ICE DREAMS - CHAPTER B

I will be posting one chapter per week of my latest book, ICE DREAMS. Please note that the numerical chapters are autobiographical. The alphabetical chapters are pure fiction. 

In early April, I became very ill with a sore throat and fever. The medic told me to gargle with warm salt water, and take aspirin every four hours. He gave me a bottle of the coveted terpinhydrate with codeine. Still I did not get better. At night, I was running fevers. I had nightmares and fantastic dreams. One night, Tatyana came to me.

“Hurry. Get your Class A uniform and shoes and carry them with you. Starshiy has an assignment for you. Follow me.”

In my condition, wearing a fatigue uniform and carrying a duffel bag with shoes, overcoat, Class A jacket, trousers, and dress shirt in the cold night air was a gold embossed invitation for pneumonia. I struggled to keep up with her as she walked confidently across the tundra. We came to the cave entrance and walked, bent low, down the steep incline. By then I was dragging my duffel bag behind me.

Starshij greeted me mentally as we entered the room.

“Greetings, Airman. I understand that you have been ill. Sit down here. we have some medicine that will bring your illness to a speedy end. Let me have that duffel bag.”

I warily handed him my duffel, afraid he would read my thoughts, “What if they keep it? The Air Force would take from my pay all the money I have allotted to Lorraine to reimburse replacing my Class A uniform.” He took my duffel bag and came back with a cup of tea. I drank the tea greedily; the walk from makeshift barracks to the cave had made me weak. My sore throat was hurting me big time.

Soon after I drank the tea, I fell asleep. I did not have any nightmares or dreams. I slept more soundly than I had since coming to Alaska. I don’t know how long I slept. I would be on the first day of Break so my absence would not be noticed for the next two days.

When I awoke, Starshij was standing beside me holding my Class A uniform and dress shoes. They looked like they had just come back from the dry cleaners. My dress shoes had a brilliant shine.

“You and Tatyana will get on the Northwest flight leaving this morning for Anchorage. Everything has been arranged. I’ll give you money for your assignment. When you arrive in Anchorage there will be a friend of ours waiting for you. It will be time for supper. He will take you both to the Enlisted Men’s Club. Anyone you meet, you will introduce Tatyana as your sister who is visiting from Tacoma, Washington.

“The purpose of the trip is for Tatyana to meet a young man whom she likes, whom she can continue a relationship with by mail and with maybe a subsequent visit months from now. She won’t leave the Club, but you make yourself scarce if there is a young man  with whomshe seems to be connecting. About midnight, our friend will pick you up at the Club, and take you to his home. The next morning, he will see to it that you are on the Reeves flight coming back to Shemya that day.”

I was amazed by everything that was happening. I no longer had my sore throat. No one batted an eye when we got on the Northwest flight or the Reeves flight coming back. No one asked who I was or what unit I belonged to or who Tatyana was when we went into the Club.

Tatyana knew all that was riding on this two-day trip. She had about six hours to meet a young man who would love and cherish her for the rest of her life. Tatyana was an orphan. If she did meet an ideal young man, and she married him, she would have to leave the community and would never be able to return. For now, how would she overcome the language barrier?

Despite my misgivings, Tatyana carried it off. A couple hours after we arrived at the Club, Tatyana was sitting at a table, stroking the hand of the most bashful young man I’ve ever seen. They just sat there smiling and laughing. I knew she was conversing with him in thoughts. Did he even realize it? After a couple hours, I saw him writing on a piece of paper. Tatyana, put the paper in her handbag. Then she took out a photo of herself, wrote on the back of it, and then placed a lipstick kiss on the back of the photo before she gave it to him. He blushed as red as a beet. Tatyana had batted a homerun!

On the plane going back to Shemya, I asked her what address she had put on the back of the photo. She gave him the address of another “friend” in Tacoma. That friend would forward the letters to my P.O.Box at APO 736 and I was to bring the letters to her. One of the women, Gretchen,  married a man in the community she met when he was on a trading trip. She knows English and will translate his letters and write Tatyana’s answer. I am to mail Tatyana’s letter to the Tacoma friend, who in turn will mail it to the unsuspecting Airman in Anchorage. Brother! Even the Russians don’t have a network as efficient as my friends the cave-dwellers.

I don’t remember walking from the Reeves plane to the cave, if I did. The next morning, I woke up in my bed in the make shift barracks. My sore throat was completely gone. My Class A uniform was wadded up in the duffel bag. My fatigue uniforms needed to be washed and ironed. (I will use the sore throat as an excuse. That excuse will just last for today.) It is time to go to breakfast and then to work.

Did it happen? Did I go to Anchorage and back on my Break?

Two weeks later I received an envelope from Takoma, Washington addressed to me. Inside was a letter for Tatyana from Bashful Boy in Anchorage.