Jan's Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

cooking. Everyone, from our next-door neighbors coming for Saturday night dinner, to visiting dignitaries looking to connect with American journalists (and find an edible meal) were welcome at our table. Al Gore, then a Tennessee senator, was in Moscow on a trip investigating environmental issues, and a friend brought him around to our place for lunch. He confessed that he liked spicy food, which was also a huge favorite of Jan's.
    She sliced some fresh Russian bread and pulled out a jar of what I considered to be insanely hot sauce, which was a kind of searing jelly concoction from a southern Soviet area. I thought the jelly might be strong enough to eat through the glass and certainly though the lining of the stomach. She knew it was a hit when the hot peppers made sweat pop out on Gore's forehead. They both had seconds.
    Jan could just as easily plan and cook a formal dinner for twelve and loved the challenge. The rest of us would marvel at the result and, at the end of the evening we'd raise our glasses in a happy and noisy toast to Jan, the Chef.
    Jan also brought her artistic touch to the flat, which was furnished. We could only bring clothes and a few paintings from Tokyo, so she picked out the most vibrant paintings, the ones with bright reds. And when we bought art work in Moscow to decorate, it was the same … splashes of color … as if the brightness of the flat inside could somehow neutralize Moscow's endless gray.
    Our flat was bugged by the KGB, of course, and we had no choice but to live there since it was the company apartment assigned by the Soviet authorities. CBS News reporters and their families had lived there for decades. Each summer, the girls would come and spend two months with us, and we would befuddle the eavesdroppers by moving our bed into the dining room so the girls could have the bedroom.
    And, within a night or two, we would hear the scraping, like a huge rat slowly creeping and crawling in the ceiling. “The idiots,” Jan would say, half-delighted with their lack of subtlety. They were, of course, moving the listening devices through the crawl space in the ceiling from the bedroom to the dining room where we had moved the bed in the summer so they could listen in on our pillow talk.
    At the end of summer the girls left, and we moved back into the bedroom. “Here it comes,” Jan would say, all but laughing. And sure enough, the first or second night, we heard the scraping noises as they dragged the listening device from the dining room back to the bedroom. I can hear it, still. And when we talk about it, and when she remembers, it still makes her giggle.
    Life could be tricky in Moscow, especially dealing with the authorities. We quickly learned that there were a lot of rules, mostly ignored, since the bureaucrats did what they wanted. Or sometimes, it seemed, they made up new rules, just for the occasion, and usually so they could say … nyet .
    So we were nervous as we packed to leave Moscow for the next assignment in London. It meant direct dealings with the authorities, but Jan turned it into a total triumph. One of those dealings centered on getting our Soviet-era art out of Moscow, and it was one of her proudest moments. Each piece, including the few antiques we bought there, needed a special stamp from the Ministry of Culture approving it for export to make sure we weren't absconding with any state treasures. That meant a personal inspection visit from Ministry officials before anything could be packed.
    Jan researched it well and had gift bags ready for the two women inspectors who showed up. The important gift was American-made Marlboro cigarettes, practically a currency of its own in the desperate poverty that was Moscow in those days. This was the era where the Soviets had so little in their lives that people would get in line sometimes not even knowing what the line was for; only that something might be available in a shop. Foreign goods were rare and, in