Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy Page A

won’t need it for a year, but it’ll probably take me that long to finish it.”
    He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a paper, tattered on the fold lines.
    “See? Designed it myself. There’s a little seat in there, and awindow in one side so he can see his mother coming. I’m putting a little bookshelf on the other side. And I got an old harness that’s been in space, cut it down to make a seat belt for his bench, so he’ll get used to wearing them. It’s important that he wear his safety belt.”
    Simons passed a hand over his eyes and thrust the diagram back in his pocket. Yuri wanted to say something, knew he should, but all he could think of was ublyudok—bastard. I wanted to hate you . He just nodded and let Simons walk away.

    Yuri worked restlessly that afternoon. He kicked his chair away and stood before his desk on one foot, then the other. He tried squatting against the wall as though he were sitting, working on a clipboard on his knees. The burn in his thighs felt good, but he couldn’t hold the pose very long, and it interfered with his concentration. So he sighed, retrieved his chair, and sat again.
    Yuri waited that night to see if Pirkola would come by his office for dinner. Was he rude if he went to the cafeteria without him, or foolish to wait, hungry, in his office? He finally decided that if necessary he could plead cultural misunderstanding, and walked down to the cafeteria. The place was busy, filled with the sounds of rattling cutlery, trays sliding down the silver rails, quiet conversations, and, from the kitchen, eruptive thunk s and clatters. It smelled of steamed vegetables—broccoli?—but not a bad smell.
    By the time Yuri got his food, the tables were full. The cafeteria hadn’t been built for the kind of activity the facility wasexperiencing now. A pair of men ahead of Yuri—he didn’t know their specialties—paused, then left the cafeteria with their trays. Probably going to eat upstairs. Yuri needed a break from his office, so he set his tray down at a table for four. Two women sat facing each other, bent in quiet conversation. They looked up as he sat and started to cut his salmon, but he courteously didn’t acknowledge them. They had their conversation, and he was separate.
    “Um,” one of the women said.
    “Hi,” the other woman said. “You’re Yuri Strelnikov, right?”
    Yuri glanced up and nodded, then took the cellophane off a bowl of cooked carrots. One really didn’t talk with the other people who sat at your table in a cafeteria—with people who weren’t of your party. Probably this was an American thing, being overly friendly, the way people made eye contact on the street. It seemed cocky, but probably it wasn’t meant that way.
    “Okay, then,” she said. The women were silent for a moment. “Anyway, it didn’t work out. I wound up taking a taxi home.” In his peripheral vision, Yuri saw her shrug and glance at him. “I’ll give you the details later.”
    A couple of minutes later the women left, and Yuri finished his dinner in silence. Nobody else sat at the table, even though there were three seats open. Yuri finished his salad and stared balefully at the empty bowl. Americans considered a pile of wet lettuce to be a salad. How had these people won the Cold War?
    He left his tray on the rack outside the kitchen and climbed the stairs by the west wall, pausing at the top to look out at the aridlandscape. Voices drifted up to him from a couple of men who must have left the cafeteria, too.
    “Did you see what Strelnikov did? Sitting with people he didn’t know?”
    “Yeah, and then he ignored them.”
    Yuri opened his mouth in protest, then shut it.
    “Maybe he thinks everybody wants him around. That he’s irresistible.”
    “I don’t think it was that,” the second guy said. “I think he just has no social skills. Some of the guys are like that—no clue what’s appropriate.”
    I am not one of those guys. I know those guys, and I am not