Читать книгу Bar in the Departure zone. The story of one escape - - Страница 5

“Well, everything seems to be settled,” said Vlad. “You start work on Friday.”

Dima’s heart beat a tattoo – what incredible luck! He had been living for four months in his uncle’s new cooperative apartment on Leningradskaya Street, a life he found quite pleasant. The apartment, although only one room, was quite large with a glassed-in balcony and a spacious kitchen.

Vlad had a custom-made sofa in the corner of the kitchen. One side of the sofa was wide, and the other side was narrow. This was where Dima slept and kept his clothes in large drawers. Vlad was rarely at home, and when he was, he usually played LPs on his expensive audio equipment and read Western magazines that foreign customers left at the bar.

After graduating with honors from the Moscow Institute for National Economics, Vlad quickly climbed the corporate ladder before becoming bored and requesting a transfer from the Moscow Food Production Center to manage a small café in the Moscow district of Izmailovo. His request was granted, and Vlad began to enjoy a life of freedom and good money.

Having been on the receiving end of fiscal reports for years, Vlad spent his evenings revising almost all his paperwork. An old accountant, Nina Ivanovna, had been asking for a pension for a long time, complaining of failing eyesight. Instead of a pension, the new manager started paying her a quarterly bonus and took over half of the accounts from her. The old lady could hardly believe her luck, and soon the enterprise began to function almost like a private business – with neat reports and revenues just a little bit higher than those of the previous manager, while a significant portion was kept by Vlad.

The café didn’t earn much, maybe a tenth of the culinary turnover, but by renting it out to the right people for weddings and birthday parties, the young manager made acquaintances. The food service also brought in a lot of money. Bones, for example, were a profitable commodity. Vlad received two small truckloads of bones per week from the meatpacking plant. He would bring his nephew, Dima, to the café to help and the two of them would trim the bones of cartilage and residual meat with special curved knives. These trimmings would then be used in meat pies and dumplings.

The unexpected arrival of his nephew pleased Vlad, not only because the boy was his only relative, but because Vlad’s own life had somehow stalled. Two years earlier, Vlad had experienced bouts of severe depression followed by some improvement, but the turbulent 1980 with the Moscow Olympics and the transition to work at Sheremetyevo, brought about a further improvement.

Vlad’s relationship with Jurgenson, the Estonian, continued, but it had become monotonous. His life was well-structured, and he didn’t expect any significant changes at work. When a letter arrived from distant Vladivostok, Vlad was filled with enthusiasm and looked forward to seeing his nephew. Dima was not only a kindred spirit but also an interesting and unusual person in many ways.

From kindergarten to seventh grade, Dima had a clear notion of his future. He wanted to travel! He will be a worl famous traveller. He found conversations among other kids about astronauts and the military amusing because those dreamers knew nothing about space or the military. But Dima knew everything about his future life. He could easily name all the capitals of all countries. He knew which countries bordered Paraguay and could easily find the city with the strange name Papeete on a map. Putting little Dima to bed was never a problem. He would simply close his eyes, and a huge, slowly rotating globe with mountain topography and blue oceans would graciousely descend from the ceiling. All that remained was to concentrate on the southern tip of Chile, bring it closer, feel the spray of Cape Horn on his face, listen to the cries of thousands of gulls, and the boy would fall asleep with a smile on his face.

But around the seventh grade, he began to realize the catastrophic nature of his situation as a Soviet schoolboy. His mother was the first to explain that his plans were unrealistic, but it was not easy to deprive a person of their dreams, and Dima felt offended, not by the system, but by his lonely, hard-working mother. He thought that if she were, for example, the Secretary of the Regional Party Committee, he might have had a chance to become a traveler. He saw that Julia from another class went with her parents to Bulgaria, and her father was only a Komsomol apparatchik, not even a Party member.

Closer to the end of school, Dima’s understanding of the situation became clearer, but his childhood dreams of traveling the world did not fade away. Strangely, he had no interest in the geography and beauty of his homeland, whether it was the White nights of Leningrad or the vast forests of Siberia. The realization that his dreams were hindered by the political structure of the country turned him into a quiet, passive enemy of the system.

He started listening to the BBC in English and the Voice of America in Russian, not because he was interested in dissidents or exposing regime crimes, but simply to learn about the world and how people lived abroad. He didn’t have any intention of fighting against anyone; he just wanted to escape by any means possible. However, the problem was that there seemed to be no way to escape. The extensive Soviet border was heavily guarded primarily to prevent people from leaving. Entire regions were designated as “state border zones,” with forbidden zones reaching up to two hundred kilometers in width. Approaching the controlled border strip was unthinkable, and crossing the land border was out of the question.

Meanwhile, school came to an end, and Dima’s confused mother called Vlad. “Listen, he’s flying to Riga to join some aviation institute.”

Vlad was taken aback. “That’s strange. I don’t remember him showing an interest in aviation.”

“Vlad, we need to dissuade him. He should go to a technology institute.”

“I’ll try to talk to him.”

However, Dima didn’t apply to the Institute of Electronic Technology, the only institute in Zelenograd. Instead, he flew to Latvia, even though he knew his chances were slim. Soon after his failed attempt to enter the Riga Institute of Aviation Engineering, he received his draft notice in the mail. The dreamer accepted the news calmly and decided to request to serve in the border troops.

