Still Here by Lara Vapnyar Page B

by this realization, then he removed the socks and stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket. He heard a clatter of dishes in the kitchen and the occasional traffic sounds outside, but other than that it was stiflingly silent in the apartment. There was a small CD rack by the couch, but Vadik didn’t recognize any of the albums. It occurred to him that Sergey and Vica would worry if he didn’t come home. He asked Rachel if he could make a call. “Of course!” she said from the kitchen. Vadik dialed the number, praying that it would be Sergey who answered. It was. Vadik said in Russian that he was spending the night in the city. With a girl. An American girl. He had to listen to Sergey’s stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity. “Okay, see you tomorrow,” Sergey finally said.
    Rachel emerged from the kitchen at last, carrying a tray with two mugs on it, some packages of very bad tea, and a little plate with strange grayish cookies. She sat down across from Vadik on a footstool and put one of the tea bags into her mug.
    She glanced at Vadik’s bare feet and they seemed to embarrass her.
    Vadik took her hand in his. Her fingers were thin and startlingly warm.
    “More English poetry in Russian?” he asked.
    She smiled and nodded.
    Vadik recited a strange medley of Shakespeare, Keats, and Ezra Pound, finishing with “The King’s Breakfast” by A. A. Milne. Rachel was especially delighted with Milne.
    He asked her to recite some of her favorites. She said that she couldn’t. That there were two things she simply couldn’t do in the presence of somebody else: recite poetry and dance. Her confession touched Vadik so much that he wanted to squeeze her in a mad hug. He reached and pulled on one of her braids instead.
    She was shy in bed, shy and a little awkward. She squirmed when he attempted to go down on her. “It might take a while,” she warned him. “I’m difficult that way.”
    But Rachel wasn’t difficult. She was the opposite of difficult. This was the simplest, purest, and happiest sexual encounter he had ever had. And most likely would ever have, as Vadik tended to think of it now.
    Memories of that night kept haunting him for months, for years afterward. At first, they were purely sexual—he would remember Rachel’s smell and feel this jolt of desire that made him light-headed. She smelled of something fresh and green, like a slice of cucumber or some really good lettuce. But as the weeks passed, his memories turned more and more nostalgic. He would evoke a certain thing that Rachel said, her facial expression, her tone of voice. The image that Vadik loved the most was of her braids flying up and down when she delivered her ridiculous critique of “I’m Your Man.”
    He’d been trying to find her. He came to the city and tried to retrace his steps from Central Park. He searched online forums for scholars of English romantic poetry. He browsed through dating profiles. Once he discovered Missed Connections on Craigslist he started posting ads about Rachel. In fact, it became a habit of his. Every time he met a new woman, he would post a new Missed Connections ad about Rachel.
    “Isn’t that unfair to the new girl? Doesn’t that make your new relationship doomed from the start?” Regina wondered.
    “I think you simply invented your great love for Rachel to justify your failures with other women,” Sergey said.
    “Forget about Rachel!” Vica insisted. “There is a good chance that she would have turned out anorexic, or bipolar, or just plain boring!”
    All of them could’ve been right in a way. And yet Vadik couldn’t stop longing for Rachel. He could barely remember what she looked like anymore, but in the compact reality of his memory, Rachel remained perfect. There were times when Vadik tried to banish those memories because they were too painful. And there were times when Vadik felt numb and he would desperately try to conjure Rachel because pain was better than numbness. Once,