Flaws: Vedmykiv

[3] A Dejected Train Station

"IT'S TIME," Oxana said from across the compartment. She was half exhausted, half excited, and half naked. Many hours had gone by, and the jet lag had caught up. I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or if the beating, the hangover, and the strange feeling of being cornered by an unnatural warmth were playing tricks on me. Oxana's long dark hair fell over her shoulders like the messy web of my lies and the anecdotes of our virtual affair. For a moment, I was back in my room, speaking to her from the bed, watching her flash me her granny panties through the Skype window. Before we left the city apartment, Oxana wrote the English teacher a thank you note. I, on the other hand, was seriously considering stealing her old undies. I was in Ukraine.

I was on an ex-Soviet Union train. And the wagon's heater ran at capacity to counteract the chilling winter that, according to Oxana, was only beginning. It was so hot inside, so suffocating passengers took off their clothes. "It's the way," Oxana had said. She wore nothing more than a long shirt and beige panties I had not seen before. In her defense, everyone else wore dingier underwear. For half a day, we had laid flat across from each other in two skinny berths, in a compartment we shared with two other naked commuters. Half the wagon bared it all: exhausted families, aloof students, saggy babushkas, and droopy factory workers. Through the bras, tank tops, long johns, undergirding scanties, and scandalous undergarments, I could almost see Ukraine's bones.

Breathing was so difficult I didn't catch any sleep, so I spent the night watching the naked Ukrainians who traveled southeast. I began to catalog them into groups: heavyset grandmas, mineworkers munching on nuts, nuts munching on saltines, and other working-class folk stewing in the smell of what could only be the famous borsch. Across from each other, Oxana and I lay flat on our hardened berths, occasionally holding hands in mid-air. When she was awake, we stared at each other. Greasy faces, dim lights, and romantic silence peppered with sporadic farts. There was nothing to say. It was the intimacy of the uncomfortable. This was no Orient Express, but the bitter and surreal space, against all odds, was also sweet. It was black licorice, and I had never felt so close to her before. Not even when I flashed her my Johnson.

"It's time!" Oxana insisted like an anxious guest that doesn't overstay her welcome. She stripped the covers off her mattress and folded the sheets carefully by her side. She then rolled up the thin mattress and set it on the corner of her bunk bed. Like a choreographed routine of sadness and magic, the other passengers made their beds too. Some untroubled grandmas were still in their underwear. The train had taken us past the daybreak, and as we closed on the last stretch of low-hanging breasts and wrinkled buttocks, the new morning arose. In the glow of her sweat, Oxana was a hot mess. Her unwashed hair betrayed the long night, and her face betrayed the fatigue of meeting me, yet her eyes sparkled. She looked cute as a button. She tickled my feet. "Get up, babe," she demanded. "It's time!"

"How long until we get there?"

"One hour."

"One hour? Go back to bed!"

"We can't. It's not the Ukrainian way," she said without blinking or further explanation, but with the same spark of complicity I guess some people would have called honeymoon love. Our chemistry had paled compared to the magic we had in the virtual world. The monitor had shielded me from a reality I could not comprehend or turn off, but maybe I was changing, and she sensed it too. I reached out for her hand. She grabbed mine.

The image of Lillian's face the last time I saw her reappeared in my mind just like it had been reappearing at every train bump. Her round green eyes, covered with a thin layer of watery glare, reassured me everything would be okay. "You are a great photographer." Saying goodbye face to face was the noble thing to do. "Nobody captures the world as you do, Joaquin." That night, as I wept and told her I would miss her, she reassured me everything would be okay. Everything would always be okay. It's your destiny. She hugged me, smiled at me, and delicately let me go along with the years she invested in me. She was the strongest of both of us. But that was all gone now. I had to shake it off. I had to. The best way I could honor Lillian was by following through with my plan, my destiny. I was sacrificing her love. I had to repay it by grabbing Oxana's sweaty hand and loving her as hard as Lillian loved me. So I squeezed.