Originally Completed April 14th, 2020
Uploaded on October 10th, 2024
From the По Ленинграду set of postcards, 1970, sourced from Soviet Postcards
Two girls are walking together in the streaming warm light of a summer day in the Labourer’s Garden, trees crowding the smooth stone path as their eyes explore the crowded park. There is not an empty bench in sight, with families visiting the garden in the shadow of the old admiralty building, old men sitting with their canes in their hands and smiling at their grandchildren playing in the grass. One of the girls runs toward a tree, closely followed by her companion, who asks, somewhat bewildered by the sudden dash, “Masha, what on earth did you… hoo let me catch my breath… Masha what did you see in this-” Her Masha cuts her off, lifting herself up to get a better look at the tree’s branches.
“There’s a bird’s nest up here! Nastya, help me get up I want to have a better look.” Anastasia looks around for anybody who would judge her for giving her friend a hand in climbing a tree before pushing Maria up. “What’s in the nest Masha?”
“Awww there’s some robin eggs in here… I shouldn’t disturb them, but do you want to see?” She reaches down an encouraging soft hand, prompting a slight blush to spread across Anastasia’s face as she grabs the hand and scrambles up the trunk of the tree. The pair examine the pale blue eggs of the European robin with care and attentiveness, appreciating the speckles and the woven twigs of the nest. After some time discussing the eggs, they crawl back down the tree and onto the path below, continuing to walk together, the wind making their skirts flutter against each other as they walk, their hair swept behind them. They come upon a metal statue, one of the ones put in the park a hundred years before to commemorate a poet, and sit on the ground, looking up into the wide open blue sky of late summer.
“How did you know those were robin eggs, Masha?” Anastasia asks, rubbing her neck with her hand under her long brown hair.
“I learned all about identifying birds at Pioneer camp a few years ago, didn’t you?”
Anastasia looks a bit embarrassed before mumbling out an admission of having snuck out of some of the activities at Young Pioneer camp. “I uh, I always liked to just walk in the woods anyway… I heard a lot of birds, but rarely put a name to their voices.”
Maria laughs, “Well of course it’s fine to dodge some of the stuff they put us through at Young Pioneer camp, no need to be all embarrassed about it Nastya! I always loved going to camp though… that’s where I got to know you more too, y’know!”
“Yeah… That definitely made it worth it… You make all the boring Komsomol meetings bearable too.”
A soft blush alights on Maria’s face, “Well… I don’t know if I would call them boring, it’s important stuff we talk about!”
“Masha, important things can be boring and still be important. Of course Marxism-Leninism is important, but I still would much rather spend time with you. And anyway, there’s a lot more out here… Look, we’re sitting under a loved poet and talking about beautiful blue eggs!”
“Wait… You would rather spend time with me?” Her mouth is curled into a faint little smile, her cheeks a soft red at the sly compliment her friend has given her.
Anastasia sputters, “Well, uh well yeah of course! I love spending time with my friends and you’re my closest friend Masha.”
Maria stands up, grabbing Anastasia by her hands and pulling her up into a close embrace before walking away from the statue of the century-old poet, their fingers intertwined for a moment before they separate again. They look in opposite directions, Maria staring off at the old admiralty building and Anastasia gazing over at a family having a picnic.
About a week later, Anastasia and Maria are in class, sitting on opposite sides of the room. In the front of the room, there is a map showing the Union as it was in 1941, upon the invasion of the fascist menace, the teacher gesticulating vaguely while describing the siege of Leningrad. Death and destruction do not grab Anastasia’s attentions nearly as much as Maria’s face several seats over from her however, her eyes repeatedly drawn to her soft features in between occasional bouts of messy and disorganized note taking on heroics and suffering. Maria’s light blonde hair glows like Baltic amber in the streaming sunlight from the window, her eraser held in her lips and chewed on when not writing down notes in her curving flourishing handwriting. A few robins, still lingering from the tail end of summer, cling to low-lying tree branches outside the classroom. Maria turns her head and notices Anastasia glancing at her, smiling a soft and warm smile. Maria is filled with warmth, her heart feeling light at seeing just that smile, but she doesn’t know why. Her attention is forced back to the front of the classroom when the teacher leans forward to emphasize a point about the immense death toll, but for another moment, Anastasia glances over at Maria and can’t help but notice a small little wink of acknowledgement, making her chest go all a-flutter. It may not have been the best circumstances, given the talk of starvation and murder in the class, but Anastasia is feeling how much she has fallen in love. She simply does not know the truth of it yet.
