My first Russian teacher–a dark and handsome sailor with curly black hair, violet eyes and a wide white smile without a single metal tooth–disappeared after we were arrested for kissing in front of the Kazan church in Leningrad. A real comrade should have known better than to fraternize with a capitalist in public.    No more trouble, Student Affairs told me when she came to get me from the police station. “It was for the tongue,” I tried to explain. My Russian wasn’t all that good yet. “Native tongue practice.” The best way to learn a foreign language, all linguists knew, was to find a motivated native teacher,…

by Tua Laine   My husband-to-be seduced me with instant minestrone. I was a high-flying banker, used to famous hotels and fine dining. Cooking was like typing, I used to say–a skill a woman did better without. My husband was a jet-setting executive, yet happy to fix me soup on lazy Sunday afternoons. Sometimes he added special ingredients, like elbow pasta, into the mix. I was very impressed. I know exactly when I slipped:  on our first wedding anniversary, at 9:30 pm. My husband was making celebratory minestrone while I wiped baby food off the kitchen floor and walls. Our firstborn was crying because I’d stopped him from eating the…