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By
Kim Malone
1
Final
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Albert Einstein
“And still they come, new from those nations to which the study of that which can be weighed and
measured is a consuming love.”
W.H. Auden
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Oscar Wilde
“…we are in the paradoxical situation that novelty is more obvious in domains that are often relatively
trivial but easy to measure; whereas in domains that are more essential novelty is very difficult to
determine. There can be agreement on whether a new computer game, rock song, or economic formula is
actually novel, and therefore creative, less easy to agree on the novelty of an act of compassion or of an
insight into human nature”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
"Is it better to be a coal-heaver or a nursemaid; is the charwoman who has brought up eight children of less
value to the world than the barrister who has made ahundred thousand pounds? It is useless to ask such
questions; for nobody can answer them. Not only do the comparative values of charwomen and lawyers
rise and fall from decade to decade, but we have no rods with which to measure them even as they are at
the moment"
Virgina Woolf
“For too long we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere
accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over 800 billion dollars a year, but that
gross national product, if we judge the United States of America by that, that gross national product counts
air pollution, and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special
locks for our doors and the jails for people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and
the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic squall. It counts Napalm, and it counts nuclear warheads, and
armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our city. It counts Whitman's rifles and Speck's Knifes and
the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet, the gross national
product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play;
it does not include the beauty of our poetry, the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public
debate, or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our
wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything
in short except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why
we are proud that we are Americans.
Robert Kennedy
2
Final
3
Final
Breathless with expectation I looked down from the airplane window, eager for a life-
changing revelation. Instead, I saw partially planted fields and ramshackle sheds strewn
The aesthetics of the airport didn’t do much to dispel the anxiety I was trying not
to feel. Squashed, kerchiefed old ladies, babushki, were spreading grit around on the
floor using poles with filthy rags instead of mops. Fluorescent tubes gave off a harsh,
bluish light and made an ominous noise. Zzzzp. Zzzzp. Like human-sized mosquito
zappers.
Two recent photos from the New York Times fed my worries. First, a bread line
eight blocks long. I would rather starve than wait in a line that long. Then, there was the
picture of the man with a toilet paper necklace. He hadn’t been able to buy TP in six
months, so when he finally found some he strung as many rolls as he could on a rope,
hung it around his neck, and waddled home, Michelin-Man style. Shortages at both ends
of the digestive tract. Ugh. My fear of discomfort did battle with my disdain for
amenities.
Actually, it wasn’t even the discomfort of these shortages that was at the heart of
my angst. The real problem was that all the ideas I was most invested in kept getting
tossed onto the trash heap of history. I was here to rewrite my college thesis, ‘The
Journal of Economics and Sociology. The Berlin wall had fallen just as I’d put the
4
Final
Questioning the market was hard enough with the Eastern block intact. Now, dust from
the crumbled Wall kept threatening to choke my brilliant theories. Or so I liked to fancy.
My quest for the heroic, or at least the big, big being metaphoric not measurable,
compelled me forward through customs. Somebody named Boris was supposed to meet
me. I scanned the crowd for a person holding a sign with my name. No luck. A full
bladder prevented panic from setting in. I found a bathroom, but no toilet paper. I left
Shit! I had forgotten to bring yeast beast medicine. Even I had the common
sense to know I didn’t want to go to the doctor here...Where There Is No Doctor. Where
There Is No Doctor. Why was that phrase running through my mind? Oh, yes. It was the
title of a book somebody had given George, whom I intended to marry, before he had left
on a humanitarian mission to Honduras two weeks ago. Just before his departure, after
an entire year of frustrated longing, I had finally kissed him for the first time—and left it
at that.
I whirled around. “Yes. You must be Boris.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was
embarrassingly big and handsome—six and a half feet tall with thick curly sandy hair and
hands like the paws of a golden retriever puppy. An Alpha Man, a big swinging dick, a
thick-necked, big-jawed man. Just the kind of traditionally handsome type I never
trusted. A body like that was a walking advertisement for infidelity. Though, on my
check list of things to do before I got married was to sleep with that kind of a chiseled-lip
man—just one and just once, to see what all the fuss was about. Make sure I wasn’t
missing anything.
5
Final
Boris handed me some yellow roses and I promptly forgot all my Russian.
“These uuuh flowers are uuuh red—no, I mean, uuuh beautiful. Sorry, my Russian, that is
not so good.”
A big grin answered me. “You can speak English. I need practice.”
compromised. He’d speak Russian and I’d speak English. That way we’d both talk
“You have come at a special moment in our history. In time for bad weather and
we headed into Moscow in his little cracker-box car. The gas fumes were making me
dizzy.
“No bread?” I tried to sound calm. The long line for bread pictured in the Times
was bad enough. But no bread? Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the
wording in the e-mail offering me the research position at the Institute of Steel and
Alloys. It had concluded, “You will be paid a stipend of 180 roubles per month. This
may not seem like much, but don’t worry—there’s nothing to buy in our country
anyway.” 180 roubles came to just under $6. $6 a month!!! And there wasn’t $6 per
month of food to buy? When I thought about it, a panic set in. Luckily, I was a WASP,
well-trained in repression, so mostly I succeeded in not thinking about it. Now, though,
the question tickled the back of my mind like an irrepressible sneeze. What was I doing
here? The answer wasn’t exactly comforting: the Institute of Steel and Alloys was the
only place in the world willing to support my project. Why was the Institute of Steel and
6
Final
Alloys interested in The Measurement Problem? The only explanation I could get was
“No bread. First no vodka, then no cigarettes, now no bread. Can you imagine
this?” The smile faded from Boris’s face. “When cigarettes and vodka disappear, it’s one
thing. But when bread disappears. People won’t stand for it, they can’t stand for it.” In
the States, I’d been able to dismiss my worries by telling myself I was being irrational.
Now, it was beginning to appear that my fears were justified. I was going to have to
say, but came up empty. Boris looked out the window, as if searching for an answer to
the problem of hunger. His eyes lit up. I followed his gaze to a metro stop, around which
was heaped a four-foot mound of watermelons. “Thank God there’s a good crop this
year.”
Why did he care so much about a harvest? Surely Moscow wasn’t dependent on
the weather like some sort of Bangladeshi village. I had imagined the city would be
ultra-urban, tough and masculine. This was the heart of the Evil Empire, impregnable
behind its arsenal of nuclear weapons, right? Yet the bumper crop of melons around the
subway entrance gave the city a mysteriously rural feeling, a feminine vulnerability to
fertility.
I wished I’d studied harder in Russian class. Jiggily? Jiggolo? Was he referring
to his—oh. The brand of the car, written on the dashboard, explained. A Zhigouli. “I
think it’s—” Before I could finish my sentence, we hit a pothole, sending both our heads
7
Final
crashing into the top of the car. “Ouch!” I rubbed my head. “Really nice,” I finished
giving my impression of his car. He laughed through one side of his mouth.
Moscow. Embarrassed to find that I’d fallen asleep, I was jolted awake as the car stopped
in front of a fifteen story building with layers alternating between gray cement and
graying tiles, windows with bags of groceries tied to the outside, in a mud field,
“You see you’ve awakened to a miracle, here in the land of miracles.” Boris’s
“What?”
“The dorm was condemned a few years ago, but they reopened it when there was
no other place to put people.” Why was he laughing? What was so funny about living in
a hell hole? Then again, he lived there too. If he could deal with it so could I.
At the entrance Boris gestured toward some cubbyholes. “This is where the mail
comes.”
I tried to keep my voice calm. “Oh, good. Let me check. I expect I have a letter
already.” I should have waited rather than make Boris stand there with all my bags. But
I couldn’t. George had written me a letter. I was pretty sure he’d mailed it two weeks
ago, right after our kiss. I figured the letter would start with something like, ‘After our
embrace I knew I had to break up with Cecilia because you, Emma, are the love of my
life.’ I had been so impatient to receive this letter that I hadn’t really minded saying
“You must think our mail system is very efficient.” Boris laughed.
8
Final
“Well, a friend mailed me a letter about two weeks ago.” At least, I assumed he’d
sent it before he left for Honduras. There was some chance he’d get transferred from
Two more weeks!!! I couldn’t imagine waiting that long. I’d go insane.
