Exiles in America(130)

and snapped the phone shut.

There was a warm, sweet, absurd smell of cupcakes coming from the

kitchen.

Zack looked down at the sheet of paper covered with his jagged hen

scratch—art paper torn from a sketchbook. “All right,” he began. “You heard

my end. Let’s go over my notes and see where we stand.”

He went down the list, item by item, pausing repeatedly to warn all three

of them that this wasn’t Jeremy’s area of expertise but the man appeared to

have some idea what he was talking about.

When he finished, Elena was leaning forward on the elbows of her crossed

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

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arms. “It is not so bad,” she said. “It could be worse.” She shrugged. “I admit

I expected better in the Land of the Free. At least here it is a surprise. It was

sadly ordinary in the Soviet union  .”

“You were arrested more than once?” said Zack. “Not just the time you

were sent to prison?”

“Only the once. But it was enough. I told you about my arrest?”

“Just that you spent a few months in prison. For writing a poem about

Sakharov.”

She frowned. “The poem was only part. What can I say? I was young and

stupid, a hick from Tashkent. We don’t have to discuss it.” She got up and

went to the kitchen, where she opened the oven and removed the fragrant

cupcakes, setting them on the stove to cool.

“Actually, I’d like to hear about it,” Zack called out. “If you don’t mind

talking about it.” He wanted to know how she had dealt with arrest. She had

far more experience here than they did, and her ordeal should put this one in

perspective.

“You are sure? You really want to hear?” She returned to the table and sat

down. “Very well. Where to begin? I grew up in Tashkent but always dreamed

of going to Leningrad. You could not live just anywhere in the Soviet union  ;

you had to win your place.”

It was a rehearsed story, one she’d told many times, to herself if not to oth-

ers, and she had to begin at the beginning.

“I studied hard and went to different schools and finally got to university

in Leningrad. Where I met a smart set of pretty young Russians, the children

of bureaucrats and colonels. They were a spirited bunch, and younger than I,

in spirit as well as age. Gorbachev had come to power and he promised

change, and we wanted to test him. It was, what? 1987. We went by train to

Moscow for a small demo in Pushkin Square. There were a dozen of us. We

wanted to celebrate poetry. That’s all. We had a banner to hang over the li-

brary steps. A pack of boys would play guitars and sing while the rest of us

passed around mimeos of our poetry. That is the word? Mimeos? No big deal.

We wanted to test the ice. To see how open the new openness was. A poetry

party in Pushkin Square.

“So we arrive, the banner goes up, the boys take guitars from their cases. But

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

before we can sing a word, we are surrounded. By a mob of pigs from the KGB.

They were waiting. They knew we were coming. They herded us together, then

separated us. Suddenly I was alone and pushed into the backseat of a big black

Volga automobile, surrounded by smelly fat men in heavy coats, all old enough

to be my father. And they were laughing like it was a game. They were drunk,

and there was so much vodka on their breaths that the car stank like a surgery.

I was terrified. I was sure they would rape then murder me. They’d dump my

corpse in the scrap yards. But I couldn’t let on I was scared. I had to laugh and

joke with them, which was exhausting. It was the longest day of my life.

“We finally got to the police station, and I saw my friends again. The boys

were beaten into pulp. They had such bloody faces I didn’t recognize them at

first. The KGB pigs made the girls get a good look, and they shoved us into

our cages. And let us all rot for three or four days while they decided what to

do with us. There were no visitors, no lawyers, no telephone calls, nothing.”

Elena began to smile, a strange, sad twist of her mouth, as if she could not

believe such a thing had ever happened to her.

“I was nobody. A hick from Tashkent. But my friends were the children of

bureaucrats and colonels. The police loved rubbing their noses, like bad dogs,

in the dogshit of their helplessness. Our trial was a joke, but also a relief.

Being sent to prison was a relief. Because I knew where I was going. I knew

where I would be. I had solid ground beneath my feet. There were walls all

around me, but the ground beneath my feet was solid.”

A very deliberate story, a tale like a parable. Zack felt badly shaken by it.