by Val M Karren
“That’s him! Exactly!” I confirmed. “And when he had some drink in him, you couldn't get him to stop talking. So anyhow, on our last day in Moscow before everybody flew home, of course, we always ended with the tour of the Kremlin cathedrals. Well, Rocky wasn’t going to miss this! He was in Russia and he was going to see the Kremlin, hurt knee or not! Only, the night before we had also had an older fellow in the group who thought he had had a heart attack after dinner. His wife was all worked up about it, but there was no way in hell that he was going to miss the Kremlin tour. He said to me, ‘we’ve finally beat those damn Rooskies and I want them to see my face in the Kremlin.’ Something very belligerent like that. It was so personal to him. Anyhow, I was assigned to this fellow with the heart attack. We couldn’t persuade him to rest that day so I was assigned to be his shadow for the day in case something happened. I wrote all the emergency numbers up my left arm of the US Embassy, the American and British medical clinics, etcetera.” I pulled up my shirt sleeve and motioned like I was writing over my veins showing through my white underarm. “So, we’re on Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin, just in front of the huge cannon and stack of cannon balls and everybody is getting a lecture from the official tour guide about the height of the towers, the golden copulas and the boring stuff that they all memorize in English. So, the tour guide invites us all to go into the cathedral now and I can’t see anything in the shadows on the ground after staring at those white cathedral walls and the shining domes in the sunshine. I don’t know where my charge has wandered off to and I panic a bit. Just then I heard somebody behind me give a yelp of pain and maybe stumble? So, I turn around but my eyes couldn’t see anything yet. So, it takes me a second just standing there looking dumb while Rocky is falling over.” I turned to the others at the table and asked “Do you all remember his wife Alice? Skinny, frail woman? Well, there she was trying to hold up this huge man and looks like he is about to crush her as he is falling.”
“How horrible!” gasped Yulia.
The others were just laughing.
“So, as soon as I could see again I jumped under his arm and sent Alice off to find some help from, well, you all,” motioning to my colleagues around the table, “who disappeared so quickly, but maybe also some other men to help me keep Rocky from falling over and hurting himself more. Well, Alice didn’t come back. So, there is me and Rocky in the middle of cathedral square hugging while he is moaning and asking for help so sit down; says his other leg is just about to give out. Remember, very big fellow, early sixties. Not in very good shape to be hopscotching around Cathedral Square on one leg.”
“Did he actually break his leg then?" Olga asked.
“No, he later had x-rays taken at the hospital. It wasn’t broken. It was just his weight, the sprain, walking on cobblestone probably, but anyway he thought he had really damaged his leg and was in lots of pain!” I clarified.
“So, Rocky needs to sit down before he falls over and hits his head. So, were standing not far from the Kremlin Palace and there were two soldiers, two guards standing in front of the ceremonial entrance. It’s all for show of course. So, I whistled to them and asked them to come help. They hesitated and wouldn’t come. So, I whistled at them again and then yelled at them for help. POMOGIY, POMOGIY !! So, they came running with their rifles on their shoulders. I told them that Rocky’s knee was broken and we needed to call an ambulance. So, the soldiers each got under one of Rocky’s arms and they just stood there. He was too big and heavy to carry. It was a great sight and I wish I had a picture of it, but I didn’t think of it at the time. It was like a proud father with his Russian boys in honor guard uniforms,” I was laughing as I recalled the details.
“You have to be making this up!” Yulia couldn’t believe the story.
“Every word is true. Every word is true!” Nikolai confirmed the story. Yulia was flabbergasted and laughed in disbelief.
“But wait, it gets better! So, I ask the guards where I could find a telephone. Remember that we couldn’t take our walkie-talkie radios into the Kremlin? We had to leave them on the coach so there was no way I could call our coach driver to meet us at the gates or something, and I needed to call an ambulance. So, one of the guards pointed out that the security office was just around a corner and there I could speak to the chief of Kremlin security. Instead of asking one of the soldiers to do it, I take off like lightning. The office was behind these tall wooden doors and I pull it open and find a startled guard sitting behind a metal detector, ‘I need your chair, it’s an emergency!’ I commanded and walked right through the metal detector, grabbed his metal folding chair and ran out the door and the metal detector, of course, is going off, alarm bells ringing because of the metal chair and all. Poor guy didn’t even know what hit him,” I was on a roll.
“This can’t be real, in the Kremlin? And nobody is trying to stop you?” Yulia had her hand to her forehead, “Why do they even have guards there?"