Boris lugged my bags up five flights because the elevators were broken. My
room was twelve by twelve feet with a narrow iron bed. I looked out my window and
noticed the drizzle darkening the structural cracks running through the building across the
street. Would my dormitory collapse on top of me? I had a vision of my mother sobbing
“Well, maybe you want to wash your hands?” This was the euphemism Russian
men used when asking a woman if she had to pee. I found the formality vaguely
romantic. “I’ll come back in 30 minutes and we’ll have something to eat. My friends
Alyosha and Svyeta have prepared a welcome for you tonight, OK?”
“Oh, that’s so nice.” Holy shit! I had forgotten to bring any gifts for my hosts.
No wine, no chocolate, not even a t-shirt or a baseball cap. Not even a crappy IheartNY
“Nyet problem!” Boris waved his arms as if brushing away all the world’s
problems.
9
Final
I tore through my bags looking for something to bring to whatever meal I was
about to be fed. Feeling virtuous, I had packed only the barest essentials. I’d been so
I opened the door to what I had assumed was a closet and found I had my own bathroom.
My own bathroom?? I had come to Russia to suffer, damn it! But here I was with my
own bathroom, on my way to a dinner party. Like most Americans, I’d been exhorted by
my mother to “think of the starving children in Africa” and finish everything on my plate.
Every bite I ate contributed to an anxiety that I had been given so much more than I
deserved, I was so unworthy, it was all so unfair, I could never make it right, blah, blah. I
sat down to pee, but when I reached for the toilet paper I found—old newspaper. Oof.
Unlike Boris, Alyosha was exactly what I’d expected a Russian man to look like
—Jesus painted on an old icon. He was tall, with a golden brown curly beard. His
default expression was a beatific smile that gave him an otherworldly aura. Svyeta, on
the other hand, seemed grounded in her femininity—the irresistible, maternal kind of
femininity. The curves of her body were set off by straight, brown hair.
We drank a glass of Soviet Champagne to our meeting, and three other ritual
toasts, but finally the dreaded question came: “Well and what, Emma, tell us the subject
of your project.”
10
Final
ugly baby, whom I adored, and whom everybody else laughed at.
“And what is the problem with capital—eezm? We hope it will be our salvation.”
Alyosha smiled, his gentle, amused eyes making it clear he was not really looking for
salvation.
“The problem is that capitalism rewards only what it can measure, not what it
values. Unfortunately, things that can be easily measured aren’t usually so valuable.”
“For example?” Boris smiled through one side of his mouth. Cocky twerp.
“Oh, education. But it’s really hard to measure the value that teachers bring to
society and also hard to measure if they’re doing a good job or not. So they get paid
nothing, and our educational system is going down the tubes, even though most people
“And what is not valuable?” Boris’s knee bounced up and down. I wondered if I
“Bond trading. But bond traders get rich because it’s easy to measure their
people huge amounts of money to obsess on spreads of bonds issued to companies that
make widgets nobody wants and then market the unwanted widgets down the throat of
11
Final
everybody. We’re like so many geese, being force-fed.” I shut my mouth, hearing my
“Oh, economists make it all sound so complicated. They talk about talk about
externalities and generational issues and merit goods. The thing is, economists figure if
they can define it, it gets its fair shake in the economy. I don’t think that’s true. If
something isn’t very easy to measure it doesn’t usually get rewarded financially and
starves.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The problem may just be that we have not developed good enough statistics.”
“Well, why do we have to count every damn thing?” The question came a little
harsher than I intended. I took a breath and continued more calmly. “Seems to me it’s
just a way of avoiding the obvious. We don’t need math to know that some things are
“It is to come up with government policies that shift the emphasis away from the
measurable to the valuable. Sort of like here—the government ensures a certain level of
equality.”
Boris looked up, serious now. “In your country you have an expression—to keep
up with the Joneses. Let me explain to you about equality here in Russia. In my country
we blow up the Joneses. And so we are all equally poor. This is not better, I assure you.
12
Final
Boris’s words hit an old nerve. How many times had I been told that I knew
nothing about the “real” world? It was an accusation I was vulnerable to, part of what
had driven me here. Still, part of me rebelled at the idea that my world wasn’t real. I felt
a flash of anger at Boris for making me feel like an ignorant spoiled little rich girl.
Especially since I wasn’t even rich. Just sort of middle class, from the middle of
America. I’d grown up in a two-storey house with a two-car garage and two siblings in
St. Louis. My parents were happily married. There was no real reason to try to do better
than they had. As Jack Nicolson said in Chinatown, how much better can you eat? Not
much. Still, there had to be something more. I’d seized upon economic justice as that
something.
“Comrades!” That certainly changed the subject. I could have kissed him. “We have a
problem. A very serious problem.” Alyosha paused for dramatic effect. “My mother has
sent me a half kilo of fresh caviar, but we have no bread.” He waited for silence
done?” He quoted Lenin as if to hold him personally responsible for the bread shortage.
“Caviar with cake? No, never! It would be a sin. But I have a solution!” Alyosha
grabbed four spoons from a drawer and another bottle of champagne from the bag
“You can buy cake and champagne but not bread?” What the hell was going on
here? I felt like Alice in Wonderland: none of the usual relationships held.
13
Final
Erysichthon
Boris walked me to my door around midnight. I half considered inviting him in.
Now is your big chance to sleep with an Alpha man, Emma. But, when it came right
down to it, I wasn’t quite ready to check that one off the list. I was too focused on my
I crawled into bed wishing I had a phone to call George on. I tried to sleep, but
my stomach protested. Dinner had been five glasses of sickly sweet Soviet champagne
with so much sugar added it had given me a hangover before it had even gotten me
drunk, twelve big spoonfuls of caviar, and four pieces of watermelon. I heard my
I rolled over and turned on the light, knowing a good read was the only way to
stave off an insomniac wave of self-pity. In addition to a few economics texts, I’d
brought some fiction, my guilty pleasure. Sophomore year in college I’d decided not to
major in English because I decided that creativity should be about coming up with new
solutions, not describing old problems. George had once joked that I was writing The
Measurement Problem to rationalize my novel habit. I’d become so enraged that he’d
I looked for the right book to make me feel better about the shortage of food and
phones. Moby Dick, Middlemarch, The Great Gatsby, or The Metamorphosis? I needed
14
Final
A measure of how close I could get to people was how long it took me to give
them my Erysichthon theory, and how they reacted. Generally my theory didn’t go over
well. People my age thought I was a nerd and older people thought I was intellectually
immature. But I thought I was on to something, and a person who couldn’t grasp it
The first time I’d met George about a year ago, I’d sensed it would be OK to read
“And you think what the gods did to him is happening to us now?” He’d asked.
15
Final
“It’s consumerism gone amuck, isn’t it?” George’d interrupted again. I looked up
been Erysichthon that made me fall in love with George, and Erysichthon that had driven
me to Moscow.
So there I was lying alone in bed in Moscow. Solitude, at least, was familiar. I’d
been failing for over a year to lure George into my bed. I consoled myself with the old
argument that a partner was only a distraction. Masturbating, I could achieve seven or
hands down my pajama bottoms. Of course, the first one is always best, I admitted to
myself as I relaxed after it, waiting for the energy to dive into number two. It was all
about getting the blood into that little cord of nerves going to the clit. I wriggled back
and forth lazily, then up and down intently, back muscles straining, until—well,
sometimes the second does outdo the first. I was sweating now, heart thumping wildly,
mind detached, thinking how funny it was that that fleeting, fluttering pleasure was the
stuff of opera, tragedy, the great romances. What we won’t do for it. The mind wasn’t
cooling the body. I started again, and number three came flashing in after a few warning
sparks, like one of those anti-red eye flashes on new cameras. After number three, they
16
Final
After hitting eight I drifted off to sleep, feeling, as I always did in these
circumstances, something of the betrayal I’d felt the first time I masturbated. I had been
so excited to find I could do this for myself, and in greater quantity than any man could
do for me. But I still woke up lonely. One with a man, or sometimes even none with a
man, was better than eight alone. Go figure. Yet another measurement problem.
True to form, I woke up lonelier than ever for George. Reprimanding myself for
being a selfish American, I decided to go to the grocery and buy something to share in the
dorm that night. In the store there was—nothing. The salesladies laughed at me for
being so naïve as to think buying food was as simple as going to the store.
Svyeta invited me for lunch. Once again I was accepting humanitarian aid from
the Russians. She dished some buckwheat for me. I was just hungry enough to
overcome the wet-dog smell and take that first bite. It tasted like the side of an old
“Where’d you buy this?” I asked, still shaken by my fruitless trip to the foodless
grocery. Svyeta didn’t just feed me, she told me where to shop.
