Pavel was a wild-looking Russian/Ukrainian boy I knew many years ago in San Francisco, back when his country was still communist. He had escaped Russia somehow and had made his way by himself to California. Someone told me he was Russian when I first saw him, in a crowded bar, so I thought it would make him happy if I went up and said a few words to him in Russian. Instead, it terrified him -- he ran! Probably thought I was some KGB spy, and had tracked him down. I should have known better -- it was months before he would let me get near him. But finally he trusted me, and that night we talked for hours, clear up till the morning, in bad Russian-English, about his country and his tragic life. I had to move to Oklahoma a week later. I never saw him again.