Do you know how to play “secrets”?

It might be a strange activity if you are fifth-grader but it’s pleasant and you can play it anywhere.

It is very easy to find materials for this game in my neighborhood. My building is shaped like the letter L. There is kindergarten in the middle with a playground with different structures designed for the entertainment of little kids: a metal slide, monkey bars, sand boxes. I personally like playhouses with windows for imaginary games. The floors are sandy. These are very good places for drinkers to relax in groups of three. They leave behind the results of their philosophical gatherings in the shape of broken bottles. (This is not a safe place for kindergarteners to play. I never thought about it then—just now. At that time it was just a reality of life).

Round brown or green pieces of glass and sand are necessary for playing “secrets.” You can put into your sand hole whatever your soul desires: small flowers petals, pieces of leaves, blades of grass, small stones, wooden sticks. You prepare your composition.

Cover it with a broken piece of glass. Put sand on top of it.

Then use your finger to open a small window in the sand with circular motions. Through the distortion of the glass, ordinary subjects look surreal, beautiful.

But this not only goal of the game of “secrets.” It is part of the pleasure.

The position of the playhouse in the kindergarten playground makes some of the windows clearly visible. You can see movements behind the curtains. It’s possible to discern faces. Someone who lives in that apartment was riding a bike with a tape recorder playing at full volume. He is wearing brown corduroy overalls. That outfit was definitely bought for him abroad—a very rare fashion statement in our iron-curtain neighborhood. I really like the process of spying on him.

I imagine a very interesting adult life that is happening behind those lace curtains. I witness handsome high school boys going in the front door of that building. They wear narrow dark blue ties and elegant high school uniforms with club jackets. I can hear the sounds of Rock and Roll and Boney M. Genghis Khan sings about Moscow.

Cossacks hey hey hey raise your glasses

hey hey

Natasha ha ha ha you’re beautiful

ha ha

Comrade toast to life!

to your health brother, hey brother, ho

hey hey hey hey

I can imagine other details in my mind. It’s very similar to “Secrets.” You put something ordinary in a little hole, cover it with glass, strew it with sand. When you open up the small hole—there is totally different view.

I became interested in detective work because the host of those after school parties led a geography lesson in my class. We had a wonderful tradition in our school: the

high schoolers would prepare the lessons instead of the teachers once a year for Teacher Day.

This boy had curly black hair, and his black eyes beamed when he smiled his freckly smile. He was conducting his lesson in a very natural way. As far as I remember, he was talking about the natural resources of the Soviet Union.

I would never imagine that those natural resources would become such a necessity for my classmates in the future, in a personal financial way. They would build palaces in France, yachts, and planes from the natural resources of Russia.

I was very lucky because I lived so close to that cute teacher. And I could observe the development of his sixteen-year-old adult life from my little house in the kindergarten playground.

It was very dark evening and I was coming back by bus from my cool (fashionable) aerobics class. That physical activity was an absolute necessity in the challenging struggle for beauty.

 My neighborhood did not have a lot of outdoor lights. I felt as if I was in the twilight zone after leaving the brightly illuminated bus. I was stopped by the police and they were asking me if I knew this gentleman in the red jacket with blue sleeves. The young man had a round, sunny face and a charming smile. An encounter with the police was not a good start for an evening.

The stranger was cute, but I did not want to mislead the police. I denied knowing him.

But you cannot avoid your destiny, and the same gentleman was waiting for me next to the entrance to my building a couple days after that episode. He was dressed as a sailor and very upset because of his evening at the police department. He told me that the police had accused him of masturbation in a phone booth with a lingerie catalog. It was a real absurdity.

“It was all false, but how did you not recognize me?” asked the sailor.

He gave me a long monologue about the fact that a normal person would not masturbate in a phone booth on a dark, cold fall evening. He was sailing all around the world and possessed a lot of foreign fashion magazines. If we lived in the same building, why did I betray him in the presence of the police?

His speech had a strange effect on me, surreal in a way. I was trying to think logically. Sailing around the world and fashion magazines were connected with the bright unknown space behind the iron curtain. It was attractive and dangerous at the same time.

I really wanted to know the meaning of the word “masturbation.” It was not a topic in school. Google did not exist. I tried to think of words with similar roots with no luck. I sensed some sexual content in that word but… it was “no sex in the Soviet Union.”

