This Amazing World of Stereotypes

I wrote this story yesterday. I was going to put it in the publishing queue as usual, but for some reason — I don’t even know why — I decided to post it right now. Maybe because I’m tired of all this hostility and everything connected with my country, and I wanted to dilute it a bit with some self-irony =D. Or maybe for some other reason. In a way, I really do love stereotypes, because often they look to me exactly like they do in this story.

...

— Hello, — Svetlana said a little roughly, though already in her usual manner, a young woman of about 27, adjusting the satin light-green blouse on her breasts. The phone cord caught on her wrist as she glanced at the vodka bottle standing nearby and reached for it with her other hand.

— Sveta! — her colleague Maria’s voice sounded a bit louder than expected, — You won’t believe what Arkady Stepanovich just did!

Svetlana muttered something, as if by habit, confirming that of course she would listen, while she began pouring vodka into the kettle. The smell instantly spread throughout the room, but instead of wrinkling her nose, she closed her eyes in pleasure.

Inside, everything was turning upside down. She — once Jonathan Miller, an American who had hated “those barbarians” all his life and laughed at their stereotypes. In New York, he used to tell friends stories about how “Russians drink vodka straight from the kettle, wear ridiculous bright clothes, and yell into the phone instead of talking.” And now this had become part of her world.

— Sveta, are you listening? — Maria was clearly losing patience, — Arkady Stepanovich threw another tantrum in accounting! Can you imagine, he showed up barefoot, with a bear on a leash!

Svetlana (or still Jonathan inside her?) blinked.

— With a bear?.. — it slipped from her, her voice sounding higher than she wanted, too girlish and ringing. Svetlana instantly caught herself on that, frowned, but heard Maria laughing on the other end.

— Yeah! Can you imagine, right in accounting! He put the bear next to the safe and said it was the new “guard.” Tanya from the department even climbed onto a cabinet, — Maria burst out laughing. — And the bear sat down and started shuffling papers with its paw!

Svetlana absentmindedly pressed the receiver to her ear with her breast, noticing how the satin blouse stretched softly and how the cold metal of the receiver touched her skin. She twitched, again catching that strange, humiliatingly sensual moment inside: everything that used to be a joke about “dumb Russians” she was now feeling on her own skin.

— God… — she muttered in English, — 'This can’t be real…'

— What? — Maria asked again. — Speaking in the enemy’s tongue again? Look, Sveta, sometimes you sound like some kind of American. Careful, or they’ll throw you in jail for that.

Svetlana straightened sharply, spilling some vodka past the kettle. Her long hair brushed her cheek, the sensation distracting her more than it should have.

— An American… — she chuckled, trying to hide the shake in her voice. — Now you’re making things up…

But that was now a very real possibility for her, because, as she had long realized, every stereotype here wasn’t just real, it lived its own exaggerated life. Russia in this world was exactly as Jonathan had always mocked at New York parties: women in shiny bright blouses, men with bears, endless bottles of vodka standing right on office desks. Only now it wasn’t a joke, but Svetlana’s everyday reality.

Maria wouldn’t calm down on the line:

— Are you talking to yourself again? I’m telling you — accounting was screaming like at a marketplace! And Arkady Stepanovich ordered everyone to dance “Barynya” while the bear sat by the safe.

Svetlana smirked a little. Her lips curved into a soft smile — too feminine, too “Slavic.”

— To hell with all of them, — Sveta finally exhaled and poured herself some boiled vodka into a glass. — Better tell me, Marish, do we have an inspection today or not? I’m just… uhh… sorting through some papers here.

— Inspection? — Maria snorted. — Sveta, are you out of your mind? Today is “National Balalaika Day”! All inspections are canceled. Right now the whole office is singing and dancing after lunch.

Svetlana blinked, absentmindedly sipping the hot vodka from her glass. Her lips burned instantly, but her breasts filled with a strange warmth, as if it wasn’t alcohol but a pleasant herbal healing tea. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a notebook with notes about how “the mandatory secretary list” had to be filled out for the holiday. She slowly pulled the notebook closer, examining the uneven feminine handwriting — her own, though her hands still remembered the New York keyboard and neat Latin letters.

“Check the balalaikas, prepare sarafans, pour tea (vodka)” — one of the points read. Svetlana’s fingers dug into the edge of the table.

— Sarafans?.. — she whispered to herself, and inside she went cold.

— Of course! — Maria’s voice instantly answered from the receiver, as if she had overheard her thoughts. — And a kokoshnik too! — Maria added with special excitement. — What, Svetik, you forgot? It’s a holiday, so everyone will be in full costume. Even Arkady Stepanovich ordered that every girl in the office must wear a sarafan and a kokoshnik.

— I… I can’t, I have. I have work and anyway I— she faltered, what could she say? Excuses here were tricky, because everyone knew if a girl in the office refused to wear a sarafan on a holiday — it meant she was either pregnant or hiding a foreign lover.

— What? — Maria’s voice carried a mocking amusement. — Svetik, are you pregnant or what? Or do you have an American hiding in your closet? — and she burst out laughing.

Svetlana felt heat rushing to her cheeks. An American in the closet… God, if only they knew that the “American” was me, inside these breasts, this skirt, this woman’s voice…

She swallowed hard. The receiver slipped slightly down and pressed into her breasts again, pushing the satin fabric inward. Damn, the sensation was too real, too physical.

— I don’t have anyone, — she blurted quickly. Her voice trembled, and again it came out too feminine. — Just too much work…

— Oh, Sveta, — Maria drawled, — you’re the same as always! As long as I’ve known you, you always make things up. Okay, enough, after lunch all the girls are gathering at Larisa Ivanovna’s. She already brought sarafans from the storage room. Kokoshniks too. Oh, that’s it, I gotta run. Nice chatter. Okay, kisses, see you!

The phone squealed with a short beep and Maria hung up.

Svetlana inhaled the aroma of warm boiled vodka, closed her eyes, and cursed herself for arguing with that strange Russian in that bar, long ago, back in America. Back when she was still Jonathan.