Paullina Simons: Six Days in Leningrad

“Yes,” she said. “The computer broke.”

“Of course it did.” I wanted to know what that had to do with my business, but I feared, everything . “I still don’t have a seat assignment.”

“Yes, yes. I will take care of it.” She looked around. “I have to go and use another computer to check you in. Wait here.”

I waited. She fiddled with someone else’s computer. A man came over and glanced at her computer, shook his head and walked away, yelling, “Pasha!”

Everyone at the Aeroflot check-in was named Pasha or Seriozha or Tatiana, and no one seemed to speak English or if they knew, they were not letting on.

I stood tapping my fingers insistently on the counter, waiting for the Filipino woman to take care of me.

Thirty minutes passed, and then when she came back, I timidly inquired if I could have a window seat.

“A window seat?” she said, looking as if she were about to laugh. “There are no window seats left. This is a completely full flight. I can give you aisle.”

Wondering about the availability of window seats twenty minutes earlier — before the computer broke — I kept my mouth shut and got 24D.

I ran to my gate, but though it was 1:15 p.m. and time for departure, we hadn’t even started boarding yet. Bless Aeroflot. I had a bit of time, so I called Kevin, who didn’t answer: probably still in the pool. I bought two more magazines, because the five I had in my bag just weren’t enough. It was now 1:20. I didn’t see the missionaries. Had they not checked in yet? I found that hard to believe, what with my slow-arriving bag, and playing hide and seek with the towncar, and computer problems.

I walked around aimlessly, looking for someone to ask what was going on. A vague line formed near the gate. I would have liked to ask the Aeroflot woman behind the counter, but she was busy snapping in Russian at someone over the phone.

As I was walking past the crowd of people, I overheard a young woman and young man conversing in English. Coming up to them, I asked, in English, “Excuse me, do you know when they’re going to start boarding?” The girl and guy looked at me vacantly. The guy said, “ Mhy ne govorim po Angliyski.” (“We don’t speak English”) I stared back just as vacantly, trying to recall some words of the conversation I had just heard. I could’ve sworn they had been talking English. Now of course, I couldn’t remember a single word. It felt as if I was inside an abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock painting. I nodded, said, “I see,” and edged away to stand near the rudely Russian-speaking Aeroflot employee.

Before I had a chance to ask anyone else, we started boarding. It was now 1:30 p.m.

When I got on the plane, you’d think I’d be grateful to sit but no — I was thinking ahead to the next 8 hours and 39 minutes in seat 24D, which was not only an aisle seat, but an aisle aisle seat. Three seats on one window, three seats on the other and four seats in the aisle. I was the fourth seat in the aisle. I couldn’t be more exposed. Also the cold air was blowing on me. I reached up and screwed closed the vent opening. The air continued to blow. I screwed closed every one of the four vent openings. Still blowing. I pressed the orange help button. A polite thirtyish man came up to me. “ Pozhalusta,” I said. “ Please, could you close the vents? It’s cold.”

Nodding, he reached up and touched something. It was better for a moment. Until he walked away. Then it started blowing again.

An announcement over the PA system in Russian informed us that the missionaries were delaying the flight indefinitely as they continued to check in. As an afterthought the announcement was repeated in broken English.

I had plenty of time to sit and think as we waited for the first sign of the missionaries.

It seemed like everything had been a mad dash for the proverbial door — women and children overboard. There were no long goodbyes with the children the night before, not even time to feed them McDonald’s for dinner. Kevin fed them while I got ready for his boss’s party and packed for Russia at the same time.

My youngest boy Kevie had watched me get ready, bringing me batteries he took from my purse, saying, “Here you go, Mommy.” Later Misha got out of his crib when he woke from his nap, opened his bedroom door and left the room. He came downstairs, took my hand and said, “Come, Mama. Kevie wants you.” You could say Kevie wanted me. He was crying hysterically in the dark room.

I felt unsettled, overwhelmed.

I didn’t want Misha to get out of his crib and his room because I was left unable to finish whatever I was doing. Packing, blow-drying my hair, getting ready. “You know, Misha,” my husband said, “you have to stay in your crib till we get you.”

Misha replied with a roll of the eyes, “You keep saying, Dad, that I have to stay in my crib, but I had to get out, I didn’t want to stay there anymore.” Big, exasperated 3-year-old sigh.

When it was time for us to leave, Kevie was too busy playing with Little People to look up. I wore a gold lamé dress with matching necklace and earrings. The kids barely stirred. Natasha, grunted something like, “Have fun in Russia, Mom.”

I almost — no, I absolutely couldn’t believe that so much had happened in such a short time. How could we be in our new house already?

My oldest friend Kathie sent me an impromptu letter, full of her life and her kids, signed “I love you.” I was too crazed by my life to send her a birthday card. I wasn’t spending enough time with my own children. I had no time for anything but the new house.

Kevin went to work outside of the house. He published children’s books about a dog who reads. I worked inside the house. Which meant my work stopped when the painters came. When the security men came, the pool guys, the lawn mower guys, the appliance guys, the plumbers, the electricians, it was me, each and every day, calling them, arranging times, talking to the building manager, answering their questions, babysitting their time in my house. And carrying the baby. That’s what I did, and when I was in my office for the briefest of minutes, I remained filled with the house and filled with the kids. I was filled with my life. I was not filled enough with World War II, with Leningrad under siege. Half a million people froze to death and died of hunger in Leningrad during the winter of 1941, and I was sitting in my office that was 80 degrees, and so I called the air-conditioning guy to make an appointment for him to come and fix the air conditioning because it was not cold enough in my office. Outside it was 105 and had been a 105 for 45 days. Leningrad, 1941: snow, death, no electricity, no running water, no food. Texas, 1998: my children shrieking in the swimming pool and the pool filter running 24 hours straight for weeks and continuing to do so for the rest of the summer.

125 grams of bread a day for children during the siege; bread cut with glue and cardboard. I calculated how much 125 grams was. About 4 ounces. Maybe 3.8.

“Misha,” I asked, “Would you like a baked potato with butter and cheese and bacon bits?”

“No,” he replied. “I don’t want anything. Just Tootsie Rolls.”

I built my office upstairs so I could have a lovely view, but I had to close my ivory blinds so I wouldn’t see the view, so it wouldn’t distract me, so I wouldn’t see my children being happy and the dogs running around and leaping into the pool. I might as well have been sitting in the rented house we had been living in, sitting in the small, hot attic room over the garage, looking out onto the driveway and the road and the neighbor’s house. Another minus — the Texas sunshine, all well and good, was actually blanching my computer screen. I couldn’t write if I couldn’t see.