SOTM: Alexei Konstantinovich, Vladimir Petrov, Thomas/Anton; making polite conversation
Was aiming to get COTT out today, but twas not meant to be (tomorrow!), so please have a SOTM that's a full 500 words longer than it's supposed to be as recompense.
I'm not going to include a warning, per se, but I will remind people banjos is, was, and always will fundamentally be a lower case series, and so is Alexei Konstantinovich's biography (at least the bits that would never make it to the page), and that internalized homophobia is one of, if not the biggest reason why.
For the prompt: Alexei runs into Vladimir, Anton, and Vinny at an international hockey event, where Vlad introduces Vinny as Anton’s partner.
“You should have warned me,” Alexei says in Russian.
He had to wait for Vladimir’s son to leave first. His Russian’s the sort you pick up when the only time you hear your mother tongue is from your own mother, and all it took to lose him earlier was to speak quickly.
Not that he’d been trying to, originally — he’d been telling Anton a story about his father he was almost certain he hadn’t told him yet, Vladimir cutting him off with laughing interjections, and Anton started looking confused halfway through.
Alexei was in the midst of saying it all again, slower, over Vladimir’s increasingly enthusiastic efforts to disrupt him, but then Anton’s — Thomas came by, and they had, of course, all switched to English, a language none of them learned from their mothers, judging by his accent.
“You’re from Quebec,” Alexei said after he introduced himself, dropping out of their conversational English into a lilting French when he said his own name. Stupid, stupid.
“Northern Ontario,” he said, then smiled, like Alexei hadn’t just done the equivalent of — he doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember much about the nuances, what is and isn’t considered offensive, just that it was complicated. Complicated enough that no explanation he received made sense, but then, how could it? French values explained in fractured English to a culture shocked Russian boy who barely spoke a word of either language back then, who barely retains a word of either now.
“I apologize for the error,” Alexei said, or something like it, in his rusty, ancient French, and Thomas smiled even wider then, said, “no problem at all,” and it took Alexei longer than he’d like to admit to realize that he’d said it not in English, or in French, but in the same halting Russian Vladimir’s son spoke.
You don’t learn a language for just anybody. Alexei spoke paragraphs to the media in English by the end of his time in Vancouver — essays, if you added them all up — but he finds himself losing his place in the most mundane conversations, forgetting the very basics — the words for weather, for fruits and vegetables, for days of the week, for emotions.
Some English words are hardwired — if he stubs his toe, ‘fuck’ is still the word that leaves his mouth, but then, he knows a half dozen others who are the same, and some of them never left Russia. Paragraphs of English, he spoke. Essays. All gone now.
He still watches movies in English, though only the stupid ones where the plot doesn’t matter. His wife watches all the TV shows, rich women with too much time on their hands. English is what he defaults to with old teammates, contacts in the hockey world. The language of business, at least the business of international hockey.
And yet, it turns out, Alexei held on to his French a little tighter.
Alexei doesn’t understand at first, the way it’s put. First, the word itself, ‘partner’, then him trying to remember where he knows it from. Which is hockey. It takes a moment, because he was never a defenseman, and yes, Anton is one, he remembers that, but is Thomas? Has anyone said?
It takes even longer to process information when translation is involved. Long enough to make things uncomfortable, long enough for Vladimir make a weak joke about translating it for him, and Anton and Thomas take that as their cue to leave, which, of course, it is.
“You should have warned me,” Alexei says. “I shouldn’t have had to learn that in front of him.”
“You’re in North America,” Vladimir says, looking at the crowd. Alexei isn’t sure if he’s assessing whether any Russians are close enough to overhear them, or he's simply trying to avoid Alexei’s eyes. “It’s legal here. Not that they are, yet. It’s legal here.”
Not that they are, yet. Marriage, then, Alexei's assuming he's referring to, not —
Not that they are, yet. Said so matter of factly, like discussing upcoming vacation plans — something that hasn’t happened, but that he knows is coming. Said like something he’s looking forward to.
“Just because it’s legal—“ Alexei says, but Vladimir looks at him, then, and the rest of the sentence wilts on his tongue, the conversation dying around it. Vladimir nods curtly at him, and Alexei nods back, aware in that moment, Vladimir disappearing into the crowd, that he has lost a friend.
