“Oh, by the way, you need a visa to travel to Russia,” the chair said without looking up. “I suggest you go to Oslo this week and get that taken care of. I’m sure they must have some kind of same-day expedited visa application. Good luck!”
17
“Russia?” Bjørnar repeated, as if he hadn’t really been clear that such a place existed.
“The worst place on earth,” I said. “But I have no choice, not after the desk fiasco. If I don’t go, I’m going to end up teaching preschool. And you don’t need to remind me that it’s only a few weeks until we move, and that there are a thousand things to be done. Packing, cleaning, potential private showings, and we have to get ahold of a big truck to haul some stuff to the dump.”
My voice broke and I glanced up at him. He stared at the wall behind me, looking like he was still wondering what Russia even was or just how low we were going to sink into financial and emotional ruin. The thought made my thighs start trembling, something which had gradually come to be my new normal.
“We’ll have to hope I don’t get the visa,” I said.
“Have to hope,” he repeated, like a lethargic parrot, “have to hope.”
And I was still repeating it to myself three days later as I stood shivering outside the closed Russian embassy. A lady in a pink down jacket hurried past me, down the little walkway that led to the entrance, opened the door, and disappeared into the building. A few minutes later a man in a black leather jacket arrived and did the same thing. Even though it said in bold all-caps on the embassy’s Web page that it did not open until nine o’clock and that NO ONE should even consider approaching the door before that time.
There was absolutely no point in standing there in the autumnal darkness like some fool. So I, too, slowly made my way down the walkway and cautiously opened the heavy front door, which turned out to lead into a small brown waiting room predominantly furnished with plastic chairs and empty water jugs. Even though there was still half an hour to go before they opened, there were already groups of people by the bulletproof windows, babbling away in Russian into the microphones mounted on the wall. I also noticed that all the written information was in the Cyrillic alphabet, including whatever it said on the enormous take-a-number machine in the middle of the room.
“Hello, Hal,” I mumbled stiffly to the machine.
Indecipherable letters blinked at me above a square clearly meant for entering numbers.
I entered my confirmation code.
No reaction.
My phone number.
No reaction.
Passport number.
No reaction.
1-2-3-4-5-6.
When I entered that, an alarm started going off, which caused everyone to turn around. I desperately entered more numbers, until a door opened at the other end of the room and a large woman with a fluffy perm pushed me out of the way, unplugged the machine, and then plugged it in again.
“Never enter random numbers,” she scolded and disappeared back to where she’d come from.
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” I called after her. “I can’t read Russian!”
“Birthday,” another man in a black leather jacket, who had just entered the room to the accompaniment of the hysterical alarm, informed me. Trembling, I entered the six numbers in question and in response received a ticket on which it said “113.” A moment later it was magically my turn, even though there were at least fifteen Russians slurping coffee while they waited in the randomly placed plastic chairs all over the room.
Meanwhile, my sense of accomplishment was dampened by the man behind the window who exhibited zero interest in acknowledging the physical manifestation of number 113. Instead, he sat gesturing to a young man in a glossy mafia suit, whom I’d seen smoking out on the front walkway ten minutes earlier. The two were clearly disagreeing about something. Mafia Suit explained something at length, while my guy alternated between frenetically shaking his head and resting it in his hands.
I thought two things. The first was that Mafia Suit was basically crocodile food. My guy’s black hair came from a bottle and he was definitely from the Soviet era, while Mafia Suit looked like he was born in the nineties and probably didn’t even know there was a pit of crocodiles waiting under the floor. He was likely under the impression that the world he’d been born into was full of perestroika and possibility.
The second was that their disagreement might soon boil over onto me. Even though I didn’t want the visa—like, at all—I also knew that coming back empty-handed would instantly demote me to teaching preschool. Plus, I estimated the chances that I, too, was standing over a trapdoor to be well over 50 percent, so Mafia Suit and I would probably end up being crocodile food together.
Thus, I was ready with my biggest smile and my most positive vibrations when Mafia Suit stomped off in frustration and Hair Dye slowly turned toward number 113.
“Hi!” I hollered into the speaker in my most chipper voice, waving to the window. “Privyet!”
Hair Dye showed no sign of having seen or heard me, but used a weary hand motion to indicate that any paperwork should be placed in the metal compartment. I obediently inserted my passport, certificate of valid travel insurance, the invitation letter issued by Saint Petersburg State University, and my fully filled-out application form and barely managed to yank my fingers free before he pulled the compartment back to his side of the window with a sharp metallic bang.
I regretted not having followed my doctor’s admonitions to eat better: more meat, more vegetables, more of everything. It was probably my inadequate diet that was making me feel so light-headed and weird. Sometimes the dizziness followed me into my dreams.
“Five days,” I suddenly heard the speaker announce in a crackling bark.
It startled me.
“Excuse me?”
