, and I thought I was in a labyrinth and would never be able to come out.  It was an Alice in Wonderland experience!”

“This park sounds pretty interesting.  Take me with you next time you go there – I like adventures,” Laura was saying with a smile now.

“I will.  You’d better tell me what I missed today,” I asked Laura to change the subject.

“Well, you missed the lecture about how to use the water purifier and its importance.  That’s the bucket in your goodie bag.”  Everyone got a plastic bag full of stuff at the Headquarters that day.

“Oh, I wondered what it was.  That doesn’t look like a regular water filter to me.”

“Because it’s not a regular water filter!  Didn’t you hear me? It’s a WATER PURIFIER!” Laura whispered the last word directly into my ear in a very loud intense kind of way.  I had to rub my ear, cause she blew air in my ear with every word.

“Oh, I gotcha.” I tried to scoot over towards the window, but there was no space.

“So, don’t drink water directly from the facet here, ever!” she continued.  “The water purifier makes distilled water and that’s what we have to use.  Apparently the water quality here is not the best, in fact it’s pretty dangerous!  I think it has something to do with Chernobyl...”

“Really?” I looked at her in dismay.  I remembered a glass of water I had at the café in the afternoon.

“Yeah, you can get all kinds of intestinal problems,” said Laura, shaking her head. “I would assume people here somehow adjusted to this water.  They either learned to purify it or their bodies got immune to the contaminants that the water may carry.” She was quiet for a moment. “So make sure you read the instructions on this water purifier.  It’s fool proof.”

“I will, I will,” I said with a smile.  “What else?”

“Well, it’s not very safe here.  So they gave us some sort of a whistle.  Let me see your bag.”  She grabbed my bag from me and pulled out the smaller plastic pack with a black item inside.  It looked like a car key with two buttons and a pin sticking out of it. “There aren’t any instructions for this. They just told us how to work it.  Do you mind if I open it?”

“Oh, go ahead,” I said. 

Laura ripped the plastic off in one motion and took the whistle in her hand.

“Now,” she said, her voice confident in her knowledge, as if she were about to share some kind of secret with me.  “This is not a regular whistle, it’s electronic.  See this pin right here?” She pointed to a green extension to the unit. “The whistle will make an alarm sound if you pull it out just like this.”  And she pulled the pin out.  Instantly the van was filled with a horribly loud high-pitch sound.  I thought my ear drums would explode.  So did everyone in the minivan.  The van made a swinging motion in heavy traffic as Zhenia was trying to regain the control over the vehicle.  His years in the KGB paid off, and we kept moving on the busy street.  The sound could awake a dead.  Over the chaos the sound created, I heard Zhenia cursing in English.  Laura got scared and dropped the whistle on the floor.  She covered her ears and screamed.  The sound would not stop. 

“Calm down!  Calm down!” Tania got off her seat and tried to settle down the panic.

“How do you turn this thing off?” I yelled to Laura at the top of my lungs trying to make myself understandable to her through both the noise and her covered ears.

“I don’t know,” Laura cried.

I frantically looked for the whistle on the floor, but I couldn’t see it.  Joe found it.

“Here it is!” he yelled. “Where is the pin?” he asked me. “You have to stick it back into the unit!”

“The green thing?” I asked him, and he nodded his head. “Laura, where is the pin?” I touched Laura on her shoulder, but she squinted and didn’t react to my question.  She opened her eyes, and I had to repeat my question.  The expression on her face was still frightened and indicated she hadn’t heard what I’d said before. “Where is the pin, Laura?”

Everyone’s eyes were on Laura now.

“I dropped it when it came off,” she said sheepishly, her face red in embracement.

“Nice!” I said more to myself.  “Where did it go when you dropped it?” I shouted at her. She started looking on the floor, and so did everyone else. The whistle kept screeching.  Finally the sound stopped.  The commotion calmed down. 

“Did you find it?” I asked Joe.  He had the whistle last.

“Nope,” he said. “You’re gonna have to get a new whistle, man.  Was it yours or Laura’s?”

“What did you do?” I asked Joe.