It keeps happening now. Some he lost to simple distance, time, difference. Some are dead now, or doing their best to end up that way, some walk away after detonating a grenade.
Alexei’s known Vladimir since they were kids, practically. Decades, he’s known him, most of his life. The sum of moments they’ve spent together might not add up to much if you put them end to end, some glorious games and a lot of chit chat at public events in the decades afterwards, but Alexei watched his son grow up. Grow into —
This isn’t the place, he thinks. Not for any of this.
He startles when a hand lands on his shoulder, and the hand pulls back as Alexei looks at Anton’s—
“Sorry,” Thomas says, that per-emptory apology that Canadians do, that Alexei always forgets Canadians do until he’s inevitably reminded.
“Excuse me,” is what he says when he repeats it in Russian, that halting, offbeat Russian that he must have learned from Anton, speaking halting Russian of his own, probably explaining himself in English, explaining a language in the tongue of another to someone who speaks neither, at least not well. Though it isn’t the same, really. Anton’s mother tongue may be Russian, but he’s American through and through.
“Are you looking for Vladimir?” Alexei asks, too loud, the English booming out of him, so that a couple and pair of men — who knows, perhaps a couple — look over.
“Oh, no,” Thomas says. “I actually wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh,” Alexei says. “Sorry, my English is—“
“Is French better?” Thomas asks, and Alexei mutely nods. “I just wanted to say—“
Alexei is quickly realizing his French isn’t as good as he thought when Vladimir cuts in again. Takes a lot after that exit, he thinks, but then, Alexei imagines he isn’t the one Vladimir’s attempting to save here, though that’s precisely what he’s doing nonetheless.
“Thomas,” Vladimir says. It’s only thanks to years of tournaments on top of the decades of knowing him that means Alexei knows what Vladimir Petrov sounds like when he's off-balance. Even then he heard precious little of it — thankfully, because whenever he did, it was after their fates had already been sealed.
He glances at Alexei once, glancingly, but Alexei isn’t sure if he sees whatever it is he’s looking for. Puts his hand on Thomas’ shoulder. Paternal, Alexei thinks. Paternal, and with no hesitation beforehand, no frisson of suppressed disgust.
“I can’t find Anton anywhere,” Vladimir says.
“That’s because Anton’s hiding outside,” Thomas says, laughter in his voice. In his eyes too, which catch Alexei’s, fragmentary, before Alexei can look away. “I’m sure he’ll come in as soon as we’re ready to leave.”
“I’m ready now,” Vladimir says, and Thomas, it appears, is right, because Anton appears at his shoulder as if summoned.
“Ready to go?” he asks, and Anton shrugs a shoulder.
Thomas politely tells him how nice it was to meet him, how wonderful is how long he and Vladimir have been friends, how he’s known Anton all his life, either completely oblivious to everyone else's discomfort or doing a masterful job of pretending to be, before they finally take their leave.
Anton looks bigger than the last time Alexei saw him, though of course, that isn’t true, it’s just that Vladimir’s gotten smaller. Alexei too, probably. Now Anton’s bigger than either of them. That boy who’d once been so small his father could fit him in the bowl of the Stanley Cup.
Antosha, who still lets his father’s old teammates call him by his pet name, even though he sulks about it like he’s still a child, clearly not aware that’s the reason they all still do it.
“Anton,” Alexei says, watches Vladimir’s hand come up, hovering over Anton’s shoulder. Shaky now, that hand. He used to have the hands of a surgeon. Though Alexei can’t say shit, can he? Not when they used to talk about his own hands like they were gifted from god.
Alexei still remembers all the miraculous things he’s done with those hands, memories seared too deep to lose, but gun to his head, he can’t recall the last time those hands had done something good.
“Antosha,” he says, and Vladimir drops his hand as Anton looks back at him.
“I wish you all the best,” he says, or near enough, and Anton ducks his head slightly, mumbling out a goodbye.
Neither of the Petrovs look back again, but Thomas does. He waves one last goodbye, somehow still smiling, and, utterly helpless, Alexei finds himself waving back.
