Prologue

Prologue

Moscow, 1964

            It was ten past eight and David Pearson was late to work for the second time that week.  He glanced up at the framed brass clock protruding from the opposite wall of the Dobryninskaya station, more out of habit than anything else.  The broken timepiece had perpetually declared the time to be four o’clock for several months already.  As an alternative, Pearson was anxiously checking the Hamilton strapped to his wrist, raising it to eye level and then letting it fall despondently to his side every half minute like a nervous tick.  In the middle of this ritual, the train finally pulled into the station and slowed to a stop with the clanging ruckus that typified Soviet engineering.

            Riding the subway was a blatant reminder of the universality of certain aspects of life, no matter where one happened to live.  People always left the house behind schedule, the morning train will always ran late, and when it finally showeed up the waiting commuters would inevitably rush to get through the doors as though the devil himself were at their heels.  True to form, as soon as the doors opened the crowd on the platform pushed to be let on, wholly undeterred by the departing passengers that were struggling to descend into the chaos.  Pearson joined the fray halfheartedly and was the last to board.  The doors behind him gaped open, and they would remain so for a good quarter of a minute now, rendering all of that pushing and elbowing utterly senseless.  Pearson rolled his eyes at the illogicality of people as he scanned the car for a seat and, finding none, settled for holding onto the metal hand rail that lined the top of the car.

As the doors closed with a sigh the train jerked forward, causing him to stumble despite his handhold and he narrowly missed the head of another passenger with his briefcase.

“Izvinite,” he apologized.  The man kept his eyes on the ground and in all appearances seemed as though he hadn’t even noticed the foreigner that had nearly decapitated him.

            At the next stop Pearson sidled into a vacated seat next to an old lady towards the back of the compartment and settled in with his briefcase on his lap.  He checked watch again and curled his lip in irritation.  At this point he would not be at his stop for another fifteen minutes, which meant he would have to hoof it the two blocks to the office in order arrive on time.

            “Do you know the time?” asked a voice on his right.

            “Twelve after eight” Pearson answered automatically. 

“Thanks.”

He slumped in his seat with a sigh and tilted back his head to stare at the ceiling.  It took him a few seconds before his mind registered two facts.  First, that this was the first time a stranger had initiated a conversation with him since he had come to Moscow.  Second, and this was the most startling, the woman that had asked him for the time had spoken in English.  Not even the guttoral, heavily accented English that he was used to hearing from the foreign nationals at work or the pitiful attempts at conversation made by the doorman to his apartment building.  No, his seatmate, whom he now turned around in his seat to look at, had spoken in perfect American-inflected English.

            The woman was starting fixedly out the window, seemingly fascinated by the gray wall that supported this section of the city’s cavernous underground transport system.  Whether she was aware of his questioning gaze he could not tell, but he continued to examine his seatmate with a marked interest.   Her brown hair streaked with gray was pulled into a disheveled bun that sat low on the back of her head.  Fine but obvious lines stretched across her forehead and emanated from the corners of her eyes, but there was something in her features that made her face could be a pleasant picture, were it not been so dismally browbeaten.  She had a perfectly straight, Roman nose and narrow jaw that sloped into a tiny point of a chin. 

            Pearson cleared his throat.  “Excuse me.  I was just wondering, how did you know I spoke English?”

            “All Americans speak English.”

            “But how did you know I’m American?”

            She fixed him with a steady gaze.  “Well you’re not Russian” she said.  “I can tell the difference.  Even now I know what the difference is.”

            “You’re American too, then?”

            The woman made a noise that sounds as though she was trying to expel an extraordinarily large amount of mucous from her nasal cavity, and he could not tell whether she was snorting in amusement or derision as she turns her face back to the metro wall.

            “What does that even mean, American?  That I was born there?  That my family still is there?  Because my mother was a Daughter of the American Revolution and I can still recite the Pledge of Allegiance by heart, does that still qualify me?”  She bit her lip and grimaced at the window.