The next morning, absolutely starving, I went to the buckwheat store Svyeta had
described. What little food there was looked foul and inedible, so when I saw a pile of
potatoes I immediately got into line. Let me repeat: I got into line.
This may not sound like much of a feat, but for me it was an act of almost
waitaphobic. George had a theory that I’d used up my lifetime’s supply of patience when
17
Final
I was six and Dad had dropped me off at school on a day when there was no school. I
had sat on the front porch and watched the yardman mowing the enormous lawn,
baaaaaaaack and fooooooorth, baaaaaaaack and fooooooorth, all the while debating
whether I could break the rule about not talking to strangers and go ask the man to call
my father. For four hours I had been racked with indecision: sit and wait or break the
rules? Sit and wait more or break the rules? Marlene, Dad’s secretary, had eventually
come to the rescue, but not before the last of my patience had been mown away, joked
George. What he didn’t know was that he was the one who’d used up the rest of my
patience.
For ten minutes I tried to use the time productively by thinking of my project.
Subversive thoughts kept intruding. Why on earth did I ever think communism could
hold any answers to the measurement problem? Capitalism only rewarded superficial,
measurable things, but communism rewarded nothing with nothing. Was that any better?
I forced my mind back on my project. There may not be much food, but at least it was
cheap. Maybe that guy ahead of me, the one with the big stomach and the Jesus beard,
was a great philosopher; thanks to communism’s cheap food, he didn’t have to work all
the time to afford to feed himself. Then again, he probably didn’t have time for his
philosophy because he had to spend all damn day in line. A woman with a toddler
bundled up like a little mummy sneezed miserably. Was equality worth this absolute
The next ten minutes I tried to learn something from the people in line, rather than
viewing them as irritating distractions. Also impossible. What was there of interest in a
bunch of gray people in a damp, chilly line for dirty, gray products?
18
Final
The ten minutes after that I tried to recite Russian poetry in my head. I couldn’t
remember any. Prayers? Give us this day our daily bread. Ugh! Songs? Anticipaaa-
aaa-aaa-tion, it’s makin’ me wait. Now I couldn’t get the Heinz katsup version of the
“Dyevochka, what did you say?” Dyevushka, meaning girl, often shortened to
I pointed, angrily.
“What’s this?”
“Your check. Now you have to pay.” She gestured towards an impossibly long
payment queue.
“What?!”
Here a line, there a line, everywhere a line, line, Old Commies ran a country, E-I,
E-I, O. With a nothing here and a pain and the ass there, E-I, E-I, O. It’s an experience,
I told myself. Just calm down. This is part of what I’d come here for. To see what it was
really like. I stared at the people in line. If they could endure it, so could I. I looked at
the woman ahead of me for clues about coping. She was imperturbable in her patterned
Russian shawl. Wasn’t she bothered by this colossal waste of time? I shook my head and
looked at the man in front of her, a solid man with a solid, chunky coat, and a scarf folded
19
Final
in an X on his chest. Also imperturbable. In front of him an old, squashed lady. Eighty
some-odd years of imperturbability. In front of her a young mother with toddler. Even
the baby was imperturbable. What the hell was wrong with all these people? How could
I, for one, was not imperturbable. Especially not when it came to wasting time,
catch the eye of somebody. Two points for getting somebody to look me in the eye, ten
points for getting somebody to return a smile. I started with the man with the folded
scarf. He stared at the floor. I coughed to attract his eye, and I smiled at him as he
glanced up. His stare passed quickly over my chin and returned instantly to the floor. I
tried the woman with the scarf, the squashed old lady, the woman with the child. Even
with the child I failed. Was smiling in public forbidden? Why were people afraid even
to look at each other? So much for equality, for brotherhood of man…So much for ideals
ahead of money.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty…My mother had taught me about counting to ten to get
control of my emotions, but counting by one’s was too damn slow. So I’d started
counting by two’s, then five’s, then ten’s. The numbers got too big too fast by ten’s, so
I’d reverted to five’s and stuck with them ever since. I’d made it almost to 37,540 when I
“Purchase pass?”
“What?”
20
Final
“What’s that?”
“Proof that you live in this region of Moscow. Gives you the right to buy.”
“What?!”
“Move along.”
I could not endure this kind of futility. “Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me this
The lady behind me was growing agitated. “Dyevushka, dyevushka, there are
others in line.”
“You must not make a scandal,” the cashier was frightened by public shouting—
“OK, OK. One rouble.” She slipped her hand under the table with a look of
infinite longing. All of this over one and a half cents? My God! Talk about a
measurement problem…
I slipped her the cash and got—the same piece of paper back, torn this time.
“What now?”
“Back over there to pick up your purchase.” The lady in line behind me pointed
to—another line. The same line I’d waited in to ask for the potatoes in the first place.
I told myself to stay calm and do what the nice lady said. I marched mechanically
21
Final
Arms trembling, I climbed the stairs out of the Sevastopol Metro stop. I wondered
if I could endure the fifteen-minute walk back to the dorm with the ten kilos of potatoes
“Emma!” Boris appeared from behind. “Here, let me help you.” He tossed the
real Russian already. Although most of us dig our own potatoes that we grow on plots in
the country.”
Boris stopped. “Clever girl! Only one day in Russia, and already you’re bribing
I had no idea. Had I come here to study economic justice and wound up greasing
palms? Had I in fact just paid my first bribe, popped my corruption cherry?
The Market
Boris deposited the potatoes (and mud) in my room and looked around. “You need
something besides just potatoes to eat. I will take you to the market.”
22
Final
The market after the state grocery store upheld Russia’s reputation as the land of
warehouse type of structure were all filled to overflowing with food—heaps of glistening
apples, washed cucumbers, sparkling herbs, carrots, beets. Mountains of dried apricots,
dates, nuts. Pickles, pickled garlic, pickled onions, pickled watermelon. A meaty smell
advertised the section with great slabs of pork. A few pig heads prominently displayed to
blocks of homemade cheese, old-fashioned milk bottles, yogurt. Best of all, no lines. In
the state grocery store the clerks glowered at the customers. In the market, the
“Taste my apples, the best apples, sweet, sweet, sweet.” They weren’t much to
look at, those scrawny apples, but I tasted them, and gasped. They were both tarter and
sweeter than any apples I’d ever tasted. I was tasting my first real apple. Everything else
I’d ever had was just big, mealy imitation fruit. I felt like the hero in 1984 (or was it
Brave New World?) who tasted real chocolate for the first time. Only it was communism,
not capitalism, that had preserved real fruit. Ah ha! The measurement problem!!!
Capitalism grows apples for size, not taste, because taste is harder to measure, though
much more valuable than size. The apples were better in a communist country! So, there!
though he personally had organized this miracle just for me. “And you know what? It’s
23
Final
Boris shrugged. “They say 80% of the food is grown on the 5% of the land that is
“What are the prices like?” There had to be a catch. Maybe the market was more
“On my stipend of 90 roubles a month, I can’t shop here every day, but when I
“90 roubles!” I was getting twice that! I could run, but I couldn’t hide from
“But, that’s not fair! I won’t buy anything here either, then.”
his eyes dilated, and then a smile broke through. “You are a funny girl.” I liked the way
he said it, I even liked being called “girl.” His tone implied, if not respectful
understanding, affectionate acceptance. He shrugged and continued. “You see, it’s easier
for us to live here. We’re used to it.” The ability to endure suffering seemed to be a
matter of pride for Russians. “Besides, salary isn’t so important when they practically
I got off my high horse and bought some nuts and dried apricots to share with
everybody.
24
Final
Beauty Counts
Boris stuck his curly head in y door the next morning, Sunday. “Do you want to
We piled into his car and headed through the drizzle. He wanted me to see a
Russian Orthodox service at a little church in a park near the dorm. As we arrived at the
“Do the leaves turn orange and yellow in the fall here?” I had thought I was
above all the cold war rhetoric. Now I realized that my subconscious, informed by the
very propaganda my conscious mind had been rejecting so vigorously, had assumed they
only had revolutions, but not fall foliage, in the so-called Evil Empire.
