Love Is Never Past Tense... (19 page)

The crowd of men seemed insignificant and it was not an obstacle. Now I know for sure, that a conversation with the consul will take place, in spite of everything!

“Permit me!” I say loudly. Heads turn towards me. A female voice!? I think it stopped the consul, who was just about to leave.

“Well then, please! Allow me to pass!” In this voice there is no request. There is confidence. I’m here. I will speak with
You
. Now! And
You
will not tell me
No
”! I kind of pumped myself up with confidence. I gave myself a pep talk: “it will be the way I want it to be!” I looked at him, not turning my head. Everyone who appeared in my way, I dismissed, overriding any objections with a soft, movement of my hand. Did I hypnotize him? Probably not. But in my approach there was no hint of entreaty, no request to stop, to wait for me. He was bribed with my resoluteness—in it there was an intrigue that forced him to stand and wait for me.

“What is the matter?” asks the consul, measuring me with his eyes. Here I recalled that I was a young and attractive woman. Facing me is the consul. But he had a small fault—he was a man. I could see a man of average height, dark hair with neatly cut temples—the rest was covered by a hat—and dark-burning eyes. They looked out with surprise and curiosity. Certainly, he understood that here, people ask for only one thing. He understood that I approach him not as a man, but as a consul. But when I come closer, his eyes become soft, and in the depths of his pupils the expectation of flirtation begins to shine. Instinctively I guessed that this condition needs to be kept until I resolve my problem.

“I need to speak with you,” I answer, trying not to lose his gaze.

“Speak,” he pronounced, putting on himself the mask of the consul and looking back at those around him. A pause comes. Silence is around us. Only wisps of steam came from the hot breath of people. If I tell him about the visa I would then and there return to my place somewhere on the edge of the crowd, and God would feel sorry for his trouble of sculpting me as a woman.

I look the consul straight in the eyes, but I see in him a man. I speak firmly, interrupting the tightened pause:

“I cannot talk, it is too cold here.”

“Well,” almost with a whisper the consul answers, “I will return at half past two. Wait for me.”

I search for the young man with whom I spoke earlier. I need to share with him. Let him be happy for me. I can help him too. “Actually,” I think, “why do I bother with him? I still have not solved my problems. What a character I am, to stretch out a helping hand to everyone. He may not even need it.”

He is standing, talking with a fellow of twenty-five years. I introduce myself. I tell them what has happened. “I will take your information for the invitation with me, boys! Everything will be fine!” I think.

“Maybe we should go to the ‘Ukraine’ hotel and find him at lunch? We can sit down at the next little table and maybe we can talk to him there?” offered the first young man. Superb! Certainly, we will go. We will take a taxi.

In the taxi the first guy says that he has run out of money. The money order from Kiev is just about to arrive, so he does not luxuriate at the moment.

“Do not worry; I will pick up the tab for the taxi and dinner.” The second guy immediately suggests, splitting the charges with me, and I agree.

Passing down the corridor to a room of the first guy, a woman on duty threateningly informs him that he must pay for a broken night lamp. The second guy and I split the cost. Our companion has enough troubles. We come into his room. I hang up my shearling coat on the radiator, to let it dry slightly. (While I was waiting for the consul, I opened the door of the building across from the embassy. The door had a small window, and I could look outside and watch. I leaned next to a radiator on the wall, trying to get some warmth. I did not expect that my movements would cause a pipe disconnection, and hot water would run down the side of my coat!)

We go into the restaurant. But the consul is not there. Then we go to the buffet on the second floor. We will eat quickly and then quickly return to embassy. Certainly, there is enough time before two thirty. It would be good to return, just in case, a little earlier.

We buy some food, we eat, then we go to the room and I put on my shearling. And suddenly, there is a knock at the door. The first guy is surprised. “Who’s there?”

“Open!” There are three men in grey coats. “Come with us! Your passports?” Oh God! What time is it? Our passports are handed to those men in the civilian clothes. I start TO SHOUT! “How dare you? I’m going to miss my flight!” One of them approaches the phone and dials the number of Moldavian KGB, reads the information on my passport … and gives it back to me. “There is nothing to worry about,” he says, “You are clean like glass. You can go.” The boy who went with us got his passport back too. “And you,” says the
civilian
to the tenant of the hotel, “We warned you. Stop speculating with Rolex. You remain.”

The young man and I are taken down a corridor, tightly gripping our passports, afraid of some new unexpected stop. But everything is good. The main thing is to fly out of this building and catch a taxi. Goodness! If only we can be on time!

We made it back to the embassy … “Has he appeared?” I asked someone who was tramping around because of the extreme cold. The negative answer calmed me and gave me the opportunity to catch my breath. And here is the car. My consul!

Goodness! He silently approaches me, embraces my shoulders, and conducts me into the embassy. His assistant (or his bodyguard) follows us from the right side. Hooray!

Freedom is almost gained? My partner in the incident hands a note to me containing his information. “Don’t doubt, my friend,” I say. “Everything will be as it should! I will pass him your note.”

“What is needed?” the consul asks, once we’re inside the embassy. He removes my coat and offers me a chair across from his. He is already in his professional role, and he understands that I am not offering him a meeting in a cozy cafe.

“An invitation,” I answer shortly and firmly.

“Give me your information.”

“My papers? Here they are. Please!”

“ОK! What else?” the consul says coldly, skillfully playing the role of an important official.

“Here is more,” and I hand the information for my friend Boris, his wife, and their two children.

“OK! Give it here. In half a year there will be an invitation. What else?”

“Here’s more,” I hand him a page containing the information of a young man, my new acquaintance. The page travels into the consul’s hands.

Outside, a KGB soldier protecting the embassy asked at the gate, ”Your passport, young lady?”