“I know what you mean. When I look back on this I just think, I hope that their nuclear codes aren’t stored in that place. It’s so easy to manipulate the guards. I can’t imagine they get many urgencies like this one. Everybody must be so well behaved that they don’t expect this type of thing. So, Rocky is now sitting on a flimsy metal chair, but he is so big that he has to straddle the chair, you know, like on a horse and he has his walking stick on one side to lean on while his injured leg has to be held straight. It looked so uncomfortable! So, I still needed to call an ambulance and so I run back to the security office. The guard this time was on the telephone in his office. I walked straight through the metal detector again, alarms go off again, and tell this fellow directly that I need to use the telephone to call an ambulance. He puts the handset down and steps back. I’m rolling up my left sleeve to read all the emergency numbers I wrote there that morning. I must have looked like some junkie rolling up his sleeve to find a vein.” I was flicking my lower arm to accentuate the drugs allusion. Olga was laughing quite heavily at this.
“So, I called the American and the British medical clinics but because it was Sunday only the Brits would accept the patient, but he had to pay two hundred dollars cash on arrival. If we could be there before four o’clock they would treat him. Great! So, I run out the door again back to Rocky and tell him the details. So, what do you think happened? He got angry! He starts yelling about being blackmailed and exploited and completely refused to cooperate. He said even if he had the cash, which he didn’t because it was all in travelers' checks, he wouldn’t pay such scandalous ransoms!” I was hollering to imitate Rocky’s anger.
Yulia gasped and asked, “Where were the palace guards at this point?”
“They were standing there with Rocky smoking, just like on the boat, and he was just chatting the boys up. One of them, I guess, could speak a few words of English and Rocky was smoking with them telling them stories!” I couldn't help but get animated for the dramatic effect.
“No way! This is getting absurd” Yulia was beyond laughter and was waiting to hear how this ended.
“So, I said to Rocky, ‘Rocky, you will not like the alternative. Soviet hospitals are where people go to die, not get better!’”
Both Olga and Nikolai started clapping their hands in amusement and Olga inquired, “And where did a young American boy learn that idiom about Soviet hospitals? It’s so true!”.
“I’ve been around the Soyuz,” so as to say, I had traveled the Soviet Union, was my reply to Olga, and I continued with the story. “Rocky’s reply was ‘Damn the consequences, take me to a hospital of the people!’ Somehow, he thought he had become one of the proletariat after eight days on the Volga. He must have drunk the river water. So off I go again to the security office. As I pulled open the big wooden doors I see a different fellow standing there this time in a full dress uniform, shiny boots, hat, ribbons. Must have been a war hero,” I speculated.
“Peter, no! Don’t tell me you did the same thing to this officer!” Yulia was truly scared fo
r me now, a full year later.
“I simply said there was an emergency and I needed to use the telephone again. I was very polite, but he said very firmly to me, ’Nyet! That phone is for Kremlin security matters only!’ Did I tell you all that it was a red telephone? Does that make you all just a bit more uneasy?” I asked poking the bear.
Nikolai was shaking his head in disbelief at my brazen reveling in what could have been a very unfortunate situation for an American in the Kremlin.
I continued. “So, I get up in this guy’s face and say, ‘I understand that this the office of the Chief of Kremlin security. I demand to speak to him, RIGHT NOW!’ and he replied just as heated back to me ‘I AM the chief of Kremlin security, and I said NO!’ At that point, I did realize that maybe I had gone a bit too far and I got this horrible feeling in my chest and belly and my legs went a bit numb, and thought for a second that I might wet my pants if he made a move toward me. He looked very angry.”
“So how did you get Rocky off of Cathedral Square?” Yulia thought the story was over.
“Oh, the ambulance came right into the Kremlin!” Olga confirmed again.
“But how?" Yulia pleaded.
“Well, I guess I don’t really know why I did it but I didn’t back down. I just started yelling at him louder and louder about how heavy and big Rocky was and that moving him without an ambulance would be dangerous for his leg. The Chief of Security just told me I was out of luck and that no ambulance would be allowed into the Kremlin compound for security reasons. It was not permitted. No way! So, now I’m really worked up and I tell the Chief to follow me outside by using my finger, like this.” And I motioned with my index finger to show the group how condescending such a movement could look to an authority figure.
“Horrible!” huffed Yulia. “In Russia that is almost a vulgar gesture!”
