Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak

Author:Anna Pitoniak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“I love it,” Lara said, looking up from the page. “Sasha, this is fantastic.”

In the café on the rue Saint-Bernard, Sasha waved a dismissive hand. “Well, it’s fine. It’s adequate.” It wasn’t that he disagreed with Lara—he’d worked hard on that essay, it had taken him months—but too much praise tended to make him uncomfortable.

It was a Friday night in October 1985, and the latest issue of The Spark had just been delivered from the printer. Lara came into the office to help with unpacking the boxes and sorting them for distribution. She loved those delivery days: ripping open the tape, flipping through the pages, inhaling the scent of fresh ink. Upstairs in the office, she scanned through the table of contents. “This issue has your new essay, doesn’t it?” she said. “Here it is. Oh, wow, Sasha, it’s so long! It’s—”

But before she could start reading, Sasha had hurried her out of the office, to the café across the street, a fierce heat rising in his cheeks. The embarrassment of his girlfriend reading his work in front of all his colleagues, exclaiming at his brilliance, might well have killed him.

“I mean it,” Lara said. “You should be proud of this.”

Sasha shrugged. He picked up the magazine and began turning the pages, squinting for any typos that might have slipped through. Lara smiled. If he wouldn’t allow himself this moment of pride, she would be proud for him. In the month since she took that coded phone call, Sasha had allowed her to witness more of what he did at The Spark. Lara felt that she was well-suited to this job of spectator and cheerleader, but lately, this was beginning to bother Sasha.

“I don’t like it when you say these things,” he’d said, a few days earlier, as they rode the Metro back toward the Orlov apartment.

“I know,” she’d said. “Because you never learned to take a compliment.”

He shook his head. “No. When you say these things, it’s like you put me on a pedestal. You suggest there’s some great difference between me and you.”

She frowned. “But there is a—”

“No,” he interrupted sharply. “Lara, listen to me. You’ve come to understand this work, my work, in an important way. When you read what I write, you grasp the real essence of it. When you talk about it, I realize: yes, she has heard me.”

“Because you’re a good writer!” she exclaimed. “Why do you think it’s so hard to understand what you’re saying? The argument you’re making is obvious, Sasha. It’s so…” She paused: What if he took it as an insult? But Lara was getting annoyed. If this injured him, so be it. “It’s so simple,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “But not everyone can see the simplicity.”

“You’re just telling the truth,” she shot back.

“I know,” he repeated.

“It just makes sense.”

“I know,” he said again.

She stared at him, puzzled. “Then I don’t understand what we’re fighting about.”

He grinned. “You’re very beautiful when you get mad, do you know that?”

She rolled her eyes.

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