Night after night, he was tormented by the same recurring dream where he would throw his AK-47 gun and cap to the side and briskly run through the plowed control strip trail, escaping from the Soviet country.

Overcoming his hesitation, Dima turned to his only relative for help. After all, Vlad knew everyone and could do anything. He must have a friend in the military registration and enlistment office who could help his nephew join the border troops. Dima shared his confused request with his uncle, who asked a few questions and then began staring at his nephew. Vlad remained silent for a long time and suddenly buried his face in his hands. Dima knew his uncle was sensitive and sentimental, but this time he became genuinely frightened. Suddenly, Vlad stood up, opened a vintage cabinet drawer, and took out a map of the USSR. He spread it out in front of his silent nephew and began nervously tracing the entire extensive border with a pencil, piercing the paper as he did so.

“Here, here, here, and here!!!” Vlad hissed, pointing to the length of the Soviet borders from China to the Arctic Ocean. “And this tiny piece is the Turkish border. See how small it is? You already know that the Finns and Iranians immediately give defectors back, don’t you?”

Dima didn’t know, but he nodded. Vlad tore out a section of the border with Turkey using his fingers and handed the piece of paper to Dima.

“Take this and measure it along the rest of the border and calculate.”

“What do you mean?” whispered Dima, shocked.

“This fraction, this unit, divided by the rest, will give you your odds, your one-in-a-thousand chances to make it there.”

Later, when Dima was in the army, he learned that there was a special selection process for serving on the Turkish section of the USSR border. He realized there was no chance for him at all.

Vlad’s attitude toward Dima changed. He became attentively alert. Knowing about his nephew’s childhood dreams, he couldn’t imagine that Dima was still holding onto them, that he hadn’t outgrown them or abandoned them. This earned Vlad’s respect but also instilled fear. At eighteen years old, Vlad had never experienced anything like it. Could it be the call of Balkan blood? He knew little about Dima’s father. He knew his exotic name was Dzhanko, but the Hungarian communist Dzhanko was infinitely far from Zelenograd.

During her passionate Komsomol youth, Vlad’s sister won a two-week all-inclusive tour to the newly opened Sputnik International Youth Camp, and Dima was conceived there. Apart from the unusual name, it was known that his father was an ethnic Serb but held Hungarian citizenship for some reason. Dima’s mother categorically refused to talk about him, and Dima never asked. Vlad made inquiries initially but soon realized it was a dead-end. Many years later, Vlad discovered that Dzhanko was alive and well, having moved to Yugoslavia, where he got married and had many children. “Such a nimble dad, a prolific bastard,” Vlad thought, but he didn’t take any action. Contacting anyone abroad was dangerous, very dangerous. Vlad’s sister had long since cooled toward the Komsomol, and besides, she worked at a military factory. Vlad didn’t need a relative abroad mentioned in his personnel file; it would mean an immediate end to his career. “To hell with him, this gypsy,” Vlad decided and never returned to the topic.

Vlad had his own dreams of escaping the USSR and even attempted to register a marriage with a cheerful Odessa woman of Jewish origin, hoping to be included as her husband in her exit visa to Israel. However, it ended horribly. The woman had hoped to turn the marriage of convenience into a real marriage. Vlad had no choice but to confess his sexual orientation to her, leading to an emotional explosion. Even with a lot of money, it was difficult to pay her off as she had already envisioned herself in Jerusalem with her handsome husband, whom she believed owed her his escape. This was followed by a failed attempt to get a job on a cruise ship with the Black Sea Marine Company. Thankfully, he was rejected at an early stage. The personnel department explained that without collateral in the form of a loving wife and a couple of children ashore, no one would allow him on a foreign cruise. Gradually, Vlad’s hope of escape faded and was replaced by prolonged episodes of depression. But after a few years, Vlad was no longer sure if he truly wanted to leave. He was earning a significant amount of money by Soviet standards, his life was settled and comfortable, but it was from this dead dream that his unnoticed mental disorder began to take hold. However, helping and being involved in the lives of his few relatives distracted him and gave his life a special meaning.

Vlad’s sister was torn between work and doctors, and Vlad felt the need to have a serious talk with his nephew. He didn’t ask direct questions, fearing to push the boy into lying and causing pain for both of them. Instead, he simply asked Dima to listen.

“You see, there’s nothing unusual about your desire to leave. Thousands of people dream about it, many have tried and ended up in penal colonies, and only a few have succeeded. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll be one of them. My advice to you is not to freak out! You’ll completely ruin your life.”

“It seems like it’s not really my life at all,” Dima replied wistfully.

“None of us here are living our own lives. Learn to accept reality.”

“So, what can I do?” Dima whispered.

“Just live. Don’t take unnecessary risks and live with your dream. Without dreams, all you have is crap. Go to the army, and we’ll think of something. There are legal ways to leave. You could marry a Jew and then apply for a permit to emigrate to Israel,” Vlad said, but his words lacked conviction, and Dima didn’t pay much attention. At eighteen, two years in the army felt like an eternity.