The Russian Wife

On the plane, we took to come back to Italy, there was another mixed couple like us: he was Italian, and she was from Moscow. They had the seats close to ours, just on the other side of the corridor. So we started to talk, and we became friends. They too had come to Moscow for the New Year, to visit the parents of hers. And they too lived in Tuscany, close to Florence. He was a smart man, smart enough for not to think to dominate over his wife. It's impossible to "dominate" a Russian woman. She could be in love with you, be faithful to you, but never be submissive towards you. Never.

We had known another man, in Florence, who wanted to marry a Russian woman, but for the wrong reasons: he thought Russia girls could be the European version of "geishas". My man had done what he could do dispell this very erroneous point of view, but with poor results. That guy married a Russian girl, not too bad, but not "geisha" enough, for him. So they had started a long series of separation, reunion, re-separation, re-reunion, to the point that we lost track of all these changes, and we lost sight of them too. Or at least, of him.

For all we could see of that other couple, on the plane and during the rest of the travel back home, they were not in danger to follow those ill-fated footsteps. They treated each other with respect, and cheerfully. They were married for a few years, but they have already a very good "modus Vivendi". Just like us.

Both these cases had convinced us that we lived together well, not because "Italians do it better" and Russian girls are "three times a lady". It did not depend on our passports. It just depended on us. And it was a reason to be not just happy, but proud. Even if now all was flowing tranquily as the Moscow river, I was feeling no boredom, no "taskà", and no need to "question" anything. If someone has more "interesting" lives, well, it was his business, not ours...

"Tell me:" I asked to my man, in our bed. "If that girl, the one who married that guy, here in Florence, would ask you to make love with here... just once... "

"Why should she do it?"

"I don't know... Because she is alone, because she wish... It's natural... "

"And why should she ask me?"

"Because he knows you... She knows you are married, and honest, you would not take advantage of her... Let's say she need sex... a one-off, nothing more... But with a man she likes... a man she can trust, not someone in the mix... Would you do it?"

"Why do you ask me that? I have never slept with..."

"I know." I smiled to him. "But I would like to know. "Tolko chestno"..."

"Well... I don't know..." he said. She was a pretty Russian girl, very young. And I had asked him to be honest. "Tolko chèstno"... He looked at me: "Would I have your permission?"

"I don't know... Maybe..." I smiled.

"Seriously?"

"You know... She is my friend... she is alone... And I still feel a bit guilty, towards you... for... you know..."

"So what? What would we do? "An eye for an eye, a cheat for a cheat"? One on one and end it? It's history, no worry... I don't even think about it, anymore..."

"Yes, but, besides it... If I would give you my permission..."

"To make a friend happy? She is nice, she is smart, she can find the right guy..."

"Are you saying you would not like it?"

"Oh, yes, I would like... But what if she picks up the habit?" he smiled.

"Chestno". The most honest possible answer a man could give. Yes, my man was a man, nothing human, or manlike, was alien for him, not even the wish of younger female flesh. But he did not want to wrong me. If he would have been free, he would have asked her for a one-off, and even more. And very likely she would have accepted. But he was NOT free. He was mine, his body was mine, his sex was mine. And he accepted it. I could decide, if and when...

And even then, even if I would have REALLY given him my permission to sleep with my girlfriend, he wanted not to get caught in something MORE than a one-off. Because he wanted to live with ME. As fairly as possible.

"So you like her... " I smiled. I could accept it. By him. Of course he liked her: he was a man. And she was pretty.

"I do declare, your honor... She is Russian, after all... Like you... "

"And besides Russians, you don't like other women?"

"Well... I can recognize a nice woman when I see her... And I have some curiosities... that likely will remain unsatisfied... Not desires: just curiosities... "

"That is?"

"The women from other races." he sighed. "I would like to know, how it is... to make love with them. Especially the Asian girls... Japanese or Thai girls... How do they make love, what smell, they have... what taste they have..."

"Taste..." I said. I know what "taste" he had in mind. The taste a woman has between her thighs. Once he told me that my "taste" was just like red caviar. Or "losòs": caviar from salmon, more or less. Something salty, but good. Or like sea urchins, who had more or less the same taste. But there was the problems of the sand and the thorns... I smiled.

"That's why you would have liked to sleep with Bortei and me, right?"

"Right. Bortei is beautiful. But it was mostly out of curiosity... A scientific thing, you know..." he said. We both snorted.

