On The Couch

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To Miroslav the Impaler

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There was even a couchsurfing monastery, she said, just outside Moscow: one shared room for couchsurfers, a curfew, and a task, such as painting the walls. Like opening a matrioshka, those sets of Russian nesting dolls, Olga’s twitchy, nervous shell had fallen away, and she seemed at last relaxed. Finally, the act of welcoming us into her home didn’t appear so masochistic.

We headed back and, unbidden, Olga looked up our train times and wrote out a role-playing station script for next time. And as we ate into her bedtime, my couchsurfing guilt reappeared. Christ, was this going to be like catholic guilt? I went to the kitchen to make tea, and found myself washing up, thinking about the selfish rewards of altruism: had Olga, too, gone to bed feeling good? Outside I heard the ghostly clatter of horses’ hooves—Olga had told us earlier that they belonged to gypsy girls who used them to beg. It was my reward.

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