dances with rooskies

A night of shooting stars.

I looked at Natassia.

She was most luminous.

There had been something I'd wanted to ask her for some time.

I just blurted it out.

"Is Vladimir Putin going to reabsorb Latvia into Russia?"

It was a Kodak moment.

Particularly when...

"Yes," she shot back without hesitation.

I thought she must have misunderstood my question.

"I mean," I said, "is Vladimir Putin going to start grabbing countries in Eastern Europe and forcing them to be part of Russia?"

"Yes," she said again. "Yes, he is."

I made one last attempt to be clear.

"What I'm saying," I said, "is do you think Vladimir Putin wants to turn back the clock to the Soviet era? Is he going to use the Russian army to seize Latvia and other countries?"

"He is," she said. "Of course he is."

I stared.

"But this is terrible," I told her.

"No it isn't," she said.

I stared a bit harder.

"But it will mean Russia is our enemy again," I persisted. "It will mean Russia is everybody's enemy except the Muslims. And they'll turn on you as soon as it suits them the same way Hitler did. If Russia annexes Latvia the whole of humanity is once more in darkness."

"It's not like that," insisted Natassia.

She had forgotten how familiar I am with Russian language and culture.

The English phrase "It's not like that," when spoken by a Russian means: "It's exactly like that."

I stared at her as hard as I am physically able to stare at a beautiful woman.

"You can't be serious," I said. "You couldn't willingly choose to plunge the world into war."

Natassia shook her pretty head.

"It's not like that," she said again. "My town in Latvia is ninety percent Russian. Only ten percent of the people speak Latvian. So if Russia takes back my town, we will all be happy."

"You won't be happy Natassia," I told her darkly. "If Vladmir Putin starts usurping power in countries on Russia's borders again, hell will follow with him."