Beautiful Elder: Chapter 2

For a while I was beginning to think that beautiful Russian missionary with the dead-bored eyes had left. I didn't see him for almost a week and you know, these things happen. They actually have to leave the MTC at some point to go do their job, otherwise they wouldn't be at the MTC at all. But no, it seems he was just really sick-- ill enough that when he came into the store yesterday (unexpectedly, as I'm sure you understand), he was carrying a prescription medicine bottle. Illness could not stop the beauty from emanating from every inch of that would-be ballerino.

He came in to pick up a set of pictures he ordered, so I learned his name-- and promptly wrote it down so I would never forget. In most cases I'd think the name Bogdan is weird, but it's weirdness only makes it more alluring. It's like a name someone would make up in order to be noticed for a reality show, or a celebrity who only goes by his first name. Sting, Prince, Bogdan.

With his hair looking particularly vogue, and wearing a double-breasted blue suit with a blue and pink striped tie (not that I noticed), I admit that it was mildly difficult to breathe and treat him as any other customer. Truly, he must think I'm strange. I probably don't blink when he's around.

Of course, my dreams were shattered a little when his companion whispered something to Bogdan (see? shiny, eh?) about someone being "down the aisle." No, that's not some kind of euphemism or even some crazy, inside "MTC talk." I mean literally, there was someone of interest looking at greeting cards down aisle 11, specifically, a cute sister missionary. Of course, this meant Bogdan and his nameless companion (because who cares what his sidekick's name is) had to hang around, open the envelope of pictures, and laugh charmingly at each one, like they were the kind of thing someone would want to inquire about.

I wanted to inquire, but I mean, I had also considered the option of keifing his set of pictures so I could take them home and put them on my walls. Then I remembered that would be:
A.) breaking commandments, and I do work at the MTC.
B.) creepy.

Instead, it inticed Cute Sister Missionary to ask about them, and pick up a conversation that they had apparently begun earlier-- I assume it was probably in some romantic location, like the cafeteria or maybe next to the mailboxes. Elders and sisters cross social paths a lot there, you know. So I pretended not to watch as the three of them carried on for a while, trying to convince myself that Nameless Elder was really the one interested in Cute Sister Missionary, but even if it was Bogdan (bling!) who was interested, I couldn't blame him. She came through the store earlier and I even complimented her on her adorable a-line haircut. Why shouldn't they notice her adorability as well, even if I was dying inside just a teensy bit? After she left, they left too, without much more than a polite nod in my direction.

Luckily, my disappointment was remedied a skoch when I ran into him on my way in to work this morning and he peeked around the far side of Nameless, specifically to smile at me and say, with his Russian rockstar accent, "Hello."

You know, Tom Cruise had Renee Zellweger at hello. I almost know the feeling.

Dedicated to Julie

I am infatuated with an elder from Russia. He was shipped out to the Provo MTC and will be returning to Mother Russia when his preparation is over. Of course, he hasn’t told me this—I can just tell from his thick accent when he speaks English, and his Russian name tag, and his blue ID card that says “RUS-MOS” on it. I’ve learned to be sharp and perceptive here at the MTC, because heaven knows I’m too scared to say much to him.

It’s not so much a crushy fear that prevents me. I’m literally a little bit afraid of him. It's the way he carries himself, and the way he talks would indicate a certain disdain for America and an impatience with apple-pie girls like me. Of course my coworkers are vastly more “stupid American” than I am, which is why they’re not afraid. He might be a little high maintenance. It’s kind of hard to tell because he has a classically Eastern European face, with those eyes that seem somehow half-dead—almost like a vampire. Their expression almost hints of perpetual boredom. Maybe it’s my constant need to please and, moreover, to entertain that’s being threatened.

But the dead-bored eyes are intriguing too, and I kind of want to stare at them, only I can’t because staring is rude and his haughty glare would be humiliating to withstand. I’m satisfied to watch him glide through the store on his daily visit—always between 2-3pm, but who’s keeping track?—and sometimes I wonder if he’s a secret Baryshnikov with such a lean build, and since Russians aren’t communists anymore, he must be a dancer, right?

That logic makes sense in my head.

He talks to the other native Russians in his district in their mashed up, gibberish language, and I want to know what he’s saying. I'm frustrated that his conversations about soap and greeting cards and awkward American store cashiers are barred from me. Meanwhile he understands my English with the perfection of one who’s memorized English grammar in school for a decade.

Once in a while we catch eyes for a second, then I look away because it’s almost like being in a trance, and as long as he’s wearing a black nametag, I’m not supposed to look. Occasionally he’ll smile, and he doesn’t look so dead or bored anymore. He should smile more often while he asks me if he can buy some international stamps because they say that a smile is the same in all languages. Smiles don’t sound like gibberish.