8
Dimka Dvorkin was abashed to be a virgin at the age of twenty-two.
He had dated several girls while at university, but none of them had let him go all the way. Anyway, he was not sure he should. No one had actually told him that sex should be part of a long-term, loving relationship, but he sort of felt it anyway. He had never been in a frantic hurry to do it, the way some boys were. However, his lack of experience was now becoming an embarrassment.
His friend Valentin Lebedev was the opposite. Tall and confident, he had black hair and blue eyes and buckets of charm. By the end of their first year at Moscow University he had bedded most of the girl students in the politics department and one of the teachers.
Early on in their friendship, Dimka had said to him: ‘What do you do about, you know, avoiding pregnancy?’
‘That’s the girl’s problem, isn’t it?’ Valentin had said carelessly. ‘Worst comes to the worst, it’s not that difficult to get an abortion.’
Talking to others, Dimka found out that many Soviet boys took the same attitude. Men did not get pregnant, so it was not their problem. And abortion was available on demand during the first twelve weeks. But Dimka could not get comfortable with Valentin’s approach, perhaps because his sister was so scornful about it.
Sex was Valentin’s main interest, and studying took second place. With Dimka it had been the other way around – which was why Dimka was now an aide in the Kremlin and Valentin worked for the Moscow City Parks Department.
It was through his connections in Parks that Valentin had been able to arrange for the two of them to spend a week at the V. I. Lenin Holiday Camp for Young Communists in July 1961.
The camp was a bit military, with tents pitched in ruler-straight rows and a curfew at ten-thirty, but it had a swimming pool and a boating lake and loads of girls, and a week there was a privilege much sought after.
Dimka felt he deserved a holiday. The Vienna Summit had been a victory for the Soviet Union, and he shared the credit.
Vienna had actually begun badly for Khrushchev. Kennedy and his dazzling wife had entered Vienna in a fleet of limousines flying dozens of stars-and-stripes flags. When the two leaders met, television viewers all over the world saw that Kennedy was several inches taller, towering over Khrushchev, looking down his patrician nose at the bald top of Khrushchev’s head. Kennedy’s tailored jackets and skinny ties made Khrushchev look like a farmer in his Sunday suit. America had won a glamour contest that the Soviet Union had not even known it was entering.
But once the talks began, Khrushchev had dominated. When Kennedy tried to have an amiable discussion, as between two reasonable men, Khrushchev became loudly aggressive. Kennedy suggested it was not logical for the Soviet Union to encourage Communism in Third World countries then protest indignantly about American efforts to roll back Communism in the Soviet sphere. Khrushchev replied scornfully that the spread of Communism was a historic inevitability, and nothing that either leader did could stand in its way. Kennedy’s grasp of Marxist philosophy was weak, and he had not known what to say.
The strategy developed by Dimka and other advisors had triumphed. When Khrushchev returned to Moscow he ordered dozens of copies of the summit minutes to be distributed, not only to the Soviet bloc, but also to the leaders of countries as far away as Cambodia and Mexico. Since then Kennedy had been silent, not even responding to Khrushchev’s threat to take over West Berlin. And Dimka went on holiday.
On the first day, Dimka put on his new clothes, a checked short-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts his mother had sewn from the trousers of a worn-out blue serge suit. ‘Are shorts like that fashionable in the West?’ Valentin said.
Dimka laughed. ‘Not as far as I know.’
While Valentin was shaving, Dimka went for supplies.
When he emerged he was pleased to see, right next door, a young woman lighting the small portable stove that was provided with each tent. She was a little older than Dimka, he guessed twenty-seven. She had thick red-brown hair cut in a bob, and an attractive scatter of freckles. She looked alarmingly fashionable in an orange blouse and a pair of tight black pants that ended just below the knee.
‘Hello!’ Dimka said with a smile. She looked up at him. He said: ‘Do you need a hand with that?’
She lit the gas with a match, then went inside her tent without speaking.
Well, I’m not going to lose my virginity with her, Dimka thought, and he walked on.
He bought eggs and bread in the store next to the communal bathroom block. When he got back there were two girls outside the next tent: the one he had spoken to, and a pretty blonde with a trim figure. The blonde wore the same style of black pants, but with a pink blouse. Valentin was talking to them, and they were laughing.
