“Pyotr? Is that you? I didn’t recognize you dressed like a Russian man.”
I pulled my cap off from over my eyes and face that was shielding them from the bright sun as I lazed on deck. Lara was standing above me in her working uniform. I smiled a lazy smile and put the hat back on my face. The sun was brilliant that afternoon. Her blouse ruffled in the warm breeze.
“And what did you do to your hair?” she sounded horrified.
I sat up and put the cap on my head.
She was dumbfounded. “You look completely different. I only recognized you because of the bandage on your arm.”
“Sorry, but I hadn’t brought the right clothes with me on the trip. I bought some new threads at the bazaar,” I explained.
“Yes, it certainly looks that way,” she chuckled, referring with amusement to the poor quality of the vestments.
“Why did you cut your beautiful hair?” she asked again.
“Did you like it the other way? I thought boys in Russia shouldn’t have long hair…,” I was teasing her a bit.
“Well, yes, but you’re not Russian. It looked wonderful on you,” she was being sincere.
“I thought so too, but it was too hot. Needed a summer style,” I grinned and removed the cap to show her my bristly head again.
“You look like a soldier,” she puffed and sat down on a deck chair opposite me in a bit of disgust.
“Do I really look that different?” I asked again getting an idea.
“I would have walked right past you had I not see that bandage there under your short sleeve,” she affirmed. “All that is missing is a cheap wrist watch.”
“I can get one!” I said triumphantly.
She waved her hands at me in disgust and muttered, “Phoo! Phoo!” as Russians do to their dogs when they are misbehaving.
After a short pause in the conversation, she asked directly, “Why did you not pack the right clothes, Pyotr?”
“Dear doctor, I am not supposed to be on this boat. I am actually hiding on this boat from the people who robbed me, beat me, broke into and destroyed my apartment and fire bombed a university building, all to keep me quiet,” I explained in an overdone gracious voice. I then switched to a more serious tone. “So I grabbed a few things and I ran. Luckily, the Zhukov was in port when I was running away from the fellow who beat me the first time. I had not planned to be here. I planned to be in the United States by now, but couldn’t make it to the train station without getting caught. I don’t know what they’ll do to me if they catch me again.”
“Kolya was serious then. You did get beaten by thugs,” she concluded.
“Yes. And I don’t think they’ll stop looking for me. So I have to get out of Russia as soon as I can,” I admitted with defeat in my voice. “I can’t go back to Nizhniy.”
“Do you live there, in Nizhniy Novgorod?” she asked surprised.
“Yes, I am a student there,” I affirmed.
“I also finished nursing school at NGU,” she announced. “I live there with my grandmother.”
I had another idea come to my head, but I sat and listened patiently to her story.
For the next few days I didn’t shave my face. Even though I had purchased a razor and shaving soap in Kazan, looking in the mirror at the three days of growth on my chin and jaw on Tuesday morning, I decided to let it grow. It was growing in as a red beard even though my hair was a dark brown. Maybe it was the full warm sun for several days in a row that gave it a tinge. It was certainly the sun that had given my face and neck a good tan. I had spent several days on the deck of the boat taking in as much sunshine as possible. The white, pasty, winter look was gone and I was turning rather brown in my face and arms. I continued to let the beard grow.
During our day stop in Samara I snuck off to the bazaar or street side markets during the guided tours and bought myself a track suit, flip flop sandals and a pair of classless sunglasses. A simple silver wire frame with shades. In Saratov, I didn’t have to look far as vendors came to the river station to sell their wares to the tourists and I was able to buy a cheap gold wrist watch with a white face, gold hands and no numbers, and an old soldier’s field glasses. The watch had to be wound each day to tell time twenty-four hours later and the lenses of the binoculars were heavily scratched. By the time we arrived into Volgograd it was nearly impossible to tell me apart from the other local punks loitering around the docks in multi-colored, jerry-rigged Ladas smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer from chunky brown glass bottles with no labels. My transformation had been complete, except for my body language.
Where the Volga river spills out onto the southern Russia steppes is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. One is not quite sure where the earth and the river meet as the high steep banks melt away after the city of Saratov and there is nothing but arid rolling plains and dramatic skies filled with tall white clouds. One can literally watch a thunderstorm roll in, roll over and roll out and disappear over the horizon. There is nothing on the land to obscure one’s view of the horizon—nor anything on it. The weather in Volgograd is warm and arid, and in the summer time only warm breezes blow. Along the banks of the river, tall, slim poplar trees sway in the warm breezes from the steppe and make a calming, gentle rustling noise that sweeps up and down the river. The mornings are bright, clear and fresh and the morning sun quickly heats the stones on the river, welcoming the afternoon strollers and sun worshipers. On the riverbank the men strip to the waist and lay on the grassy banks of the Mother Volga and the young women stroll in wispy sundresses that flutter around their bare legs in the warm breeze.
In Volgograd after a warm day of bus tours, we bid farewell to one batch of tourists in the afternoon and had the night off, until ten in the morning to relax and rest until the next group arrived for their voyage from Volgograd to Moscow — via Nizhniy Novgorod. After a few shots of vodka, Nikolai was loose enough to help me perfect the walk, the squat and the deep guttural talk of the street punk. After a few more shots we were strolling around the bar, bow legged, to the hysterical laughter of our colleagues as we perfected the lazy drawl, the long O’s of the Volga vagrant and sitting on chairs with our legs wide open, slouched with a look of complete incredulousness on our faces, not caring if Tsar Nicholas himself had just been raised from the dead. Between shots of Pepsi and vodka I practiced squatting in the corner for twenty minutes at a time until my knees went numb or until Kolya fell over half drunk laughing his head off. My beard had fully grown in and was as red as an Irishman’s.
That evening before bed, like I always did, I took a stroll along the entire railing of the top deck. It was a calming practice I had picked up the summer prior and it felt natural to do it again. I padded around the deck in my gangster flip flops and track suit; slap, swish, slap, swish. While I rounded the stern of the boat, I noticed Lara staring out across the water into the city lights. A warm breeze was blowing through her shoulder length sandy brown hair. She was off duty like the rest of us for a shore-visit or other horseplay.