I had some knowledgeable female friends who knew the meaning of the word. It was too much information for me. The combination of adventure, novelty, and danger caused strong chemical reactions in my head, my heart, and other organs. It’s different for different people, but I was attacked that way by my first love.

The sailor’s name was Serge. He was 21 and he knew everything. He shared his wisdom with me with pleasure. “Have you heard the expression ‘poryadochnaya woman’? Because she follows rules and regulations.”

“What about men? Can men follow the rules?” I asked. Serge said: “Men don’t have to follow the rules, and the  expression ‘poryadochnyi man’ does not exist.”

Some topics Serge used to like were well beyond my verbal comfort zone. I turned red from embarrassment. I felt cold and hot at the same time. I protested against those discussions. I explained to him that such topics made me feel uncomfortable.

He would reply with his usual joke: “The only uncomfortable thing is sleeping on the ceiling, because your blanket would fall on the floor. Everything else is comfortable.” I felt the limits my conscience expand at every moment.

We lived in the same building. Unfortunately for me, there were a lot of other interesting girls in our building. Serge was not exclusive in sharing wisdom only with me. He did not hide that fact from me. He had a theory about the geographic principle of love.

The strongest attraction should happen between people who live close by. If you have to use a bus or subway to get to someone you like, the force of attraction is significantly diminished in proportion with the time and effort you spend getting to the object of love. It sounded like an axiom of geometry axiom: always right, not needing any proof.

But it seemed very controversial to me, totally different from the literature we studied in school: the romantic poetry of Pushkin, the dreamy stances of Alexander Blok, the self- sacrifice of Lermontov. According to Serge, it was all old-fashioned fairy tales.

I felt I was getting closer to the unknown adult world every time I met him. He had rules for all possible life circumstances. I listen to him so attentively that he would compare me to a sponge. I did not know if that was good or bad.

I would have preferred to see him more often, but he had other potential listeners in our building. One of my competitors lived on the first floor and another one on the third.

I knew about them, and the fact only made our relationship spicier.

I got my passport then I was 16 years old. A “sickled and hammered Soviet passport” just like Mayakovsky wrote. I felt very proud. Only one thing concerned me. The second page of the passport had my ethnicity written on it.

Serge came to celebrate the event. He was very interested in the second page of my passport. I did not want him to know about my Jewish identity. I was hoping that my curly hair and very expressive face would not give anyone such precise information. I always had that apprehension that if he realized I was Jewish, his fragile love would disappear into thin air.

But Serge was persistent. I guess he really enjoyed my stormy emotional responses. He invited me to his apartment to meet his best friend. I knew about him from Serge. He was very musical. He played the guitar, composed songs, danced well, and dated the most beautiful girl in St. Petersburg. He had a full set of qualities to feel confident about. He was Serge co-author of theories about everything.

I entered the room and met the same geography teacher I used to observe from my hiding spot in kindergarten. His curly hair, freckles like sunshine… The friend’s name was also Serge. He was very interested as well in the second page of my passport. I felt terrible, embarrassed, red-faced, hot. I was trying to avoid answering them as much as possible.

The friend changed his strategy and he asked about my curly hair. It is a typical Jewish habit to answer a question with a question. I asked him about the origin of his curly hair. And he said with a lot of pride: “It’s because I am Jewish.”

First love is usually directed at one person, but I had that same feeling for both of them. They really liked and complemented each other. Same jokes, wild celebrations in a small apartment while parents were away. They were best friends with the same name.

To impress the girls even more, the Serges came up with unique pseudonym. The Serge with the fashion magazine in the phone booth chose the name Rudy. The Jewish Serge presented himself as Innocentiy. Besides this unusual pseudonym, he impressed the girls with his musical talent. He knew how to play the guitar, piano, and drums. He composed his songs and could sing a lot of popular pieces.

I love you, I love you, I love you

That’s all I want to say

Until I find a way

I will say the only words I know that

You’ll understand

Those desirable words would excite any girl.

But he was in love with her. She had red pouty lips, shiny black hair, and ideal body. She had the face of a beauty queen. I was not able to tell whether she brought light with her or their love illuminated the space around them.

I saw them in a subway. He was dressed in a stylish black raincoat, cigarette in his mouth just to add to his image. You cannot smoke on the subway. I remember the grey marble of the subway station. They held hands, and energy from their union created an air bubble around them. I felt it so strongly, I wanted to become part of the wall under that force. I was wondering if the interaction between two people can create a gravitational field and change the surrounding space.

