“The water drips all the time,” she whispered to Yuri. “Can you hear it dripping? It leaves deposits behind. It takes years and years to make these things. Stalactites are from the top, stalagmites are from the bottom.”
Yuri grabbed her hand, and his palm was sweaty. “I do not like caves,” he said.
“It's okay,” she told him, “Come on. It's a little slippery, so walk slow.” She pulled his reluctant hand and led him farther down. The path circled lower and lower until it brought them to the darkest part of the cavern. The formations were barely visible, pale and pink, like shy ghosts. Above them people stood higher on the trail, their voices echoing through the chamber. The lights up there looked as clustered and distant as a faraway town, as Carlsbad did when you were driving in from Artesia. Yuri stood behind her. He put his hands on her hips.
“Do you feel okay?” she asked him.
He nodded and his hair brushed against her cheek. He clasped his hands over her stomach. She thought of his two sisters, their braids flying as they ran across the snowy steppes, their pale faces turned to the sky. She thought of the beaded necklace he'd given her, curled up in her jewelry box for safekeeping.
“You are very pretty,” he said in her ear.
She loved his accent. He put his hands on her chest, one palm cupping each breast, his fingertips making tiny, almost unbearable movements over the fabric of her shirt, like water flowing in slow, insistent drops. She stood still.
Six months later, Maxine received a letter from Yuri. It was written on thin blue paper in blocky handwriting, just like the ones he used to get from his family. On the stamps were pictures of the crown jewels of Russia.
Dear Maxine,
How are you? I am fine. It is quite cold where I am right now. There is already snow but I do not mind it because the sun shines on the white snow and makes it very bright. I am often wearing my American sunglasses which makes other boys in my school very jealous. I hope that your mother will let you visit me in Soviet Union one day. I am still practicing my English for when I may go back to the States but I am getting worse because no one here speaks as good English as I do. I am the best. Oh well.
Love, Yuri
P.S. Tell Bat that the Russian beer is not very good, but the vodka is excellent. Ha ha ha.
In Moscow, she walked alone to the Kremlin, drifting past its spiky towers and tiers of gold domes. Among the crowds she could hear the drone of tour guides reciting historical facts in English and French. This was ten years later. Her husband, Ross, worked for a pharmaceutical company in Chicago and was allowed to bring Maxine on this business trip. The Russians were in dire need of pharmaceuticals, he said, they needed new drugs for the new Russia, and he was busy with them from morning to night. Maxine had wanted badly to come along — never having traveled much — but now that she was here, on her own, she felt listless and cold and had to fight the urge to stay in the hotel room with her work. She was in graduate school, and school was the only place she seemed to feel at home. To get herself out of the hotel she began to treat the trip as a type of class and pored over the guidebook, learning to decipher a few of the signs, memorizing random architectural details. Each day she assigned herself sights to see: museums and palaces and armories, grand old buildings with vaulted ceilings and gilded paintings and firearms.
She bought a set of nesting dolls for her mother — the outermost shell a stocky, dark-haired peasant girl, the innermost a baby so small that she could squeeze it in her palm — then walked out into Red Square. Russians strode quickly past her, their faces set, carrying plastic shopping bags. Back home, in Chicago, she had read about food lines, poverty, and political chaos, but there were few signs of this, at least in the places within walking range of the hotel. She had an uneasy feeling that things were being concealed, were beyond her reach, whether because of the country or her own failing, she wasn't sure.
She shivered in her light coat and crossed her arms over her chest. With a slightly guilty feeling she retreated to the hotel room and ordered soup and coffee from room service. She opened her guidebook to the map of Moscow, then flipped to the map of Russia. She tried to remember the name of Yuri's town, far in the north, but had forgotten it. Only Bat would remember the name. He lived in Oregon now, where he operated his own business, a company that sold hemp products through the mail. Despite their parents' fears, Bat seemed to have turned out all right; he was kind of a hippie, maybe, but he supported himself and had a small house in the woods.
Maxine stood in the chilly hotel room and looked out the window. Traffic blared below her. She and her brother hardly ever spoke, and he rarely went home to visit. She thought of his face when she and Yuri came home from the Caverns that day. He was sitting in front of the TV, drinking a Coke, and they sat down next to him, close together on the couch. Bat started to say something, but then, looking at them, stopped. At the time she wasn't thinking about Bat at all. She was too wrapped up in remembering the minutes she'd just spent, how she and Yuri had walked up the hill out of the darkness of the Caverns, his fingers brushing against hers, furtive, barely there, yet electric. They emerged into the sudden, blinding desert sun and it shocked her, as if she'd been expecting midnight.
Meeting Uncle Bob
Spike proposed to me at the bus station. It was November and we stood outside shivering and smoking cigarettes, our breath merging with the exhaust from departing buses. Spike stuck one hand in the pocket of his jeans, blew smoke, and said thoughtfully, almost to himself, “We should get married.”
“What did you say?” I said.
“On second thought, never mind,” he said. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and picked up my bag, then his.
“What do you mean, never mind?” We had never discussed marriage before. Spike smiled and put his arm around me, guiding me toward our bus. He kissed the skin below my ear.
“Maybe we should talk about it later,” he said. “After you've met Uncle Bob.”
On the bus he pulled out a book, slouched down, and began to read. I looked out the window as we wound out of the city and hit the highway. The day was dense and overcast, the sky crouched down close to the earth. We passed small towns with churches and bars strung along the road, wooden steeples, neon signs. In places the road was cleft through rock, leafless trees high on either side. The bus was cold and I leaned closer to Spike, who put his arm around me but didn't talk.
His real name was Leslie. When he was ten he wanted a tougher name, so he picked Spike, and it stuck. He'd spent every summer of his life in Vermont with his uncle and cousin, and this was our first trip there together. I was nervous. I was twenty-two, about to graduate without any real plans, and Spike was the only thing in my life I knew for sure I wanted.
We stepped off the bus into a deserted parking lot. It was dark and snowing dizzily, flakes that turned red in the taillights of the bus before dissolving on the pavement.
“It looks like Uncle Bob's late,” Spike said. “He's usually late. Are you cold?”
“Very.” He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me, his cheek against mine. This led to kissing. When Uncle Bob pulled up he honked the horn and we jumped. Spike's teeth hit my chin.