Russians in Lusaka

One week alone. No one here knows me as a mother or a wife – it’s oddly disengaging – like being cast adrift with no flag of identity.
I could be anyone with a history created by my imagination – my wanabee me! But I’m happy with the history I have – growing up poor in Glasgow, cast adrift by tumultuous parents, raised by a strict grandmother and being desperate to travel overseas.
And I did. Now I’m alone and vaguely at ease in a hotel in downtown Lusaka. I’m able to be friendly even though the waiter may think I’m flirting. I’ve traveled far – but I do know who I am.
I go to the hotel pool to sit in the sun and read some notes. A blond woman, heavily pregnant approachs me as I read home-grown guides to living with HIV.
“Excuse me!” She says in an accent stilted toward Russia. “Have you heard about our facial and massage service at the hotel?”
I try not to peer at her spots but doubt I would trust her to give me any cosmetic treatment. “I know there is a spa, but I don’t know any details.”
“We asked the hotel to put cards – blue cards – in the hotel rooms.” She holds her hands in a five inch by five inch square to indicate the size of the cards.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t remember seeing them.”
She casts her eyes to the dull gray concrete path, and I feel sorry for her – pregnant, overseas and touting for beauty business.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“One year!”
“Do you like Africa?”
She looks up. “Well, I miss my homeland.”
I want to know more – why, who, what had brought her here. But her eyes are sad.
“I knew a Russian woman in Lusaka once – a long time ago.”
The pregnant woman smiles. “What was her name?”
“Vera – Vera Maguswi. She was married to a Zambian doctor – but he had affairs, many of them and was one of the first to die of AIDS. She went home about 20 years ago.”
It is too long ago to be of interest to this young woman. The story of the beautiful Vera – the fairy book princess who married a dog of a man.