That love story was very different from mine. In spite of some positive moments, my story was more like a financial relationship. “I am for you and you are for me”—that was not our song.

The Serges developed multiple theories of life, most of them to explain the relationships between males and females and strategies for marriage success.

According to the wisdom of both Serges, it was a terrible idea to shower a girl with gifts. It should only happen once in ten years. Then she would be ecstatic if you brought her something small. Otherwise it would only spoil the woman.

I was the total proof of that theory. March 8 is International Woman’s day. On that day every Soviet woman expects a celebration of her femininity. Men usually bring gifts and flowers.

I got a bouquet of three tulips. It was so unexpected that I lost the ability to breathe. Conversation followed. He started talking about the future. The sailing should progress. We should proceed from kisses to more exciting actions.

To increase the temperature he mentioned my competitors from the first and third floors.

He said he could not date a nun.

I was trying to navigate through the overwhelming waves and keep control over the uncomfortable situation. I resisted every unbuttoning of my shirt. “You’re deceiving yourself and upsetting me. You have a desire. Why do you fight it?” It was his final question.

I knew the rumors about his victories over underwear with my competitor from the third floor. Rumors are rumors, but for me it was the end of my first love.

The stagnant Soviet Union collapsed. The ’90s were coming. The winds of changes blew people, previously so “Soviet and equal,” onto different paths and roads.

Some citizens dressed in dark red jackets and massively thick golden chains. They racketeered aggressively. The “red jackets” forcefully promised “nadeghnuyu Krishu” (strong protection against other criminals). It was a process of developing new economic relationships, just like in the movie Once upon a Time in America.

Small kiosks appeared near the subway station selling chewing gum and Turkish sweaters. Money was exchanged from the very unstable ruble to green dollars with tiny colorful hairs embedded in them and vice versa with independent currency exchangers on the street.

Some brave and smart businessman started exploring the transformation of natural resources to “Mercedes 500,” yachts, mansions, planes. It was a dangerous path, and not all survived, not many really succeeded.

That life was like walking on a razor’s edge: not suitable for everyone. Some people started to pack suitcases. Totally closed borders were opened. Some parents began packing suitcases for their children. Let them explore the space outside of the iron curtain. “It’s already too late for us; they must have a better life.”

America, Israel, Germany. Long descriptive letters from abroad. Quick economic success of close friends and distant relatives. Details about foreign cars and new spacious houses. In the waterfall of constant disorganization and unpredictable changes, escape abroad was a very desirable pathway.

The most beautiful girl in St. Petersburg with straight black hair was Natasha, who lived in a small apartment in a distant dark suburb with her mother. Her mom had very hard life between her boring job and attaining food by standing in long lines with other irritable people. She knew the reality of socialism. From the moment that she met her daughter’s boyfriend with the curly hair, Natasha’s mom had no doubts about the second page of his passport. The mother did not see any economic prospective in that Jewish boy.

As a single mom without much support, she had extremely challenging life. Every day difficulties made her look for someone to blame. The belief that the Jewish people were the deeper cause of all her problems was embedded in her subconsciousness. Mom presented all her thoughts to Natasha. “He will run away to his Israel and leave you here pregnant,” predicted Mom.

Natasha shared her mom’s prognosis with Serge. He got really upset. Unfortunately, he did not have a well defined-luxurious future to offer to Natasha. He left for totally unknown prospective in Israel.

Natasha’s mom’s prediction came true in a different way. Natasha met a fast and obnoxious businessman. She got pregnant. He disappeared. Natasha was repeating her mom’s destiny. Alone with child on her hands. Her home situation became very dark, with her mom preaching and moaning every day.

Natasha’s love came back from Israel exactly at the darkest period of Natasha’s life. He exchanged dollars for rubles and created the illusion of luxury and fun for one happy month. Restaurants. Shopping. Glamorous short trips. He wanted to prove to Natasha’s mom that she was wrong with her prediction. The only concerning detail was that he didn’t invite Natasha and her son to visit him in Israel.

I decided to visit my childhood geography teacher in Israel myself without any courteous invitations.

I kept romantic memories of that lesson, his smile, his confidence and theories about adult life.

But the reality of adult life can be surprisingly different from imagination. I came to his small room next to the Tel Aviv market. There was no kitchen but a guitar on the bed. He had the same curly hair, but his freckly beaming smile had disappeared.

