I’m still a bit worried. Will reality correspond to my expectations? When you hear a lot about something, you create your own image of it, often very remote from reality. That happened with the Egyptian pyramids, which seemed much smaller than I had expected. I had thought that one of the Seven Wonders of the World ought to block half the horizon. And now I expect the Statue of Liberty to block my horizon when we approach New York.
JULY 24. I’ve been packing all my life, and I still can’t do it right. I get fits of madness when it takes me a half hour to decide what color scarf or how many pairs of panty hose to pack. When I travel in the USSR, I take absolutely everything with me, including needle, thread, and toothpaste, because you can’t buy the most elementary things in other cities. But you can buy everything in America. I just won’t have the money. So one more time: six or eight pairs of underwear? Nail polish remover, full or half bottle? Nail polish, red or pink? We’re allowed only two suitcases, and I am taking along so many souvenirs, despite the recommendations of the iron customs lady. I feel that I’m about to lose my temper and start swearing out loud, all alone. I’ll go to the kitchen instead, have a shot of liqueur, call Dasha, and listen to an update on her boyfriends. I’d love to stick my
suitcases in the attic, cancel the trip, get into bed with a book, and stay there for a week. Moscow is a fine city, too. Everyone in the provinces dreams of coming here, and I want to leave the capital of the first socialist country in the world! What's the problem? If I don’t like it over there, I’ll come right back. A small pleasure for a mere twenty-five hundred. Oh, no, I’ll get all I can there. I’ll try to see everything. I’m certain that my mood will change the minute I get on the plane. So off to the kitchen to repair my mood.
JULY 26. Friends came by, and we talked a lot about America. There was an unusual program on Radio Liberty recently. It discussed the difference between European and American thinking. Europe lives in the world of ideas, and many don’t need to be realized in real life. The idea has its own value. For Americans, the concrete embodiment of the idea is more important. The American is a man of action; the European more of a philosopher, often fruitless. This is my schematic reduction of the argument, but you get the point.
We liked this approach, even though none of us has been in America. We enviously talked about the American sense of obligation and seriousness. Americans say that an oral promise is the same as a written one, that they have respect for their word. Here even a written promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. And people in America work hard, totally immersing themselves in their work. It would be hard for us to do that; we’ve lost the habit. I wonder if Americans intrigue and squabble at work. To judge from what I’ve heard from people who’ve
been there, they wouldn’t have time. They’re all working too hard.
Then we took the other side of the argument and decided that the Russian dreamy inactivity has its charm. Where else can you have a nice friendly chat for hours anyplace at all—at a holiday table, at work, in a line? Time is not money for us, and we feel it very subjectively. If we are in a good mood, we don’t hurry; if we are not happy, we try to push time along. We spend half of our lives in a relaxed languor. That’s why we’re impoverished, of course, and live in tiny apartments and ride buses. But after all, you can’t take it with you. In fact, we almost persuaded ourselves that our lives aren’t worse, maybe better. I think my friends even felt better about not going to America, which I’m sure they wouldn’t mind doing. They left around two. Tomorrow is my last day for packing. I leave early the following day.
J U L Y 2 8. I got on the plane an hour ago, and I still can’t calm down. I’m on the verge of total physical exhaustion. Will I find the words to describe it all?
I’ll do it in order. Last night, I called a cab to get me at five, so that I could arrive at Sheremetyevo Airport around six in the morning. I had calculated that two hours for check-in would be enough. Some friends came over in the evening. We had a bottle of wine, I cried a bit, but I didn’t get a chance to become sad. The friend who had arranged for my ticket phoned and was horrified to hear I had the taxi coming only at five. “You may be at my place for breakfast then,” she said ironically.
Then she explained. The airline often oversells seats, and that means people get left behind. Besides, there are often tricky deals going on, so that black-market types get the seats. You can’t prove a thing, and before you know it, the plane takes off without you, and you have to spend several days at the airport waiting for another seat.
“Go to the airport around two A.M., and stand by the customs area. When they start registering your flight, you have to be among the first,” my friend, wise with experience, told me.
It was pointless going to bed, so we had another bottle of wine (to avoid tension), and I shut my suitcases. I went out into the street, got a cab, and talked the driver (for a lot of money) to take me first to pick up Mama and then to the airport. We were at Sheremetyevo around two.
There’s been a lot in the press lately about the scandalous goings-on in the country’s main international airport. It made a horrible impression at night. The world’s biggest cities were listed on the arrivals and departures boards. You’d think you had one leg in the civilized world, but only one, because the other one didn’t even have a place to set itself. The few benches were filled with passengers; some were on blankets on the floor, giving the impression that they lived there. Some went off with toothbrushes and towels to the toilets and returned to go to sleep. Others simply wandered around the airport or tried to sit on their suitcases.
A group of passengers leaving for Vienna—forever—kept to themselves. This was the end of their suffering or maybe the beginning of new torments. But they were in a good mood. Some of the men seemed very aggressive. They tried to persuade us to sign up for a common line into customs and threatened
me, saying they wouldn’t let me go ahead of them. It was rather amusing, since their flight was at 2:00 p.m. and mine at 8:00 in the morning. We tried to explain that we couldn’t let them go first. They shouted and even tried to push us.
This might have been funny, but not at two in the morning, when I was terribly sleepy, my feet hurt, and there was nowhere to sit down. Hot coffee from the thermos we were smart enough to bring helped. We couldn’t get near the bar on the first floor. There was a long line, and the barstools were occupied by dozing or sleeping passengers. Mama and I took turns walking around the halls, so as not to fall asleep on the suitcases. It felt like being war refugees. I thought of my warm, cozy bed, just twenty kilometers away. How I’d like to go back home and send America to hell!
For lack of other consolation (and I was already half asleep) I turned to mystical thoughts. This was intended. Fate was taking me through this hard and not understandable path for a reason. I had to accept it and leave it to Providence. I thought of the lines Pasternak gives to Hamlet: “The course of action is planned, the end of the road is predetermined. I am alone, everything drowns in Pharisaism. Living life is not like crossing a field.” I have to say that poetry always helps me in difficult moments. I read to myself to relax and get away from reality. The rhythm alone has a magical effect. Besides, we often select the lines that suit our mood and imbue them with our own meaning.
So there I was in the airport at night, weary, uncertain, with expectation and fear. At moments it seemed to me that instead of New York I was headed for Siberia on the last trip. At least that was the mood around me. But the waiting, which seemed
THE INTIMATE DIARY OF A RUSSIAN WOMAN 231
an eternity, ended, and the customs agents appeared. On my friend’s advice I rushed to be one of the first. You never know. The valiant customs agents decided to demonstrate to the other passengers how well they do their job. “Don’t hurry, we’ve got lots of time,” one said to the other.