SHORT STORY
WORKING TITLE: TOO FAR AWAY
FINISHED 2009.
Happy Birthday, Dmitri
©2009 K W Austin
Melbourne, Australia, 1986. 9:30 pm. A radio mast above a small suburban house, a slender shadow against background stars. Far away in the early spring night, a dog was barking at its own echo.
Down below in the lounge, Stephanie made the final adjustments to her modified shortwave set, feeling for each control and listening to the audio hash that poured between her headphones.
The set now had S-band, and Stephanie played her fingers across the frequency controls, going up and down the scale, eager to try the new radio band. She picked up a radar from somewhere on one channel, and scrambled microwave comms on another. That was about it. She'd have to wait until she could get the right antenna up there; meanwhile she had another cursory listen just for fun, then turned to the normal ham range.
Almost immediately Davey came through. "VK3VX from KB6FVG."
She thumbed her talk switch. "VK3VX receiving."
"Hi, Steppie. How's the new set?"
"Useless. I need an aerial tuner."
"Sound like a job for Aussie Electrical", Dave retorted, and Stephanie tried a smile.
"Australia calling Pasadena, Yanksville. Our electricians would piss all over yours."
"More likely they'd piss all over their own power lines. Anyhoo, how's Melbourne?"
They chatted for a while, and Stephanie excused herself to go and make a cup of coffee. When she got back Davey had gone, and she idly flicked through the 25 metre range in case anyone else was calling. The world rolled through her headphones, hiss and static and buzz. She nearly switched off, but at the last second thought she'd try the S-band again. She nudged the switch up.
There was a voice in her headset.
" . . . anyone can hear me, please talk. This is important. I need to get a message out."
She parted her lips, concentrating. The voice came to her behind a swell of noise and was faint, with the thin, reedy note of a narrow bandwidth. There was just enough signal to tell it was male, and foreign.
"Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?" It stopped, and that gave her time to think. She was wary of new radio contacts. Some were creeps, and others just caused her grief and heartache, the ones who struck up a glowing new friendship and chatted for a fortnight until one day – gone. She sometimes felt that they could see her face, her crumbled façade, despite the virtual mask she wore along with her headphones. And young Stephanie had done her dash of self-doubts.
So she paused before thumbing her talk switch.
"Hello, VK3VX here. Callsign, location?"
Noise and hash crammed her headphones, and the voice came back.
"My name is Dmitri. I ask you to help me. It is very important you do this."
"Well, hi, Dmitri – what do you want me to do?"
"You must contact MIPT in Moscow and tell them urgently to give message to Dr Mikhail Egorov. He is scientist in Department of Applied Physics. I give you the phone number. It is . . . "
Silence. She pushed the talk button again: "Hello, Dmitri? Hello? Come back?"
Silence.
"So much for that," she said to her tired but cheerful coffee mug. She tried for another minute, then the scramblo comms started up again and she pulled her headphones off.
She started up the shower, stripping off quite slowly. She always washed her face last because it took a while to muster the courage - the point where it actually upset her had passed now into history, but still, sometimes her fingers trembled a little as she felt the furrows and strange smooth shapes of the scar tissue. The nightmares had gone, now, and of course she'd discovered a new hobby.
So she dried, powdered, and dressed hurriedly and brewed a fresh hot coffee before sitting at the radio table again. The switch was still in the S-band setting as she wrapped the phones around her head, and the nutcase Russian was back.
"Allo VK3VX? Are you still there?"
Stephanie gave a little smile. "VK3VX receiving. Go ahead, Dmitri. You still want to defect to Australia?"
"It is not a matter of defection. Time is running out for me here. I have only a few day before I die. I must get message to Dr Egorov, and you are only way I can do this. Please, Australia girl, you help me?"
She could actually hear the question-mark. Her fingers felt slowly for the talk button, giving her time to compose some thoughts. Probably because of that, when she finally pushed the switch, she said the last thing she herself expected. "Dmitri, how old are you?"
There had always been a short pause between transmission and response, something Stephanie was gradually noticing, as though the radio waves were travelling an immense distance around the world. This time, the pause was longer.