I wanted to ask him two questions. What did he do in his spare time in this new country?

And how he could he live without trying to bring that fairytale love back into his life?

I felt that strong gravitational force of attraction between two human beings just from seeing Natasha and Serge together in the subway long time ago.

About free time he was very casual. “I take a big glass of beer and drink it on the pier after a day of hard work. With the ocean breeze and beer, you feel like a child out in the weather,” he said.

I was wondering if he did it every day. He replied: “Why would I miss the opportunity?”

I did not understand why he needed to dull his emotions with alcohol every day. But he explained that I had not sniffed (experienced) emigration and every single day is as tricky as an exam here. It is not easy to speak a foreign language. Missiles were flying. It was the time of Arab-Israeli conflict. People were running to the underground bomb shelter. New friends. How can you compare that with biking around our building? Dancing together at the discotheque in a Palace of Youth?

Most conversations are about money and recipes for survival. It’s not possible to find a comparable circle of friends here. Childhood has run away and this is life.

We dived into our common past. We talked about it together in a beer cabin. That historical place was next to the supermarket. Serge’s friend with the unique name of Khachita worked there. Probably he had normal name as well but I did not know it. He was dressed in a dirty white robe and diluted the beer with water. His friend Serge joked that he used other liquids as well for dilution.

There were 10 barrel-type glasses with big handles and small seats in the cabin. There was a fountain under the counter to wash those glasses. The beer had a lot of foam on the surface. It smelled of yeast all around the bar. And jokes. And laughing. I was invited to that tiny place by Serge, the sailor. He was always in a great mood there. It was just my secret, not for my competitors from the first and third floor. It was so enjoyable to plunge into our common past.

But I was very curious about that crazy love of his. It was the type of love I dreamed about. Not with him—just in general I wanted to experience something like that once in a lifetime. I asked him why he did not want to continue the relationship with Natasha. And he said: “There was a time and a place for emotional turbulence. What would she do in Israel? Prepare omelets for me?

She has a child and it is difficult. The end doesn’t justify the means.”

I tried to argue. “You guys had such a strong feelings for each other. You said that it was total sexual compatibility, which is, according to you, the most important part of relationships. What will you do if you never come upon the same level of affection?” I asked the most important question for me.

But he replied that love is just the correct combination of circumstances and a very delicate matter. It was totally fine with him if he never experienced the same strength of emotions. It was euphoric and painful at the same time. “Let’s just forget about it and dive into drinking,” he said

But I did not stop. I was wondering if he didn’t want to prove to that anti-Semitic mother that she had underestimated him. Israel has a lot of interesting opportunities. He could come up with a fantastic idea and make a lot of money. He could ride back into to St. Petersburg on a white horse then.

Serge asked me if I understand that Israel is a relaxed Middle Eastern country full of bureaucracy. Money making was even slower there.

I was looking for an answer to my question: where did his great love disappear to? Alcohol was not a satisfactory solution for me. I returned to St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg is a very small city because I unexpectedly met Natasha in a restaurant. She was the realization of her mother’s dreams: fox fur coat  and diamonds. Her husband was the son of an oil oligarch. She arrived at her wedding in a hot-air balloon to Tsar Petergoff palace. There was a plane flying above the wedding ceremony and writing in a sky “Natasha, I love you.”

The guests’ jaws dropped. Natasha’s mom was extremely happy. They had apartment in a historical center of St. Petersburg. Five rooms. Two babysitters.

My first love Sailor Serge got married to one of my competitors. From the third floor. It was easier with her. Upon our final meeting he said to me: “Calculated marriage is good, but the calculations have to be correct. Your wife has to love you, but you have to be happy to accept that love.”

I asked why he did not marry me. “I used to love you, and you used to accept my love.”

“No,” he said, “you were not serious enough. You were looking for love, jumping around like a teenager. A good wife has to keep the situation under control. A wife has to make life plans for her husband, encourage him to make money for an apartment, a country home, a car, and so forth. “Poryadochnaya” woman, you remember, know the rules and regulations. This way the husband has a five-year plan, like the communist party and “piatyletka.”

I found it so unromantic and boring. I left for America.

The other Serge met his “correct calculation” in Israel. Maybe it was a different type of love. I don’t know… She was rumored to have a strong demeanor and a high intellectual level. She was confident that you could not build a good life in Israel.

