- “Can I start my presentation now?”
- “Not yet, Carlos!”, said our client contact, “The engineer has not arrived yet.”
2016 was an important year for me. I participated in a business trip to Lima, Peru. I was at the offices of “Metro de Lima” (the Lima subway) and the room began to fill up with very well-dressed people.
- “Don’t you dare to make any of your jokes!”, warned Gastón, my boss.
- “What do you mean, Gastón?”, I asked innocently.
- “You know what I mean, Carlos”, he replied.
~*~*~*Carlos, remembering years earlier *~*~*~
- “Вы красивая женщина.” (You’re a beautiful woman)
- “Are you sure? You’re not playing a joke on me?” I asked Dimitri
- “Don’t you trust me, Carlos?” he asked
In 1996, while working for a telecommunications company in the USA, I had asked a Russian colleague, Dimitri, to teach me how to say something nice to my Russian girlfriend at the time. I spent hours practicing that phrase. I phoned him several times to correct my pronunciation.
- “If you keep saying that to me, I’m going to end up falling in love with you,” Dimitri said, with the roughness that characterizes him.
Paulina never showed up that night. I called her many times, but she didn’t answer.
- “I waited for you until very late yesterday”, I said to her eventually.
- “I don’t want to continue with this relationship, Carlos”, she replied.
I froze. I didn’t know what to answer.
~*~*~* Carlos, now, back in the present*~*~*~
- “Hey Gastón! My hands feel cold.”
- “Nervous?”, asked Gastón.
I didn’t have time to answer …. Everyone fell silent as they sat down. I didn’t understand what was happening until I saw that silhouette at the door.
It was a tall, thin woman. The breeze played with her hair for a very brief moment. She calmly corrected her hairstyle before entering the room. Then I saw a mature woman (50 years old, perhaps?) She was beautiful. Impeccably dressed. Blonde, with pale skin.
It seemed to me that she didn’t fit in that place (it seemed to me that she didn’t fit in on this planet). She approached the first seat in the room and stood next to the executive who was sitting there. She didn’t even open her mouth. Our client contact took his stuff and moved to another seat. The woman crossed her legs with infinite delicacy. She looked at us and took out 2 business cards from her wallet. Then she stood up and walked confidently to the podium. She extended her arm in an exaggerated manner. It seemed to me that with this gesture she established a studied distance. She handed her business card to Gastón and then to me, it read “Eng. Svetlana Tarasova. Operations and Maintenance Manager.”
- “Russian?”, I asked.
- “Yes,” she answered from her 6 feet of height, without looking at me.
Gastón seemed to sense what was about to happen. He started walking towards me, but it was too late …
- “Вы красивая женщина” — I had waited 20 years to say that.
Svetlana froze, as if she had crashed into a wall. She closed her eyes, fighting a reflex she couldn’t contain… Her face lit up with a wonderful smile. For the first time she turned her eyes towards me …
- “Спасибо!” (Thank you!)