"I am twenty years old. And it is my birthday in three days."
Stephanie laughed, she laughed! "Dmitri, wherever the hell they've jailed you up, I hope you can bust out in time for your big Two One. But – seriously, mate, are you on Death Row or something?"
"No. Please listen. Soon I will run out of air. There is no way I can 'bust out', not here. not ever. But you can help . . . "
Silence. Stephanie called.
"Dmitri, VK3VX, come back?"
" . . . Dr Egorov . . . radio failure . . . die here . . ."
Silence, again.
She sat there, listening to the ever-present hiss and crackle.
Stephanie lay awake in bed with her thoughts and presently she dreamed. Strangely it was about a tin of sardines, which surprised her because she didn't much like sardines, and the tin was floating in a vat of vodka, and she didn't care for vodka either. Waking up she reflected it was probably something telling her to broaden her culinary tastes, but after that she couldn't sleep at all. Lying on one side, then the other. Her pillow too fat. The blankets rucked into a corkscrew, toes exposed to the night. Thoughts. Circling without end. Friends, lack of. Her ruined furrowed face, that which they must never see. The radio, thank God for.
She got up and aimed herself at the fridge, where a nice bottle of Pellegrino waited, and on the way she heard the cooling fan of her transmitter. The set was still on.
Its controls were on the S-band; she sat, swallowed, and sent her callsign out. "VK3VX transmitting. Dmitri from VK3VX, come in."
"I am here."
The reply was prompt, almost telepathic. Dmitri's hardened accent was faint but clear – but he sounded tired. "I am here, Australia girl. I have five minute before I am out of radio range again. Please be telling me you talk to Moscow Institute of Applied Physics, yes?"
"Dmitri – look, mate, I dunno who you are or - or where you are. And I'm buggered if I'll be responsible for helping a death row convict break out of clink. And what ya mean you're going out of radio range?"
That curious little pause, and he opened his mike again. "What is your name, Australia girl?"
"Stephanie."
"It is pretty name. Stephanie, you must listen. I am not convict. I am Russian cosmonaut."
"A what?"
"My Voskhod spacecraft orbit the world every ninety-four minute, when I go below your horizon my radio is out of range. That is why I only talk for brief time. My air is running out and main power has failed. Soon my batteries go and all spacecraft systems stop. You must help."
"Why – why don't you return to Earth?"
"Stephanie, I cannot. No main power, so no navigation system. I do not know my location in space, so I cannot make calculations for re-entry. I am – marooned here, in orbit, and I cannot return."
"Oh, my God," Stephanie breathed. "Dmitri, can't they, like, rescue you?"
"Niet. No."
"Why not?"
"They have forgotten me. Soviet Space Program, they not admit something go wrong with Voskhod spacecraft, so they leave me here. They ignore my radio calls. Their receivers are switched off so they not hear me die."
"They wouldn't dare do that!"
"You do not understand. Soviet government is not like in Australia - when something go wrong with big-assed space project they hide it from the world. I thought no-one will ever know I am here, stuck in my spacecraft, until I got your call."
Stephanie sat there, feeling the square shape of the talk button under her fingers. She stayed like that for so long that, eventually, Dmitri's accent filtered through the static again.
"Stephanie, are you still there?"
She jammed the button down. "Yes, dammit, I'm here. Now, give me time to think."
"I do not have time. That is why you talk to MIPT, get message to Dr Egorov. He is good with Americans. He is – you would say, a 'mate'. He call NASA, because NASA have radar system that tell me my position in space and then I calculate for re-entry. Do you see?"
She felt angry. If this was a hoax it was a bloody stupid one, and, if it wasn't, some politicians needed a good kick up the proverbial jacksey.
"Okay, Dmitri. I'll ring the Institute. Hang in there, mate."
Silence.
"Dmitri? Come back?"
Silence.
"Dmitri from VK3VX?"
Silence, because his orbiting spacecraft had just fallen belown the horizon of her world.
