Words to Live By - A Countryhumans SovAme Story

Act I, Chapter III - Of God-Damn Fun, and Old Photos

October 1926

Washington D.C., United States of America

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With my friend by my side, I recovered from my alcohol incident quickly. Only a couple of days after my bender, I considered myself back up and running at full capacity. I caught up on the work that I'd missed, in between showing Soviet my many records, correcting her English, and taking fresh-air walks with her around the beautiful autumn landscape of Rock Creek Park. We spent her time there ordering mug coffee at tiny cafés and touring around the occasional history museum, but nothing too exciting.

You got so drunk, she said, wouldn't want that to happen again, right?

And as much as I hated to admit it, she was right about that. I'd gotten absolutely hammered the night before her arrival in D.C., leaving the door unlocked. It was the only way she'd gotten in to pick me up off the cellar floor. But there was something here, something not just in D.C. but in cities all across the country; something she needed to witness and experience before they inevitably died out.

Something that involved excessive consumption of alcohol. That's right, I was going to take her to a speakeasy.

"What in the name of Lenin is that?" she asked me when I first brought it up to her, two days before she was scheduled to go back to Europe.

"A bar, of course," I replied.

"A what? Haven't I been saying this whole time that you do not need to be drinking?"

I remember just chuckling lightly.

"Trust me, you need to see this. But first, you need to dress appropriately."

To my elaborate walk-in closet we went, where I chose a dress and some accessories for her.

"Is this really what you wear here?" she inquired as I shook the dust off an old necklace I planned to wear.

"Oh, but of course," I announced dramatically, pulling some shoes off of my shelf with a flourish.

We pulled on the dresses chosen from my collection, and then I took her to my bathroom, where I kept my makeup.

Now, I know you know that I hate makeup nowadays, but back then it was something I enjoyed, if in moderation. It seemed to me that she was fairly good at the subject at hand, having been raised in the Winter Palace itself, and her hand lingered on my face for just a moment too long as she helped me with my eyeshadow. For a moment, with my eyes closed to allow her easier access to the eyelid, I was taken back. My mind travelled away from this room, and back to the dresses and the orchestra, the feasts and the dancing. My body stayed in one place, but my brain was taken to a time of my own experience in this woman's childhood home, before the aforementioned childhood had even begun. And this woman's hands, which felt so much like another's hands on my face, these calloused hands that were shaped the same, moved the same, felt the same as hers-

It was hardly real love. 

But as the movement of these hands, the ones that were real and very much not the ones of the dead woman I might have loved, signaled to me she was done with my eye makeup, I was shaken out of the past with a jolt, and I had to return to the present.

"America, are you okay?" I heard her ask through my memories.

"What? Oh, yes. Let's get on with it, shall we?"

My abrupt ending of the short conversation seemed to unspokenly announce to her that it was time to leave. We headed out onto the town as the night began to set in, and as we walked I took the time to rid my mind of any thought of my former "lover", and focus only on the present. By the time we reached our destination, I'd also reached my goal.

We stood in an alleyway located in a neighborhood a little ways from the city center, where a man stood in front of a door.

"Password?" he said as he looked up from under his fedora, smoke rising from his cigar.

I answered him with the password that I already knew from previous visits to this place, a nonsense phrase, as Soviet gripped my hand.

"What kind of place is this," she asked in muttered Russian, "that you need a password to get in?"

"You'll see."

We entered into the speakeasy, and her immediate next words to me were:

"Is that woman holding a snake?"

"She's a snake charmer," I murmured back to my companion with a smile, dragging her to a table. Jazz music filled the ears of everyone in the room, as I plucked a couple of drinks from the nearest champagne glass tower.

"Is this a good idea?" She asked me, a puzzled look on her face. I just laughed.

"Of course not! I make no good decisions, now let's finally have some god-damn fun!"

With this, she at last seemed to shed her doubts about, well, all of this, really, and get partying with me. We ended up back at my house the next morning, ridiculously hungover, but this time we were laying around essentially dying together, instead of it being just me. She departed for her own home a few days later, leaving me much more cheerful than the day she'd arrived. However, with 1929 on the horizon, it wouldn't last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1929, the world fell apart. In October of that year, I was walking to work, reading a letter from my close friend in Moscow. In the letter, Soviet spoke of the man succeeding Lenin, including a snippet from the newspaper Pravda about him. Along with this, however, she included a quick note about how the paper was in fact a propaganda newspaper and that there were parts of the article about this man that I could write off. His name was Joseph Stalin, and I instantly did not like him. Other parts of her letter spoke of Trotsky, who'd been exiled, and collectivizations of farming. I had several concerns about the last bit, but they were put out of my mind the second I saw the internal state of the Capitol building. I kept up with news of the stock market well from my office in the Capitol, and I knew that Wall Street had been having issues lately. I watched in horror as Capitol workers ran about, seemingly in a panic. I ran to my office as fast as my legs could take me, where my dial phone was already ringing. I dropped everything to answer it, a call from the president. A quick conversation with him confirmed my suspicions, the stock market was failing. I hurried out of the office to the senate assembly room, leaving Soviet's note on the desk, forgotten.

I was barely even able to come back to my office that day, for I was simply too busy. Unfortunately, this caused me to never end up reading the last part of her letter, discussing her new leader's affinity for killing.

That night, I did not drink. I almost did, but I remembered my friend's warnings and chose not to. I laid in my bed that night, staring at the ceiling.

"What will I do about this..." I asked myself aloud, gazing at the stars through my window. As I traced the shape of Orion with my eyes, my mind once again traveled back. Back to a time of beautiful ballrooms and the perfect accompaniment of music, and to a time of a countryside estate with white trim on the walls. Back to a time when I was confused but possibly in love, and certain of the fact that "buisness" with the Russian Empire always involved a little more than that. I reached for my nightstand, pulling a photo out of the bottom drawer. I ran my fingertips along the carved wooden frame, shedding tears as I looked at myself, merry and smiling in the arms of the Russian Empire.

But at the end of the day, I knew it wasn't real love. It was no more than a very long affair. But I had been happy then, I knew that. Even if her death had made me realize that I had been lying to myself, I knew at the time I had felt like I was in love.

And of course, how could I live with the fact that I was such good friends with she, who I knew in the back of my mind had to have killed my lover, but I wished to deny the fact instead? I ran my hands over the faded photograph, closing my eyes as I remembered everything about her. And as I did, I thought of Soviet, who's accent was so similar to hers, who's mannerisms were so alike to her, who's eyes looked the same, looked at me the same...

And how the Earth was so cold, to take from me that which made me happy, even if only superficially, and replace her with one who was so similar, so familiar. One who was so close, yet so out of reach. I was a mess. 

Maybe I would drink that night.

El Fin.