Boris looked at me with laughing, surprised eyes. “Do you Americans believe the
I laughed. “Something like that.” The familiar certainty of the change in seasons
We made our way through the drizzle to the church. From the outside the
crumbling white-fading-to-gray structure with a tired gray cupola stripped of its gold did
not promise to hold much of interest or beauty. Stepping through the doorway, I gasped
The wet chill of a Moscow September was melted by a thousand candles reflected
in the gilt of hundreds of icons and frescoes. Incense mingled with the smell of melting
wax, creating a profound sense of peace. The cumulative and collective stress that came
25
Final
from days demanding constant waits in long lines and payments of bribes was eased into
a steady, comforting rhythm by the chanting choir. The powerful voice of the priest rose
above the others for a moment. “Watch,” Boris whispered, and the priest magically
disappeared into a cloud of incense and through the gold and silver altar screen.
“What do you think of the True Faith?” Boris asked. The word for the Russian
Orthodox faith, when translated literally, means the True Faith. Hard to argue with that.
And hard to argue with the powerful atmosphere of mystery the Church had created.
church, about being guided by a handsome man through an ancient and beautiful ritual
Before I could react, a five-foot woman so squashed and wrinkled she must’ve
been 110 years old was yanking at my arm and scolding me. She spewed so much
venomous saliva I couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying. “Pull your hands out of
your pocket,” Boris whispered. I did. The babushka stepped back, still glaring at me.
I tried not to get angry, reminding myself how much the babushki, Russia’s
grannies, had suffered under Hitler and Stalin. They had survived hunger, terror, and war.
Their sons and husbands had not. They appeared to have been literally squashed by
“Never cross a babushka,” Boris warned. Keeping my hands well away from any
pockets, I watched them pray. The babushki weren’t following any set pattern of worship
that I could discern. They didn’t pay much attention to the priest as he appeared and
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Final
disappeared. Each one was having a private relationship with her chosen icon, bowing
and kissing the painted wood with a sensuality verging on the profane.
Once we were back in the car Boris said, “It makes me angry that the silver and
“Do you really think it would better for the church to give the babushki money
than keep up those icons for them? Their religion seems to give them more comfort than
any material thing could.” I only believed in God when I was really stressed, but I
respected other people’s faith. I was a huge fan of idealism in all its manifestations.
“Emma, you come from a rich country so you can afford to be idealistic. The
“What? Why?”
“Close!”
“Open your eyes—now!” Boris timed my first view of the Kremlin so I’d see it
from the most dramatic vantage point. Just as we passed the British Embassy, I looked
across the river and saw the majestic red walls capped by dark green tiles. The gold
cupolas of the Kremlin churches floated like a flight of fancy above the solid walls.
Around the corner, St. Basil’s loomed into view, candy-like, an architectural triumph of
I was momentarily speechless. A year later I still shivered with awe every time I
drove by it, even if I were stuck in traffic. Especially if I were stuck in traffic. No matter
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Final
how many times I saw it, the Kremlin never lost its power to give me a new charge.
“See? Beauty counts for something.” I smiled, pleased to have the last word.
The next day, Monday, was my first day at work. I arrived at the Institute
promptly at 8:00 am and found—no one. At noon I had finally managed to obtain a
building pass and find where I was supposed to sit. In room 351 I met my office mate,
“There are four of us in here?” The room was about twelve by ten feet with four
“We’re almost never all here. I, for example, can’t be here so often because I
“Oh, it’s easier than the week-ends. Now, that’s work. Trying to buy things. Oi!
It is impossible.”
“But don’t you wind up working 24 hours a day with three jobs?”
“Oh, no. I only have to show up at each job one or two days a week.” Sergei
“No, not at all. Why should they? As long as I come once in a while. It is
impossible to ask for more.” Sergei saw impossibility at every turn. No wonder his eyes
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Final
were mournful. I wondered what it would take to give him a can-do attitude. Perhaps if
his mother had read him The Little Engine Who Could when he was a child. I think I
“Why do you have three jobs? If you had just two, you could spend time buying
“Ach! With one less zakazi per month, I’d never survive. It’s not the salary I
“What’s a zakazi?”
“No.”
“Oh, you have to sign up before tomorrow, or you’ll miss this month.”
“Flour, potatoes, sausage when you’re very lucky, once in a while, eggs. We used
to get cheese, but we haven’t seen cheese in a year.” Big sigh. “And toilet paper,
sometimes.”
unpleasant choice—to wipe, or not to wipe. Wiping meant wiping with Pravda (the
newspaper). Wiping with Pravda meant exacerbating the nasty little blister the newsprint
was rubbing in a delicate area. Not wiping meant risking a yeast infection—donde no hay
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Final
doctor. At least no doctors that I wanted to see. “That’s so nice. Why do offices do
that?”
“Well, people were spending over half the working day just trying to buy the basic
necessities of life, and no work was getting done. To live that way—it is impossible. If
one person buys things for all employees, the rest of the people can stay at work. It’s
more efficient.”
“But it doesn’t seem to be working; it just motivates people to get second and
third jobs, which also prevents people from being at the office.”
“But when the salary is so low and life is so hard it’s not possible to ask too much
of people.” He gave a long, depressed sigh. “Why have you come here, when you could
stay in Amerika?” He looked searchingly at me for a moment. “But you must have hard
“Well, still, it’s different psychologically. You can get on an airplane and go at
any time.” Another long sigh and a sinking of the shoulders as if they bore the weight of
the world. “But we—we are trapped here. Especially when things get bad, we are
trapped here.”
I wanted things to be better for him, for his country. “Well, with the political
“To travel you need more than free speech. You need money. And not our
money. Real money. Hard currency.” SPLAT went my cheery American optimism.
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Final
“No, never. It is impossible. The only travelling I can do is to the dacha to plant
“I like to have potatoes so I know that, whatever happens, I will have something
at least to eat during the winter. I’m going this week-end to harvest them.”
“Oh, no!” I said, too fast. He did not respond. “Uh. So, what about the zakazi?”
“Well, you have to fill out some forms and give them to the zakazi woman.”
“So, where do I get the forms, and where do I find the zakazi woman?” Why was
he so vague?
“But you said that if I didn’t sign up before tomorrow I’d miss it.” I struggled to
to act was classic. Conrad had written about it, explaining that Russia is a country of
heroes. Doing things like getting a train to run on time was beneath the attention of a
hero. Evidently, so was getting me signed up for zakazi. In fact, it was this class that had
Conrad’s hopeless explanation, by Gogol’s books describing life going around and
around and around in pointless circles. All these writers just described problems—they
never solved them, even fictionally. Economists at least looked for solutions. In fact, if
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Final
creativity were about creating new things, not just describing old ones, it was the
economists and scientists, not the artists and writers, who were truly creative…
I let the zakazi drop and turned to my list. Some faceless person at the institute
had put together a list of twenty-five factory managers I could call to ask for interviews to
discuss how the life of the average Soviet worker might be better, albeit in immeasurable
ways, than the life of the average American worker. I tried the first number. I got a busy
signal. And again. And again—five times in a row. Sergei scribbled in his notebook for
a few minutes. I tried the second number. Busy. Sergei stood up.
A two-hour discussion on life in America ensued. I got no work done. Not even
five minutes worth. Part of me felt angry with Sergei. Lazy turd ball from hell!!! I tried
to be more generous, to remind myself that he wasn’t lazy, that he simply suffered from a
lack of accountability. Accountability. Surely this must have something to do with the
measurement the solution, not the problem. Shit! I needed to think this one through. Not
I decided I’d just work on my project after after Sergei left. At 5:00, however, he
explained that I had to leave, they were locking the building up. “U nas, you’re not
allowed to work late.” I packed up my bags and made my way to the trolley stop. I
couldn’t quell the angst over the fact I had accomplished absolutely nothing. But then I
thought back over my conversation with my academic advisor and Sergei. The pit of
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Final
nervousness in my stomach was melted by the realization that it didn’t matter—like him,
was counting how many phone calls I made, pages I wrote, how many books I read, what
time I got to work. My nervousness was replaced with sensations alternating between
liberation and panic. I felt like a space walker who’d broken free of her tether—not an
altogether desirable sort of freedom. How to structure the day? Why get out of bed in
Evidently the guy next to me on the trolleybus had a tough time answering this
last question too—he was dead drunk. He passed out, his head falling heavily on my
shoulder. The trolley was so packed that there was nowhere to move, no way to shove
him off of me. A skinny man whose hip bone was poking into my belly smiled in
elbow looked on in anger at the man, and the situation that had created him. I could only
hope we’d reach the next stop before the man came to and barfed all over me.
E Chocolatus Unuum
I went upstairs when I got back to the dorm and found Alyosha, Svyeta, and Boris
huddled around the radio listening to a report on unification in East Germany on a new
“I wish we had somebody to unify with,” Svyeta sighed as the report ended.
