It’s just that long long ago we lived in a city by the sea where in the summertime our bodies tanned brown as chocolate. We started smoking early and in July we would entertain ourselves by flipping our cigarette butts off the balcony and making bets on whether they’d land on the sidewalk or hang suspended in the leaves of the chestnut trees, swaying. The smoke from the cheap cigarettes clenched in the corners of our mouths made us squint as we played popular tunes on our guitars. At dusk we would stroll out with our lady loves. We were envied. No wonder—we were young, with bell-bottoms and bad English, we laughed with exaggerated gaiety. Granted, the Beatles had split up. Well, so what. So the Beatles split up. Her eyes were still like deep dark pools, you could drown in them.
And watching the sun come up on the boulevard? Cool kvass on hot humid nights? Not another soul on the square…
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Pavel Lembersky is the author of three collections of short prose in Russian, most recently A Unique Occurance, and a novel, Aboard the 500th Merry Echelon. He lives in New York City.