Because of the nocturnal events she slept in badly next morning, not dreaming of tins of sardines this time. She got up, dressed, did her makeup. It was only when she'd finished that she realised this was Sunday – that's what a sleepless night does – and birds were chirping sunnily outside. She got breakfast and a coffee and took it outside onto the patio with her phone. The summer light warmed her head and shoulders, making her feel good.
Her fingers felt across the phone keys.
"International Directory, what name, please?"
"Oh, hi. I want the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Russia."
"In Russia."
"Yes."
"That's an international call."
"Yes. I know. That's why I dialled International." What do they feed these operators on? Stupid Burgers? "Can you please give me the number?"
The operator recited the number like a parrot and hung up almost before she could write it down. Carefully, becasue she didn't often dial overseas, she worked the keypad. Somewhere around the world, a telephone began ringing.
"Moskovsii Fiziko Tekhnicheskii Ikhstitu."
"Oh! Hi, mate, do you speak English?"
"Da. Yes. Can I help?"
"I want you to talk to this bloke in the, umm, Department of Applied Physics, a Dr Egorov, and tell him I've got a message from a Dmitri who's in a spaceship orbiting the Earth, and this Dmitri bloke needs NASA to give him a hand getting back from space, okay?"
"A spaceship."
"Yeah, a spaceship. He calls it – umm, Voskhod or something."
"We do not work with spaceships."
"No, mate, just find this Dr Egorov and he'll call NASA and they'll rescue the spaceship."
"We do not work with spaceships."
"You don't have to. Just give Dr Egorov the message and tell him what's happened."
"That is a matter for Department official staff. This is Sunday. You call back Monday. We do not work with spaceships."
"Bloody hell, mate! Look, this bloke's floating around in a cramped metal can like – like sardines in a tin, and there's no-one to help him, and he's a Russian citizen, so I reckon it's kinda up to you to do something about it."
"You call back Monday, yes?" The phone clicked. Knocked back, Stephanie lifted her eyes to the blue sky and sighed. Maybe her friend was up there right now, above her.
Over the next few hours she tried to raise Dmitri on the radio, but without any luck. If his orbit was carrying him overhead every ninety minutes there should be some contact, sometime – but nothing came through except an occaisional burring whine from the distant radar installation and the ever-present hiss. She took off her headphones and switched the speaker on, so she could hear if he came through, and slowly and carefully brushed her hair.
The makeup – on Sunday, no less, and now this. She didn't usually do her hair so well, and she thought it was just that she needed time to think while stroking, stroking the brush through the already tidy, clean strands.
But she refused to admit it had anything to do with her new friend.
She switched bands and called up Davey.
The California kid had somehow connected an answerphone to his ham radio, and that's what she got. "Greetings from KB6FVG Pasadena. There's no intelligent life-forms in this house right now, so leave your message for the crew of the Enterprise after the Red Alert klaxon." Woop woop woop. Click.
"Hi," Stephanie laughed. "Gimme a call back when you return from Planet Vulcan. I need a bit of help with something." Hardly had she said it than the mike opened again. "Hey, Steppie, dudette – sorry, just been crushing beer tins with some friends out back. What can I do for ya?"
"Well, you're kinda this brain about space and stuff like that."
"I'm flattered."
"Can it and piss off. What do y'know about the Russian space programme?"
"Okay. They launched Sputnik 1 in 1956, then Sputnik 2 in 1957 on top of Vostok launch vehicles. Now they send manned Soyuz craft into low Earth orbit with Protons."
"What about – umm, Voskhods?"
"Eh? Well, those got launched from Vostok rockets in the early 1960s."
"And now?"
He laughed. "Dudette, this is 1986! There were only a few Voskhods anyway and those all got used by about 1967."
"How do they navigate?"
"Sun position sensor with backup visual device. Re-entry was by radio command from the ground. If there was a power failure, the automatic system would stop."
"Couldn't it, like, return to Earth?"
"No. Without a reference in orbit he'd go off-target. He'd either bounce off the atmosphere and fly into deep space, never to come back, or burn up trying to get through the stratosphere. Bad way to go, man. But there ain't any Voskhods any more."