I felt a stab of guilt. My country was the only possible candidate for Svyeta’s
longed-for merger, and George Bush was hardly signing up for the job. And I hadn’t
even managed to bring so much as a morsel of chocolate to tea. The U.S. was failing
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Final
Russia, and I was failing my friends. What the hell are Americans good for if they can’t
“Well, in 500 days we will have our own market economy,” joked Alyosha. She
was referring to a plan laid out by Shatalin and Yavlinsky to transform the centrally-
planned Soviet economy to a free market in a year and a half. Before I’d gotten here, I’d
thought that seemed awfully optimistic. Now I just thought, what the fuck? Why even
Boris laughed. “You know what our great economist Gaidar says? You can make
an omelet out of eggs very quickly. But making eggs from an omelet—that takes time.”
“Well, at least glasnost doesn’t have to take time.” The two underpinnings of
reform were perestroika, or economic ‘rebuilding,’ and glasnost, meaning ‘openness’ and
I started to object, but I found to my chagrin that I didn’t really disagree. I should
never have denuded myself of the almighty dollar…To my father’s great consternation, I
had refused to bring more than $20 cash or any credit cards with me. I was going to live
“I can’t believe I’ve raised a goddamn communist!” My father’s face had gone
all red. I hadn’t tried to explain that I was not a communist, but that I just believed that
humanity could do better than selling out to the highest bidder. These nuances were
impossible to explain to a man whose outlook on life was that capitalism = Republicans =
wealth = morality, and all of that was opposed to communism = Democrats = poverty =
immorality.
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Final
He was such a dumb ass. He couldn’t understand that the way it really worked
was business = Republicans = rampant consumerism = bad, and all this was opposed to
I turned to my mother, who at first reassured me that it was “just wonderful,” how
committed I was. Then, my father had described Soviet hospitals and various nightmare
scenarios in which money turned out to be vital. She had decided my decision wasn’t so
wonderful after all. I had been forced to summon defiance enough to overcome a united
parental will.
I had succeeded. So here I was, scrounging around for potatoes, and dreaming
impotently of chocolate.
Sable Underpants
“Emma, would you like to go to the Bolshoi?” Boris asked one evening while we
were waiting for Alyosha and Svyeta to get home. “I can get tickets.”
“Really?” He had no idea how much I would like to go to the Bolshoi. I was
badly in need of seeing something beautiful. “I thought getting tickets was almost
impossible.”
Boris laughed. “Well, it’s not a mafia, not exactly. He simply buys tickets from
“Oh. A scalper.”
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Final
Relief battled with confusion on Boris’s face. Relief won. “If you say so. I am
going to pick up the tickets this afternoon. Do you want to come with me? He lives in
the New Region, which you haven’t seen yet. We will have some tea.”
“Sure.”
of the subway stop. I got the impression he’d been thinking about how to tell me since
“Oh. OK.”
“It’s just that—well, it’s not so common u nas. In fact, it’s illegal.”
“Poor Arkady.”
As we exited the metro I looked around the “New Region.” The scale of its
muddy concrete. Fifteen story building after fifteen story building, identical and horrible,
stretched as far as the eye could see, unremitting, a vision of man’s vicious defeat over
perfection; from this vantage point humanity looked more like so many cock-roaches
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Final
reproducing in their own shit. I hoped the Bolshoi Theater was less nihilistic than this
Bolshoi Suburb.
We were walking from the subway towards Artryom’s apartment. How Boris
could distinguish one building from another to figure out where to go I’ll never guess.
We felt the sky once again lowering in on us as we made our way across a space between
four buildings. A rusting crane loomed over one building. It was totally unclear whether
the building was being assembled, destroyed, or repaired. “It’s been there for ten years.”
cemented space—and “space” was the best word I could think of to describe it. It
certainly wasn’t a courtyard; too large and empty. Not a plaza—too barren and muddy.
Not a park—it was cemented, albeit haphazardly. It was just a space that happened to
exist between buildings that happened to have been thrown up to house people that
happened to have been born. The Soviet Union’s crimes against architecture were
nothing compared to the Gulag, but still pretty atrocious. Then again, a US strip mall
Boris stopped with me, and stared at me. He smiled through one side of his mouth. “I am
trying to imagine this from your eyes. You are used to Central Park. It must seem so
awful to you!”
Even the most optimistic, can-do Yankee couldn’t put a happy spin on this. I
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Final
very, very sweet champagne and a toast to Boris. His apartment shouted of a wild
craving for color. In the US I would have bemoaned his bad taste; here I admired his
rebellion against the Soviet drabness. Arkady had taken radical steps to fight the view of
the New Region out the window: a large-screen TV, a white and gold painted bed, a
bright pink and blue shag rug, and etched colored shot glasses everywhere.
We sat down on the bed, which doubled as couch. “Boris Borisovich saved my
life, you know. We were in the army together, and the others—they would have killed
me. But, enough of these sad stories. Welcome, welcome.” We drained our etched
“Oh, it’s great. Yesterday I went to get my shoes re-soled. For everyone else
repairs took three weeks. But for me, the American—same–day service!”
“Russians seem to believe that all Americans are angels,” said Arkadi.
“All that propaganda for all those years—it affects people in strange ways.” Boris
leaned back on the couch. “When glasnost came along, people just started believing the
opposite of what they’d been told all those years. American devils have become
American angels.”
That didn’t bode well. Russia was a land of contrasts, a land of thesis and
antithesis, but never a land of synthesis. Come to think of it, that was probably why
communism didn’t work out so well here. And if this pattern held, people would quickly
“I think it will take years to get the propaganda out of people’s thinking. I see it
in business, too.” Boris continued. “For years, the authorities wrote about how
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Final
capitalists did nothing but cheat people, steal from people. Now the authorities are
saying we should become capitalists. People believe this means they have to cheat and
“That’s why I don’t have a business. I just have a group of friends,” Arkady said.
Boris rolled his eyes, but Arkady nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes, exactly.”
I wondered why Arkady didn’t see this as a business. “And what do you export,
Arkady?” I asked
On that note we left for the Bolshoi. We ran to the subway, leaped on the train,
and made it to our seats just as the curtain was coming up. Somehow the adventure of
getting the tickets from a Mafioso who lived in one of the ugliest neighborhoods on Earth
made it seem impossible that we were going to the ballet, really. I don’t know what I
expected—thugs on the stage. But as Bayaderka started, I couldn’t even believe I was in
the same city, or the same era, or the same planet as the New Region. After swamping
Maybe that was why I was there. I was hoping that this land of contrasts would
illuminate some things that usually got hidden in the shadows of the middle ground that
dominated my country.
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Final
Refrigerator
A few days later there was a knock at my door. Boris was standing there, the
proud bearer of a small refrigerator. I had concluded from the bags of food hanging from
the windows that refrigerators were unavailable. But Boris assured me that in special
circumstances they were. I, being a weak American unused to suffering, was a special
circumstance—I merited a refrigerator. (Never mind that I still didn’t have any food
other than potatoes. For reasons I chose not to examine I hadn’t gone back to the
market.)
“Nyet problem!” Boris’s biggest involuntary grin spread throughout the room,
“The colleague of a friend of mine had two and he didn’t really need them both.
“But, Boris, are you sure? He just gave it to you?” I was still perplexed by the
complicated web of personal connections and favors that governed life here. Then again,
when that web had Boris at its center, it seemed the most charming way one could
“Well, about two months ago his girlfriend needed to get an abortion. The doctor
needed a carburetor. I didn’t need my car for a month, but she needed the operation
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Final
continued, evidently inured to the poignancy. “So, I gave him my carburetor, and bought
another one a few weeks later. So, he owes me a favor. His father works at the
In Siberia? Talk about coals to Newcastle! “You see, u nas, there are no simple
transactions.”
“Why not?”
“It is not real, not hard currency you can trust will always have value. Our rubles
“You don’t understand what it’s like to have to have a relationship with your
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“Well, you seem to be a decent human being, and I don’t believe you got me this
Boris wasn’t going to let my flattery derail him. “Look, you hate the constraints
of time, too. You’d like to eliminate it so you could work more on your project, right?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“But would society be better off if we eliminated all the clocks?” Feeling he
couldn’t find a better last word, he turned on his heel and left.
