Journal Entry 6

This morning I woke up, looked out the window, sighed, smoked a cigarette, put my clothes on and went out of the house. I walked down the streets for a while, empty headed, bought a bun from the bakery, smoked another cigarette, then went to class. Again I looked out the window, watched the birds continue making there nests, contemplated the clouds as they passed by, and picked holes in my papers until it was over. From there I went out to eat lunch with a few of my friends from class, we had boiled cabbage, I can’t recall if it was any good or not. I said my goodbye’s to my friends and proceeded to walk down the streets of Moscow, whistling to my self the familiar tunes of my childhood. I kept my head to the ground, I felt no need to make myself sad again by witnessing another tragedy or beauty, sometimes these things become too much; I allowed my senses to guide me, I knew where I was passing from the myriad of scents around me: the smell of roasted chestnuts and fresh bread meant I was passing by Nikoskaya street and Petrov’s bakery, the strong smell of fish and onions meant Leninsky Avenue with Rolvik’s fish-market. It was exhilarating really, walking around without seeing anything except for the black pavement and an occasional foot. I felt as if I was blind, blind to the harsh realities of the world, even if it was for only an hour.

At night we went to Chinh’s again to eat dinner, and there was a strange little woman sitting at his table. I say strange because I had never seen anyone like her before. It wasn’t her facial features that were different or her body that was weird; at first I couldn’t put my finger on it, until I realized it was her air. It was the feeling that radiated from her body, the feeling of being fed up with everything around her; one could see it in her eyes. It was as if she had seen and heard everything there was to be heard, and no longer had any expectations of what was to happen. All of the young Vietnamese and Russian women I had seen at that point were naïve, they all had a shine in their eyes that meant they had hopes for the future, they thought things would get better. I hate that, I can’t stand it because I know that things won’t get better, soon the shine will wash out of their eyes, but so will their personality, and they will be come like a rock. This girl, I could see that she had insights, she observed everyone around her, and she took notes in her head of all the details. She reminded me of my mother, the shape of her face and eyes. She barely talked while we were eating. I saw Chinh pour his beer into her cup, and I guess she wasn’t used to it because she passed out. I carried her and put her into her bed, she was so light, and she looked so fragile when she was asleep, I couldn’t help feeling emotions I hadn’t felt in such a long time. I thought I had become cold to them, but yet she managed to bring them out, it was such a strange night.