4.8 Amur, Mi Amour

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8. The Amur River

Olga tiptoes downstairs in Levi pants specially designed for her slim waist and dainty rear, and a shirt that is red, form-fit turtleneck pullover, and is tucked in over bright green belt with pants  at waist and, below, blue cloth tennis shoes over white socks – ideal footwear for hiking here, according to Boris who advised her never to walk in grassland with arms or legs exposed because of the infecting insect ticks and mosquitoes which at this time of summer are full of the killing brain fever that visitors to the Russian Far East catch. A Leica camera dangles from her neck; it was her fee for unspeakable services rendered to Mr. Number Two at Deutschland Uber Alles German Embassy in Tokyo.

   Kitchen clock shows 15 minutes before 7 AM; outside it is lightening. She scribbles note for Boris, who is expected for breakfast at 8 AM.
   Closing outer gate quietly, she strides away on a dirt road and at its first crossing turns right. She knows the sun rises in the southeast, and this part of Khabarovsk is near the bank of the Amur River as it flows north-northeast so the great river should be nearby. Striding down the road, euphoric, she recalls a song from her recently seen movie Pinocchio and substitutes her personal words, Hey diddle-dee-dee, a diplomat's wife I’ll be. It is a good striding song, and stepping along the gradually more overgrown narrower path she sings stridently. Now she is no longer on the path; rather it is a trail with shrubbery and hanging tree branches just overhead. Recalling Boris's warning she reaches in pocket, pulls out bottle and rubs fluid over face and other exposed skin, and its sharp castor-oil smell causes her to grimace but she knows if it bothers her it must surely repel the mosquitoes and ticks.
   Behind her, Sol starts dawn sunlight.
   All about, the vegetation is buzzing with cicadas, the insect the Japanese call semi that drop dead on the street in midsummer Tokyo. Continuing along she encounters high sword grass and now she has to push forward and the sod gets marshy and a moment later emerging from the grass she stands, stranger on the shore, by an Amur River delta, about a meter-wide (c.3 feet), by a slowly moving stream; it is one of several branching and rejoining rivulets that run through green patches of shrubbery. She stands now on a thin strip of brown beach where the Amur river, encountering flat islands and joining streams, and with no down-flow, runs slow and shallow.

   Hey, it really is brown like my bath, she thinks. It is the suspended silt produced by swirls and whirling eddies that stir up the dark loamy bottom. She stoops by the shore like a river nymph and, cupping hands, draws the brown river water to lips and at once tastes its earthy, slightly tart tang.
   Looking to right, down shore, she sees a deer fawn and doe with heads inclined both licking the water as it flows by. There is no wind and they have not smelled her and perhaps even if they do, she thinks, she would be just another harmless animal to them. At that moment the doe looks up, and for an instant the two pairs of eyes meet and then fawn and doe go.

  Olga takes a big breath and her lungs expand in pleasure. She muses, It is good sometimes to feel one is an animal part of nature. I enjoy civilization but it is nice to connect back to origins.

   A shout! “Hey, Olenka, if you hear me, yell!”
   “Boris,” she gives back, "Yoo-hoo! Here I am, love, by Amur shore ready for amour, mi amour!”

A moment later she goes missing in his arms.
 “My stupid little girl, do not you know you can get kidnapped by Chinese bandits?”
  He sniffs at her face and smiles. “Good, you listen to me about mosquitoes and ticks. I do not want your brain broken. I love it just a leedle crazy but not more.” He kisses her and gives another big hug. “Come! Ludmilla is cooking Jewish breakfast."

For Ludmilla's Joyful, Jewish Breakfast; click 4.9 Jewish Breakfast