My father started making plans as soon as we were back in Sochi. He was determined to get me to the United States, as he believed that was the only place my game could be developed. He became fixated on Florida. Why? I could give you a complicated explanation, comparing this region to that region, this academy to that academy, but the fact is that Yuri is superstitious and follows signs, and he’d seen a sign that pointed to Florida. It took the form of two magazine articles. One was about the Williams sisters and how they were training at Rick Macci’s tennis academy in Boca Raton. The other was about Anna Kournikova and how she was training at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Bradenton. My father believed these articles had fallen into his hands at just this moment for a reason. He was being told where to go.
Nowadays, traveling to the United States is usually a straightforward proposition. You get a tourist visa, call the airline, buy the ticket, go. But this was not the case in the early 1990s. The Soviet Union was falling apart. It was just about impossible to find a job, which made it just about impossible to earn a living and support a family. It was hard to do anything. Even if you had the cash, you could not just get on a plane for America. Visas were impossible to come by—awarded only to those on government business. Knowing that he’d need some sort of official backing, my father wrote to the coach of the Russian Tennis Federation’s national junior team. There was no question of me playing for this team: it was for kids twelve and up, and I was six. But my father was hoping that the federation would sponsor me with an eye to the future. He explained our situation and described my talent, mentioning Yudkin and Navratilova. It worked, or seemed to. The team happened to be practicing in Florida, preparing for an American tour. The coach replied with a letter inviting us to visit and work out with the team.
My father went to the embassy in Moscow for visas. He was twenty-eight years old, wearing his only suit, the one he wore on his wedding day. He was willing to depend on luck and fate. (There are signs to tell you what to do if you learn to read them.) He had the coach’s letter and had worked out what he was going to say. He waited for hours, then finally stood across from an official. This man looked Yuri over carefully, then examined the letter and the other documents, pictures and pages with raised seals. My father was talking all the time, giving the speech, saying the words: Yudkin, Mozart, Navratilova, prodigy.
“I also have a daughter,” the official said finally. “She also plays tennis. And she is good. She’s eight. But I do not think she’s a prodigy. Your daughter is six. How do you really know that she’s better than my daughter? Maybe you’re just seeing her with the eyes of a father.”
“I don’t know your daughter,” said Yuri, “but I do know mine. What I’ve told you is true.”
“You want to take a six-year-old girl to train in the United States?”
“Yes.”
“And you have no doubt?”
“None.”
He looked my father in the eyes.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“And you know where you’ll go and what you’ll do?”
“Yes.”
This man gave us a three-year visa—my father would have to come back to Russia to get it renewed—but there it was, that rare, invaluable thing. A golden ticket, the freedom to come and go. It’s hard for an American, or even a person in Russia today, to imagine the miracle of this. It was almost impossible to get the sort of document that Yuri scored. This man, this official, whoever he was, wherever he is, made the whole thing happen. Without him, who knows? Why did he do it? It’s a question Yuri still asks himself. It was not about me, of course. It was about Yuri. He recognized something in my father, a determination. Or maybe he just felt generous. Or maybe it was just the way the sun hit the road that morning. Whatever the reason, we were lucky. So lucky. But also unlucky. As rare as that visa was, it was also limited, good for only two people: me and Yuri. Using it would mean leaving my mom behind for who knew how long. Yuri thought over what he’d say to her, how he’d get her to go along. He’d be taking me away from school and from my family and from her, and I was only six years old.
When I ask my mother about it now, she shrugs and says, “Your father knew what he was doing.” Grandma Tamara is more open. “I think your mother went along with it because your father is such a good talker,” she tells me. “He’s convincing and your mother is so positive. It’s these things together, I think, that made it happen. Maybe your mother didn’t really want it to happen, but she believed that it was for your own benefit. Your father was not thinking only of you but of himself and the family. Russia was falling apart. Tennis might be something for you, but it was also a way out for the family. If he could secure your living, the entire family could live at the expense of the daughter. And he succeeded. It worked. He was very smart in that respect. But your mother didn’t think about that, even if, deep down, she understood what was really going on. Or, who knows? Maybe your father did discuss it with her. Of course, for me and your grandfather it was terrible. Yuri suddenly says that he’s taking our granddaughter to America? In those days, people who went to America were never heard from again.”
My father gathered all the money he had, then borrowed some more—something like seven hundred dollars, wound into a roll, carried in his front pocket, so that, whenever he got nervous, he could make sure it was still there. He’d gotten tickets on an afternoon flight from Moscow to Miami, where someone from the team was to meet us. It’s a blur. I don’t remember what I was wearing or how I felt. I must have been sad saying goodbye to my mom, but I probably didn’t realize what was happening, that I would not see her again until I was almost nine years old.
It was Aeroflot, one of those big old jets with about fifteen seats in a row. We sat next to a Russian couple. My father spoke to them the whole way. I picked up pieces of the conversation as I drifted in and out of sleep. He told them about me and tennis and our plans and the junior team and the coach and the academies. I wondered why he was saying so much. My father is normally pretty quiet. The plane refueled in Shannon, Ireland. I didn’t know what to do with myself for that long period of time, in one place, in one seat. It was the first long flight of my life. I remember looking out the window at men and trucks. Then we were in America. Two or three in the morning. We went through customs, then out to the curb. I remember how the air felt that first time, like a damp hand, rich and tropical, so different than in Sochi. I remember the palm trees. I remember how dark it was. And waiting. After everyone had gone, we were still on the curb, looking for the car that was supposed to have been sent by the team coach. My father must’ve been panicking. He spoke no English, knew no one in the country, was alone with his six-year-old daughter in the middle of the night. But he kept his cool, resting his hand gently on my shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry, Masha. Don’t worry.” But I’m sure his other hand was thrust in his pocket, his fingers wrapped around the money. What should we do? Hire a car? Take a bus? Even if he could find someone willing to help, they’d never speak Russian. Finally, a man and woman came by. It was the couple from the plane. My father explained the situation—“If I could just call the coach.” The man told him nothing could be done in the middle of the night, “and you have a little girl that needs to sleep.” He had a hotel room in Miami Beach. He offered to take us along. “Sleep on the floor,” he said. “Tomorrow you can make your phone calls.”
In the morning, even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was in a strange place. I could hear my father talking quickly, quietly, with frustration. He’d been up for hours. Maybe he hadn’t gone to bed. He softened when he saw that I was awake, sat with me, and tried to give me a sense of what would happen next. I was just happy to be with him, far from home, on this adventure. It was us against the world. He’d not been able to reach the team coach, or our family in Russia. The lines were busy, or down, or something. The few people he had reached were not helpful. But we had our routine and we had to stick to it. I put on my tennis clothes. Sneakers. Skirt. I always practiced in a skirt to replicate a match environment. (You want to practice exactly like you play.) I tied my hair back and followed my father out the door. Of course, there was one big change in that routine: my mom was not there to give me a hug before I headed out. My father carried two rackets, his and mine, and a can of balls. The man from the plane came along, probably just to see what would happen. “What are you doing?” he asked.