"You know, I asked her...Bortei..." I said. He looked at me, surprised. "Yes, I told her you would have liked..."

"Ow! Embarrassing!" he muttered. "That's why she smiled to me that way, in Moscow!"

"Yes... She likes you too. She always liked you. She told me that. But she didn't want."

"Why?" he asked. I looked at him, smiling.

"Because she did not want you to pick up the

habit. And she was afraid she would have picked it up too... "

"Oh... Just for that? She did not think I was some maniac, the typical Italian... did she?"

"Just for that." I smiled. Silence. He sighed.

"You know, I... I have fancied many times, what would have been if... All of us, together... HOW it would have been..."

"Me too. And she too..."

"Really?" he wondered. I nodded. He breathed. "Well, then... in a certain way, on a certain level... we DID it..."

"Our astral bodies?" I snorted, and moved my hands as a magician: "Hocus Phocus!". He snorted too.

"Yeah..." he smiled. I came close to him.

"You know... ME TOO I'm quite Asian... Half-Asian, so to speak..."

"I know: "scratch the Russian, and you will find the Tartarian"... Right?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yes... Or the Tartarian woman..."

"A Tartarian woman with blue eyes... long blond hair... " he said, stroking my head.

"But always Tartarian... if you want... my lord!"

"And can you be a Thai girl?"

"Of course..." I said. I pushed him face down on the bed, climbed on his back and started to massage him with my body, chanting something that could be Chinese, or Tibetan: "Yaaa, Yooo, Yoo-maa-yooo..."... He burst out laughing.

"Okay, Thai girl, but now grandpa is tired! Okay?"

"Okay!" I laughed, stopping my movement and dismounting from him. It was fun!

"So I had my Thai girl, and I didn't even know that!" he said.

"Oh, Thai girl, seriously... Thai girls are so petite, so slim, and I... With this mare's body, and this hair..."

"You know I like mares... And you can wear a wig..."

"Hm, maybe at Carnival..." I said. He snorted, laughing. Yes, I knew he liked mares, my mare's body... And he showed it... He liked my body, my "taste"... Who else had to like it?

He looked at the ceiling, relaxed. We had made love, before to start talking. But neither of us wanted to sleep. I could sniff my smell over his body. The smell of my sweat, of my "taste"... I had "marked my territory" all right! Beware, you girls: this man is mine!

"But besides Thai girls, Japanese, Tartarians, Russians... Do you ever desired to sleep with another woman? Without me?"

"Well... Desiring, dreaming. But nothing more. Never teased a woman, I swear to God."

"Not even your "sekretarsha"?" I asked. He looked at me. "The one who looks like an Indian girl... She is nice... I remember her... Or has she gone away?"

"Never mix job and fun." he stated. "She works in the office yet, she is a good element. But she's just that."

I saw in his eyes that he was telling the truth. I knew that, no doubt. No, I did not "feel", I did not "think": I KNEW that.

"But why? Only for not to wrong me? Or for not to go to hell?"

"No... But why should I do it? I have sex enough, good sex, with you. We do all I like to do, and what we don't do, I don't care. Why should I look for more? Just to smell another body, another sex? You know, it starts like a joke, you see a girl, you talk, she says "okay", you sleep with her... And then it can become a Vietnam..."

"A Vietnam?"

"A Vietnam. When you are in, you can't get out. Lies, secrets, half-truths, sense of guilt... And then, she wants something more, not only sex, a "real" relation... And you, sooner or later, start to smell the air, get suspicious..." he said. I nodded.

"And then I cut your throat..." I smiled to him, passing a fingernail on his carotid. He snorted.

"You see? It's not worthwhile..." he shrugged. I snorted. "And then, who says I could score? I could look like a dirty old man... And however, not every girl has your same tastes, when it comes to men... That is: never fighting on two fronts. You lose for sure. How do you say: if you go after two hares, you will get none of them...

"Why? Do you have to go after me yet?"

"Well, I can take it a bit easier... I know you, I know what do you like in bed, I know, more or less, when I can try to... you know what..." he winked, and I snorted.

"You are right: you know that..." I chuckled.

"And generally... I know how far can I go, without getting you angry... And I'm a bit too old to learn all that stuff again, from scratch, for another woman... You can't teach new tricks to an old dog..."

Old dog? I did not see him that way. I shook my head.

"You are an old lion... Some dog..."