"Cheers, mate." She switched back to S-band, probably mystifying the hell out of Davey, and went to make another coffee. As she did the hiss from the radio speaker changed in timbre.
"Allo Stephanie, are you there?"
There were no Voskhods any more.
"Allo, this is Dmitri. Are you receiving me?"
Dmitri was taking the mickey bliss. And it annoyed her. Deeply.
"Allo nice Australia girl."
She grabbed the radio mike. "Yes, I'm here and you can go take a flying leap you son of a bitch! How dare you try and chat me up like that! All that bullshit – your so-called Voskhod drifting in space without power, you dying inside, all that – you're just a greasy lying bastard! Is this the way you get to shag all the girls you meet?"
Silence, She was smugly glad of that. "Yes!" she hissed through her smile. She stood there listening to the hiss from the speaker, then turned the radio off and went for the coffee mug.
She woke suddenly. It was Monday morning and the bedside clock read just after five. Stepahnie rolled over in bed and tried to shake off the dream.
The tin of sardines again, in its vat of vodka. That was all. But dreams can have a powerful under-emotion out of all proportion, and she felt the helplessness and fear, a panic of being lost in the endless star-flecked darkness of space. And, above all, the loneliness.
Did Dmitri have a girlfriend? Somewhere in Moscow, or St Petersburg, or whatever?
Stephanie lay on her back and tried to picture his face. Strong, young, handsome in a kind of Slavic way. You can't really put a picture to a mere voice crackling through the skies on a radio carrier, but she imagined him with boyish good looks, neat hair, a meltingly warm smile. He had lean athletic shoulders and hips due to the training those cosmonauts went through, and, of course, he was a romantic at heart.
Stephanie lay there, breathing, and tried to focus the tingling thought. It entered her with a startling suddeness.
"Lover?" she whispered aloud.
Forget it. Lying bag of grease that he is. There's no such thing as a Voskhod drifting out of control in space. Besides, you don't let anyone see you these days, not the way you are now. She sighed. So just lie there alone and forget it.
Alone?
"Dammit. Jesus, just dammit." And she swung out of bed.
She paced barefoot into the lounge, groped in the semi-light for the radio desk, sat down, switched on.
"Dmitri from VK3VX?"
Hiss from the speaker.
"Hey, Dmitri, I'm sorry, mate. Talk to me."
Hiss.
"Look, mate, I take back what I said to you. I'm here to help, okay?"
Hiss.
Angry now she banged her fist on the table. The microphone jumped, and then the fridge motor in the kitchen stopped and suddenly she could hear.
Faint. Very, very faint. Stephanie rocked the tone controls, trying to null out the background noise. The voice was there, definite, but too faint to hear the words. She adjusted the fine tuning, making a din of squeals and buzzes that rattled the speaker grille so she pulled on the headphones instead.
" . . . come and help. Situation is desperate. My batteries are going, I have now switched off all spacecraft equipment including the radio amplifiers. Can you hear me, Stephanie?"
"My god, you sound like you're on the Moon," she said. "Listen, I'm ringing the MIPT as soon as they open. Hang in there, mate."
"Stephanie?"
"Yes, Dmitri?"
"Tell Dr Egorov to contact my parents in Krasnodar. Say to him that I send to them my love and regrets."
"Don't talk like that."
"Have to. Spacecraft heaters are off. It is very cold now. I may not last much longer."
"Dmitri?"
"Da?"
"You say you are in a Voskhod. But Voskhods don't fly any more."
"This one does."
"How?"
"It come out of museum. It is the only one small enough to fly secret mission without being noticed."
"What secret mission?"
"Soviet military satellite. I was to repair it. They put metal shell around this Voshkod to make it look like an old empty rocket booster to American radar. But the spacecraft systems, they are too old, they fail. I try to keep them going, with wires and bits of electronics. But they fail, and I cannot get home."
"Dmitri, I – I . . . " She swallowed. "Mate, look, I'm sorry I called you a lying bastard. I just didn't believe you. That's all."
"Stephanie?"
"Yeah?"
"How old are you?"