They moved to America as well. I was very curious to see his choice. Beautiful Natasha’s replacement. Serge’s wife was very smart but not feminine. She had a strong will and desire to succeed.

I was amazed at such a huge difference in character. I asked about the basis of his calculation. Serge’s answer was unexpected. He said he did not want to be jealous anymore. She had a precise life program. She knew everything and he could relax at this point.

We lived far away from each other but I tried to call every year. I was looking for the symphony of my childhood, the removal of the sand of life-routines and the finding of a little secret. I wanted to see the clear and beautiful picture under the broken piece of glass.

Every year Serge’s speech was slower and our conversations became shorter.

He had a son. He did not like his job that much. He had trouble finding new friends in a new country. He had a theory about that as well. “To make a new friend, you have to first be charmed, and then find similar interests, and after that you usually feel disappointed anyway. Charm minus disappointment equals nothing. That means there is no reason to start wasting time on a new friendship. It’s waste of your emotions and energy.”

His favorite time of the day was watching TV with his old friend from Russia and drinking together via Skype. It was touching, despite of time difference.

I did not like those changes in him. I offered to meet him. If before I wanted to know where Love had disappeared, now I was wondering why his life had diminished so much drop by drop. Where was the singing with the guitar, the fun, the jokes without alcohol? Where had they gone?

We met on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. There was beautiful shiny Manhattan on the other  side of the river. Whenever I look at skyscrapers I get a message: can you do better? Can youexplore more?

I can call them ambitions from glass and steel.

Serge was walking lethargically, limping. He was talking very slowly. Everything was bad. It seemed like all the energy was being drained from him. The atmosphere at home was very oppressive and irritating. His son was grown up and did not want to spend time with his father.

Serge thought he was not able to fulfill the expectations of his wife. She was very upset because of it and called him different unpleasant names.

All those circumstances made him suffer even more. Life became impossible and he suggested we get a drink. Alcohol turned off his brain and he could relax.

We stopped for lunch. Serge said he doesn’t eat breakfast anymore or lunch either. If you smoke instead of breakfast and lunch, you don’t need to eat. I ordered the strangest meal on a menu—pickles in tempura. It reminded me of how we used to put cucumbers in glass jars to pickle them for the winter absence of vegetables in the Soviet time.

It was an unusual combination: pickles from childhood and the very new tempura. That meal tasted terrible to me. I felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave. We were sailing on different waves again.

A month after our meeting, Serge called me and he sounded different. He said he had left his life program and the wife he did not feel jealous for. Upsetting nicknames and angry arguments had filled up the jar of their patience. Now he would start a new life of freedom.

He got an apartment in Brooklyn. There was a piano, a guitar, and drums, just like in his Soviet apartment in our building. There was a nice circle of Russian people. He would start to form connections with people, and he would not think about disappointment.

He was actively inviting me to visit him. He wanted to show me his happy new life.

But I was running after skyscrapers and new achievements.

I assumed I would have time to visit him in a future.

I realized that it was bad idea to postpone to tomorrow business you can do today. Because one day I opened our social media and was drowned by waterfalls of comments saying RIP, Rest In Peace, dear friend Serge.

I was shocked… I was looking for an explanation. I called his friend who used to watch TV with him on Skype. He said Serge had profuse internal bleeding and the doctors were not able to stop it. Life, which in the beginning was slowly dripping away, eventually streamed out like a river.

I was extremely disappointed with myself. I did not find time while he was alive, but he is gone now.

That childhood admiration will stay forever. I asked Serge’s Russian friend to send me his photos from the Soviet time and his songs.  I was thinking about that small playhouse in kindergarten. I really wanted to peek behind those lace curtains where Serge was composing his songs, his friends were constructing their theories about life and prognosis of happy problems and a free adulthood and everyone had constant fun.

But reality proved to be different….

Several years passed by and I got into a strange habit. I like to open the social media page of Serge’s son. He is the same age as his father was when we first met. He has a lot of similar features. And I subconsciously explain to the son about his father. It’s not the full picture of him that the son knows. Drunken, weak and unfriendly: this person is the total opposite of his real father. Some theories of less resistance might not work.

I am cleaning out the life sand and I am opening the beautiful secret. Confident, bright, talented Serge with his wise songs, curly hair, and sprinkles of freckles around his eyes…