He introduced them to Dimka. The redhead was called Nina, and she made no reference to their earlier encounter, though she still seemed reserved. The blonde was Anna, and she was obviously the outgoing one, smiling and pushing her hair back with a graceful gesture.
Dimka and Valentin had brought with them one iron saucepan in which they planned to do all the cooking, and Dimka had filled it with water to boil the eggs; but the girls were better equipped, and Nina took the eggs from him to make blinis.
Things were looking up, Dimka thought.
Dimka studied Nina while they ate. Her narrow nose, small mouth and daintily protruding chin gave her a guarded look, as if she were perpetually weighing things up. But she was voluptuous and, when Dimka realized he might see her in a swimsuit, his throat went dry.
Valentin said: ‘Dimka and I are going to take a boat and row across to the other side of the lake.’ This was the first Dimka had heard of such a plan, but he said nothing. ‘Why don’t the four of us go together?’ Valentin went on. ‘We could take a picnic lunch.’
It could not possibly be that easy, Dimka thought. They had only just met!
The girls looked at one another for a telepathic moment, then Nina said briskly: ‘We’ll see. Let’s clear away.’ She began to pick up plates and cutlery.
That was disappointing, but perhaps not the end of the matter.
Dimka volunteered to carry the dirty dishes to the bathroom block.
‘Where did you get those shorts?’ Nina asked while they were walking.
‘My mother sewed them.’
She laughed. ‘Sweet.’
Dimka asked himself what his sister would have implied by calling a man sweet, and he decided it meant he was kind but not attractive.
A concrete blockhouse contained toilets, showers and large communal sinks. Dimka watched while Nina washed the dishes. He tried to think of things to say, but nothing came. If she had asked him about the crisis in Berlin, he could have talked all day. But he had no gift for the mildly amusing nonsense that Valentin produced in an effortless stream. Eventually, he managed: ‘Have you and Anna been friends long?’
‘We work together,’ she said. ‘We’re both administrators at the steel union headquarters in Moscow. I got divorced a year ago, and Anna was looking for someone to share her apartment, so now we live together.’
Divorced, Dimka thought; that meant she was sexually experienced. He felt intimidated. ‘What was your husband like?’
‘He’s a shit,’ said Nina. ‘I don’t like talking about him.’
‘Okay.’ Dimka searched desperately for something bland to say. ‘Anna seems a really nice person,’ he tried.
‘She’s well connected.’
That seemed an odd remark to make about your friend. ‘How so?’
‘Her father got us this holiday. He’s Moscow District Secretary of the union.’ Nina seemed proud of this.
Dimka carried the clean dishes back to the tents. When they arrived, Valentin said cheerily: ‘We’ve made sandwiches – ham and cheese.’ Anna looked at Nina and made a gesture of helplessness, as if to say that she had been unable to halt the Valentin steamroller; but it was clear to Dimka that she had not really wanted to. Nina shrugged, and so it was settled that they would picnic.
They had to stand in line an hour for a boat, but Muscovites were accustomed to queuing, and by late morning they were out on the clear, cold water. Valentin and Dimka took turns rowing, and the girls soaked up the sun. No one seemed to feel the need for small talk.
On the far side of the lake they tied up the boat at a small beach. Valentin pulled off his shirt, and Dimka followed suit. Anna took off her blouse and pants. Underneath she was wearing a sky-blue two-piece swimsuit. Dimka knew it was called a bikini, and was fashionable in the West, but he had never actually seen one, and he was embarrassed by how aroused he felt. He could hardly take his eyes off her smooth, flat stomach and her navel.
To his disappointment, Nina kept her clothes on.
They ate their sandwiches, and Valentin produced a bottle of vodka. No alcohol was sold in the camp store, Dimka knew. Valentin explained: ‘I bought it from the boat supervisor. He has a small capitalist enterprise going.’ Dimka was not surprised: most things people really wanted were sold on the black market, from television sets to blue jeans.
They passed the bottle around, and both girls took a long swallow.
Nina wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘So, you two work together in the Parks Department?’
‘No,’ Valentin laughed. ‘Dimka’s too clever for that.’
Dimka said: ‘I work at the Kremlin.’