The Boys at the Top of the World

Chapter 5: School Dance

— December 1936 —

It was an ordinary Sunday. Andrei laid out Mikhail's school uniform (which he had collected fresh from the cleaners) and folded his sunglasses beside it. He stacked and set out Mikhail's school books, then picked up Mikhail's mathematics text and began to flip idly through the pages. Andrei had not continued his schooling past the fourth grade, and schoolwork and its foreign symbols fascinated him. His English speech had improved from talking with Mikhail (who stubbornly avoided Russian whenever possible), but his daily toils left little time for the pursuit of mathematics or science or literature. But what was this piece of paper, this flyer tucked between the pages of the textbook? Spring Dance?

"Misha? What is this about a dance?"

"Oh," Mikhail shrugged dismissively from his place on the bed. "There's an underclassmen's dance at school after the break. You're supposed to ask girls to go and prance around with you. Such frivolity."

Andrei's fingers trembled on the flyer paper. "There isn't a girl in your heart?"

"Nah. I don't have time for girls and fucking. Maybe that's fine for the other boys who aren't going to run the family business, but I have better things to do on the week-ends. How about you, Andryusha? Any busty maids that have caught your eye?"

Andrei shook his head, and color rose to his cheeks. He felt as though he had been caught in some terrible act. "No. We are too young for girls, aren't we?"

Mikhail smiled and rolled onto his stomach on the bed. "Not really. Many people our age are fucking like rabbits. Come now, there's no one that stirs your loins? No one that gets your heart racing?"

Andrei whacked Mikhail's shoulder with the flyer, laughing nervously. "Stirs your loins? You're so strange! If this is how you talk to girls, then of course you haven't got any dates." He adopted a humorously deep voice, as Mikhail's voice was now quite a bit lower than his own: "You stir my loins, darling."

Mikhail chuckled and swatted him away. "You don't have to change the subject. It's alright if you're not lusting after every piece of tail that you see. It's only called being sensible."

Andrei accepted the common ground gratefully. "Alright. I'm glad that we're both sensible then." He looked at Mikhail, who was stretched on his plush bedcovers, his shirt riding above the knife-sharp points of his hips to reveal his smooth stomach, his ankles peeking out from his finely-woven slacks after the latest in an onslaught of growth spurts.

Mikhail pushed himself up to a kneeling position and looked back at Andrei, his blonde hair caught as a halo in the late-morning light. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing." Andrei sprawled onto Mikhail's bed, and Mikhail lay next to him, the two of them forming a tangle of gangly teenage limbs.

"We're getting too old for this, Andrei," said Mikhail, and Andrei shivered at the use of his formal name.

"What, my master already needs his bed free to take a bride? You still have nightmares, don't you?" he replied, slightly desperately. Mikhail hummed and rested his head on Andrei's chest, where Andrei's heart was racing.

***

On the 23rd of December, Andrei was cleaning Mikhail's desk. He dusted the wood and straightened the framed picture of himself and Mikhail in their matching sweaters, which had been taken two Christmases ago. In the picture, Mikhail had wrapped his arms around Andrei's waist and was pulling Andrei onto his lap like a reluctant date or a hunted animal. Mikhail was grinning, and Andrei looked rather more pensive.

Andrei looked beside the photograph, and he found an essay written by Mikhail. What? Hadn't this been due today? Indeed, the top of the essay read Mikhail Makarovich Misalov, 23rd December 1936. Oh, why hadn't he reminded Mikhail to put his essay in his bag?