Letters
Things went on this way for another few weeks: I went to the Institute and
accomplished nothing. I made phone calls to everybody on the list, but never got through
to any of them. I spent hours shopping for things I needed and got very few of them. I
ignored the fact that I wasn’t getting any letters and couldn’t make any phone calls,
focusing instead on sending subtle messages to Boris that I was open to a one-on-one
nocturnal chat. Boris responded just enough to keep the frisson high, but not enough to
risk a no.
The easy, flowing currents of conversations over tea in the evening redeemed
each day—until Boris went out of town for a week on some mysterious business.
Without Boris there I felt like a third wheel with Svyeta and Alyosha. And there
was no frisson with Boris to distract me from the fact that I still hadn’t gotten any letters
from George and I had no way of calling him. I spent more evenings alone in my room,
writing letters. And the more I wrote, the less it was possible to have anything
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Final
resembling perspective. I was more and more aware of the fact that George still had not
written. I’d been there for twelve weeks now. For a week or two, I could believe in a
combination of inefficient postage and people not writing back immediately. But twelve
weeks! What was his problem? Had I ruined our friendship by kissing him?
phone…Finally, I couldn’t take it any more. One night at 10:30 p.m., I marched up to
Alyosha and Svyeta’s room and demanded. “Why haven’t I gotten any letters?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“The who?” Kommandant? A scary concept that should belong to the past, or
even to fiction; should be a character in Brave New World, not an actual living breathing
“She gets the mail and delivers it. You should give her something nice, some
“What? I have to bribe her to do her job?” I’d be goddamned if I was going to
bribe some old-bag Kommadant so she wouldn’t hold my precious letters hostage.
“Emma, nobody here gets paid really. You have to bribe everybody to get them to
do their jobs. They have no real salary other than bribes.” Alyosha pricked my swift-
puffing indignation.
“Sweets work better with old women. I can buy some for you if you like.”
Svyeta offered.
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“There’s a Gastronom on Kalinin Street, near the Arbat. Sometimes you can buy
The next day I didn’t go to the Institute at all. I went to the Gastranom on
Kalinin, and had a repeat performance of potato shopping, only worse. After seven
hours, I arrived back at the dorm and was knocking at the Kommandant’s door, sweets in
hand.
The opened door revealed a witch who’d seen better days. She was utterly
disheveled, wild hair sticking out in every direction, week-old make up smeared across
her face. Dragon nostrils blew vodka fumes in my direction. For a moment I was
“Hi, I’m Emma, the new student from the United States.” I felt like a perky pony-
tailed cheerleader dope in a red-white-and-blue pleated mini skirt as soon as the words
“Health to you.” The woman drew out the Russian word for “hello” sarcastically
“Oh.” The Kommandant was not impressed. Yet, she must’ve known what I’d
had to go through to get them. If it’s the thought that counts, and the energy put into
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implementing the thought, Soviet sweets should’ve been much sweeter than American.
Unfortunately, they tasted like crap. And for the Kommandant it was the chocolate that
“From where?”
Though I was generally a trusting soul, I did not believe her. “Maybe you don’t
know what the stamps look like?” My inability to say, ‘I think you’re lying to me,’ was
“Pardon?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, if you could just make sure I get my letters.” What had I just promised?
Been asked to promise? So this is what the web of personal connections was made up of.
Gone was the charm of it, as I had seen it up till now, with Boris at the center. Now my
letters from George had gotten tangled in this black widow woman’s web.
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“Oh, Emma, my beauty, my sweet. Won’t you join me?” She took a swig of
vodka and bit a hunk of bread off her gnawed-on loaf, spewing crumbs on the floor. “A
little vodka?”
I knew I had to drink with this woman if I was to have a prayer of getting my
letters. I tried to see the humor in the situation, but mostly I just saw Boris’s point about
She took another swig herself, bit off more bread than she could chew, handed me
the bottle, and gestured for me to sit. I could tell I was going to be there for another hour
at least. “Paris. Is it as beautiful as they say?” Her question sprayed me with moistened
I took a gulp from the bottle. What the hell? “Yes. Beautiful.” I handed her the
bottle.
She gulped. “And will you really bring me a robe?” She took another bite from
her hung of bread and popped one of the sweets into her mouth.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my little beauty, my little sweet!” Before I knew it, she was kissing me,
covering my cheek in now-sugary dough. It took every bit of self-control I could muster
not to wipe the wet germy goo off my cheek. Her paste began to harden and crack on my
I tried to reassure myself that one day these will all be hilarious stories, that I’d
never run out of things to say at a cocktail party again. Just as I thought I was going to
wind up in a straight jacket instead of a little black cocktail party dress, I noticed some
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cheerful red and white stripes in the upper right hand edge of one of the many envelopes
“I think I see a letter, there!” I exclaimed, leaping for it before the Kommandant
could make a move. I plucked out the envelope, and was rewarded with the sight of
George’s hand-writing. My pause at the familiar curves made by George’s hand gave the
“You have no rights. I am the Kommandant here.” I had read economic theories
about systems in which rules have no power, and Russia was always cited of a good
example. Russia has always been about personality—from Peter the Great to Stalin. But
that was history; it wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with my letters from George.
I couldn’t have been more stunned if Catherine the Great had come back from the dead
“Do you want your robe?” I spat the words and wiped my cheek. Fuck it!
“Well, as it’s convenient for you.” The Kommandant plopped on her bed and lit a
cigarette. I returned to my room with a stack of letters and a new appreciation for what it
meant to self-actualize.
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The Ingrate
“Naïve ingrate!!! Understands nothing. Last time I stand in line for four hours to
buy sweets to bribe the Kommandant to give me his letters—letter.” I shouted at the
walls, wadding up George’s letter and throwing it into the corner. I pulled out a piece of
paper, wrote some things I immediately regretted, crumpled it, threw it against into the
corner, and glared at the two ruined letters together on the floor…
Suffice it to say that George’s letter did not make a single mention of our kiss, or
of his break-up with Cecilia. And not a peep about whether he was going to come to
Russia for work. Not only that, but he had the nerve to tease me about how much time I
seemed to be spending shopping and how little work I seemed to be doing on my project.
I stood in the center of my room, strangely calm, staring at the big, beautiful
balloon of George expectations I’d been so patiently blowing up for the past months.
Funny, how the only thing I had patience for was this, this—illusion. I looked at his letter
crumpled on my floor.
BAM! The bubble burst. I could just quit waiting for a letter that would never
come, quit wasting time feeling weepy and homesick and lovesick, and just be in
Liberating, in a way.
Toilet Paper
The next morning I stared into the toilet bowl. As usual, my crotch, blackened
with Pravda’s half truths, left the water a tad gray. Only today there was something new.
A trace of blood swirled in the gray water. My bladder infection had gotten much worse.
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I knew the cure—I needed to drink gallons of water and pee about a hundred times a day.
But I couldn’t face the Pravda part of this regime. Buying toilet paper became my
number one priority. Even if it meant taking a week off at the Institute.
Off I went, shopping. After an entire day of NYET, I returned to the dorm, my
nerves shattered from all the lines, and beginning to develop a fever from the infection.
At the mailboxes my spirits lifted a little at the sight of Boris sorting his letters. I
wondered what he was giving the Kommandant to get his mail so reliably and then
“I can get you some—I am doing a business deal with a toilet paper factory.”
“I didn’t know you were so enthusiastic about business. I thought you were only
interested in ideas.”
“I never appreciated how important it is to have toilet paper before I had to start
using Pravda. Now I understand the contribution that toilet paper producers make to the
world.”
“Well…Let’s just say that it’s very important to me to get some toilet paper. I
“Sure.”
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Fifteen minutes later Boris and I were slipping and sliding along to the TPK
(toilet paper kombinat). It had snowed but the roads hadn’t been cleared because
Gosplan didn’t plan for snow until October 15 and it was only October 10. “So, there’s
“Well, no.” Boris sighed. “There are people with money who want to buy; and
there are factories that can make what people want to buy. But the factories have no
money for supplies. And the people have no way of getting it to them. So the factories
“Oh, Boris, you’re a genius. How does it work?” How could I ever have thought
“business genius” an oxymoronic term? If business intelligence brings toilet paper, bread
and chocolate—well, it is the very enabler of all genius! I felt the thrill of embracing the
enemy.
“It’s like the zakazi, only people pay in six months in advance.”
He shrugged. “They don’t mind since there’s nothing to buy with money anyway.
I collect money, and then deliver the toilet paper. I have happy customers.”
“Problem is, it’s illegal.” Boris met my eyes in the mirror, oddly more intimate
“Why?”