She smiled, now. "Twenty-three."
"What do you look like?"
She paused. Her face, her shame, the one that could still make her cry, just a little bit, just occaisionally.
Dmitri sensed the pause in transmission, because his tiny voice filtered again through the noise. "I ask because it give me hope. You be my – you call it, 'pinup'. Like we had in VVS, the Soviet Air Force, in the ready room. Are you pretty?"
"Yes." Her speech came through softer than she wanted, hesitant. "Yes, I am."
"Blonde? Brunette?"
"Blonde, of course."
"Measurements?"
"35-24-34."
"What are you wearing?"
"My pyjamas."
A funny noise pulsated against the roar of static, and she thought it was that bloody radar installation again until she realised the truth. Dmitri was laughing!
"Oh, nice blonde girl in her pyjamas!" he cried. "Just the sort I like! So erotic!" He paused, and she nearly replied. "But – I am sorry, you take offence at – uh, innuendo?"
"No." She was prompt. She wanted to please her lover. "Nope, not at all. Would you like me to take something off?"
The laugh again, distorted by his appallingly weak transmitter. "Da, yeah. You take off your pyjama top. Very slowly. Bit by bit."
"Okay," she giggled. "Here I go. Are you watching?"
"Da!"
"Here it comes. I'm lifting up the hem. Just a bit, so you see my tummy."
"What does your tummy look like?"
"It is flat and trim, and look, there's my little belly button. Do you like it?"
"Good, very good. I run my finger around your little belly button. You like?"
"Yeah, ooh, that feels nice. Keep doing it, Dmitri. Now, I'm lifting up to my tits. You wanna little peek?"
"A nice long peek."
"Uh-uh. A short one first. Here - did you see that? Aren't they gorgeous?"
"Stephanie – don't tease me! Come on!"
She laughed gently. "Now – and now, I'm touching you. I'm running my fingers through your hair. Uh – what colour hair?"
"Dark. Black. I kiss you slowly, Australia girl. Tenderly. Your face, your plush red lips. I stroke your lovely soft face."
He stopped, waiting.
Her fingers shook slightly atop the talk button.
No. This has gone too far.
"Damn!" she swore, but with the microphone off.
"You are beautiful girl, Stephanie. I stroke your blonde hair, your face - "
"Dmitri – uh, sorry, mate, I gotta go. I'm late for work. I have to go now."
"Ah, pity. You work in your pyjamas? Never mind, but remember, talk to MIPT. Talk to the Institute."
She stroked her dark fawn hair and took the phone out to the patio in the mid-morning sun. She'd tried earlier, but got nothing but an answering machine in Russian. Now, she tried again.
"Moskovsii Fiziko Tekhnicheskii Ikhstitu."
"Oh! Umm, hi, I'm Stephanie and I was talking to someone on Sunday who suggested I ring back today."
"Do you want Academy of Sciences, Institute Admissions, Useful Information About Moscow, or Speak to Secretary?"
"I want to talk about a Voshkhod spaceship that's in orbit with this bloke inside who's dying and needs - "
"Do you want Academy of Sciences, Institute Admissions, Useful Information About Moscow, or Speak to Secretary?"
"No, there's this Dmitri bloke in a spaceship - "
"Do you want Academy of Sciences, Institute - "
"Oh, for pity's sake! Just let me speak to the Secretary."
"You make appointment."
"Can I talk to him now?"
"You make appointment."
"Is there anyone else?"
"Secretary is not here. He is on vacation."
"Right. I got that. Is there anyone else?"
"You make appointment."
Grrrrr. "Listen. Is – there – any – one – else?"
"This is Institute of Physics and Technology. You want Secretary, you make appointment. He is back in two weeks."
"Well, that's a bit bloody late, ain't it? I mean, here's this poor coot cooped up in a dying spacecraft, freezing his nuts off because there's no power for the heater - "
"I understand. I am not stupid. But we have protocol here. If you want warmer house to live in, you speak to Moscow Housing Development. You want to speak to Secretary, he is back in two weeks. Understand?" Click.
