The last days of Spring/5

I have been very busy over the last few days with my end of course exams and though I have thought of Tanya and the incident that happened last Sunday I am not that worried she has not visited as she normally does every other day. She is aware of my busy schedule this week and originally we had planned that we wouldn’t meet until Friday evening or Saturday morning.

It is Thursday morning and I need to go to the faculty to clarify which town I have been posted to after that I’ll just come home and rest.

Ugo had promised to raise me the ticket money for me to go and work in England for the long summer holidays. My application to the Gorodsky Soviet for the exit visa has been approved; the exit visa is an essential travel document for all residents of the USSR, which you need to show to the boarder controls whenever you are travelling out of the country-even if you are travelling to your own country. If you are travelling to a third country, you need the exit visa to show to the foreign missions before they start to consider your application for an entry visa into their country.

I am going to pick up my exit visa tomorrow by which time I will also know which town I have been posted for life rest of my education in this country. I have chosen Leningrad as my first choice and I may be posted there since we have been told that they will give priority according to our performance in the just concluded exams; I excelled in all the subjects, so I should get my first choice.

I think it will be good for me to start all over again; I think I need to be separated from Tanya and even from Adelaide; perhaps If I am sent far away to Leningrad I will be able to forget her. It will be a cruel joke of fate if we both end up in the same city again.

I don’t know how Tanya will take it, but I think what has happened on Saturday will make it easier for her to accept my going way; she too needs a break from me to allow her resolve her issues. Because I am sure that she will be able to get over me-she has to.

I have planned to travel to Moscow on Sunday evening so that I can sort out the transit visas within the week and hopefully leave for the United Kingdom by the end of next week. Tanya should be coming tomorrow or on Saturday…she has to start getting over me.

I have entered the faculty building and just joined a queue of other students who have been standing in the hallway just outside the deans’ office on the ground floor.

We want to petition the dean to reconsider our postings as we have just found out about the towns, which we have been posted to.I have just found out that I have been retained in Rostov even though I hadn’t included Rostov in my list and I was able to excel in all of the subjects! I am now feeling as if I have been shafted by the dean…

The door of the deans’ office has just opened and the student who is coming out is Adelaide. She has turned and started to come towards me and I can see that she is not in the least happy.
“Priviet…”I greet her, hoping that fate would once again keep us together"...where have you been posted to…?”
“They have kept me in Rostov and I didn’t even include it in my list of towns!”
“Me too…and…”
“I don’t understand them...after all they told us! Now the dean is saying that the spaces in Leningrad, Moscow and Kharkov are all filled up…“

“Filled up by whom?”“I don’t know…it looks like the only towns left are Krasnodar and Varonedj and she‘s asked me to go and think about it…but that we should remember that the medical school here is one of the best…"

“I heard that as well but Rostov itself is hopeless…and your friend?”
“Which one?”
“You know…er…is it Pedro?”
“He’s been posted to Varonedj…”
“So that makes it easy for you then…I mean…you don’t have a problem then since there‘s still space in there…”She glared at me.” I told her that I don’t want to go to either Krasnodar or Varonedj…I wanted Leningrad”

“Who’s next?!” the person standing behind me is asking and I notice that it’s my turn to go in as the line’s now moving very quickly.
“I won’t be long…can you wait for me so that we can walk home together?…the weather is really nice”

“I’m going to the canteen…you can check me there”I didn’t spend up to five minutes in the deans office since I was no longer in the protesting mood. I had just gone in, expressed my dissatisfaction to her unsatisfactorily and then I left her office in a haste to see if she was still at the canteen on the ground floor…She was.

I met her sitting there and eating some snacks; she and was having some Pirozhki-the traditional Russian small stuffed buns-and had a half full glass of the creamy Smetana on her table as I walked in and joined her.
“Do you care for some?”
“No thanks”
“How did it go with the dean?”
“Nothing’s changed…I am stuck in Rostov…with you”

Her expression didn’t change when I said that. In stead she raised her glass of smetana to her lips and drank from it and it looked as if she was staring through me…
“It’s not that bad…is it?” I asked.“I don’t like Rostov. There are not a lot people from my country here and there’s nothing much to do…”
“But you still accepted it ahead of Varonedj even though…”
“Oh…don’t bring up Pedro again!”
“Why…are you guys not…?”

“Can we not talk about him…how‘s your little girl?!”
“I don’t have any little girl…”
“Yes you do! The pretty mulatka that I see you with all the time…”
“You mean Tanya?…I…er…”
“She is your girlfriend isn’t she?”
“Her dad was from Nigeria but she’s never met him and I…er…”
“You are helping her find her dad…that‘s classic. You men never seize to amaze me!…can we go now?”