"But the word is "old"..." he shrugged. "Someday I will need a nurse, not a lover. I will need to be treated, just like an old dog... I will need attention... caresses... " He looked at me. "But no euthanasia, okay? Just in case, I will do ..."

"But what euthanasia, "durachòk"!" I said, mounting over him. He had possessed me, a few minutes ago, as well as usual, if not even better. And now he had that blue... "I will treat you, with eggnog and horse meat... Yes, "starik": horse meat!" I nodded, while he shook his head. "Starik" means "old man", "grandpa"... "An old age worthy of a thoroughbred, for my stud... Relax, good food, and his mare, always ready..."

"No... " he said. He looked at me. "You will cheat me..."

"I... Cheating you? Again? No, never..."

"Yes... Not out of malice, or meanness... Out of necessity... YOUR necessity..."

"What necessity?"

"You know what. You are always a beautiful woman. Some "bàbushka"..." he shook his head again. "The kids ogle you, in the street. And I'm proud of it, because such a woman accepts to live with ME. But I..." he shrugged. Then he looked into the darkness, with an ironic "chest". "Ready to be placed in reserve. "V sapàs ushlì soldàti"!"

"And what about half an hour ago?" I snorted. I meant: when he had took me, boned me... He sighed.

"The twilight's last gleaming..." he shrugged, without looking at me. "You do what you can but... it's harder and harder... And a woman like you, need that stuff too, I know... It's nothing wrong, nothing bad... I would not worry if you would need that. I would worry if you would NOT need it. It would mean you are not fine... Depression, who knows..."

"Do you mean I am a hottie, and you like me so?"

"Well, hottie... Something like that." he shrugged. "But I like you so, for sure..."

I smiled at him. I was not scorned. It was true. I still liked sex, I still wanted it, I still needed it. You could say "hottie", you could say "woman-of-bed", as Pasternak said of Lara, but Pasternak was always a poet, even when he wrote proses. Other people would have used heavier terms... Yes, I was so. But I wanted to stress one point.

"This hottie has sworn, never to cheat you again. And she did not forget it. This hottie is a hottie. But she loves you..."

"You have sworn it some time ago. "Never" and "always" are not so sensible words. And on the other hands, if you would sacrifice yourself, it would be worse. You would bear less with me, with my bad days, with my antics... And they will grow, no worry... It's a bad thing, to live with an old man..."

"To be faithful to you is not a sacrifice. From no point of view..."

"Maybe not now, but it could be so, in the future. And I don't like that idea..."

"Yes, but... I will not do anything before your back. I will ask your permission, if I really will need... You have the right to know..."

"No... I understand, the loyalty, the honesty... But you better don't tell me that... It would need that things go really bad, down there..."

"Down there where?"

He smiled, took my hand, kissed it on the back and put it where he meant for... Well, at the moment, things were going all too well! And just because he felt my body closer to him, my smell of sweated mare, of "soldier's wife at dawn", as Babel said... I started to caress him there, looking in his eyes, breathing on his face... And this had consequences...

"But didn't you say you were tired?" I asked him, ten minutes later.

"I was!" he answered. "Half an hour ago!"

We chuckled, wished each other good night and slept.

He never talked about that subject again. It should have been really just a bout of melancholy, a moment of sadness after love... Though that famous Latin quote, "post coitum animal triste", did not belong to him at all...

But more or less one month after that, it happened.

It all happened with a phone call at home. Sometimes he got calls from the office, even if he was on holiday. An inconvenience of the command posts, of the real responsibilities: the buck stops there... And he took it as such.

He always answered, and always with that laconic, annoyed and precise way. Another thing of his which reminded me our "heroic" movies...

"What the heck are you waiting for with the artillery? Where are the "tanki"? The "Fritz" are not letting up!"

That time he was on holiday, we were at home, we were having breakfast and we were playing with each other, so when he heard the telephone for the second time in ten minutes, he answered with a tone he might as well have used for the worst insults in "mat" (the slang of Russian underworld, originally. Extremely impolite...).

But then, unexpectedly, he changed his face and said "Oh, it's you... Sorry...", and spoke normally with the person on the other end of the line. Then he said "Wait a minute!" and looked at me.

"Do you mind if Paolo come here for a week, next month?"

"Paolo?"

"Yes, my nephew, the son of my sister..."

