Among neuroscientists there is some controversy about this, but I believe the first sense to return after being unconscious is smell. I smelled coffee and was afraid to open my eyes. Finally just opening one I saw a tall, slender, curvy young woman, her curly blonde-red-auburn hair falling almost to her ass, wearing only a pair of my socks, standing with her back to me, pouring steaming water from the tea kettle over the last of the coffee. I snapped my eye shut in case it was a dream. I thought, Like that was gonna help. I heard her snap on a transistor radio. Had to be hers as I didn’t own one. Roger was singing, “I can see for miles and miles.” I realized the visceral pain I’d associated with music since she’d been ripped from me was gone. So maybe not a dream. I opened both eyes this time, fully awake.

I got up and walked over to the counter leaning my naked butt against the cold sink. No idea of the time but I felt it must be sometime after 5 since the flat was so warm and she was comfortable standing there naked. So the ovens must be on in the bakery below. I gazed at her impossibly beautiful face, the small birthmark on her left upper eyelid, her perfect breasts, and I felt a yearning so overwhelming, I had to look away. The slight changes that had taken place . . . it was like a police artist had done a two year age progression and the police artist was Michelangelo.

She looked over at me briefly, her eyes narrowed to slits, not smiling, then back at the hot water she was pouring over the coffee grounds. I took a breath as if to speak. She looked at me, but was clearly so angry, I forgot what I was going to say. She looked back to her task. I had a pretty good idea why she was pissed.

“Hey,” I said gently.

“Hmm . . .” She was definitely quite pissed. 

“I think I know why you’re angry with me.”

“Hmm . . . thinking, huh? I got feeling you’d stopped doing that over last two years.”

She was sarcastically answering my Russian with English and that had never been a good sign. “You’re thinking we could have been doing this, like, a year ago . . . only, I-I thought you were in Russia.”

“Yeah, right . . . you didn’t know I wasn’t in Russia because you didn’t call your mama for Whole. Fucking. Year!” She was seething.

“Ri, I”

“What son doesn’t call his mama for whole year? Goddammit, Misha. We . . . My family went through hell. I pictured you . . . forgetting all about me and moving on with some blonde floozy . . . pictured you fucking some blondinka! I was so angry. You fucking asshole!” She had to stop. Looking down, trying to control her breathing, trying not to cry and not being entirely successful.

I reached out and touched her hand. She didn’t jerk it away. “Rivka . . . I-I didn’t have such a good time of it either. We were told you’d been deported . . . I woke up every day imagining you and your mama and papa languishing in some fucking Siberian gulag. Baby, when they took you they ripped my soul in two.” My voice was shaky. I didn’t want to cry.

She pulled her hand back and made a fist and was about to punch me when her face changed to concern and she reached out to touch the ten inch scar above my left nipple. “Misha, what is that?”

I reached up and put my fingers over hers. “Oh . . . shortly after I got here I . . . got into a fight with a gang of drunk Irishmen . . . and I realize that’s kind of redundant.” The intention of a smile began on her face but was immediately quashed as she remembered she was angry. At least she was speaking Russian to me again.

“Does it hurt?” Her voice was tender again.

I thought about saying “Only when I breathe” but decided against being a smartass. “Not anymore . . . Ri, my love . . . I thought I would never see your face again.”

“Oh, Misha…” Her hand was caressing my cheek.

“Your face, your hands, your touch . . . Baby, I was . . . I thought about . . . ending it.”

“Mmm . . . I know about those feelings. In the desert I thought about it. You know, to be or . . .”

“Well, uh, it went a little further than thinking about it.”

“What are you saying . . . did you?”

“I had a gun . . . I have a gun . . . I was going to . . .”

“No-no-no-no-no . . . don’t even . . . shit, Misha . . . Goddammit!” And then she started to weep and then I started to weep and there we were, standing in my tiny shitty flat, weeping, kissing, kiss-weeping, then falling back into bed and making love. Coffee forgotten.

Over the next day or so, we told each other what we’d been through. About Herr Foch, General Masters, the trucker to San Francisco, the mother and daughter ride from Chicago to Allentown, her papa’s heart attack, living in Georgetown, high school in DC, her near miss with a boy named Mark . . .

”I was really angry with you and horny and he was sweet and-and kind and kind of funny and I wanted to feel the touch of someone other than myself and . . . really angry and I know that’s no excuse.”

I raised my hand to stop her. “I understand, Ri. Don’t feel bad. I don’t think I have any right to judge you. If I hadn’t been such an idiot we could have . . . ” I had to pause. “I am a little jealous, I have to admit.”

“Misha, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, no, I’m the sorry one . . . just curious, why did you stop, I mean, why didn’t you, do it?”

“Okay, full disclosure . . . we were naked and I was holding his . . . you know, in my hand and I just started laughing, like giggling hysterically and sobbing at the same time.”

“W-were you feeling guilty? Is that why you . . .”

“Well, maybe it was partially guilt.”

“What, he was . . . little guy, like short, like five feet tall? . . .”

“His . . .” She looked away, I thought, in embarrassment, but she was just trying not to laugh. But then hysterical giggling broke through.

“Rivka, you laughed at his . . . ?”

She was nodding, “I’m sure he was probably average size, I mean, I had no reference other than you.” She was trying hard to stop laughing.

“Oh, Ri . . . that poor guy.”

“I know . . . I know . . . but I couldn’t stop . . . I think it was a combination of guilt and a whole shit ton of, like, I don’t know, the accumulation of misery and anger and being the horniest I’d ever been in my life . . . and I know, I know it was awful . . . I’m a bad person.” Then more giggling. “God, I can’t stop . . . this is the worst.” I held her and like some terrible alien virus, her giggling infected me and then I was laughing along with her and we were having trouble catching our breath. “Shit, I just peed myself,” and she ran into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet and, intermittently, explosively peed with her hysterical laughing and I’d followed her in and was on my knees in front of her, giggling along with her until we finally, in spurts, so to speak, were able to stop for a few breaths, then more calmly just breathing, not daring to look at each other’s face.

Every time we looked at each other we started to laugh again until I pulled her off the seat and sat on it myself, pulling her to straddle me, face to face. She guided me in and we slowly made our way through a few more giggles before they were transformed to passionate moans.