“I crushed it.  It was faster then finding a stupid pin on the floor in the dark!” He opened his hand.  The whistle was pretty much a pancake.

“Why would you experiment with this on the road?” asked Ann, her voice still shaking from shock.  Laura was silent.  She just looked at her hands.

“Oh, Laura was just getting me on track with what I missed this morning.  Sorry about that everyone,” I tried to neutralize the situation.

I heard James laughing. 

“Sorry... It’s my fault,” he said struggling to contain himself.  “Laura was in the restroom when they talked about the whistle.  I told her how it works, but I guess I left out couple of details, like ‘don’t try it unless you really have to’ like in an emergency and how to stop it.”

Laura looked at James.  His attempts to get Laura to notice him paid off, but not in a good way.  If her eyes had laser beams, James would be in flames.

Some of the others joined in with James and found the whole ordeal amusing, but some were still processing what just happened. 

I was eternally thankful to Zhenia as he was able to continue driving despite the chaos and delivered us safely to our destination in about twenty minutes.  The van turned off the main road into the labyrinth between apartment complexes.  I’d never seen an apartment complex so huge. We stopped in front of one of them.  It was a good block long and at least sixteen stories tall.  Other apartment complexes around were as significant in size.  A honey comb.  It was kind of creepy. 

Tania led us to one of the entrances into the complex.  I did not know what to make of the surroundings.  It reminded me of the big city projects back home.  Old misshaped trash cans stood right next to the stairs that led to the door in to the building.  The walls and doors had dents and some signs and images scraped and drawn on them and were in a serous need of a new coat of paint.  The narrow passage that we took to the elevator was lit by a dim light from a light bulb masked in red paint and enclosed in a cage.  The amount of poverty hit me again, like it did in the metro earlier this morning, when I saw those beggars in the station. 

“Why is the light bulb barred?” I asked Tania, while we waited for the elevator.

“So that no one steals it,” she answered casually. “We always had it stolen before the bars were put in place.”

“Who and why would steal a light bulb?”

“I don’t know.  Some kids may play a bad joke, who knows.  But it’s better not to be around when those trouble makers are doing their business.  It’s easier to rob someone when it’s dark,” Tania spoke about this as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.  That shocked me quite a bit.  What kind of reality one should live in to be able to get accustomed to this type of evens?

We took the elevator to the eleventh floor.  When we got to Tania’s apartment, I was pleasantly surprised.  The interior of her apartment was dramatically different from what we saw in the hallway.  It was neat and well furnished.  It looked like she had a taste for Persian rugs, because they were present in every room, both on the floor and hung on the walls.

“It’s a pretty place you have here”, Laura complemented Tania, and the others joined in.  I’m assuming everyone was impressed by the contrast as well.  Tania invited everyone to the living room, where food was served on a long table.  There were two older women there.

“This is my mother Elena Ivanovna and her friend Nina Nikolaevna”, Tania introduced. “They cooked and set the table for us today”. 

That was nice of them.  It probably took all day to prepare all the food that was on this table.  There were not enough chairs for everyone to sit around it, so it was moved to the sofa.  The sofa provided additional seating spots.

After a round of introductions, we took our seats.  The food on the table looked inviting and very edible.  Many dishes with different kinds of meats and salads made the table look full of color like a feast fit for a king.  Groups of bottles with Russian vodka and other beverages served the role of centerpieces.

The food looked very good, but I did not feel like eating for some reason.  This was totally out of character for me. 

Laura sat next to me with a big smile on her face.  She seemed to be enjoying the reception and in much better mood now.  “This is great!  I need a good drink after all that happened, right?”  she asked me jokingly. 

I tried to smile back to her, but the smiling did not come easy.  Something was wrong with me.  I felt a slight buzzing in my head.  I didn’t respond to her.

“Matt, are you still mad at me?” Laura insisted to continue the conversation.

“No, I was never mad at you, just surprised.  I don’t feel so good.”  As soon as I said that, a wave of cold sweat ran through my body.  I could feel something knocking on my throat from inside.  I had to excuse myself from the table. 

