The Crushed-Velvet Faux-Leather Bourgeois Baby

The Crushed-Velvet Faux-Leather Bourgeois Baby  
 
     And we found each other on the streets of Prague in the midst of a spring that rivaled that of ancient Ireland. Yet it was not a season such as Beltane but rather freedom from the polished boots of the Red Star. But when the Soviet tanks rolled in liberty was the rose that found refuge in our boudoir where hearts still blossomed while youth festooned rifle barrels with the flower of peace.  
     Her eyes were small as raindrops in the mists of dawn as she faced the tanks with the bourgeois decadence of wearing her faux leather boots to cover the calves of her glacial blues. She was a miraculous rose, drunk on love and hot as marble in the ancient sun. Her meandering smile accented the paisleys on her madras blouse, smuggled through the iron curtain from the black market.
     But her gaze was focused like a sunbeam in a magnifier glass that burned the paper of my soul into a smoking fire. Her derriere was the sun, seen peeking through clouds of denim shorts, that ignited my passion with the Siren song of youth. She seduced my soul as Samhain approached. The apples of her cheeks were ripe with the blush of maidenhood.
     Yet, the autumn leaves collected in the patio of the hospital patio like dead souls. A rose bush blossomed in defiance of the oncoming winter. We were spirits that haunted the grounds like sheets that hung on the clothesline for the bedding of the patients who were dissidents in this strange monochrome world. We were foreigners in our own country. Her whisper was a discordant note among the murmurs of our fellow prisoners of conscience.
     “Hey Pavel, penny for your thoughts.”
     “Sofia, I am contemplating crying uncle to our wardens.”
      “Don’t you dare. We are freer than most in this city because our minds are liberated. How could you betray our brothers and sisters who risk their lives for the sake of emancipation?”
     “We could escape to the West.”
     “I have considered such a move as well. We could be the voice of those who were silenced by the regime. As expatriates we would be formidable.”
     “Revolution is an aphrodisiac. Let’s hide out in the laundry room and make our own fun.”
     “Don’t change the subject. We weren’t discussing a love in. That only works in the West.”
     “All the more reason to escape. This is the sixties and we are living in a drab hospital for protestors.”
     “Now we are on the same wavelength. Put on some clean clothes and let’s get going, pronto.”
     “But they serve really delicious mashed potatoes on Friday. Things aren’t all bad in this weird collective.”
     “You are teasing me but I am not fooled. You don’t love the food here anymore than I do. One  
good dish doesn’t a democratic republic make.”
     “Of course not. Besides even the pizza here tastes like cardboard.”
     “We need a jailbreak strategy. Let’s hide in the laundry truck and make tracks over the Czech hinterland.”
     “I won’t miss bingo nights here one bit.”
     “Once we take our place among normal society we’ll be free to bungle in the sheets. Now, my comrade, let’s have our last cup of coffee in this asylum, for old time’s sake.”
     “Are you a bit nostalgic already? We haven’t even set a timetable.”
     “Naw, not sentimental about this gulag at all. But will miss our country. Won’t you?”
     “As long as I have you to converse with in our native tongue our country will be with me.”
     “That’s the spirit. Now, give me a hug and let’s not get teary eyed.”
     We emerge from the laundry truck and hitchhike with a friendly driver who has the necessary paperwork to drive us into Austria. From there we take a plane to America where we find  
ourselves celebrating the strange custom of Halloween.
     I ask Sofia, “What will you dress as for this macabre ritual of ghouls?”
     “I shall assume the appearance of a vampire straight out of Transylvania. So, what dear lover  
will you masquerade as?”
     “I will be a throw-back to the old country as a commissar.”
     “Oh, now that sounds really scary. I dealt with  
that kind long ago. Why on earth would you want to put such fear into my heart?”
     “I never told you but when we met at the university in Prague, I was being recruited to be such a thug.”
     “How shocking. Now tell me what diverted you from that fate that puts fear into the hearts of our countrymen?”
     “When I found you, my destiny was clearly to be with you. And those all-night secret meetings only sealed my heart to yours. You my darling were far more intriguing than keeping watch over innocent citizens of our nation.”
     “What about me gave you that change of heart?  
Was I really more attractive than having such power in your very own hands?”
     “You represented freedom, to think, to feel, and to experience what those guardians of the state could never equal.”
     “I am moved and startled all at the same time. We were spirited off to the Gulag before we were even old enough to drink. Our destiny is clearer now than ever before. You followed me all the way to this shore. Now, kiss me and let’s do what lovers do in the dark.” Luna’s quill traced her in a satin dream of the moonlight from the window. She was a pearl of Venus as she shimmied out of her gossamer gown to reveal the secrets held with her silk.
     The years processed until the Berlin Wall fell and we found our way back to a fogbound street in Prague where the love of power was overcome by the power of love.
     One night in our flat we were watching “Dr. Shivago” over beer and pretzels. She was asked me, “After all these years do you still think capitalism is the best system?”
     “Sometimes I ponder the achievements of communism such as the first woman in space.”
     “I often feel like we are in outer space these days.”
     “Me too but we are still free to read Das Kapital.”
     “Who would want to read such a thing? Let’s  
stick to Dostoevsky and save the specter haunting Europe for our next life.”  
     “‘Crime and Punishment’ was our assigned reading for 1st year Russian literature. It struck a nerve for me.”
     “I know the perfect antidote which is ‘Brothers Karamazov’. Let’s read it together like they do in book of the month club. You can do a book report on it for me and as your teacher in life I will award you a gold star.”
     “How do you know I will earn such an accolade?”
     “Women’s intuition, and having shared a bed with you for decades. How would I not know?”
     The percolator had worked its magic. She asked, “Would you like milk in your café noir?”
     I felt the same excitement as when I was a kid in Prague and the bread shortage abated so that we had plenty of toast and jam for breakfast. Her luster was that of mother of pearl but her eyes were dark as the Black Madonna painted in a Polish monastery through whose mysteries I found a foothold to climb out of my abyss of solitude onto a mountain of love. Upon its summit marriage waited on a night when the air was heavy with coffee.