Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“How did you get Rocky back to the boat?” Irina asked me in English.

“We paid the ambulance driver twenty dollars to take the three of us,” I stated without irony.

“Unbelievable what people will do for a few dollars these days. Using a city ambulance to make some extra money.” Irina turned her head and made a quick, mock spitting action with her pursed lips; a gesture of disgust.

Matvei chimed in to tell his own adventure from last summer “Do you remember, Peter, when we lost that one lady with the funny eye and the funny hair when we were at the Sparrow Hills with the group? One minute she was there and the next she was gone. I remember you handing me dollar bills between the seats for the taxi driver as we went from place to place looking for her. Do you remember that eventually we found her at McDonald’s on Pushkin Square?’

“Yes, I remember that. Very scary moment!” I replied.

“How did she get from the Sparrow Hills to Pushkin Square?” Olga asked unaware of this event.

“On the Metro,” Matvei grinned. “Somebody helped her take the Metro and dropped her off at McDonald’s on Pushkin Square because she thought the group would be going to McDonald’s that afternoon. Problem was, it was the other McDonald’s we visited on Tverskaya street, not Pushkin Square. But we found her and brought her back to the boat before dinner.”

“She was so shaken up that she didn’t want to leave the boat again. She said that some hooligans tried to mug her at Sparrow Hills and she ran away and then couldn’t find her way back. Somebody helped her buy a metro ticket and delivered her to ‘the other American embassy’,” was my addition to the story.

Everybody laughed at the thought of the US Embassy as being a McDonald’s. Nikolai toasted the irony with another hundred grams of Vodka. I raised my shot of Pepsi and downed it one gulp with him.

“Do you remember that foolish woman who threw her open suitcase at the customs officer at Sheremetyevo airport during their departure inspection? Olga put her hand over her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. “It took me ninety minutes to get her out of custody and onto her airplane! You Americans just don’t understand that in Russia, you are nobody special and you just can’t do this to officers and soldiers! Who is going to tell them that this year?”

“And the guy who kept his passport in his sock!? I kept finding it on the upper deck of the ship and gave it back to him three or four times!” Matvei added as he joined in our chorus of disbelief.

It was so good to be among old friends. It felt like we had been members of an elite espionage squad getting back together to remember good old times and drink our troubles away. We had worked through so many crises together the last summer that we trusted each other with life and limb, literally. I felt sad that I wouldn’t be working with them again and wished I could drop my studies and work and sail the river with them one more time. What a wonderful summer that had been! So much experience. So much learned.

As the afternoon came to a chilly close, as it was still only mid-April, Yulia and I gathered up our things and headed for the gang plank. Irina had invited us again to join a cruise during the summer holidays. We could earn our room and board by translating and telling great stories to the new batch of tourists about to arrive from the USA. We were very enthusiastic about the invitation and agreed to come on board in mid-July when the boat would be docked at Nizhniy’s River Station overnight for a crew rotation. It was a great thought to have that opportunity waiting after school was out for the summer. We waved goodbye and the ladies gave each other kisses and Yuila and I headed down the gang plank to terra firma, turned again into the setting sun and waved again to our friends, then scurried up the embankment stairs to the street and the bus stop. It had been a wonderful sunny afternoon aboard the Zhukov

I had received instructions from Del to phone Mikhail, or Misha, as his friends and comrades called him, to set up a work schedule with the young project manager for Del’s business activities in Nizhniy Novgorod. Was this a private enterprise on the side that Del was putting together, or was it integral to the success of the hotel project? I wasn’t quite sure of either answer, nor was I completely sure of the questions. I was hoping a meeting with Misha would help to clear up some of the questions. I had resolved to phone him on Saturday morning but found all the public telephones to be out of service at the metro station so I waited until later in the afternoon in hopes of finding them operational again. They were.

After some struggle to dial the right number, the crank damaged by overuse and vandalism, I heard the line buzz, crack and finally settle into the normal clicks and beeps before finding the right telephone line. Then the scratchy, wobbly ringing tone of an open line repeated over and over in the ear piece, for what seemed like two or three minutes before the telephone was answered.

“Halloah?” a groggy man’s voice demanded an answer.

“Good day. My name is Pyotr,” I used the Russian pronunciation of my name to avoid the constant question of WHO? WHO? WHO? when people didn’t understand the English pronunciation of my name.

“Who are you calling?” again very gruff and hostile. I must have woken him with the telephone call.

“Is this the number of Mikhail Porashevsvkiy?” I asked with doubt in my question.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Pyotr. Do you know Del?” I asked skeptically.

“No names please,” the voice commanded.

“We are supposed to meet today,” I stated timidly.

“Yes, why so late?” the voice grumbled.

“Where and when can I meet you?” I asked with a bit of relief feeling I’d reached the right person.

“Do you know Kulibin Park on Byelinskovo Street?” he demanded to know.

“No,” I admitted my ignorance.

“Find it. Meet me at the little white church in the park at four o’clock,” he demanded.

Without waiting for an agreement or a question from me the line went dead. I looked curiously at the hand set looking to see if my ears had deceived me. I put it again to my ear to double check that he had really hung up. “Halloah? Misha?” Nobody was there.

It was already two o’clock so after buying a handful of piroshki from the old lady selling food in the dark metro tunnel I bounded up the stairs to the daylight, crossed Prospect Lenina just in time to catch the autobus, a long articulated, yellow stinky diesel engine bus. As it climbed the switchbacks of the bluff it felt like the bus would come apart, like an over-stretched accordion before we made it up the hill into the old town. As the bus crested the peak and emerged onto Lyadova Square on its way toward Gorkiy Square, I spotted the street name Byelinksovo and moved quickly to the exit, tapping people on the shoulder and asking “Are you getting off?” With every question, the other passengers would turn their shoulders and let me pass until I was standing directly in front of the doors. I exited at the next stop and started trekking up Byelinskovo street.

I came quickly to a park on the right side and crossed the road dodging the passing street car. Walking along the pavement of the street I was peering into the park looking for a little white Orthodox chapel. As the spring foliage had yet to fill in I could see through the entire park and saw nothing that even closely resembled a small white church. The park was filled with lines of birch trees, a children’s playground, a cafe, and restaurant but no white chapel. As I passed the main entrance to the park, I found a map of the grounds and discovered that this park was not Park Kulibin, but Park Pushkin. I scratched my head and looked about.