"Oh, yes..." I recalled. The only sister of my man lived in another town. We met very seldom each other. So I had almost forgotten that "nephew". We have seen him many years before, when we were just arriving in Florence, with half of our things in our suitcases yet... "No, no problem for me..."

"Thank you!" he smiled. If I would have had some problem, he would have invented some excuses. I could have bothered, so I had the last word. But all in all, what problems could be? Some more dishes to wash, one more bed to set up... I buttered a slice of bread for me, and one for him, while he talked with his sister to tell her it was all right...

"Do you really have no problems if Paolo comes here?" he asked me again, at lunch. I had had a bad flu, quite recently.

"Figure it out... It's your nephew, not a football team... But I have heard he had some problems..."

"Oh, well... He had to serve in the army... and he is not so enthusiast... "

"Hmm... Is he that kid, quite shy..."

"Yes, and he has not changed a lot... He likes to be on his own..." my man sighed. "The kind of boy who has problems, in the army... He risks to become the laughing stock of its unit... And he knows that... "

"Why?"

"For how he acts... for the way he talks, too much polite... That guy is unable to defend himself... so her mom has told me... She too is worried..."

"But is he a..."

"A "galubòy"? No..." he shook his head. "But he is a bit blocked, a bit of a sociopaths... And he is a virgin!"

"As you was at his age?"

"More or less..." he snorted. "I've told it, the kind of guy who has problems, in the ranks..."

"What kind of problem? "Dyedòvshina"?" I asked. "Dyedòvshina": the "dyèdy", the"dembelyà", those who had almost served their time, who harassed the "rookies", the "salaghì", the "newcomers"... Old military tradition...

"Well, we call it "nonnismo". But yes, it's a problem here too." he said. I nodded. "Nonnismo", the translation of "Dyedòvshina". "Nonni", "dyèdi", "grandpas"...

"Well... " I heard the voice of my father in my head. ""Nichevò", it doesn't matter, the army will make a man of him!"... But for all my love for my father, I thought it was not proper to voice these thoughts... Even if they could be right... What does not kill, strengthens... "We will try to make him feel at ease, as long as he will be here." I looked at my man. "Are you not afraight that I could get him to steal some military secrets?"

He looked at me. Yes, I could. Right or wrong, my country... He pointed a finger to me.

"I got my eye on you, "làstochka"..."

I snorted. "Làstochka", swallow. A woman who spies, or sleep with foreigners to spy over them, or to get them to spy, framing them with some pictures their wives would not like to see, or simply letting them fall in love for her... Poor "salàg", doughnut, rookie! Even if I were being a spy, what secrets could he steal? At what time the soldiers eat?

When the boy arrived, my man went to pick him up at the station and accompanied him at our home. When I saw him, I tried not to play the classical aunt, "My-God-how-grown-up-you-are" and the like, but he was REALLY grown up. Not so tall, but well proportionate, nice wide shoulders, straight backbone... No wonder he had got no deferment. "Ready for work and defense", as we said: "gotòv k trùdu i oboròne"...

He came more or less at lunch time, so I just greeted him and went back to care about the pots in a hurry, and my man led him to the spare room we have set up for him.

"When did you buy all those medals?" I heard him say. Medal bought? We never did it. It's illegal!

"We did not buy them. These are the medals of the father of aunt Sashka." my man answered. "Last time, maybe you didn't see them, because we had had not the time to put them out of our luggage, and on the wall."

"Gosh... All these medals for a single man?"

"Oh, yes. He had seen all the war, virtually." My man said. I came out of the kitchen and looked at them. My man was pointing at the medals, one by one. "The encirclement of Stalingrad... The bulge of Kursk..."

"Kursk? Never heard. It was an important battle'"

"I would say yes... The biggest battle of armored forces in history, at least till the war of Kippur, in 1973... Thousands of tanks, maybe a ten of thousands, if you sum up both sides... compared to that, the Gulf war has been a football match..."

"I mean... important for the war?"

"Oh, quite... After Moscow, Hitler could still win the war. After Stalingrad, he could get even yet. After Kursk, he had already lost... At least on the eastern front..." my man said. "The Germans lost so many tanks, in that battle, that they never recovered... And in fact, after that battle, they never attacked any more. Always retreats, retreats, retreats..."

"And the D-day?"

"Well, it came later. Almost a year later. A good job. But later... Russians had freed almost all their country already." my man said. Then he pointed at the last medal. "And here's to you, the "grand finale"..."