Gone in a Cloud of Smoke

Chapter 6

“Tell me about Russia.”

There was an alley, a dark one that was littered with illegal cigarettes, behind the club, and the man’s awful singing was replaced with a roar consisting of sirens and faded music from Broadway. There was only one light outside the back entrance to light the area. Nae stepped under the light and sat down on a clean area of concrete.

“Vat do you vant to know?” I asked as I sat down beside her.

Her features glowed under the light when she drew up her knees to her chest to get warm. Putting her head back on the wall of the building constructed of brick, she smiled. “What was it like?” Her teeth were chattering as she spoke, and I slowly put my arm and put it around her. I expected her to pull away, but instead she leaned into my chest and she was probably able to feel my heart beating.

“Vell,” I said as I pulled her a little closer to me, my hand shaking. “It vas not much different than growing up here if you decide to compare it to a city like Moscow. They are both big and busy.”

“But you can smoke and drink and take pain killers over there.” Nae’s breath was hot on my neck, making that hair stick up and tingle.

I laughed a bit. “Yes. We do not have a drinking age there.”

Nae’s eyes went wide when they met mine and her mouth gaped open. “Seriously? That’s crazy! Can you buy it at whatever age?”

My head shook. “No, you must be eighteen for that.”

“Did you drink when you lived there?”

I still do, almost every day.

I nodded. “The rule vas that I could drink ven I turned thirteen, but I was twelve ven we moved here, so my father let me drink before we moved.” My father took me to a bar one week before we were to get on the plane for America. He ordered me a small, dark beer that was bitter to my young taste, and we each finished off with vodka that was a bit sweeter than my father’s recipe.

“I’ve never had alcohol,” Nae mused, laying her head in the crook of my neck. “What’s it taste like?”

I shrugged. “Depends. Beer can be bitter or sweet if it is either dark or light, and vodka often has a, vell, a kick. It is my favorite.”

Nae’s hair was silky as pieces of it brushed my neck, sending a tingling from my neck down to my spine. Her hands were folded together tightly in the evening chill of May. “I bet you were surprised when you moved here.”

I thought of the broadcast of the news on the television when I was a child, the video of angry Americans protesting the ban. My whole family was aware of the ban when we moved to New York, and the side business felt like a perfect idea in my father’s perspective. “Yes,” I lied.

“Why did you move here, Andrei?” Nae’s big eyes locked on my eyes when she asked, a sparkle in the middle of her pupils. “It’s so messed up here with the ban.”

Sighing, I ran my fingers through her soft, curled hair. “Our restaurant closed down in that year, and the economy was bad. My father did not like how the country was doing, so he and my mother vanted to move us here.”

“You speak very good English.”

A laugh escaped from between my lips. “Thank you. It is required in our schools that we learn a language unknown ven we are nine. I knew enough of the language ven I came here to get around, but it took until I vas in high school to be fluent. The first English I learned vas from poems.”

Nae’s eyebrows raised and a smile formed on her face. “Really? That’s so cool!”

I smiled in the same way. “I vould read a poem in Russian first and then read it in the English form, and I vould go back and then forth. It helped me learn the alphabet.”