Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“We will be able to help you leave with a government airplane as soon as the police release you to go. It could take you weeks to be ready to fly commercially. We feel it is important to get you home as quickly as possible,” Richardson added. “Please call me at this number directly when you are cleared to leave. We’ll arrange an embassy car to take you to the airport and fly you to D.C.”

“Thanks for the offer. I’ll certainly call you when I’m released.” I took his offered card and put it on the bedside table with no intention to contact him voluntarily. The men excused themselves and said they would look in on me again in a few days to see how I was healing.

As the door closed behind the Americans I felt my gut sink and my face turn pale. I gazed out the window with tears blurring my vision. I cursed again the day that I first arrived in Russia. I cursed the years of studying the language, Pushkin, and Dostoyevsky. I cursed both Lenin and Yeltsin for both the hope and the upheavals that they ushered in. I cursed my idealism and swore in my fear that once gone, I would never come back! An uncontrollable urge to flee rose up in my limbs. I started from my bed and removed the hospital scrubs and slippers I had borrowed and began to put on my own denim jeans. The white hospital tee shirt would have to do.

As I sat in my chair struggling to put on socks and shoes with one hand the door to my room opened without warning. I looked up with exasperation and impatience to see two guards in suits and ties barge in. They opened all my cupboards and closets, looked under the bed and inspected the lavatory. I was instructed to stand. One guard frisked me from head to toe and between my legs while the other stood by to watch. What were they looking for?

“Please sit on the bed and do not move!” I was instructed.

I sat on the bed without an argument while the two guards stood at attention between the window and my bed leaving the door wide open and nothing stopping me from exiting the room in my bare feet. I looked again at the twin guards and gave a questioning look. One motioned for me to stay put on the bed but did not speak again.

From the corridor, a commotion was heading toward my door. A group of five people, all of them speaking busily with each other in excitement, appeared at the door. I feared that I was going to be arraigned and charged with espionage by Major Dobrynin. If the Americans had photos of me with Del on the Arbat street they have already figured out that I was with him at the museum too. My nerves were completely shot. Horrible visions of a trial, prison and firing squad rushed through the neurons and synapses of my brain at light speed. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe slowly and push out the visions of doom swirling behind my eyes. The group entered my room.

A cameraman with a large television camera on his shoulder walked cautiously backward toward me and then around the foot of my bed. Just behind him, a woman with a microphone on a wire connected to the television camera also walked backward into the room. To my disbelief, the next figure who strode into my room was a tall, barrel-chested, silver-haired man, in a sharp blue wool suit with the flag of the Russian Federation pinned to his lapel. President Yeltsin looked serious yet he smiled as he approached my bed and held out his hand to me. I timidly offered my left hand and he shook heartily with both of his. Photographers behind him took pictures of our handshake. Shutters flickered like hummingbird wings. They called for turned heads and an extended handshake.

“We are very sorry for your distress!” the President said to me in a clear, slow baritone voice.

“Thank you very much, Mr. President,” I replied demurely nodding my head in deference.

“We will find those responsible for this terrible attack on innocent people and punish them!” he bellowed for the camera, looking at me.

I thanked him again and withdrew my hand.

“Will you be going home soon?” he questioned.

“I hope so! The doctors and nurse are taking good care of me,” I offered.

“Yes, they are the best in Russia. I wish you a quick recovery,” he replied and then clasped my left shoulder and looked me in the face with a sincere expression of concern. The photographers were rabid for this photo and Yeltsin stood still for another five seconds letting the press satiate itself.

As quickly as the guards and the entourage had entered, they left my room and went next door where another victim of the shooting was convalescing. I listened to the President bellow the same deliberate words of canned comfort to the woman in the next room who was obviously sobbing and blubbering something back to him. She would surely make the seven o’clock news!

Nelya came quickly to see if the commotion had disturbed me and to help me get comfortable again.

“Why are you dressed?” she demanded and picked up the scrubs on the floor behind my bed and demanded to help me change again, “You know that you can’t leave. So please stay comfortable and rest. It is almost time for dinner.”

The following morning at ten o’clock sharp Major Dobrynin came into the room together with my nurse and asked to take a seat. He greeted me with a nod and a smile on his well-tanned face. He had the face of a stern man but kind eyes and moved in a non-aggressive manner.

“I’ve asked the nurse to stay with us for this discussion in order to help you stay comfortable and bring anything you might need while we speak,” he explained without any hesitation. He had come for a specific purpose and was prepared to see it though.

“I understand our President came to visit you yesterday evening,” he said in a friendly manner.

I nodded without a word.

“You should be honored. He’s a good man who has Russia’s best interest in mind. I’d take a bullet for him!” he affirmed with pride.

“Were you with him in 1992?” I asked politely.

“Yes, but I was not with him that day when he stood on the tanks. Wish I could have seen it!” he was obviously a great admirer of the man who he had sworn to protect. Changing tones suddenly Dobrynin started the official business, “Mr. Turner, I have a number of questions that I need for you to answer with as much detail as you can recall about the shootings in the museum on Wednesday afternoon.”

“I will do my best to remember,” I assured him.

“Please start by relating to me what you saw and experienced in the museum that day,” he instructed.

I didn’t know how to start the story and I hesitated and looked at him and then at Nelya. I knew if I started such an interrogation with a lie that it would only be bad for me. There is no way that I could construct a story other than the truth to explain why I was in Moscow, what I was doing at the Gallery and why the FSB agents were present. After my interview and questions from the embassy staff the day before I was careful to anticipate that they already knew half the story. They had probably already spoken with Tatyana, the guide who I fell on and who Del led out of the exposition hall with a machine gun in hand. They’d want to know who had packed my wound and from whom I had taken a shirt from to stop the bleeding on my shoulder. I knew that the physical evidence and the other eye witnesses would contradict any story I could create. I stalled.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know if I’m ready yet to talk about this. It’s all so fresh,” I bluffed.

“I understand, but it is very important that we speak now before you start to forget,” Dobrynin insisted.

I took a deep breath, “Major, how much time do you have?” my voice shook from nerves.

“That depends on what you have to tell me, Mr. Turner,” he said putting away his pen and closing his notepad. He looked through me and leaned towards me in his chair.