Val Karren: The Deceit of Riches

“Hans, that’s the best idea I’ve heard since I arrived in town. Hey, by the way, I am trying to move out of the dorms. Do you need a roommate by any chance?” I asked sheepishly.

“No room for that. It’s a one bedroom apartment and well, let’s say on the weekends it’s a busy bedroom,” he left the details unsaid as he wiped his greasy mouth and fingers with a napkin and wiggled his eyebrows at me to confirm my assumptions about his meaning.

“Wouldn’t want to get in the way. It’s just that your apartment is so perfectly located between the history department and the American library, and this fine eating establishment that I thought I should at least ask,” I said disappointedly.

“Sorry, Peter, a man must have his priorities straight,” Hans said with a sheepish grin on his face.

“Understood my friend. Say, I’m on way now to the American Library on Minin street. I’m headed right past your apartment. Are you going that way?” I suggested we walk that way together.

“Why are you going to study on Friday afternoon? The girls are waiting, Peter,” Hans said, alarmed at my over studious ambition.

“Ah yes, but the library is not open tomorrow, and the girls will still be in the city on Saturday. I want to start to narrow my field for a thesis topic already and I’m curious to see what type of data I can access here. Just gotta go check it out.” I smiled and waved him goodbye and headed toward the door. “See you next week, same place, same time?”

“Ja sicher, mein Herr!” Hans shouted to me as I pulled the door open to a blast of freezing air in my face.

On my way toward Minim Street I passed the Rossiya hotel, just a stone’s throw from the chicken restaurant and stepped inside purely out of curiosity. As I pushed through the revolving doors of the street level lobby I spotted immediately on the concierge’s desk a display with a stack of several copies of The Economist magazine. It was a week late but was everything I had missed in the news cycle of the last two weeks. I eagerly bought a copy from the receptionist and started for the door, but turned and spoke again with the concierge on a whim.

“Does this magazine come every week?” I queried.

“Da, it is delivered each Thursday morning,” was the concierge’s uninterested answer.

I handed him a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet I asked. “Can you always reserve one for me each week? I will come by to pick it up each Friday afternoon.”

“Of course!” he said this time with great interest and slipped the bill effortlessly into the breast pocket of his shirt.

“Yes, my dear, everything is a changin’!” I repeated to myself, recalling my discussion with Yulia earlier that week as I pushed the door around again letting me out again on to the cold street.

When I arrived at Del Sanning’s apartment block on Frunze street for our dinner appointment that evening the snow was coming down hard. I rode the lift to the top floor and was still brushing snow off my shapka while I knocked on door 26 and waited. I sensed someone looking through the peephole. There was no noise, just a blinking eye. I sensed a nervousness behind the door.

I called out in English through the door, “Hello, is this the Sanning’s home?”

The latches instantly began clapping and the door swung open quickly. In the doorway, inviting me in, stood what looked to be a middle-aged cowboy, sans cowboy hat, with flashy white teeth, broad shoulders and chest and rugged face with sandy brown hair and blue eyes, dressed in Wrangler blue jeans and an ugly Christmas sweater.

“It sure is! Are you Peter?” Mr. Sanning bellowed with enthusiasm.

“Who else would it be?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well, you sure as hell don’t look like what I was expecting. You looked like a Russian knocking on my door!” he continued in his cowboy manner.

“Well, that could very well be as we are in Russia,” I said very logically a bit flustered by his bombastic reception.

“I’m Del! C’mon in and take off your boots and coat. Is it snowing outside?” he asked seeing the cover of snow on my fur hat.

“When isn’t it?” I huffed.

The Sanning’s apartment was a typical Russian apartment with a small rectangular living room looking out to a glassed-in balcony, overlooking the next apartment block which overlooked the next apartment block. There were two small bedrooms, one was converted into a home office with a computer, telephone and a fax machine and one for the pair to sleep in. The kitchen was long and narrow tiled in white ceramics. The water closet and shower shared the wall of the kitchen sink with water pipes exposed on either side. Hot water was heated in the building’s boiler in the basement. The only real difference to a local citizen’s apartment is that it wasn’t stuffed full of the souvenirs of a full life; photographs of children or parents on the walls, sets or books, the good china. Obviously missing was the clutter of common Russian families who have to hoard a bit, keeping a cupboard of home preserved fruits and vegetables from a garden plot, old clothing, extra blankets and whatnot as one doesn’t know when you might get a chance to purchase them again. The Sannings obviously hadn’t been in the apartment long and from what I could gather weren’t planning on staying for years. This was a temporary home. It was spacious enough for the two and a guest, tastefully furnished in a Scandinavian style, well lit and clean. I hung my wool and fur at the door and removed my boots and slipped into the house slippers for guests and Del then led me into the living room.

“So how do you know Valentina Petrovna from the University?” Was my attempt to break the thin ice.

“Well, the Mayor introduced us to her when we first arrived a few months ago. Thought maybe we could use her as an interpreter for our project,” Del answered hiding nothing.

“Oh, so she is working for you on the side?” I hoped to hear that she was. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

“No, couldn’t use her. She didn’t want to travel and I already had a young local fellow who does my books, taxes, and whatnot who does the local stuff. Valentina now just sends us video tapes of CNN. She has a satellite dish at the university that catches the signal. That way at least we catch the highlights of the world news from last week.” He chattered on like a ranch hand who hadn’t seen anybody but the cows for a week.

“Clever,” I remarked.

“So what brings you to Nizhniy? We don’t see many Americans here at all, let alone one who moves in and sets up camp,” Del asked me.

“I’ve come for a master’s program for the next twelve months, but not anxious to leave after that,” I said, as a matter of fact, hoping he would read between the lines.

“Well you sure looked Russian at the door. Do you speak the language as well?” he continued his tirade of questions.

“Yes, sir. Spent some time here last summer working on the riverboats, turning my book Russian into real world experience,” I said with a twinge of pride.

“Were you here when Yeltsin blew up the White House?” Del sounded so ‘cowboy’ it was distracting my thoughts.

“No, that was the summer before. I was in Moscow for the first time just last summer. The building looked to be in good repair when I saw it in May,” I remarked.

“That’s because they hired a Turkish construction company to repair it after Boris put a few tank shells into it. You know that Russia is the only real estate market that deals in NEW second-hand buildings, right? You ever seen a building site here? The place is half broken before it’s finished,” he was waxing philosophical.

“Yes, I’ve noticed that everything modern looks like it was built for a Gulag camp, inside and out,” I mentioned thinking of my dorm room.