It was certainly not too lucky for me that the restroom was separate from the shower room, where the sink was.  I really needed them both together.  I chose the water closet, and the toilet became my best friend for the next few hours.   I have never had such an outpour in my life.   Through the thumping and buzzing sound in my head, I heard James knocking on the door asking if I was all right.  I could not respond to him, but I’m assuming the sounds I was involuntarily making clued him in to what was going on.

“Someone is a lightweight!” he commented, loud enough for me and others to hear.  

“Matt, are you okay?” I heard Laura’s voice. “Gush, let me help you.”

“Go away!” I was able to squeeze out a hoarse moan.  

“Matt, it’s time to go back to the hotel.  Are you coming?” she insisted.

“I can’t,” I managed to cough out a sound.  A trip to the hotel seemed like an unbearable and unthinkable task at this point.

“It’s okay,” I heard Tania’s voice. “He can stay here.  It doesn’t sound he’ll be able to make it anywhere today.  I’ll take care of him and bring him to the headquarters in the morning.” 

A big weight seemed to lift off my shoulders as I heard this proposition.   

“Okay, Matt,” Laura was trying to speak into the crack between the wall and the door to make sure I heard her. “You’ll stay with Tania tonight.  See you at the headquarters tomorrow.  Okay?”

I had a moment when I could not make any sounds again.

“Okay?” Laura repeated more intensely.

“Okay.” A compressed groan came out of my chest.

“Good.” The conversation outside the door continued. “He said we could go back without him,” Laura said to the others.

“Maybe he needs something?” said Ann, I heard her leaning against the door.  “Matt, do you need anything?”

Why can’t they just go?  I was miserable enough already.

“Just leave the guy alone.  Get better soon, buddy!” I heard Mark’s voice in the distance.

There was some more commotion of everyone getting ready to leave, saying goodbyes and thank yous.   My queasiness continued for a while longer.  Then I heard the door slammed closed and everything got quiet.  I could only hear the clinking of the dishes as they got washed, but soon those sounds were gone, too.  I finally felt better and felt confident enough to come out of my enclosure.  I needed to thank Tania for letting me stay at her house in a condition like this.  I went to the kitchen in hopes of finding her there and I did.  

Tania was at the table sipping something from a dark blue porcelain cup.   She didn’t have her business suit on anymore.  Her blond hair was down.  A little thin blue robe covered her curves.  I forgot for a moment what I was going to say.  I swallowed.

“Oh, finally,” she greeted me.  “I started to worry about you.  Are you feeling any better?”

I nodded my head.

“Yeah, a little better.  Sorry about all that.”

“Don’t worry.  Please, sit down,” she pointed to the stool across from her at the kitchen table as she got up.  I needed to sit down anyways, so I accepted the invitation.

“Tania, thank you for letting me stay here.  I know it’s a lot of inconvenience for you.”

“You are not an inconvenience.  Here, I have some herbal tea for you.  It will make you feel better.”  Tania filled a mug for me with hot liquid and placed it in front of me.  “I hope it was not vareniki to make you feel this way.” With a slight smirk, she graciously returned to her seat.

“Oh, no, I’m sure it was nothing I had here.  In fact, I didn’t have anything here.  I didn’t get a chance.”  My voice was still hoarse.  As I spoke, I rubbed my eyes, trying to keep them on Tania’s face and not any lower on her body.

“I think, I got food poisoning earlier today.”

“What did you have?” Tania sipped on her tea, as her blue eyes looked inquisitively at me.

“Well, I had quite an adventure today,” I started.

“Is that why you came in late?” her voice was calm, and I felt at ease.  I saw Tania in a new light.  I felt like before I mistaken a luscious rose for a dandelion.  

“Yeah, I had some snacks during my adventure, and I think they had something to do with my current condition.”  I was warming my hands on my mug.

“What did you eat?” she asked in a slightly playful tone.

She probably had some magic powers, as I’m not a talker usually, but I told her about my whole adventure – the park, the fried doughnuts, and even my lunch with Yulia.  I wanted to give her as much information as I could, as if she were a doctor, whose diagnosis depended on the accurate facts.  And she was just sitting there, encouraging me to talk more and more.  

