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Dancing tbrough the waves of wheat that stretch to the hilltops
on the horizon; dancing in a long, flowing skirt in brilliant red, a neck
free and clear of hair and the smell of the steppes in the air as
Grandmother and Grandfather beckon from across the golden field...
Svetlana woke with a start
from her sleep; woke in the bed she
didn't remember crawling into.
Then she rolled over and buried her
face as she came to remember dinner the night before: the champagne,
and the sudden wooziness as he smiled intently at her from across
the tablecloth...
Svetlana rolled back over, stripped herself of the bedcovers,
and began breathing again after she stared downward: she was still a
girl.
The girl was out of her bed in another instant, angry now at
her "country weekend" date. She ripped open her door, ripped open
his, and marched into a room which contained a made bed, no
Hans, and no sign of either his resence or his departure.
The girl's pair of eyes, set above a pair of high Slavic
cheekbones which had captured a modeling agent's attention from a
world away, surveyed the lifeless rooms another time, then fastened
on her left arm's crook. Her fingers snatched away a bandage which
had been placed over a needle wound.
Svetlana threw the bandage across the room, marched to the two
suitcases sitting in a corner of her
own room, and threw the empty vessels atop her bed. She packed
hurriedly, determined as she was to be on a plane to Moscow before
the sun had set once more.
############
"Are we sure we want to do this?" Bradford Bettmann asked
his fellow Green Beret as they walked down the narrow, crowded,
and brilliant Bangkok street.
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