Strangers on TV

Years ago I lived with a family in Moscow. They weren’t relatives or family friends; we didn’t know them; they were just a small, Russian family who had volunteered to host a student through my college exchange program. The "host parents" were only a decade older than me – the age I am now, in fact – but lived such different lives, with such gritty responsibility, that I found them unfathomable. Also, I spoke Russian poorly. Andrey and Galya’s four-year-old daughter would rage at me. Why can't you speak? Why can't you understand? Once I tried to read her a story but she threw the book down in disgust; I could not differentiate the pronunciation of the words "mouse" and "bear," which rendered the story meaningless.

I lived with them for 3 ½ months. In the early weeks we tried to communicate – Andrey would drink vodka and lecture on the history of the Russian Empire. Then I had a bout of homesickness during which I refused to speak Russian and derided everything Soviet. I came around again for the last two weeks or so.

One evening at the beginning of my stay, as we sat in their small apartment kitchen finishing dinner, Andrey and Galya explained that a great American movie would be showing on TV. They seemed eager for me to see it. The movie, they said, was called "Choo-zhoi." It had a sequel, "Choo-zhee-ah." Did I know it?

Well, I didn’t know those words, so I couldn’t be sure if I’d seen it; I excused myself to find my dictionary. Choo-zhoi :: Stranger. No, sorry, I said. I don’t know a great American movie called Stranger.

They found that hilarious. Oh, you’ll love it! they said. With a lot of hand gestures and animated expressions, they told me the plot. I struggled to understand. A few people in a – what? An airplane? It crashes. Round eyes, yells: something scary happens, I couldn’t tell what. Then Andrey leaned back, almost lying in his chair, shouted, "Aaargh!" and shot his fist up out of his belly.

Alien!

Since that evening I never have been able to hear the word "stranger" without also hearing Andrey’s shout and feeling the extra connotations in the word "alien." I had thought of strangers simply as people I didn’t know – other drivers on the road, other shoppers in the store – but now they are also aliens: unknowable, unpredictable, bizarre.

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You thought I was going somewhere else with that, didn't you?