“The visa takes five days. One, two, three, four, five.”
“That won’t work. I’m leaving in five days. One, two, three—”
He cut me short with a shrug.
“But I read about something online called an expedited visa. That’s what I want.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is. It says so right here.”
I pulled out the printout I’d brought with me.
“See, right here? If I pay six hundred kroner, I can get it same day. It says so right here. This is from your Web page.”
With an irritated look, he held up his hand: five fingers.
“But the expedited visa—”
“Doesn’t exist!”
“I have money. See? Six hundred kroner in cash. Just like it says online.”
I held up my bills and smiled hopefully.
“You decide?”
“No. But online it—”
He slammed his fist down on his desk so hard that everything on it bounced into the air.
“MOSCOW decides! Not the Internet!”
“But—”
Clang!
The metal drawer popped out containing a receipt. Then Hair Dye moved his finger to a red button on the left side of his desk. He pushed it hard and I closed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the trapdoor to the crocodile pit to open. Instead, the man in the black leather jacket tapped on my shoulder and shook his head as if to say nothing could be done.
“You’re not in Norway now,” Leather Jacket said. “Now in Russia.”
“Right,” I said, proceeding slowly toward the exit, but Hair Dye stopped me, barking something in Russian while thumping one hand on his bulletproof glass and indicating with the other hand that I was an idiot.
“Take the receipt to the cashier,” Leather Jacket explained.
I peered around looking for anything that might resemble a cash register and eventually chose the window with the most Post-It notes on the glass, where the brusque lady handed me a new receipt.
“I don’t want a visa,” I said, waving the receipt. “Can I get my passport back instead?”
“But I don’t want to go to Russia! I’ve changed my mind.”
“Five days,” she repeated, shaking her head to indicate that I would indeed be going. “You go.”
A gesture that was repeated by the chair of the department when I told her about my problems.
“You can change your ticket. Take a later flight and go via Oslo. You’re going to Russia, and you’re going to set up a cooperation agreement. Simple as that.”
Even Bjørnar shook his head at me, but that was because he was laughing, in a way I hadn’t seen him laugh for a long time. It gave me hope. Maybe I should go to Russia, if for nothing else than at least getting some good stories out of it, stories that could save my marriage, even though I had plunged us into financial ruin.
“But I’m scared of ending up in one of those little cages they have in their courtrooms.”
“You’re scared of a lot of things,” he said. “If you go to Russia, you might actually get so scared that your fear flips and reverses direction.”
“You mean, like, it might ease up some?”
“Maybe.”
I lay in bed and mulled that over. The thought of going to Russia caused an iron fist to squeeze my heart like never before, and my scalp itched so much I was sure I must have lice. But at the same time Bjørnar had put an idea in my head. Maybe this was a good thing? Maybe I just needed to be more scared than I’d ever been before. Maybe that would help me develop some kind of superpower.
18
I tried my all-out best to avoid Frank, who I knew must be awfully disappointed about losing his chance to internationalize, but the day before I left he succeeded in tracking me down.
“You weaseled your way onto the committee,” he said resentfully.
“I didn’t weasel my way onto anything. I—”
“No one knows as much about bilateral cooperation as I do. No one!”
“That’s probably debatable, but the point is that I don’t even want to go. But I have to. In part because of this whole bad-cop strategy that—”
He interrupted me by holding one finger up right in front of my nose and glaring at me.
“You see this?”
“Yes.”
“Does it stink?”
“Not particularly.”
“That’s weird, because I think something smells fishy here, very fishy!”
I sighed.
“Look, I wish you could go in my place, but it’s not up to me. And if you’re going to blame anyone, you should be looking at Peter and Ingvill. They’re the ones who started this whole bad-cop strategy. You know that, right?”
“VERY FISHY,” Frank roared into my face, then spun around and marched down the hallway.
“So I’m going,” I told Bjørnar that same evening.
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
We stood there, surrounded by cardboard boxes.
Not that we ever talked about them. We’d stopped talking about anything that had to do with houses or our home life. Which is why neither of us mentioned that I would be coming back shortly before our move.
Even though we were nowhere near selling the current house.
Even though neither of us remembered why we’d even wanted to move or why we’d gone and bought that enormous old house that we’d only been inside once and could hardly remember in the first place.
Not to mention that lately I’d started realizing that most of the families in Astrid Lindgren’s books weren’t actually all that happy. I mean, come to think of it, you really only found those wonderful Christmases in the books set on Troublemaker Street and in Noisy Village. Other than that she mostly wrote about kids who were parentless. Or their mothers were working themselves to death and their fathers were alcoholics.
So I was a little puzzled about what I’d actually been thinking.
Meanwhile I was going to Russia.
“Bye,” I said, waiting for some kind of well wishes from Bjørnar or maybe something I could draw strength from.
“Bye,” he said.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked into a different darkness.
