pushed The New Yorker to me and turned away.
The bar was packed, and Helen joined a conversation with a group of people to her right that included a good-looking man who focused his attention on her. The bar’s alcohol-charged atmosphere was like a Christmas party in overdrive. I went through The New Yorker’s cartoons and found an article that looked promising but required too much concentration for a bar. I nursed another drink and flipped through my magazines. I was hungry and got ready to leave.
I was figuring the bartender’s tip, when Helen turned and said, “Please wait.”
“For another round of our contretemps?”
“Well, I’m tired of that. Actually, I want one of your cigarettes. The gin has wrecked my campaign to stop.”
I handed her a cigarette, helped her light it, and said, “I’d quit smoking for years . . . wasn’t even thinking about them anymore. Then a few months ago at a cocktail party, I bummed a Marlboro. That was the best tasting cigarette I’ve ever smoked. Of course, I was hooked again.”
“I’ve quit twice, years at a time,” Helen said. “Then something goes wrong, and bang, right back on them.” She smiled and took a deep drag. “Are you Russian-Russian? I mean, you don’t have an accent.”
“My parents left after the Revolution. I was born in France; my parents moved to California when I was a boy.”
“France to California? Why?”
“They were the two best surfers in France.”
“Ah,” she said, “deserved sarcasm.”
“Actually, my father took a position at Cal-Berkeley; he was a mathematician,” I said. “Why did you plunk yourself down and pick a fight with me?”
“This place is going nuts,” she said with a hesitant smile. “The PA system hasn’t stopped since I got off the plane. I walked into the bar and saw you leafing through a magazine, smoking a cigarette, oblivious to what’s going on. I said to myself, This guy’s gotta to get in touch with the rest of us.”
“I was thinking about what I have to do in San Francisco.”
“Look, I’m interrupting, and you’ve got other things on your mind.”
“I’m tired of thinking of them. Let’s start over?”
She extended her hand. “I’m Helen Jacobs.”
“Alexander Romanovsky.” We shook hands. “You and that fellow you were talking to seemed to be hitting it off.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Mike’s out checking flights. Mike lives in San Francisco. He’s married and comes on very strong; I don’t like that. He wants to have lunch. I don’t go out with married men. I’m getting out before this turns uncomfortable…or ugly…or both.”
“And I won’t come on strong?”
“Women, at least this one, can sense that in a man. You’re not that type. You’re not married, are you?”
“No, and I’m not anti-Semitic either.”
“And your best friends are Jewish?”
“Every single one of them; I think my tenants are. Roth, is that Jewish?”
“Can be,” she said, putting her hand on my arm. “Ethnic slurs are nothing to horse around with. I’ll tell you something else: socially I’m a passive-aggressive mess, sort of a Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. At work, I’m fine.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I’m sharing. Very California, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“But I don’t suspect you do much of that, do you?”
“I’m not really a Californian.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” she said. “Russians have always fascinated me.”
“Why? They’re wretched people living in a dreadful country with awful weather and terrible food.”
“My mother’s side of the family was terrified of Russians. They were from Lithuania, Vilnius, Wilno in Polish; it was part of Poland then. My mother and grandmother taught me Polish along with some Yiddish. What’s the Russian word for elephant?”
“Slon.”
“Do you know that the word for elephant is the same in every Slavic language from Russian to Serbian?”
“I didn’t. I wonder why?”
“Don’t know. Just one of those things.”
“Why the fascination with Russians?”
“Well, they were the bad guys,” she said. “And the bad guys are more exciting. My grandmother said that all Russians were Cossacks at heart, capable of anything.”
Pointing to my wrist, I said, “Not a drop of Cossack blood. Those guys are really anti-Semitic.”
“Have you ever been there, Russia?”
“I was the acting Moscow representative for the past several months.”
“Boy, that must have been something,” she said. “It’s like Russia has a Western veneer—the incredible music and the literature—but an Asian soul. What struck you the most?”
“The case can be made that Russians have been one of history’s worst governed people. Power, always absolute, has come from the top, never from the bottom up like here or in England, or even France. Many wish that Stalin would return, and that’s frightening.”
“Draw me a sketch of the people.”
“They’re quite different. On the streets, in crowds, they come across like New Yorkers—indifferent, almost rude. Once you get to know them, they’re most hospitable; their emotions are much closer to the surface than ours. Men and women cry easily.”
“Why are they like that?”
“Well, they’ve had a lot to cry about. Now it’s all falling apart; most Russians can’t imagine it getting better.”
“So you’re fluent in Russian?”
“My first language. I’ve been trying to modernize it, but I’m sixty years out of date and sound like Bertie Wooster.”
Mike returned. He gave Helen his best, but the conversation fizzled, and he stalked off. Helen watched him go with a forlorn expression.
I tapped her shoulder. “Why don’t I buy you another drink?”
We spent a long time talking about banking and the coming mergers. Universal’s CEO would retire early next year, and Helen briefed me on the rumors about his replacement. Nothing
