Babayaga

thick smoke from hours of cigarettes and cigars bathed the room in various shades of milky gauze. Instead of interrupting the game, Oliver asked the girl for two espressos and led Will to a booth in a back corner.
    “His chips are low, we’ll wait here till he’s done,” said Oliver. “You gamble?”
    “Not a lot.”
    “Probably a good thing.” Oliver grinned. “You don’t have much of a poker face, do you? What games do you indulge in?”
    “I play a little euchre, some gin now and then.”
    “Any sports?”
    “Tennis.”
    “Really? We should get a match on. It’s getting too cold now for Coubertin but there is a fine indoor court over on rue de Saussure. Boris claims to have some skills, but I’ve never played him, that would be a sight to see, wouldn’t it? Ha ha, that great Russian bear lunging up to the net?” Oliver looked over at the poker game as a player scraped in a big, noisy pot. “Gambling is funny, isn’t it? I’ve never heard any persuasive theories on its roots, I suspect its some primordial residue from our early days, similar to how we still wear the belts that once held our hunting knives, while our women carry designer purses to store all those harvested berries. We think we’re modern and civilized, but Lord knows we’re not.”
    The album ended and the needle mechanically returned back to the beginning. As Renaud started singing “Mon Bonheur,” Will wondered how long the card players had been listening to that one side of the album. He tapped on the table impatiently. “You know, I probably need to head back to the office.”
    Oliver shook his head. “Oh really? What, is the great wheel of capitalism going to grind to a halt without you?”
    “No, but—”
    “Relax, we’ll get you back to the trenches soon enough,” Oliver said. “Say, you wouldn’t have any more of those Chesterfields on you? I left my cigarettes at home.” Will gave him one and lit another himself. “Thanks,” said Oliver. “I’ll pick you up a carton at the commissary next time I’m at the embassy. So, tell me how you know that girl I was with the other night.”
    “I only met her in passing, on the metro,” Will said, unhappy to have the subject brought up. He could remember the way Zoya had looked at him that first night. He had thought about it more than once in the past few days. There was a magnetic element to her gaze that had stayed tugging at him, a subtle but constant force that pulled at him, making him want to leave and walk the streets to find her right at that very moment so that he could see her or talk to her or grab her by the neck and kiss her breathless.
    “What did you think of her?”
    “I thought she was all right,” Will lied.
    Oliver nodded. “Oh, she is more than all right. She’s an intriguing one, very beguiling. Easy on the eyes, obviously, and sharp-witted too, but also…” He shook his head, seemingly unable to find the right phrase. Will was impressed that even the thought of Zoya left Oliver speechless.
    They watched Boris lose another pot and, as the winner stacked his chips, Will tried to push the girl out of his mind. There was no percentage in keeping her there. He should have stayed with her when they had walked off the metro that night. He could have asked her out for a drink and maybe found a way to go home with her, but he hadn’t. And now he did not like thinking about another man’s girl, it did not seem right, it was not the way he was raised. You respected those bonds, no matter what feelings you had or how strongly you felt them. These were the things that defined your character and, as his grandfather had often told him, your character was the only thing you ever wholly and truly possessed.
    The waitress brought them their coffees while they kept an eye on the game. Will did not find gambling to be as romantic or intriguing as Oliver did, but, recalling his grandfather as he watched through the hazy layers of ghostly cigar smoke, he almost felt as if he were peering through some hole in time, as if he were a boy again peeking through the upstairs bannister as his uncles and his father played their poker, euchre, or gin rummy up at their small cabin by the northern shores of Lake Michigan. He realized it would be deer season back home and they might be up there right now. The temperatures would be creeping down below freezing at night and the thin pale skin of ice would be scratching at the edges of the shallow ponds and lakes,