A Tehomic darkness I would descend down into and maybe learn how to manage. Deep, deep down.
But there was one bright spot. Since I’d changed my tickets so late, I also had to upgrade to first class. And first class meant one thing: champagne.
Not to celebrate, I told myself. But because I can. So chill out, Tehom!
I practiced my drink order several times to myself, but ended up hoodwinked by the man next to me.
“Coffee and a macaroon, thanks,” he said.
“Coffee and a macaroon, thanks,” I repeated.
A macaroon? I didn’t even like those. Not to mention that obviously an airplane macaroon wouldn’t even be a normal macaroon but something goopy and soggy, like congealed palm oil.
Still, things went really well for a while. The coffee was nice and hot. I had a book to read. There was no turbulence.
Then things started going downhill. First, it turned out to be the wrong book. A child is sent to loveless foster parents in Wales while his parents end up in a concentration camp? My tears were dripping into my coffee cup and all over the pages of the book, and I started to notice the trembling in my head again.
I inhaled quickly and realized the palm oil nugget had settled in my stomach like a lump. I had to get off this plane—now!
I looked at my watch, which showed that there were almost two hours left until we arrived in Saint Petersburg.
I tried to pull myself together, but my mind went blank.
What was happening to me?
I had always had these sorts of tendencies.
But I’d also always had some degree of control over them. When the anxiety was there, it was usually more like a hum, kind of like unliberated negative potential.
Not this time.
I wondered if maybe this was the turning point. People who are crazy haven’t always been crazy. They didn’t need to be institutionalized their whole lives. But eventually you snap.
And become psychotic.
I felt the iron fist tighten, and looked down at my thighs.
I couldn’t be on this plane anymore.
It was untenable.
What if I never got out?
This seat.
The curtains separating us from the common masses in economy class.
The little window.
The clouds outside.
The iron fist.
I considered looking for Peter and Ingvill. I hadn’t seen them, but knew they were aboard somewhere. I quickly pushed that thought aside. They would probably just make everything worse.
I looked over at the macaroon man next to me.
I gulped.
“Hi,” I said, trying to look friendly. “So, what brings you to Saint Petersburg? Business or pleasure?”
He looked up from his in-flight magazine in surprise.
“Business,” he replied tersely.
“Oh, I see,” I said, focusing everything I had on my next question. “Me, too. What do you do?”
He hesitated a little.
“I work for the Kongsberg Group.”
“Ohhh,” I said, trying to keep from screaming.
Did they keep straitjackets on planes? I had to avoid losing it. I tried to think of something I could ask Mr. Kongsberg about.
“How exciting,” I said enthusiastically. “Is that a big company?”
He looked taken aback.
“You haven’t heard of the Kongsberg Group?”
I shook my head.
“Oh. It’s one of the biggest companies in Norway. We have seventy-five hundred employees.”
“Wow, that’s a lot. What do you do for them?”
“I’m in charge of their weapons systems group.”
“I see,” I mumbled. “I see. Like for hunting and fishing?”
“Not exactly.”
“No?”
�
�No.”
“War?” I asked and laughed loudly.
“Defense systems.”
“Right, defense systems, of course.”
Now would be a really good time for me to wrap up this conversation, but the iron fist was still squeezing. And I felt like I was hyperventilating. If only I could faint.
“And what about in your spare time?”
“Uh, why are you so interested?”
“Oh, no reason. Long flight. Nice to chat. Get acquainted. With new people. It’s normal.”
“I’d prefer to read, if you don’t have any objections.”
“No! Being well read is the foundation of culture.”
I laughed again, way too loud, and on top of that gave him two thumbs-up, but Mr. Kongsberg didn’t see that, because he’d already turned back to his in-flight magazine. And so I, too, bent over my book, which was now just a smear of ink and wet splotches. I pushed the button as hard as I could to call the flight attendant. Multiple times.
“Could I please have some wine?”
“Of course,” she said. “What kind of wine would you like?”
“Red,” I said. “No, wait. White. No, wait. Red and white. And champagne.”
“We only have prosecco.”
“Prosecco is fine.”
Two minutes later she returned with the bottles, which I emptied in record time. In reverse order. And the last thought that crept into my mind before I fell asleep was that resolving a panic attack with alcohol definitely marked a new step toward the bottom.
19
It was clear the woman in the passport-control booth wasn’t particularly eager to let me into the country, and I wondered if that was because I seemed drunk or because I didn’t seem drunk enough. Still, my visa obviously checked out, so she didn’t really have any grounds to deny me entry. All I could hope now was that the return trip would go just as smoothly.
I shared that thought with Peter and Ingvill when I met them at the baggage claim carousel.
“What do you mean?” Ingvill asked.
Peter scoffed.
“I’d just like to see them try! I’m a British citizen. Still, I get your point, Ingrid. The whole system is reactionary after all.”
The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) Page 10