Spyglass to Saint Petersburg by E.B. BORBÓN

Author:E.B. BORBÓN [BORBÓN, E.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Nineteen

Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1922

Cell phone. Video chat. Wi-Fi. Google Translate. Download. Internet. I repeated the strange words in my head like a prayer so I wouldn’t forget. This list and other thoughts ran in a loop inside my head before I slept on that night that Bryan and I spoke about something called a “care package.” Shipping anything across the oceans to Russia could take months, but he spoke about it almost as if it was going to arrive within a week. If he was considering sending it by plane, wouldn’t it be as expensive as $ 4,513 or as Mr. Zaitsev computed 4,104,238 in Russian Rubles?

Ah, Mr. Zaitsev. I could go to him for some answers, but I was afraid that asking him about a cell phone, video chat, Wi-Fi, Google Translate, download, and internet would be too strange. I did not want to bring unnecessary attention to myself, so I decided I was just going to ask him about one of those strange words that Bryan had uttered.

When I went to school the next day, I contemplated the list once more. Cell phone. Video chat. Wi-Fi. Google Translate. Download. Internet. I had to figure out which of these words would cause me the least grief before Mr. Zaitsev’s class ended for the day.

The school bell rang, and like I did before, I waited until everyone had cleared the classroom before going up to my teacher. He spotted me coming toward him and a kind smile turned up his old features.

“Ah, my curious student. Have you got another question about scientific inventions, Nora?”

I flushed but nodded nonetheless. There was no harm in letting him think I just had a lot of scientific curiosities. “Yes, Mr. Zaitsev, if you don’t mind?”

“It’s no problem at all!” he said as he clasped his hands together in front of him, “Come now, what is it that you want to ask?”

“I was at the library the other day and I came across a strange but familiar word. Cell phone. Would you have any idea what that is, sir?”

It was the least strange word on my list, because it sounded like something we already had. Everything else was too foreign.

“You mean, a telephone?”

I shook my head at my teacher. “No, Mr. Zaitsev. I know what a telephone is, although I have only ever seen it in the post office or other government buildings.” I wrung my hands together as I looked for a way to phrase my question. “What I’m asking about seems to be a little more advanced than a telephone. Is there anything more far-reaching than a telephone?”

“More advanced? Let’s see.” Mr. Zaitsev rubbed his chin as he seemed to search for an answer. “I know that we began manufacturing telephones in 1882, and by 1886, in major cities like Kiev, Kharkov, Kazan, Astrakhan, and Kursk.”

I nodded, soaking in all the information.

“But the telephones in those cities only worked within their vicinity,” he continued, his eyebrows narrowing in concentration. “It wasn’t until 1898 that Moscow was finally connected to Saint Petersburg.

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