Eight Pieces of Empire Read Online Free PDF Page A

teary-eyed widow. “You know, an Amerikanskii podarok !”
    An American present. Palm greasers , she meant—a bribe.
    We practically sprinted back to the communal and up the stairs to the fifth floor and the other Nina Nikolaevna abode, where I tore through my bags for some potentially appropriate gift, settling on a couple of packs of Marlboros and a twenty-dollar bill. Then we headed back to the OVIR. We jumped the line of Soviet citizens trying to get out of the country that I wanted to stay in, and made a dash to Shchemyakin’s door before the secretary could stop us. Once inside, the Widow Nina unceremoniously plopped two packages of Marlboro Reds on Shchemyakin’s desk along with the twenty-dollar bill.
    “What is this?” Shchemyakin sneered dismissively, in a tone that conveyed neither acceptance nor rejection of the paltry haul.
    “It’s not about that,” he snarled, referring to the “gifts.” “I’ll call you once we get everything figured out. Now get out of here!”
    Notably, he did not shove the gifts back across the desk before we cleared the door.
    It was a long night spent fretting and worrying, with a good amount of self-recrimination and anger mixed with despair. I couldn’t sleep until toward daylight, and woke to the grating sound of the communal telephone in the hallway ringing off the hook. I tried to ignore it, thereby saving myself the trouble of trying to decipher which Nina Nikolaevna the caller wanted—my absent landlady, or the Widow, who had retired in a fit of distress at my apparent fate. Let someone else answer, I said to myself, covering my ears with a pillow. But no one else seemed to be around. Finally I forced myself to my feet, headed into the hallway, and snatched the receiver in irritation, demanding who the caller was and with which Nina Nikolaevna he wished to speak.
    I immediately recognized his voice. It was Shchemyakin. But instead of declaring me Persona Non Grata with twelve hours to leave the USSR, he almost beamed friendship through the receiver—and it wasrather clear that our newfound camaraderie was not due to two packs of smokes and twenty bucks.
    “Could you come to the OVIR office at eighteen hundred hours—six p.m.?” he asked politely.
    “Of course I will,” I replied.
    Glasnost and Perestroika had apparently won the day.
    Heading to Shchemyakin’s office alone that evening, it occurred to me that the timing of our rendezvous was unusual. All Soviet offices strictly observed priyom , or reception times, typically 10 to 12 in the morning, and 2 to 4 in the afternoon. Before, between, or after those hours, the bureaucratic state was in lockdown; 6 p.m. thus seemed like a very odd rendezvous time.
    My confusion deepened when I got to the OVIR. The main entrance was locked, and there was no one outside. I rang a bell. A well-dressed secretary popped her head out. She invited me inside—a little too warmly—and sat me down in the reception area. Then she and another pretty bureaucrat hurriedly packed their purses and rushed out the door as if late for their own weddings.
    A few more moments passed in silence, and then I heard a distant door open and shut and the pitter-patter of footfalls approaching.
    “Lavrernce!” said the voice in Russian.
    It was Shchemyakin, wearing a smile so forced that it seemed to cause him pain.
    He moved uneasily, stiffly, like a rusted robot, as he led me down the hall and into a comfortable room with leather sofas. There was also a coffee table carefully laid out with coveted “Misha the Intoed Bear” chocolates from the Red October factory, sundry cookies imported from abroad, Beluga caviar in a crystal bowl, and a bottle of Ararat “export” cognac from Soviet Armenia. Shchemyakin motioned to me to sit down, sat down himself, and handed me my passport and visa with a smile.
    “Everything’s fine with your documents,” he cooed, as if being two days in “major violation” of the Soviet Foreign Registration Law