Lady In Red It seemed like everyone was talking about her at the dinner table. We all had seen her on arrival wearing a short red Jacket and a black skirt and O’ yeah, her high heals. She never showed up at the dinner. Arjmund and I were sitting at the same table as her husband. He told us that she wasnt feeling good. So he asked the waiter for an extra salad. He later took it with him to his room for her. He was pretty loud at the table and kept talking to another couple, that was sitting with us at the same table, in Russian. That kind of irritated me. As I saw him asking that other couple as to what they thought about the salad, I said, Khorosho. Kind of puzzled, he looked at me and wanted to now if I knew Russian. I smiled and said, a little, which really wasnt true. The fact was that I had depleted a major portion of my Russian vocabulary by using that single Russian word. But it did the trick. Now that he thought I might understand Russian; from that point on, he spoke in English only. He told me that he was a Russian from Ukraine and that he had immigrated to Israel and then, like most Russian Jews who immigrate to Israel, ended up moving to US. He had travelled a lot and like most Russians,who grew up in Soviet Union, knew a lot about geopolitics. He was pro Putin and hated the US policy vis-à-vis Russia. His friends were also Russian. The lady, a beautiful blond, had been a music teacher in Soviet Union but was now working for her physician daughter in New York City. Her husband barely spoke. He was an engineer by profession. We talked about everything; music, literature, geopolitics and of course about Crimean crisis. Missing from the table however, was the lady that we had seen earlier in the red jacket. She showed up the next day at the breakfast and the day trip. She was wearing the same dress, red jacket and black skirt. While every one was wearing comfortable walking shoes she was wearing a 4-inch high heal. She seemed unsteady on her feet and would hold on to her husband for support. While she probably was in her late sixties but wanted to look, may be, thirtyish. Probably the same surgeon who had worked on Joan Rivers had worked on her face as well. Let us say that he had pulled the face a “wee bit” tight. May be the surgeon also had an Angelina Jolie special going on, so he had been a little “too generous” with the filling material that had been used for her lips. But it was something kind of rubbed everyone the wrong way. That was what turned on the gossip machine. While we walked through the historical sites of Istanbul, she kept with the crowd, hanging on to her husband for support; who by the way was carrying her purse as well. The next day she was wearing the same dress and same high-healed shoes. So for next two days everyone was talking about her at the dinner table. The consensus seemed to be divided. While one group thought that she and her husband were part of Russian mafia, others thought they were ex-KGB agents. Since Arjmund and I were the only people who had talked to her husband and friends; so everyone was asking us questions about them. For all we know the “lady in red” could have been like Mother Teresa in real life; but everyone judged her by her looks and the dress...and yes for her plastic surgery. It probably speaks a lot about us as human beings; we can be very cruel.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 21:40:46 +0000
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