“I think the pirozhki are to blame for your food poisoning.  And this herbal mix is the right choice, so drink it, and I’ll get you some more.”

“Prozhki?”

“Yeah, the fried bread you’re referring to.  It’s called pirozhki,” she smiled.  “Looks like you learned your first survival lesson today, which is don’t buy anything with cooked meat in the street, unless you want to risk diarrhea and such.”

“Yeah, you can say, lesson learned,” I breathed the fragrant steam.  The warm liquid was doing its magic.

“What made you to join the Peace Corps?” Tania changed the subject.

“Well, there is a lot to it,” I started.

“It’s okay, we have all night,” she said and took another sip from her cup, as she looked at me.

“Well, to begin with, I made a bet with my friends to get in,” Tania raised her eyebrow in reaction to my confession as I continued. “I didn’t get the money I won yet, but overall, I’m enjoying the outcome of this bet.  Traveling is my thing.  So far, I’ve been to Venezuela on a mission trip in my senior year of high school, and I lived in China as an exchange student for a couple of months.  Both those trips were eye-openers.  I’m not expecting anything less from my experience here as well.  Back home, the routine of everyday life just came to the point where I felt that there is a canyon between my dreams and reality.   I had to change something in my life.  I wasn’t happy with what I was doing.”

The combination of the fragrance of the tea and Tania’s eyes looking at me must have put me in a certain trance.  I just met this girl today and yet here I was, pouring my heart out to her.  Was she magical like her tea?

“You weren’t?  What were you doing, where?”

“I lived in St. Paul, working for a financial services company.  I held this job for a while after college.  I was a debt collector, but I needed something more fulfilling.  Don’t get me wrong, it paid well. At last, I was making more money than both my brothers combined.  But running the rat race and being ‘a bad news’ to every customer I called made me feel miserable at the end of each day.  The opportunity to join the Peace Corps came into my life, and it’s been a very interesting experience so far.  As you can see I’ve had some ups and downs already, and I’ve been here, what?  Give and take, two days.”

“Yeah, you are lucky… You mentioned you have brothers?”

“Two brothers and four sisters in fact.  We have a large family.”

“That is a large family.  Do you miss them?”

“I saw them all less then a week ago before coming here, but give it a little more time and I think I will start to miss them.”

“What did you do before debt collecting?” Tania’s questioning continued.

“I graduated from Central College.  It’s a small community college in my home town.  It was quite a change for me to move to St. Paul.  I enjoyed the city lifestyle and thought I got to be pretty good at it for a guy who grew up in a small town where everyone knows everything about you, and you can’t help but know everything about everyone around.”

“So it’s not the first time for you to get a cultural shock?”

“Well, I have to say what’s going on here to me is a cultural shock on an enormously larger scale than moving from Pella, Iowa to St. Paul, Minnesota.”

“I see,” Tania said as she got up to refill my mug.  A silence set in for a while.  I did not feel sleepy or tired anymore.

“What’s in this stuff?” I asked about the tea. “It’s amazing.  I feel like a new me!”

“I’m glad you like it,” Tania smiled her magical smile, but did not respond any further.  I did not push it.

“It’s my turn,” I said.

“You turn?” Tania looked at me rather surprised.

“Yeah, my turn to ask questions.”

“Okay, what would you like to know?”  She leaned a bit closer to me across the table, and I could almost see what her robe was hiding.  I grabbed my mug to get my thoughts in order.

“Tell me about your family,” I said after a long sip.

“You met my mother before dinner.”

“Yeah, where is she?”

“She lives on the fifth floor here.  My son is spending the night at her place tonight”, she said looking at her hands.

“You have a son?” I did not anticipate this.

“I do.  He is eight.  You’ll meet him in the morning.”

“What about,” I hesitated for a moment, “what about his dad?”

“I was never married to him.  We were together during the University years and after that, he moved on.  He doesn’t know he has a son.  I never saw him after I got pregnant with Dima.”

“I’m sorry.”  I felt that would be an appropriate thing to say.

“Don’t be.  I would not change a thing.  I’m glad I have a son I love, a good job and don’t need a husband to support us, like some of my friends do.”