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“Because Gosplan believes that it can calculate the right amount of toilet paper
our factories should make more efficiently than the market.” Boris shrugged.
“Sometimes our government is like you, Emma. It’s so convinced by what’s in its
“But somebody must state the obvious here?” I heard my voice go shrill.
“In fact, it’s illegal to tell the truth. So much for glasnost. And I just heard that
Gorbachev has rejected the 500 Days plan. So much for perestroika.” Boris shifted gears
“Well, you can’t transition to a market economy in just 500 days anyway,” I said
“At least it was a plan, a commitment. Now we just have increased fear that
things will go back to the old ways, and then no toilet paper club, no toilet paper, no
Boris and I pulled up in the muddy parking lot of the toilet paper kombinat and
“Privyet, Boris!” A man in a muddy padded blue “proletariat” jacket and a walk
that let you know how big his balls were smiled broadly, and came to pump Boris’s hand.
“Who’s the beautiful dyevushka? Your new girlfriend?” The man’s deafening machine-
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“A real, live capitalist?” The man examined me for a moment. “Here I’ve
thought all my life they were devils, and they’re just dyevushki?” The machine-gun
laughter covered up a moisture about his eyes. Sentimental slobs, those Russians.
to you soon, Anatoly.” I stared at my feet, uncomfortable at being called “beautiful” and
at being called dyevushka and at being talked about as if I weren’t even there.
“Yes?”
“Do you think she could fix the machine?” He was suddenly very serious.
“And a dyevushka, after all. Too bad. But very pretty.” He winked at Boris, as if
I weren’t there.
“Poka.” The man jogged off, legs spread, towards the furthest building. “I’m
“We’ll follow Anatoly to the cutting shop.” Boris explained, leading me towards
the furthest of the five buildings made of rough concrete blocks held together with
crumbling, oozing cement. I realized with a start that I hadn’t seen properly laid bricks
since I had left New York. It occurred to me that nothing would change in this country
Two more muddy workers in blue “proletariat” jackets walked by and called
Boris’s name, waving. They told us everybody except the cutting-shop workers was on
break. We walked past the next buildings and arrived at the door of the farthest.
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“How come they love you so much here? Not that you’re not lovable, but—” I
“I like—” Boris’s sentence was cut off by an inhuman scream from inside the
building we were about to enter, freezing us in our tracks. The shriek was repeated twice,
the door flew open. Anatoly, holding his right hand up in the air with his left, splattered
blood on Boris and then me as he ran zigzagging out the door. A finger dangled and
“Anatoly, Anatoly! Stop, sit down.” Boris took him by the shoulders and led him
I leaped out of the way as two men flung the doors open again. “Anatoly, we
couldn’t find the finger,” one of them said, exasperated. As if he were saying, Anatoly,
“It’s OK, it’s right here,” Boris indicated the now blood-soaked handkerchief.
“OK. We will follow. I know some people at the hospital.” Boris was already
Money Matters
The first thing I saw in the hospital was a cat licking the bandaged face of an
unconscious man. A doctor wearing a bloody coat and no gloves walked by but didn’t
bother shooing the cat away. Worst of all was the smell. Rotting meat. Rotting human
meat.
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After slipping her a couple hundred roubles, Boris finally got the attention of a
nurse. A couple hundred more roubles bought the promise of a shot to alleviate the pain.
“Stay here with Anatoly,” Boris whispered in English. “Make sure she gives him the
“What?”
“Anatoly looks like he might faint. If the patient passes out the nurses sometimes
slip the medicine into their pockets and fill the syringes with water.”
My mouth opened and shut a couple of times. My mind kept trying to reject the
scene as absurd, impossible, unreal. My churning stomach reminded me that this was
“I’m going to find the doctor I know.” Boris ran down the hall.
The nurse pulled a syringe with an obviously-used needle attached to it out of the
drawer. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Wait! You’re going to use a used
needle?”
Both Anatoly and the nurse looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You think we
use each needle only once? Dyevochka, this is not America. We’re lucky to have needles
I pulled out a five dollar bill that I always kept with me in case of emergencies.
The nurse raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Da-aaah.” My little green wand
turned her into a professional. She walked over to a sink and actually washed her filthy
hands. And put on some new rubber gloves. Another drawer revealed a supply of fresh
needles and some rubbing alcohol. As Anatoly watched on, his eyes brimming with
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Final
gratitude, she showed me the medicine, let me watch as she filled the syringe, and poked
I had come here to escape the tyranny of cash, but Communism’s great irony was
The Consultant
I stayed in my room for a few days waiting for my stomach to quit churning. My
mind toggled between the vision of Anatoly’s finger flapping, the cat licking the bloody
face of a comatose patient, and the nurse transformed by the five-dollar bill.
It was Boris who pulled me out of my funk. “I’ve met somebody who will fix the
machine.” That was why he could smile all the time—he always believed he could fix all
the problems.
“Really?”
“His deal?”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s is a specialist in workplace safety. Did you know that your government has
a whole agency called Occupational Safety and Health Administration that makes sure
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Final
“So, what’ll he do for the toilet paper kombinat?” I’d never heard of OSHA
before. It did sound pretty good, I had to admit. Maybe capitalism wasn’t so bankrupt
“I hope that he will have some ideas about the cutting machine.”
“It’s more likely he’ll behave like a self-righteous prick in a fancy suit,” I said,
speaking more out of habit than conviction. It felt good to dislike consultants. But I
found my stomach was settling down at the prospect of a specialist in workplace safety.
“Well, self-righteous means that you think you’re morally superior to everybody
else.”
“And prick?”
“Oh—a jerk.” I felt my cheeks growing hot. Was he playing dumb, teasing me?
No, he wouldn’t tease me that way—too much old-fashioned respect for feminine purity.
business.” Damned metali business! I felt abandoned, like I had when Dad had left me
My Russian Hero
The next Thursday 8:35 am found us in the office of Dmitri Stepanovich, the
toilet paper kombinat’s general director. Dmitri Stepanovich, a tired, overweight man of
about 55 sat chain-smoking at the head of a little conference table under a picture of
Mikhail Gorbachev—one of the later pictures where his birthmark had not been
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Final
side by two deputies, and facing a twenty-five year-old consultant wearing a nametag,
Ned Silverpen.
Ned crossed and re-crossed his legs daintily to the side of the table, brushing
invisible dust from his delicate, expensive looking loafers/slippers. Who the hell bought
shoes like that, anyway? Wimp shoes, like little-shit dogs. I looked up and saw Boris
staring at the shoes as well. We smiled in silent acknowledgement of the fact we both
looked forward to the walk through slushy snow and mud to the cutting machine. That
“You get what you measure—that is why you have to institute the new ABC
accounting methods.” I stifled a laugh at the thought of this twerp trying to put ultra-
precise accounting methods in place here. The la-la land currency, the constant shortages
of everything, the implacable work ethic of the labor force—they would do to his ABC
The General Director looked as if he were fighting sleep. Boris jumped into the
conversation, steering it to more productive ground. “Ned, I understand that you are an
“We have a problem with a cutting machine. If you are able to help us fix it, you
“OK. I’ll need to take a look at the machine, and talk to the people who work on
it.”
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Final
capitalists were interested in exploiting the proletariat, not just chatting them up?” Dmitri
burst out.
“Dmitri Stepanovich, this is not about Emma’s project, this is about fixing the
cutting machine, saving the men’s fingers.” Boris interjected. I felt a jolt of surprise and
gratitude, realizing Boris had been trying to get permission for me to talk to the workers
about my project. That was nice of him. He hadn’t even mentioned it to me.
interrupt them, and it’s the end of the month. I have to fulfill the plan. They will have to
work Saturday as it is.” Despite his angry words, Dmitri Stepanovich’s face was
returning to its usual hue—an unnatural gray. “Can’t you just fix the machine?”
Ned folded his hands on the table. His long, soft fingers with perfect nails,
cuticles pushed back revealing ten big half moons answered the question before his
empower workers to solve problems like that. They are the ones with the hands-on
knowledge.”
“Hands on, fingers off,” whispered one of Dmitri Sergeevich’s assistants to me. I
stifled my laughter.
Ned ignored us and continued: “If you empower the workers, that is, push
information and decision-making down to them, then they solve most of the problems.