The teacher mutters out an ending to the passionate lecture and the students begin to gather up their things, chatter erupting almost immediately as the signal is given that class is over. Anastasia dashes over to Maria in only a few steps and begins a half-whispered conversation with her.
“H-hey Masha!” Her face is a soft red, her eyes glancing this way and that nervously. “Would you, uh, would you want to get a snack before we go to the Komsomol meeting tonight?” Her feet shift uncomfortably, hoping for a specific answer.
Maria smiles and hops up from her seat excitedly, “Of course! What do you have in mind Nastya?”
Anastasia is taken aback, somehow surprised by the response that she was always hoping for, “Uh well, uh we can get some chebureki near here... “
“Oooooh I love chebureki! I’ll pack my books up and we can get going! I love spending time with you, Nastenka!”
Anastasia blushes even more, her eyes wide and her chest feeling so full and warm. Nastenka? Masha had just called her Nastenka? The name means Anastasia, yes, but it is a much more intimate way of saying it, a much softer way of saying it. Nastenka is Anastasia whispered into a lover’s ear on a winter day, a kiss on the heart that fills the whole body with happiness. Anastasia must have been standing there, so surprised and happy that Maria called her Nastenka, because it was only when Maria shook her shoulder that she came back to her senses. “O-oh I’m so sorry Masha, I uh, I don’t know what happened, uh, let’s just get going, okay?”
Maria looks confused for a second but giggles, stepping out around her desk and following Anastasia out the classroom door. A pair of robins sits on the windowsill, the teacher, tired from a long day of lecturing, going over to slide open the window and let some air into the room, scaring the birds off.
Maria and Anastasia sit together at the chebureki stand, their hands glistening with grease from the delicious street food, a warm treat enjoyed best with one you care about and want to spend whole days with at the tail end of summer. Anastasia’s thoughts are cloudy, confused and scared, scared of what it meant when she felt that way about Maria calling her Nastenka. Why did she feel this way, why did it exhilarate her that Maria, that her friend Masha, had smiled at her when she was staring her way. And why does she now stare at her lips as she eats the fried pastry, her long lashes that flutter as she stares off into the distance to gaze at birds in the boughs of nearby trees. Maria starts to talk about grouses and pigeons that live here in the city and squirrels she saw in the Labourer’s Garden when she wasn’t there with Anastasia. Anastasia just sits in awe of her voice, before snapping out of it and wondering why she is even thinking that, why she would love her friend’s voice so much… maybe this was just normal, maybe you just get a friend that you’re so close to… She has known Maria for several years now, since they were children in the All-Union Pioneer Organization, but it was only within this year that she started feeling this way… She doesn’t even know if Maria feels the same way.
Maria continues babbling on about birds and squirrels, nervously glancing up and down at Anastasia’s tall frame, hoping for her friend to not catch her roving eyes. She is just so nervous, her hand is almost shaking as she holds onto the fried pastry, giving only occasional glances at Anastasia in between her directionless staring off into the distance at branches without a single bird in them. She just wants to touch Anastasia’s pale smooth skin, hold her wide shoulders in her arms, play with her long brown hair. The small smattering of freckles on her Nastenka just accentuates the warm curves of her cheeks, hiding all but the hint of her high cheekbones. Her eyes dart to the ground, afraid that Anastasia will notice, but her eyes are drawn to Anastasia’s feet, wrapped up in socks just pulled out of her boots and tapping nervously on the flagstones of the street. Her face lights up in a blush, her smile wavering as she struggles to not stare at her beautiful friend. Why does she feel like this, she wonders, why does she just want to spend all her time with her Anastasia. Why does she love her shoulders, her arms, her cheeks, her chin, her deep brown eyes the same color as her deep brown hair. She bites her lip, uncertain about what she is doing, about what she is feeling, and then she notices that they are both done with their chebureki, so she stands up and, without looking at Anastasia, gestures to her to stand up as well. It is time for them both to go to the meeting.
After an hour of discussion on Marxist theory and American imperialism and what the youth of the world can do to further the former and resist the latter, Anastasia and Maria emerge from the meeting, the sun dripping ever lower in the sky. “Hey, uh, Masha… what are you doing tonight?”