"Yes, I bloody well understand!" she shouted into the dead telephone, then hurled it at the back door. She was disappointed when it bounced off the window with a plastic clatter instead of crashing through it.
Bounce. That's what Davey had said. Bounce off the atmosphere. Fly into deep space. That's what Davey had said . . .
She rushed back indoors. Her fingers were shaking a little and she had to key in the frequency twice before getting it. "KB6FVG from VK3VX", she breathed into the mike. "Davey, come in, mate."
The kid never seeemd to sleep. After her second call, he answered with the sound of American football with TV commentary and marching band in the background. "Hey, Steppie! What you up to, dudette?"
"Listen, this is urgent. Can you talk to NASA?"
"Yeah - why?"
"Remember I asked you about Voskhod spacecrafts?"
"Yep."
"Well, there's a Voskhod up there in orbit right now. Something went wrong with the power and he's lost his navigation and his heaters."
"In orbit? Now?"
"As I speak. The poor bastard can't get back because he has no navigation, and he's only got a day or so to live, but he told me that NASA radar could help him fix his position so he can return to Earth. Does that make any sense to you?"
Davey paused before opening his mike. "It makes good sense, Steps. But – a day to live?"
"Or two. Davey, you've gotta help!"
"Okay. I got a friend from JPL, he works just out of Pasadena. I'll get on the horn and tell him right now. Jet Propulsion Laboratories have access to the best radar tracking stations in the world."
"Cheers, Davey."
"Whatever, Steps. Hang in there. KB6FVG Pasadena, out."
It took a while to get the spacecraft's position, because all she had was its radio period when it was over Australia. But presently Davey called her to say he'd spoken to "this dude at JPL" and the hunt was on. It was a strange time, but Stephanie was happy, flicking busily between Davey's frequency on 25 metres and Dmitri in the S-band. "Help is on the way," she told Dmitri. He sounded distracted, and when she asked him, he said he was very cold and hungry. "But – I look forward to landing on Earth again. I thank you." Then his spacecraft fell below her horizon, and she lost contact again.
She got up from the table and found her hairbrush, on the dresser next to the mirror. Very deliberately, consciously, she watched in the mirror as she brushed her hair. For the first time, the sight that peered back did not fill her with revulsion; she could look at the shiny scars and the great dimple in her left cheek and the damaged left eye that no longer worked. She smiled, and the wrecked image smiled back. It was Dmitri's birthday in two days, and she would give him a present, a very special one, even though he couldn't actually see it; and now, smiling into her mirror for the first time, Stephanie let the truth catch her and warm her in its arms. She was in love.
"VK3VX from KB6FVG."
She hurried back from her kitchen to the radio, coffee cup sloshing over in one hand, and jammed on the headphones. "VK3VX receiving. Hi, Davey!"
"Hey, Steps. JPL are in progress with locating your lost spacecraft. They have high hopes for finding it soon."
"Davey, as my English teacher used to say at school, eschew obfucsiation. What's gone wrong?"
He paused before replying. "They can't find it. There's nothing up there that looks like a Ruskie Voskhod, or even an old rocket booster. But – well, JPL are hampered by the fact most of their equipment is in use on another project."
"What project?"
"Voyager. It's about to fly past the planet Uranus, very far away, and they've got every damn radio dish they have trying to listen to the thing. They're not too interested in looking for an old Soviet crapsule right now."
"Jeez, Davey, there's a man's life at stake!"
"I know that. But I can't convince the JPL chiefs. Bunch of stuffed suits, the lot of them. They keep saying they'll have a proper look when Voyager has gone past the planet." He must have sensed her impending reply. "Look, I've got some buddies here. They have hooks in JPL and NASA. They'll rescue your boyfriend."
Boyfriend. Was it that obvious, now? Sitting down she switched back to the S-band.
"Dmitri?" She didn't even bother with her callsign.
"Da, I am here." His voice was weak, and not just because his transmitter was running out of power. "Speak to me. Tell me good news."
"JPL are more interested in unmanned space probes. But we're working on it."