            “I think it does” says Pearson.  “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away.  Where are you from come to mention it?”

            “New York.  But not for since thirty years ago.”

            Pearson did a doubletake and considered his seatmate with newfound admiration.  No wonder she had seemed so assimilated that he had automatically assumed her to be just another Russian.  “Christ, that long?  I’ve only been hear a few months and already it’s getting to me.  I can’t even imagine staying here for that long.  How did you manage it?” 

            “I had a lot of luck” she shrugged.  “I guess there’s no other explanation for why I’m still here.  There used to be more of us you know, Americans-in-exile that is.  Thousands maybe, but most of them were taken away and I’m still here.”

             Pearson cleared his throat awkwardly.  “Well it’s always nice to talk to someone from my neck of the woods Mrs. …”

            “Edwards.  Mary Edwards.”

            “David Pearson.”  He held out his hand and after the slightest hesitation she grasped it and gave a confident shake. 

            The train pulled into Pearson’s station and he stood to leave, but before doing so he dug into a pocket and retrieved a business card which he held out to her. 

            “It was nice to meet you.  If you ever need anything don’t be too shy to call. Our kind should stick together.”  With a cheerful wave, he stepped through the closing doors.

            As the train pulled away, Mary Edwards examined at the card in her hand.  David Pearson, Junior Consular Officer, American Embassy Moscow, Novinskiy Bulvar

 

*

            Pearson made good time on the way from the station and was relieved to see that he still was not the last person to arrive.  He made his way to his “office”, which actually was quite a generous term for little more than a piece of floor surrounded by four impermanent walls with a diminutive name card propped on his desk.  He dropped into the chair behind his desk and cast a weary eye over the towering pile of visa applications that were waiting for him.  It seemed to have grown overnight. 

            “Pearson.”

            Pearson sat up straight in attention.  “Good morning, Mr. Stacey,” he said, forcing himself to sound more polite than he felt was truly necessary.  “I didn’t see you on my way in.”

“I came in early this morning.”  Pearson mentally cursed his luck as his supervisor strode into his working space and seated himself in one of the chairs opposite his desk.  “I’ve been waiting for you to come in so I could talk to you.  Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk with you for a while now.  How long have you been in Moscow now, Pearson?”

“Almost six months sir.”

“Hmmm” Stacey surveyed him over the desk.  His intense stare unnerved Pearson, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You like it here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The job?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, it’s really… ”  He trailed off as his boss leaned forward to pick a file off the top of the pile and flipped through it dispassionately.

“I see a lot of people like you come through here, Pearson.  Four years of higher education and chip on their shoulder.  All convinced they’re going to change the world and solve all of its problems.  Then they come here and realize they’re nothing more than a glorified secretary stamping papers all day long.” 

He waved the file in his hands for emphasis and threw it back onto the pile on the desk.  “I’m not trying to be a hard a*s, Pearson.  I’m just laying out the truth for you so you don’t get discouraged and bail out on us in another month.  Lots of people do, you know”

Pearson clenched his fists under his desk.  “I appreciate the advice, sir.”

“You’ve got to think about why you’re here and decide whether it’s worth staying.  Understand?”

“I think so sir.”

“Good.”  Stacey stood up.  “And don’t be late tomorrow,” he said as he walked out.

Pearson sat back and raked his fingers through his hair in exasperation.  A moment later the phone on his desk let out a sharp ring, breaking his train of self-focused thinking.

He picked up the receiver.  “Yes?”

“Mr. Pearson?  This is Mary Edwards.  We met on the train this morning.”

“Of course Mrs. Edwards, I remember.”  Had it been more than quarter of an hour since their conversation?  “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you could meet me for a cup of coffee this afternoon.”

Reviews

[MiniDumpling]

That was one heck of a long prologue :P but wow, I was really amazed by the imagery and depth of it all. The literary techniques that you used were rather exceptional, and I feel as though this piece of work has a lot of insight.The vocabulary usage was also pretty advanced, but it was done really well. Good job! You have a lot of potential :)