“I’m married,”
⁴⁶
I heard myself say before I had time to think of what to answer. The young, not so skilled brain of the soldier began to chew on my phrase, but time had been won, and I disappeared from his field of vision. Everyone outside asked, “So, how was it?”

“Hа! Now, you are talking with me, dear men!” I go to a restaurant to have supper with the one who was most interested in my experience. Why does he need to know this when he already has the permission to leave? Who knows? I just want to eat …

At the restaurant I tell him the details about the event. He listens. He asks a question: “When will the invitation come?”

“In half a year,” I respond.

“Half a year? Are you kidding! That’s too long! You do not know what can happen in this country during that time? With horror, I realize, “That’s true, I do not know …” We go to a pay phone near the restaurant, and we dial the number of the hotel Ukraine.

“Please, connect me to room 245.” They connect me. The number is silent.

“Maybe I should call that guy who lives in the Ukraine?”

“Forget it. He is a provoker. Here everyone knows him.”

“What does he provoke?”

“He brings people, as though accidentally, to special services (KGB), and then they can use their limitless powers to shake people down until they find something.” I recalled the scene in the hotel: “But they did not really shake me down. They released me immediately. This means, once I was hooked, there was nothing to find. I guess I was lucky. Ooof!” I exhaled. In this country a dirty, sneaky trick can come from any direction …

The next morning, I went down to a pay phone, wearing a nightgown, a coat, and boots with no socks. It wouldn’t have been good to call from Lina’s house—who knows who could be listening, and what kind of trouble it could get her into? Again, I dialed the consul’s number. “You may not remember me. I was talking with you yesterday …”

“Of course, I remember. You are the teacher from Kishinev. Is there something wrong?”

“I need to meet you urgently. I leave today.”

“ОK! I’m going to the embassy. Can you be there at ten in the morning?”

“I can’t make it in time. I am in Izmailovo. It is a long way, and I am not ready yet.”

“That’s OK. Then will one o'clock do?”

“Yes, but they won’t let me in. There are soldiers there …”

“I will wait for you outside at one o'clock. Do not worry.” I arrived seven minutes past one. He stood outside waiting. The shoulders of his jacket are covered by snowflakes. He is a man. He came for a date. The consul—is now his minor role. He will do everything that I ask of him. This thought became firm in my brain. I easily follow him inside. Like yesterday, he removes my coat. I sit down on the familiar chair which has been kindly moved up by the man-consul.

“What’s the problem?” he asks.

“My mother is sick. Half a year is too long.”

“OK!” replied the man. “Show me the information again.” I hand him the page.

“You haven’t forgotten? I have a friend. He has a wife and two kids. For them, half a year—is like half a life …” The Consul called the secretary.

“Send a fax, urgently!” and the consul immediately disappeared. In front of me sat the man with a pleasant exterior, similar to the prodigal son. Probably he’d reached his limit of official duties. He wished to go to his motherland. There, it is warm and cozy. But his motherland is far away. But near him, sits a woman who radiates warmth and internal security and calmness too.

“Maybe we will go to a restaurant in the evening?” the man said clumsily.

“I have a flight.” I softly answer and smile with the edges of my lips.

“Yes, you told me, I forgot. Probably, I will find you in Israel.”

“Certainly,” I answer with relief. “The country is small, and it won’t be hard.” But to myself I think, “In Israel, my dear, you will search for me for the rest of your life. I will not be there.”

I had convinced myself that I needed to make my way to America. But that was my secret. I returned home, to Lina.

“And where is the consul?” my inquisitive girlfriend asks.

“What consul,” I ask. “I do not understand you.”

“But I thought he would follow you. Everyone sticks to you eternally. Well, how did everything go?”

“I think it couldn’t have gone better. Now only the waiting remains.”

I fly home. On my door, the mail box is twisted into the shape of an eight. It’s scary! In one and a half months the invitation should come. These days will seem very long! I go to the post office. My former schoolmate works there. “When the invitation comes,” I ask him, “please give me a call. I want to take a vacation abroad, and will bring back a gift for you.” The invitation came in exactly in one and a half months. I do not know which played the bigger role—the decency of the consul or the testosterone in his blood. My post office friend received a gift before my departure.

The time came to say goodbye to the city where I lived all my life. “The city,” I thought, “where I married for the first time for love—perhaps for the first and the last time. Where are you, my fair-headed young man? Farewell! Now, you are only in my memory. Will I ever see you again? No, now is already never—all my resources are exhausted. Farewell, my magnificent, kind and sympathetic friends. No one will see me here again.” But the hope that they would see me did not abate. It lived in me, having hammered itself into a distant corner of my soul: weak, but still alive…

***

At last, all the documents are ready. Visa support from Israel is the only way to cross the border. Boris’s idea to go to Israel does not sit right with me. It is a small country which is torn apart by religious contradictions, and an environment of terrible threats from the Arabic countries. What will I do there? It is unknown to me. You cannot live just anywhere. You can learn almost everything about Israel in just a few weeks. But I plainly do not know the language. Many Jews in the USSR speak exclusively in Russian and do not study their native language—why bother? No. America: this is my goal. I have to reach it, at any cost.

The packing begins. Some things should be taken with us, and some things—sent in the container. It is good that a relative of my friend in New York agreed to accept my cargo. The rest—I give away to friends. Finally, everything is done.

In the kitchen, on the radiator hangs Alla’s claret sweater with white patterns across the front. One sleeve, slightly twisted up, hangs down like a piece of ship rope. Perhaps the sweater guesses that its mistress will not pull it over her little body anymore to keep warm. The keys are given to Boris. He will distribute to relatives, friends and acquaintances as he is told: furniture, carpets, utensils, the remaining clothes—everything on the list. The sweater will pass to the wardrobe of the neighbor girl.