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      ‘Hi, sweetheart. Can’t wait to tell ya about London. I bet you have something interesting to share with me too,’ sang Tanya happily as an opera singer.

      ‘Oh my, is that you, Tanya? You-Singing? Looks like someone is head over heels here,’ Katya commented on Fringe’s singing.

      ‘Right. First, we have to sit through four classes, then we can have lunch together and talk, talk, talk our brains out,’ Yulya made a forecast rounding her smiling eyes.

      ‘Good plan, let’s get a move on, ladies,’ cried out Katya joyfully and gestured to go.

      The first lecture was Theoretical Phonetics. As the lecturer recited loudly and slowly her material she’d memorized from year to year, the ladies gradually became weary of scribbling down the never-ending flow of words.

      Stretching her neck and sighing Katya heard, ‘To convey information nowadays we use seven percent of vocabulary (as grammar is ignored altogether), thirty-eight percent of vocal means. And nonverbal means (posture, facial expression, gestures and so on) account for fifty-five percent of the message.’

      The ladies raised their heads to look at each other and smiled. Tanya brought her lips into a foxy smile. Katya raised her index finger. Yulya whispered, ‘Oh, that’s why we love Phonetics.’

      ‘Gosh, I need a smoke,’ whispered Tanya back and grabbed a lighter from her pencil box to play with. ‘Hey, do you remember our first class of phonetics?’ Tanya pressed the button on the lighter to let gas flow into her mouth.

      In about five seconds she pulled out the lighter, lit it and blew out the gas right onto the flame. A faint but distinguishable bang could be made out from the third row, left wing. The lecturer turned to the giggling trio and uttered in a superior tone, ‘The ladies disturbing, if you are not interested in my lecture, you may well leave and NOT disturb the ones who ARE interested.’ No one got up to leave. The silence was restored.

      Their final lecture was about to begin. The girls sat all prepared. As Katya opened her bottle to have a quick gulp of water she could tell Yulya was daydreaming. The eyes of the Red-haired weren’t staring anywhere in particular but at some invisible screen, nobody saw. Katya couldn’t help but put some more water into her mouth and spray it all over Yulya’s face.

      ‘What the hell?’ Yulya barked startled, looked around, at Katya and joined her laughter whisking the water off her face.

      ‘Sorry about that but I couldn’t help it. I’m glad you didn’t hit me back,’ Katya squeezed her apology through her fit of laughter, ‘Here is the tissue.’

      Yulya’s next daydreaming happened during the lecture. This time she was awakened by her own burp. She looked around and realized that she was surrounded by about a hundred students looking at her. Some were giggling including her besties, others looking in bewilderment. Yulya blushed and whispered, ‘Oops, sorry.’

      ‘You’re not in your kitchen, silly,’ commented Tanya suppressing her laughter.

      ‘Oh, shut up,’ hissed Yulya.

      After the lectures, the ladies went to one of the canteens. Picked a bunch of food. Salad, soup, cabbage pies, coffee with a chocolate bar. Instead of prayer before meals, they promised each other not to take so much ever again. Their habitual promise. And finally, they sat down to the girls’ talking ritual. Katya was the first to begin.

      Chapter 8

      Katya’s Story: her Stay in Germany for Three More Weeks

      I

      ‘So where do I begin? Our German course was finished. You went to Paris and London. And I went to Leipzig to see Sarah, a friend of mine.

      Being there already a week I was missing Berlin and was constantly texting to Mr. Curly Hair. One evening I wished him sweet erotic dreams, just for fun of course. I got a reply with ‘ja, feuchte Träume. Schlaf gut, Mädchen’. I had no idea what feuchte Träume were supposed to mean.

      The next morning, while having breakfast with Sarah’s family, with an innocent face, not suspecting anything, I asked the whole table what that German word-combination meant. You should’ve seen their face expressions when I uttered those magic words. The big brother started giggling. Sarah’s Dad almost spat out the coffee he was drinking.

      Sarah’s mother wondered, ‘I’m sorry, what again?’

      ‘Feuchte Träume,’ I repeated naïvely though already suspecting something shady.

      Then she managed to say with her pitying eyes, ‘Who told you this?’

      ‘Some guy from Berlin texted me this yesterday,’ I confessed. The mother wondered what message I wrote so as to get such a reply. I made an even more naïve look and pronounced, ‘I simply wished him Goodnight. Somehow my head treated equally Good night and Sweet erotic dreams. But I swear, I did NOT mean anything by that. I just was in my silly mood, I guess.

      ‘Well, wet dreams mean,’ the mother started finding her words to explain properly.