“How did you come to work for the Peace Corps?”

“You know, we did not have Peace Corps here until Ukraine became an independent country with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The Peace Corps came a year after the Soviet Union became a history.  It was about that time, I graduated from Shevchenko University with my degree in philosophy and English.  It was just a matter of luck for me.  I met this guy Tom at a bar, who turned out to be an assistant to the country director at that time.  I told him I needed a job, and I am assuming he liked me, because they hired me.  At that time they were assembling the staff, and I got on the right wave, so to say.  I’ve been here ever since.  It’s really my first job.”

“Have you ever been to the States?  I mean, your English is pretty much pure.”

“Thanks. I’ve been around Americans for over five years, which explains my English.  But no.  I’ve never been to the States.  Maybe one day I’ll go.  But not now.  Dima is still too young.  Tom taught me a lot about “American” ways before he left.  He wanted me to move there with him, but I don’t think I’m ready to make a change like that.”

“Like what?” I wondered.

“I think you’ll understand on your own by the end of your term here.  It’s really hard to explain...  Do you want more tea?” Tania got up to get my empty mug.

“No, no, I’m fine.  Thank you again.  And sorry for all the trouble.”

“When are you going to stop apologizing?  I’m glad we got to talk,” her hand was on the table very close to mine.  My fingers had a mind of their own and brushed her palm.  She looked at our hands touching and at me.

“I’ll make a bed for you on the couch in the living room.”  Tania got up and walked out of the kitchen.  Something about the way she moved made all my muscles tighten.  It was late, but I did not want this evening to end.  Besides, I was still trying to get used to the time change, and my body was telling me it was daytime.  Rationally, I realized if I didn’t get some rest I would regret it in the morning.  Even the magic tea would need help in the form of sleep to completely cure me from my unfortunate food poisoning.  Or was it my lucky poisoning?

I came into the living room as Tania finished fixing the bed for me.

“Thank you,” I said as she was walking out of the room.  My fingers touched hers once again as she was walking by.

“I’ll be in the other room if you need anything,” she pulled her hand away.

I turned the lights off and laid down, but the sleep did not come.  Thoughts of Tania and our conversation did not let me sleep.  In addition, it was cold.  Maybe an extra blanket would do the trick.  I looked around, but did not see anything that could serve as an extra blanket.  Of course, I could tough it out, but I wanted something else. 

Tania.  Well, she said if I needed anything, I could ask her.  I thought about this a little more and ventured out to the other room, where she was.  I could see a dim light through the space between the door and the doorframe.  She was still up.  I knocked.

Tania opened the door and looked at me.  She wore a black silk, spaghetti-strap, long shirt despite the cold.   

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you might have an extra blanket.  I still can’t get used to having no heat at night,” I sounded sheepish and wanted to hit myself on the head for this, but forces that were beyond my control would not let me back away.

“Come in.” Tania let me into her room. “I don’t have an extra blanket today, I sent all of them with Dima to my mom, he gets cold at night too.  Hmmm, what can I do?” she said as if to herself. “My blanket is a bit thicker.  Do you want to stay here?”

“Oh, no, no, I did not mean to kick you out of your bed...” I started.

“I did not say I was going to leave,” Tania said in her calm charming voice as she got under the covers. “Come, don’t be scared.  There is enough room for both of us.”

I could feel my eyes widen, I wonder if that made me look scared, but in fact, I was very pleasantly surprised.  I didn’t anticipate such a great development.

“I’m not scared.” I hesitated a moment, for my heart was throbbing in my throat and in my head with loud beats.  It had been a while since I got to spend a night in a bed with a beautiful girl. “Okay.” I finally got myself closer to the bed and slipped under the blanket.     

Tania turned the light off and turned to me, propping herself on her elbow.  I could see her exquisite features clearly in the moonlight.  It was penetrating the room through the light flowery curtains on the window.  I stayed still on my back with only my head turned to see her face.  I tried to be calm, but my deep breathing gave me away.  I saw her smiling as she twisted a curl of her hair with her slim finger, and then she touched my shoulder.  Bad move.  The forces that brought me into her room took over.  I could not resist anymore.