Free Exiles by Elliot Krieger

up a pencil. “See this?” he said. Jorge and Luis nodded.
    “ Sí ,” Luis said.
    “ Sí . This,” said Spiegel. He began to scribble on the cover of his notebook, circles and spirals, meaningless doodles. “I’m right-handed, so I’m using the left side of my brain now, yes?”
    “Yes, the language side,” Jorge said.
    “So how do you know I’m not developing it? You know, strengthening it, like an exercise. Maybe the more I use this part of the brain, the stronger it gets. More blood flows to it or something. And if I just doodle and doodle through the whole language class, like, in no time at all I’ll be out in a restaurant with Karin ordering—a cheese sandwich.”
    “ Smörgås med ost! ” Luis said.
    “And undoing her bara bra,” said Jorge.
    “And what?”
    It was Melissa. “Hey, sit down with us,” Spiegel said. It was the first time he had run into her in the classroom building. Classes were scheduled so that only one group used the small canteen at a time. A two-week veteran, Melissa was in a higher learning group, already conversing about the postal service and the weather, advanced stuff.
    Spiegel hadn’t seen Melissa much all week at Flogsta. Because of her rehearsals, she was rarely home in the evenings. But Spiegel also noticed that they didn’t go out of their way to seek each other’s company. It almost seemed as if they were making a conscious effort to avoid each other, to keep at a slight remove. No doubt Spiegel was attracted to her, or could be if he would let himself, but there was something dangerous, devouring about her that put him on his guard. She must have felt that there was something slightly off-putting about him, too. Perhaps she still suspected that he was a deserter who was not owning up to his reasons for coming to Uppsala. Or perhaps she felt that an attraction to Spiegel would constitute a kind of transgression, almost like an incest violation— for as two Americans in the same dorm complex, weren’t they in fact almost like siblings in a nuclear family extempore? It would be better if, having resisted the first impulse of sexual attraction, they could regard each other from a distance, like friendly if slightly suspicious allies who had not so long ago been antagonists in a war.
    “Welcome to Swedish for Invaders,” Melissa said to Spiegel. “I thought maybe you weren’t going to sign up.”
    “Invaders?” Luis said.
    “It’s her little pun on invandrare ,” Spiegel explained. “Immigrants.”
    “I think it means in-wanderers. People who wandered in,” Luis said.
    “How do you like the class,” Melissa asked Spiegel.
    “ Det går bra, ” he said. “ Bara bra. ”
    “Yeah, that’s a good phrase. You’d be surprised how much conversation that will carry you through.”
    “Sure, that and vackra svenska flicka, ” Spiegel said.
    “Pretty Swedish girl,” Luis intoned.
    “How are things going for you,” Spiegel asked Melissa. “Cracking the whip?”
    “The whip?” Luis said.
    “Don’t I wish. So far, all I’m doing is dancing with the peasants. We do a chorus while Julie and Jean go into his chambers for a tryst.”
    “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to—what was the phrase? Bathe your feet in his broken breast?”
    “I’ve got to do something to get the director to notice me,” she said.
    “Like learn Swedish?”
    “That doesn’t matter. He’s Australian.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll notice you. You just have to make the most of your opportunities, right?”
    “Absolutely. Look, I’ve got to run, as per usual. Catch you later?”
    And she was off. Spiegel couldn’t help but admire her, as she left: her shape, her bearing, the way she seemed to pass through the room in one fluid motion, like a leaf borne downstream on a swift current. Heads turned to look at her. Spiegel was flattered, and a little self-conscious, to have been singled out by Melissa, the object of her attention and her solicitude.