Boy on the Bridge Read Online Free PDF

their empty glasses and asked, “Want to take a walk?”
    They left the café and pressed up along Nevsky against a stiff wind. Alyosha pointed out landmarks: the Museum of Religion and Atheism, the Stroganov Palace, the Barricade Cinema, the Moika Canal, the yellow Admiralty building with its pointed golden spire. They passed an old school where flowers had beenlaid at the gate. Painted on the wall was a pale blue rectangle with the Russian words for Citizens! In the event of artillery fire, this side of the street is the most DANGEROUS! Next to that was a marble plaque: This notice has been preserved to commemorate the heroism and courage of Leningrad’s citizens during the 900-day blockade of 1941–1943 .
    “The Great Patriotic War,” Alyosha said. “To the rest of the world, it ended forty years ago, but here we still live with it every day.”
    Laura knew that over twenty million Soviet people died during World War II, and as many as two million died — from disease, hunger, or bombs — during the German siege of Leningrad. “I can feel it. The sadness, I mean. All over the city.”
    “Of course you can. Russians hate to let go of suffering. They will hang on to it forever if they can.”
    He scowled, and she knew he was angry about something, but she wasn’t sure what. She had a feeling they weren’t talking about World War II anymore.
    That was okay with her. What she really wanted to talk about was the day. The walk. The two of them.
    It was dark out now, and the wind off the river chafed their faces. Alyosha stopped for a moment to look at her. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Her eyes watered from the cold. He lifted her woolen scarf and pulled it up over her chin to warm her.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    He smiled a wry, off-center grin that held a hint of sadness in its playfulness. Something twinged inside her, like the snapping of a wishbone.
    They walked a little farther until they reached the Palace Bridge. Had something happened between them just then? She felt it, but couldn’t articulate it, even in her own mind. Every few steps she stole a glance at his face. She could swear she saw him wrestling with the same questions in his mind.
    Or maybe she imagined it. Probably. That would be like her.
    At the bridge, he said, “I’ll leave you here.”
    “You go your way and I’ll go mine,” Laura replied, keeping her tone light.
    He took both her gloved hands in his and kissed her stinging cheeks. “Will you call me again?”
    “Yes.” Yes, yes, for sure, yes.
    “Good-bye.”
    She crossed the bridge, while he turned back and walked down Nevsky to the metro, his head ducked against the sharp wind.

B inky Binkowsky, the yellow-haired girl with the moon boots, had mentioned something about a five-day rule. First, she said, you should never call a guy, but always wait for him to call. But Alyosha couldn’t call the dorm, so Laura asked, “What if you have to call him for some reason?”
    “Then wait at least five days from the last time you talked to him or saw him,” Binky pronounced. “Unless it’s an emergency.”
    “Let me ask you something, Binky,” Karen said. “How many guys have you dated?”
    “Not very many.” She pressed on her oversized pink glasses. “Okay, none. But when I find the right guy, I will know exactly how to handle him.”
    Karen nodded, but later she said to Laura, “I wouldn’t take love advice from a person named Binky.”
    There was another reason to be cautious. The Americans had been warned during orientation, before they’d even arrived in Leningrad, to beware of falling in love. For most Russians, there was only one way to leave the Soviet Union, and that was to marry a foreigner. Some of them would do anything, say anything, to get to the West, especially America. “Be on guard!” her chaperones had told them. “Don’t fall for it.”
    Nevertheless, two days after her first coffee with Alyosha, Laura found her feet moving