and stared at Dina. “You’re becoming more and more interesting by the minute.”
“So are you.”
“Me? Why?”
“And why me?”
“I asked first,” Dina’s companion chuckled.
“All right, I’ll tell you the truth. Although I still need to pass the state examination with you.”
“And defend your thesis!” her teacher pointed out with a cheeky smile. “I am the President of the State Committee at your Faculty… but go on! Nothing ventured, as they say.” He cut himself off. “By the way, how about some champagne? It was your last exam today! My treat.” Without waiting for a reply, Konstantin Konstantinovich called a waiter over and ordered a bottle. “So, I am all ears. Why do I surprise you?”
“Do you know what they say about you at university? Among the students, I mean?”
“Hmmm… Not all of it, I bet.” Dina’s teacher stared at her with an attentive and expectant smile.
“What do you know?” asked Dina.
“Oh no! You started it so you ought to continue.”
“All right, I will.” She paused, as if summoning the courage. “Well, they say that by the end of the course there’s no female student left who hasn’t… well, you know.”
Konstantin Konstantinovich covered his face with his hands as he laughed. “Yes, yes, I’ve heard this. However…”
Dina interrupted him. “That’s not all. Half of them are then forced to have abortions.”
“Just one small correction,” Konstantin Konstantinovich interrupted, “no bimbos… They also say that I have a child in every year level.”
“I don’t find this funny.” Dina looked serious.
“Well, it depends,” He stopped laughing and looked at Dina. “So what do you find surprising?”
“What I heard about you does not match what I am seeing right now.”
“Really? What doesn’t match?”
“Firstly, you’re not such an idiot…”
Konstantin Konstantinovich chortled. “Well, well! An idiot, but not a complete idiot! Why, thank you!”
“Don’t interrupt me,” Dina rebuked him. “You’re intelligent and have a good sense of humor.”
“One can’t look at beautiful girls with these attributes?”
“One can look, I suppose, but not at every single one…”
The waiter arrived at this moment and began removing the two extra sets of cutlery, and arranging the appetizers on the table.
“Is it OK if I smoke?” asked Konstantin Konstantinovich, as he continued to stare at Dina with the same bewildered and surprised expression on his face.
“Yes, of course.”
“You do not approve of my lifestyle then?” he asked once the waiter had left.
“What do you think?”
Dina lowered her eyes and began inspecting her pearly nails shimmering in the candlelight. She felt awkward as it sounded like she was lecturing her teacher, who was a grown man and free to live the way he wants.
“I am beginning to fear that you came on this date with only one goal, and that is to lead me back onto the right path. Hmmm?”
“Oh dear,” thought Dina. “Now I’ve gone too far.”
“No, that’s not true.” She stumbled over her words a little, but immediately regained her composure. “I came because I like you.” She was silent for a short time as if gathering her courage again. “The more I speak with you, the more interesting you become.” She looked up at him.
Surprise flashed across her teacher’s face, and he kept staring at Dina.
“Just don’t think that it will be the same with me as with all the other girls. You didn’t invite me to the movies and to dinner just for nothing, right?” Dina continued.
“No,” Konstantin Konstantinovich replied gravely.
“Well, you won’t get anywhere.”
“Get where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Can we have dinner at least?” He smiled. “I’m starving.”
Dina felt the tension drain away from his easy transition from a serious to joking tone, and said:
“Yes, we can have dinner.”
“Shall we start then? Bon appetit.”
“Bon appetit.”
They began eating their salads.
Konstantin Konstantinovich suddenly stopped. “Oh! The champagne! Where is our champagne?” he called to the waiter.
The waiter apologized and immediately returned with a bottle in an ice bucket, opened it in one smooth movement, with only a short hissing pop and some light smoke from the cork, and filled their glasses, again wishing them a pleasant meal.
Konstantin Konstantinovich lifted his glass. “To you, Dina… Aleksandrovna. Congratulations on completing fourth year.”
“Thank you, Konstantin Konstantinovich.” Dina took a sip of the sparkling wine and placed the glass back on the table.
Konstantin Konstantinovich continued to devour his salad and very soon finished it all, even picking up the crumbs. Dina ate a little lazily, as if she was not hungry at all.
“Do you smoke?” asked Konstantin Konstantinovich, taking out a cigarette.
“Sometimes,” said Dina.
He extended a packet of Capital cigarettes towards her. “Please.”
Without replying, Dina took a flat brown packet of imported ladies’ cigarettes from her handbag, took one out, and brought it to her lips.
Konstantin Konstantinovich, expressing admiration by kinking his eyebrow, lit a match for her.
Dina smoked by barely inhaling and releasing the smoke as an impressive thin trickle that drifted upwards.
Music started playing as the musicians returned to the stage after a break. They were all quite young, with slightly longer hair than what was allowed by the unwritten rules for Komsomol youth – and there was no other kind of youth in the country – but musicians were probably permitted these liberties, in order to create a stage image. Two of them had handlebar mustaches, with a pair of tinted Diplomat glasses perched on the nose of one, while one of the clean-shaven guys was wearing skin-tight, white, completely white, pants. Jeans were only starting to become fashionable and were a rarity, accessible only to the “golden youth,” who found money who knows where for foreign clothes and expensive restaurants. White jeans were exceedingly exotic.
“We hadn’t finished our conversation,” said Konstantin Konstantinovich when Dina looked away from the stage and began to extinguish her cigarette in the ashtray.
She glanced in surprise at her companion.
“Have you said everything that you wanted to say about my person?”
“Yes, everything,” Dina replied.
“Let me summarize. I am an idiot.”
“Stop, that’s not what I wanted to say.” Dina tried to interrupt Konstantin Konstantinovich.
“Wait, wait, wait!” he waved at her. “I am an idiot, but, luckily, not a complete idiot. I’m a womanizer. An incurable womanizer, it seems. On the other hand, I appear to have some rudiments