It’s all about giving the workers ownership.” The irony of an American lecturing a
communist plant manager on giving his workers ownership was clearly lost on Ned,
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Final
“I am the general director here. If I can’t figure it out, you think that the guys on
“You are the general director, a very busy man. You don’t have time to solve
every little problem. But you have hired a consultant from America who’s going to try
American methods.” Boris stared Dmitri Stepanovich in the eye, and then looked at Ned.
Ned caught on to the respect that Boris showed to Dmitri Stepanovich, and tried
to imitate it. “Exactly so, Dmitri Stepanovich. But in order to try these methods I need
“OK, OK. Boris, take him down to the cutting shop. I am waiting for a report by
“A big thank you.” Boris stood up and motioned for Ned and me to follow him
As we reached the door of the director’s building Ned paused to put on galoshes
that reached mid-calf. Boris and I exchanged disappointed glances. He wasn’t going to
“Ned, I want to give you some background. I think that you are not going to like
what you will see. I doubt that such situations exist in your country.” Boris said on the
“Like what?”
Ned stopped in his tracks, a little pool of slush and dirt forming around his
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Final
“Yes. And the problem is with one machine which they have been unable to
Boris prodded Ned to keep walking. “You can’t change the management. I
propose that you examine the problems you can solve. There is sense in the method that
you proposed to Dmitri Stepanovich—you may be able to get some ideas from the
workers about how to fix the machine. Our guys are good. But it’s very hard to get
We reached the door of the cutting shop, and Boris introduced Ned to Andrei,
Sergei, Vladimir, and Victor. Boris and I watched in amazement as Ned took off his suit
jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and dropped the suspenders from his shoulders, letting them
hang down his legs. He asked pointed questions about who did what with the machine,
and where the problems were from each man’s perspective. It was evident that he had
only the vaguest understanding of the answers he was getting, but by 3:30 he had the
workers sketch out the source of the problem and how to fix it. Ned walked over to
Boris paused. I held my breath. Dmitri Stepanovich had asked for a report, not a
fait accompli. It was Dmitri Stepanovich who had to sign off on all repairs. And Boris
had no real authority at the factory—indeed, doubtful whether his connection there was
even legal. Dmitri Stepanovich had taken a risk to let Boris into the factory without
hiring him through the official channels. It was his little contribution to mankind’s stock
of courage. But he could be arrested for damaging state machinery. Would Boris be
putting Dmitri at risk if he said to fix the machine? Or maybe Boris would be putting
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Final
himself at risk. Dmitri could have Boris arrested for damaging state machinery to protect
himself if something went wrong. Boris scratched his head. Just then Anatoly walked
by, with his dirty bandage. “Boris, kak dela?” Kak dela is generally translated ‘how are
Boris jumped, suddenly decisive. “Business has never been better. We’re going
to fix this damned machine.” In another context these would not have been the words of
a hero. But what would be considered normal at home was in fact superhuman here.
Anatoly looked impressed. Then he held up his bandage with an ironic chortle.
“About a week too late. Too bad.” He paused. “But it’s a good thing you’re doing.
The men turned and began talking amongst themselves. Ned interjected, “If there
“No, no it’s our beast, we know it, only we can fix it. Go have some tea. We’ll be
finished in a couple of hours.” Andrei said with some pride. Ned beamed. “Excellent.”
Two hours later everyone was despondent. A part was needed, but it would take
at least six months to get it. The next morning a measure of determination, if not
optimism, returned. One of the workers had a friend who worked in the machine shop at
a military factory. Ned brought a bottle of scotch and the part got made. Ten more deals
and three days later, Andrei, followed by his three colleagues, came triumphantly into the
room where Ned, Boris and I were drinking tea. “We’ve done it! We’ve fixed that old
bastard.”
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Victor turned to Ned and said, “Our first drink will be to you. Thank you.”
Andrei, Sergei, Vladimir, and Victor shook Ned’s hand in a solemn silence, each one
staring him in the eye, then blinking hard, and bowing. Ned’s adam’s apple bobbed.
Switching Teams
Boris and I went to see Gone with the Wind the next afternoon. Returning to the
dorm we spied some familiar galoshes walking our way. “Ned!” I waved.
“Oh good, I’ve found you. I was afraid I’d missed you. I just left a note for both
of you at the dorm. You need a telephone. I can’t get in touch with you without spending
two hours to come and leave a note for you. I feel like I'm back in the 19th century.
Everything takes four times longer than it should, and I’m operating at 25% capacity.”
“Come and have some tea,” Boris suggested. Tea—the universal solace for
inefficiency.
As we were heating up the electric samovar Ned made a proposal. “Payne has
decided to open up a small office in Moscow. I’m the advance man, and am authorized to
hire two analysts for $50,000 a year each. Are either of you interested?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Startled by my own words, I spilled the tea all over the table.
irrationally betrayed at Boris’s refusal. Ned scratched his head. “Gee, I expected a no
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Final
from Emma and a yes from Boris…But, Emma, delighted to have been surprised by you.
Perhaps you can persuade Boris to join us.” Another awkward silence was broken by
Ned’s hand outstretched to shake mine. “Welcome to the Payne Moscow team.”
“Sure.”
Boris’s sulks drove Ned from the dorm rather sooner than was entirely
comfortable.
“Why didn’t you take the job?” I asked him as Ned’s footsteps faded down the
hall.
“Because I am working on a business that will make me two million dollars next
“Isn’t that illegal?” The words popped out before I could stop them. When I saw
his expression I understood why he hadn’t wanted to discuss his new business with me
before. He was afraid I would judge him. And he was right to be afraid, judgmental bitch
that I was.
His jaw worked in a rare display of hurt anger. All I wanted to do now was to hug
it away. I struggled for something to say, but came up empty. After what seemed like
make money may not last as long as yours, so I need to do it all at once, while I have the
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“Oh, I’m sorry, Boris. I didn’t mean to offend you. I still don’t understand things
here.” There was something intimate about having hurt him that made me want to stay
“Yes.”
“When are you going back to Siberia?” Was he going to disappear again?
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomsk?”
“A closed city?”
“Yes, they have lots of military factories there, so it’s very restricted. But I have
“What?”
“Well—when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
I had visions of myself as Lara chugging in a train across Siberia to meet Dr.
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Explanations
couldn’t carry a tune. But this one seemed so jolly I couldn’t resist. “M m mm, mmmmm
“I want money, lots and lots of money.” Suddenly the words poured into the tune,
and I was overwhelmed with a self-awareness of the most painful sort. My subconscious
Back in my room I struggled to come to peace with what the song implied about
why I had accepted the consulting job. At some point over the past year, I had abandoned
my journal and started processing new ideas and big decisions through George. Even if
my George illusions had burst, he was still my friend. So it was only natural that I would
try coming to terms with my decision by writing to him, right? Well. Sort of.
Two hours later I crumpled up my very long letter and threw it against the wall. I
took out a clean sheet of paper and stared at it for half an hour, wishing that it were as
absorbent at toilet paper. That would make it useful, at least. Unable to think of what
else to write, I picked up the crumpled missive, smoothed it, and re-read it.
First, I’d written, “The State’s capacity to do harm far outweighs its capacity to do
good. It turns out that private business is likely to have better answers to social problems
The second paragraph described how I admired Ned for saving the fingers of the
toilet paper workers. I had taken the job because I hoped to save the fingers of Russian
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Final
“In the choice between chocolate and free speech, eggs and externalities, it is the
food that should win out every time.” I wasn’t quite willing to commit to paper my
Next I claimed that being a consultant would contribute more to my project than
library research. Even I thought that sounded like transparent bullshit. I crossed this line
of reasoning out too. Then I explained how I wanted to produce more than just words on
the page. But that was how Boris felt, not me. The truth was, no matter how reality
changed my notions of how the world should work, I would always love intangible ideas
more than anything else. I would rather come up with a new economic theory than build
a building and I’d rather read a book than make a dinner. George knew that as well as I
“I never had had any luck talking to workers. I think I’ll have more access to the
“Plus, the job comes with an international line. I’ll be able to call you any time.”
Then again, why was I so eager for a phone, anyway? It wasn’t like George had broken
up with Cecilia and we had tons of things to discuss…Come to think of it, the phone was
more of a con than a pro. I scribbled through those words till they were a big black box.
And so on, until the only sentence left was one that read, “I will be earning
Well, what of it? I knew that money wasn’t the only reason I was taking the
Payne job. I had my good reasons. I just wasn’t able to articulate them. I threw the letter
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Final
Nov 3, 1990
Dear George,
I took consulting job. Fuck you if you don’t approve.
Love,
Emma
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