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I was seated on a chaise lounge nearby. She turned around and her eyes, jade green and wistful, chanced upon mine, then shifted bashfully away when she perceived I was looking at her. I got up and went to introduce myself.

We started talking. Oksana, as I will call her here, was 19 and studying fashion design at a Moscow institute. I was 24, a graduate student of Russian history in the States, and traveling around the Soviet Union for two months with a tour group of Americans.

We wandered the deck, chatting and smiling at each other. Chilled by the breeze and appearing somewhat distracted, she drew her jacket snug and asked what I thought of the Soviet Union. As I started to answer, her gaze froze. A matron in a white smock, one of the ship's employees, got up from her deck chair station ahead of us and, giving Oksana an icy look, went inside. I stopped talking and Oksana, uttering a soft "poka" ("see you later") strolled on. I understood I was not to follow her. I saw no more of her that day.

At 7 the next morning, the loudspeaker on the ceiling of the cabin crackled and a bugle blast resounded, and then came a screechingly loud message in Russian: "Greetings to passengers of shift A! Arise and report to the deck for morning calisthenics! Our motto is sound mind in a sound body! Greetings to passengers of shift B! Arise and report to wing 2 of dining hall 1 for breakfast! Greetings to passengers of ..."

Every day began with a rousing address and instructions for all aboard. Our tour was designated group C so that we would perform calisthenics and eat at separate times from the Soviet passengers. Perestroika was still two years away; fraternizing between Soviets and foreigners was not forbidden, but some Soviets, aware of potential consequences from KGB agents keeping subtle track, tended to avoid us anyway.

The loudspeaker cackled on, and Rob, my cabinmate, grumbled and rolled over in his bunk, his head still heavy from the previous night's vodka bash. "Oh, those sons of bitches! Can't they let us sleep even one morning!" He lay looking at the loudspeaker for a minute, then got up, muttering, "I'll fix those bastards!" He climbed atop a stool and, using a pocketknife, took to disassembling the loudspeaker, at first carefully, then with less than precise hacking motions. Finally the screeching stopped; the speaker dangled an eviscerated mess of wires, broken white plastic and microphone. He climbed down and went back to sleep. I dressed and went out to the deck, hoping to run into Oksana.

One of the breakfast shifts was ending and people were drifting out of the dining hall. Inside, at the back, I espied Oksana, alone and gazing through a porthole. I lingered long enough that she saw me, then strolled around behind a lifeboat. A minute later, from under the boat, I saw tiny white pumps padding my way.

"Did you enjoy your calisthenics?" I asked.

"Oh, come on!" she giggled. "I never go to those!"

There was a warm languor in her eyes, but a tint of despondency lingered there, too. As we huddled behind the lifeboat, she traced for me the outlines of her life: She was dutifully studying for her fashion degree; she came, like many Soviets, to the Black Sea for her August vacation and was here with her mother; she yearned to see Paris and London and other cities in the West, but never did she believe she would be able to leave the Soviet Union. ("Da shto ty!" "Oh, come on!" she would exclaim dismissively when I suggested that maybe someday she would be able to travel.) She recounted her dreams with a shrug. She expected little from her days: They would equal the sum of their hours and no more. Still, I sensed that she could experience happiness more intensely than I, and this drew me to her; the attraction mixed with pity that I felt for her, this delicate lonely girl with wan green eyes who seemed afraid to hope for anything, made me want to give her everything.

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