It hardly seems possible that these events took place more than 20 years ago, and yet I still dine out on them. It could be last night that, perched on a rickety stool in my friend Marina’s cramped kitchen, an impromptu panel of vodka-shooting Moscow artists coached my pronunciation of "Skol'ko za bel'ye” (“How much for the bedding?”). Damn the slippery, indispensable question.
After midnight, my nine year-old daughter and I were put on the Red Arrow train for newly renamed St. Petersburg by these same revelers. The scene proved sufficiently authentic as, dressed in shabby, bazaar-bought clothing, we boarded our second-class sleeper car. Amid the chaotic diversion of kissing, hugging and well-wishing, the conductor didn’t even check our passports. Ensconced in our coupé, modest baggage stowed, I spread out greasy sausage sandwiches and opened a volume of "Master and Margarita". Anna propped up her Russian math textbook. The ruse was necessary because train tickets for foreign nationals then cost the equivalent of $160.00 per person, as opposed to about $6.00 for Russian citizens. We both spoke Russian and were living in Moscow, so why not try?
Soon we were joined by two young men who tossed their packs onto their upper bunks and greeting us respectfully in rudimentary, thickly accented Russian. This was going to be a piece of cake. After my yawning request for linen had passed muster and we had efficiently made up our berths with crisply starched white sheets and heavy brown
wool blankets, it transpired in a patchwork of languages that the shy men who occupied the other two berths in our coupé were Indonesian students. We, ostensibly, were a taciturn teacher with her daughter, who had been to visit Grandma. No, unfortunately, we spoke very little English but, after a brief exchange in Russian with Anna, rather sternly ordering her to switch off her light and go to sleep, I patiently exchanged a few pleasantries with our
neighbors, pretending not to comprehend the English words interspersing their chat.
“You on vat? No, no understand,” I answered in heavily accented English. “Vat is kholidei?”
“Kho-lee-dei, Mama,” Anna couldn’t resist drawling from her pillow.
“Akh da, holiday!”
Early next morning, I was jolted awake suddenly when the train shunted into the station. “Get up, Anna. We’re here,” I commanded in unmistakably native American English.
Muttering sheepish goodbyes, I added, “And that’s why I can’t be a spy.”
