Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

Valentina Petrovna would not speak Russian to me although I answered all her questions quickly in the local language. I sat across from her over her pressboard desk while she questioned me.

“Mr. Turner, Where have you been sleeping since your arrived?” was her first line of interrogation.

“With acquaintances nearby,” I replied, expecting some polite conversation.

“Why have you not yet reported to the local police station to register?” she demanded to know.

“Because I do not know where my dormitory is located,” I answered truthfully.

“How do you plan to pay for your studies?” she was making notes as she questioned me.

“In cash as instructed,” I tried to see what she was writing as I answered her random questions.

“Peter, are you carrying that money with you in town?” she looked up at me with a startled face from her writing.

“No, I will use a credit card to withdraw money from my account in the USA at the right time,” I said sitting back in my chair looking her in the eyes.

After my interrogation and instruction from the directress, I was introduced to Pasha and Marina, a cute couple who were co-presidents of the school’s new English club. They were very enthusiastic to have a native English speaker join the department and had volunteered to show me around the dormitories and the Gagarin Street complex. Pasha, a handsome, well dressed and groomed young man who spoke with reserve, was juxtaposed with Marina, a very bubbly bright-eyed girl with an infectious smile and pale blue eyes. She was very excited to speak English with me.

The two showed Yulia and I the way to the dormitories and gave a brief tour of the ground floor. There was a cold, bare cafeteria, a sterile medical station, void of any nurse that morning, and a wardrobe for coats and shapkas from where the superintendent kept tabs on everybody as they came and went, making notes of the times students arrived or departed. I was begrudgingly given a key by this middle-aged woman from her office next to the wardrobe. As we climbed the stairs to the student rooms, Marina whispered some advice to me about our less than friendly superintendent.

“She never had a husband. He is dead in the big war. She no likes our boys. I think she reminds of her dead lover,” she explained in her best English possible. “Don’t talk to her. Just say thank you and go away quickly.”

Pasha commented in Russian, “She is always watching us and tries to make problems for us if we have had too much beer. She makes notes of everything you do so don’t try to do things against the rules. She knows everything! She must work for the secret police,” he said rolling his eyes.

Marina hissed back at him, “Pasha, you must speak English!”

He rolled his eyes again behind her back as we climbed up two flights of stairs. Yulia thought this was a rather funny exchange and laughed aloud, causing everybody to chuckle.

Pasha showed me to my room while the ladies lingered in the stairwell and chatted like hens with each other. The bedroom, empty of roommates still to return from the winter break, looked itself like a cheerful jail cell, or a clean Russian hospital room. The walls were jarring bright green and there were matching green and white fuzzy wool blankets on the bunk beds. The room screamed “Gulag” at me, except for the large window with sheers and curtains. The chunky radiator hidden under the window sheers was fully opened, warming the room to near suffocation levels. The hot air in the room caused the residual odors of the occupants in a closed terrarium to rush into the cold hallway through the open door: garlic, onions, alcohol, body odor, and tea all mixed into a pungent eastern blend. There was a samovar station in the corner of the room on a triangular table that fit snuggly in the corner. Assorted unwashed utensils and plates in a washing-up box and washed clothing lay at the foot of beds to dry. At first look, my stomach turned upside down.

“Do you share this room as well, Pasha?” I asked him with caution.

“No. I sleep in a different room,” he answered slowly and deliberately in English.

Holding my nose in exaggeration I asked, “Does your room smell better?”

Pasha looked at me as if I was completely crazy. “Do you think this room smells bad?” he asked as he took in a deep breath through wide nostrils, “Smells like everybody’s room. It’s normal,” he commented shrugging his shoulder. I was immediately conscious that I would not be able to handle such conditions for more than two weeks, if that.

Marina proposed that the four of us meet for dinner that night and spend some more time speaking English. For Russians to speak English now, more than ever, was a requisite for success. To speak English well-improved one’s chances of getting noticed by a new joint venture business moving into Russia to work locally as an interpreter, or even eventually to be asked to work abroad. We agreed to meet on Minin Square at six o’clock that evening for dinner in a Stubbe inside one of the city’s kremlin towers.

Dinner with Marina and Pasha was a half game of charades and laughing. Marina refused to speak Russian and was searching for English words in the smoky air hanging above our table. This spectacle drew the attention of the entire cafe to our corner table.

“Why did you choose your study in Nizhniy?” Marina asked me after drinks had been brought to the table.

“I have heard that in Nizhniy the governor is helping to grow private businesses by making good new laws. I want to study how he is doing that,” I answered slowly for her and Pasha to understand.

“Not because you have a beautiful girlfriend here?” Marina asked smiling and winking at Yulia.

“That helped my decision,” I admitted bashfully.

“I want to understand how Russia is changing on the inside, not just in Moscow. Maybe I came more to live the changes than studying it from books,” I added regarding my motivations.

“But why? Why come to our country when it’s falling apart?” Pasha challenged me.

“Is it falling apart? I think maybe it’s just getting a new life. Don’t you maybe think?” I countered.

“Oh no! In four years I have been student we have so less opportunity now for job than at beginning. My certificate will not get me engineer job. I will have to look to work for foreign company to earn money,” he said with some urgency and regret.

“Then we had better speak English to give you lots of practice,” I offered, hoping to soothe the sting of his situation.

“But you have come here to learn to speak Russian,” Pasha returned my offer.

“But he already speaks Russian!” Marina interrupted and turning to me continued, “I heard you talk with Valentina Petrovna. You speak very good Russian already. We need to learn English like you speak Russian.”

“Really, Marina, it takes immersion in a language to learn to speak it fluently. You can’t learn to think in a language from a book, no matter how much your read,” I explained to Marina as she pouted.

“Yes, but Peter sound as if he is Russian. Maybe like he’s come from Estonia,” she moaned again to Pasha who seemed less concerned about the question.

“When you study it abroad, Masha, you can sound like English girl too,” Pasha said deliberately to his disheartened girlfriend.

“Peter? Did you work with a private company in America? Do they like you to speak Russian?” Marina asked me directly.

“Yes, in fact, Yulia and I met when I worked for an American company in Russia. We know the people in Moscow who hire interpreters. If you want we can introduce you to them,” I offered, reassuring her distress that she was figuratively missing her ship of opportunity as Russia sailed further with only the bilingual.