Maria puts away a little notebook, the little notebook she uses to write notes during Komsomol meetings and draw lots of little hearts in all the margins. She glances up at Anastasia, “Well I was just planning on going back home… Eating dinner…”
Anastasia musters up the courage, visibly pulling some amount of energy and anxious excitement from deep in her chest and turning it into the right words to ask the right question, “I know we ate together just earlier, but would you, uh, want to come over to my house for dinner? I bet my mother and father would be okay with it, they like it when I have friends over, we can talk about what we discussed in class or in Komsomol too so we stay, uh, on top of class and, uh, well you know…” Her mind races, panicking at how quickly that fell apart, at the very fact that she even asked Maria to come over to eat dinner in the first place. Maria smiles, her face a soft blush, and she replies “Well yes of course! I would, uh I would love that!” Anastasia smiles in return, as they leave the building and begin walking down the wide Leningrad streets toward Anastasia’s home. A radio in a store’s window speaks with the voice of a radio newscaster, saying “A weather update for the 26th of August 1979: rain clouds coming in from the Baltic sea over several locations in the Estonian SSR, the Karelian ASSR, and Leningrad Oblast. Stay tuned for further updates.”
All during dinner, the two girls cannot help but shoot each other furtive glances, their eyes darting away the moment they are noticed by the other, their faces blushing profusely as they try to hide their actions from Anastasia’s mother, father, and grandfather. Her grandfather sits across from Anastasia, medals from the Great Patriotic War covering his entire chest, his beard hanging in front of them. He keeps on trying to talk to Maria, but she is too distracted by the beauty of Anastasia sitting next to her to provide anything more than a “yes” or a “mhm” to any question put forward by the old man. They have a delicious dinner and move into the other room, sitting before the television set, Maria and Anastasia having a whispered conversation as Anastasia’s mother laughs, remembering the days of best friends and hushed discussions in the 50s. Anastasia’s grandfather goes off to bed, and the family turns on the television set to be greeted by the distinctive dinging jingle of Vremya news, which opens with a weather alert reminding the family of the impending storm. The wind has already picked up, and thick droplets land on the ground like water balloons. A pair of European robins sit sheltered under the thick leaf cover of a tree planted on the side of the road as the rain grows more violent and more insistent.
Anastasia’s father looks out the window and says to his wife, “It looks like it may be a bit difficult to get Maria back to her house without getting soaked… I’ll phone the Kutepovs and ask if their daughter can stay the night.” Upon hearing this, Anastasia looks excitedly at Maria, her face glowing pink, happy that she will be spending the night with her… well, her friend. She doesn’t have any other word for it.
The family breaks out a board game for them all to play, but as the hands of the clock draw later and later, Anastasia’s mother and father bid farewell to the girls, leaving the television on Vremya news as the broadcast end notice sounds, punctuating the day with the anthem. While the familiar words Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodny sound behind them, Anastasia and Maria stand up and step into Anastasia’s room, setting up a blanket and pile of pillows on her bed. Maria flops onto the soft bed, and, although Anastasia cannot see it, Maria’s face is an embarrassed shade of red. She lies next to Maria and looks at the side of her face as she stares up at the ceiling, before reaching over and tenderly touching Maria’s fingers. In response, Maria wraps her fingers around Anastasia’s, their hands intertwined in a close embrace. Without saying anything, they slide closer to each other, holding their hands, full of warmth and fear and nervousness. They are each thinking to themselves, what if the other doesn’t want this, what if she is scared, what if she is disgusted, what if what if what if. A mess of hypotheticals fill their heads, but a spear thrown through the storm clouds pierces the confusing anxious mess and fills them with such warmth. Without saying anything, Anastasia turns to Maria, Maria turns to Anastasia, and they kiss. They are both blushing so much, their faces almost the color of beets, but their fears and anxieties melt away into happiness as they wrap their arms around each other and hold each other in a close embrace, loving each other so perfectly in the dark room, while the storm rages outside. They break the kiss and open their eyes, looking embarrassed yet again, but slowly they turn to each other once more, and kiss again, happy to be together and to finally know that the other feels the same, even if they don’t quite know why or how to say it. Holding their hands and holding each other, they drift off to sleep together, warm and filled with sunlight even brighter than the summer sun in the Labourer’s Garden where they saw the robins and squirrels together.
Poke the eye to go back to the homepage!