There was no reply when she released her talk button, and she sent an anxious query up into space. "Dmitri?"
"Sorry. Hungry and very cold. I have headache now, my air is almost gone." He sighed, a very human sound. "I still have hopes, but now – you talk to me, Stephanie. Just talk to me. Tell me all about you."
"Okay," she replied softly, settling back into her chair. "I live in Melbourne, Victoria. I work from home as a correrspondence teacher. I – I don't go out often."
"Why not?"
"Well – 'coz there's always work to be done here. At home."
"All work and no play, is my Stephanie girl. Would you like to play?"
She smiled. "I am in my pyjamas. It is a warm summer – night." She took a cockeyed glance at the blue sunlit sky outside her window. "I am all alone." Well, that was true. "And I'm taking off my top, slowly. Can you see?"
"Yes," he replied. His voice was almost swamped by the static.
"Look, Dmitri, there they are. C-cup. Small and high. I'm brushing one against my microphone."
"I feel it. It is firm, curvy, cute. And the other. They are – we say in Russian, jeroticheskie."
Her smiled opened into a giggle. "Now I lower my top again. Dmitri, tomorrow's your twenty-first birthday. I'll give you a real treat then, the full bit. Reckon?"
"You tease me too much," he said, and amidst the now deafening noise she thought she heard that laugh of his. She wondered, again, what he looked like, and the fantasy obligingly lit up before her mind's eye. Mentally she stroked his dark Slavic hair and his youthful face, feeling the plush roundness of his lips against her fingertips.
"Dmitri," she nearly whispered into the microphone: "you can touch my face this time. Go on."
"Describe it."
She breathed carefully. "Round, like a young girl's. With blue eyes. And – with flawless skin, like creamed honey."
"Yes," he answered. "I feel it. Smooth complexion. Like some girls in Moscow I know." He paused. "I go out of radio range now. But I come back in hour and a half, and you give me birthday present."
"Of course, mate. See you round." She took off her headphones, and it was then she realised she was caressing her own face, exploring the hollow where the bones had set imperfectly. And accepting it.
She caught up with the work her correspondence students had sent in, reading and marking the pile of papers, some computer printed, most still hand-written, and humming the Song of the Volga Boatmen. In her bedroom she stripped to her underwear and put on a red cotton top and the short, black denim skirt that hardly saw daylight outside her closet. Then she remembered he liked her in pyjamas, and took off the top and replaced it with her fluffy mauve winceyette jacket. She put on deep scarlet lipstick, and did it while looking in the mirror. She brewed up another coffee because the last one had gone cold and got scarlet lipstick on the cup and had to redo, again in front of the mirror. She smiled, and the fawn-haired, brown-eyed girl smiled back. "Happy birthday, Dmitri."
She went back to the radio and sat down. "Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over."
Hiss crackled between her headphones, and she fiddled with the strap of her slingback while waiting for his reply. "Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over."
The coffee tasted good as she sipped and waited for his reply. Start with the slow, seductive removal of her pyjama jacket, revealing a little bit at a time. She hummed a few bars of a slinky blues riff and pretended, with her fingers, to do the cute kitten-climbing-a-rope routine which a girlfriend once taught her.
"Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over."
Boy, was he gonna have a great twenty-first!
"Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over. Come in, mate."
Stephanie glanced at her watch. He'd be over Australia right now.
"Dmitri, this is Stephanie. Come in."
Hiss, static, noise.
"Dmitri, this is VK3VX calling on S-Band at 3.5 GHz. If you can hear me, try increasing your transmitter gain."
Stephanie rocked her tone controls back and forward, making the noise appear to phase across the audio spectrum, but the crash and roar drowned out anything that Dmitri might be saying. She checked the frequency setting and inched her fine-tuner one way and the other, just in case. It was like trying to find a black cat in the rain at night.
"Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over."
Static.
"Dmitri from VK3VX, receiving, over."
Static.
Stephanie sat staring at the controls of her radio without seeing them. Her heart had begun to pound. Slowly, reluctant to let go, she pulled her headphones off. She sat there in her denim skirt and pyjama jacket. She did not move.