Moscow/4

The building we were taken to was a 4-storeyed brick building located a few minutes walk away from the main hotel. Outside of this building and in some of the corridors you could still see some evidence of work in progress as there were still some scaffolding here and there. But the rooms we were taken to were quite big and surprisingly very neat; each of them could accomodate up to 4 students. And I ended up sharing mine with Ugo and two other Nigerians.

After we finished sorting out our beddings, Ugo had suggested that we go and look for something to eat. None of us had eaten since our last meal on the Aeroflot airlines almost 24hours earlier!“Hunger wan kill man pickin!” Ugo had stated, expressing how hungry he was. “I sure say if we go back to the main building somebody go fit tell us where the nearest shops dey” He reckoned that somebody should be able to tell us where we could go and buy something to eat at the main hotel building.

“But what about money?” I asked. I hadn’t arrived with any money on me from Nigeria. My stepmother said that by giving me extra money that my dad would be encouraging me to lead an “extravagant” lifestyle once i arrived Russia. According to her, the scholarship offered to me was supposed to be a full one, which was meant to take care of tuition, feeding and necessary miscellenous expenditures. Anything extra would amount to "spoiling" me, she said.

“Sam been give me some Roubles at the airport” Ugo said in response to my question. Apparently Sam had given him some Roubles before they parted at the airport, “ and I fit always change some dollars if the money no do” .

The other two guys had some money of their own to spend and had decided to come along with us to look for something to eat. So we had all strolled over to the main hotel building where we met a stern looking stout elderly woman wearing a scarf and a long worn out brown coat. She was standing at the entrance of the hotel foyer and could speak a bit of broken English.
"Only place near to buy food is beryozka" she had said. There was one such Beryozka located inside the hotel. These beryozka or “hard currency” stores were state-run retail stores that sold goods to foreigners in such convertible currencies like the US Dollar, the Pound Sterling, Deutsche mark and the French Franc. The type of goods they sold were goods that had been specially prepared for export out of the Soviet Union and also Western consumable goods, which only the foreign tourists and top communist party members could afford.

We located a beryozka at the far end of the lobby area and as we walked in it i was reminded of the bars i had seen in Western movies. The place looked more like a bar than a retail store. It had some stools built into the side of the counter and there was a large lounge area at one corner of the room that could sit up to 10 people and there was music playing in the background. Behind the counter was shelves of different types of drinks and chocolates, while in one corner some souvenirs were on display. There was a group of about 6 African students already seated at the lounge area and you could hear them chatting away. Their voices were barely audible above the sound of the Russian music that played in the background but their language sounded like Portuguese.
"E be like say na bar we come enter " I told Ugo.
"Make we find out " He said.

We went up to the counter and Ugo bought a can of coke and some biscuits for both of us after confirming from the guy that this was the beryozka. The other two guys, who had come with us, decided to go back to the hostel without buying anything after having complained that the cost of things there was too expensive for them. Ugo and I made ourselves comfortable on the stools near the counter and started to munch our biscuits. Ugo took a sip from his can of coke and then nodded in the direction of the lounge area. “ Check out that babe wey siddon near that fat guy over there!” he said asking me to look at one of the girls who sat next to a rather plump looking mixed-race guy in glasses.

The students there had several cans of beer on their table and were engaged in a very spirited conversation. One of them, the girl he had asked me to “check out” was, without doubt ,beautiful. From where I sat her dark brown skin looked smooth and I could see that though she was slender, the impression of her breasts on her cream-coloured jumper, was such that my eyes were tempted to linger just a little longer at her chest. Her black hair was done up in long, shoulder length, Senegalese braids and there was a sparkle in her eyes as she laughed. She was beautiful. And looking at her I was suddenly reminded of somebody else.

I was reminded of Funmi, a girl whom I had met about a year ago. I had literaly bumped into her on my first day at the university as i had come out of the admission clerks office. She had been rounding the corner in a hurry and we had run into each other with such impact that her bag had gone flying across the corridor, crashing into the adjacent wall. I had apologised to her and as i was handing her bag back to her just before she hurried off again...in a bid to meet up with the admissions clerk...our eyes had engaged for a fleeting moment, leaving my heart beating a lot faster. She had such lovely brown eyes that left me craving to be embraced by them, long after she had disappeared into the admission clerks office. And for the next few weeks, i found myself fantasizing of the possibilities; yet not being able to approach her even though we attended the same lectures daily. Then one day i summoned up the courage and accosted her in the corridor next to one of the canteens at the Naraguta hostel complex. And i ended up stuttering my way through a confession of love! The memory of that day leaves me feeling embarrased; and i am sure i must have left her thinking that i am a blabbering fool. Because she had walked away to join her friends who had been waiting for her at the end of the corridor and i could hear them laughing loudly as they disappeared round a corner.

This was just before the riots engulfed the Federal universities and we had all been sent packing, leaving me no chance to redeem myself. Several months later we were all called back to sit for our exams and given only 2 weeks to prepare for them. During those 2 weeks the whole atmosphere in the campus had been extraordinarily tense as everybody was under a lot of pressure to pass their courses without any carry-overs. However I did meet her a few times though and each time that she had looked in my direction, her lovely brown eyes would look right through me as though i am invisible; a nonentity who does not exist in her world.

The lovely Portuguese speaking girl across the hall was laughing again. I sensed something infectious in that laughter, which was able to mellow down the embarassment that was almost blushing across my face as i remembered Funmi. And for a fleeting moment my eyes had engaged with hers; a fleeting moment which was to seal my destiny...

“She’s beautiful isn’t she!” I said under my breath.