“I know, I know! I’ve learned since not to use it. I guess I hadn’t been around too much, eh, Olga? I still have some things to learn,” I confessed.
“Didn’t he arrest you?” Yulia was hoping I had been thoroughly punished for insubordination.
“I can imagine he wanted to, but he followed me outside and was yelling something at me but I think the adrenaline in my blood was too much to understand him at this point. So, we rounded the corner that opened up onto Cathedral Square and I just stopped and pointed to Rocky so the Chief could take in the size of the man. Even from that distance, it was clear to see how large this man was. Now, by this time, you all—” and I motioned around the table again to my colleagues, “—had come out of the cathedrals and had gathered around Rocky on this little chair and there was a lot of flurry. The guards were still mixed with the group taking pictures at attention with their rifles and just having a grand old time with the tourists. Remember that these guards had bayonets and everything on their rifles and one of the soldiers was pointing his rifle right at somebody’s camera for a great souvenir photo, I just hope the guns weren’t loaded!” I said feigning caution.
“Crazy, crazy, crazy! Was everybody out of their minds?" Yulia was speechless.
“So, I was standing with the Chief of Kremlin security just taking in the three-ring circus happening in the middle of Cathedral Square. I just kept pointing with an outstretched arm while I looked at him. His eyes were getting larger and larger and his face redder and redder, he was gritting his teeth and seething with anger! Then I said to him, right or not I said it. ‘You see how large he is? He is a Russian bear! You can move him yourself, but I am going to go call an ambulance!’ and I started back toward the security office and the telephone. And what happened? He turned on his shiny boots and caught up to me and says ‘…and I will authorize it.’ So, he called for the ambulance in the end and we shook hands and I returned to the group on the Square to wait for a city ambulance.”
“Incredible! Why aren't you in jail?” Olga questioned.”If I had done something like that being Russian, they would have put me in Lyubyanka and then off to Siberia with me! You just can’t do that inside the Kremlin! To get our tour guide license we had a whole security training course and were told that there were strict consequences for stepping out of line while leading a tour.”
“And they let me back into the country too!” I said holding out my arms like a circus performer who just finished a death defying stunt with a hungry tiger, with a toothy grin on my face.
“Bozhe moy! (My God!)” Olga muttered. “You are crazy!”
“After all that though, Rocky realized he had made a mistake when we got to the hospital there in central Moscow, and he didn’t talk back to me again and just listened to me like a lap dog.” I was winding down the story, “It was also my first time in a Russian hospital and it was traumatic for both him and his wife and for me. What I remember most was seeing an old man on a gurney, you know a roller table. He must have been hit by a car, or fallen down a long staircase. His face was battered and he was bleeding from his head. His leg was turned in a very unnatural position, his ankle was turned in the opposite direction of his leg etcetera…”
Yuila gasped and cringed and Irina, who had taken in the whole story at the Kremlin with an entertained smile of amusement also looked a bit saddened to hear of this.
“…and everybody was ignoring the man!” I still felt traumatized by the sight, “All he wanted was a pillow for his head and he kept muttering it to everybody who passed him in the hallway. So, I finally got him one without asking. When we were done with Rocky’s X-rays and all the old man was gone. I figured out later that they had given him morphine and were just waiting for him to die. He was so badly injured and so old that I am pretty sure they just gave up on him, triage had given up hope and they took Rocky first, but they had left him there in the hallway with no dignity, no care, no comfort. It was a very traumatic experience. I was completely wasted when we finally got back to the ship at the River Station that evening.”
“How did you get Rocky back to the boat?” Irina asked me in English.
“We paid the ambulance driver twenty dollars to take the three of us,” I stated without irony.
“Unbelievable what people will do for a few dollars these days. Using a city ambulance to make some extra money.” Irina turned her head and made a quick, mock spitting action with her pursed lips; a gesture of disgust.
Matvei chimed in to tell his own adventure from last summer “Do you remember, Peter, when we lost that one lady with the funny eye and the funny hair when we were at the Sparrow Hills with the group? One minute she was there and the next she was gone. I remember you handing me dollar bills between the seats for the taxi driver as we went from place to place looking for her. Do you remember that eventually we found her at McDonald’s on Pushkin Square?’
“Yes, I remember that. Very scary moment!” I replied.
“How did she get from the Sparrow Hills to Pushkin Square?” Olga asked unaware of this event.
“On the Metro,” Matvei grinned. “Somebody helped her take the Metro and dropped her off at McDonald’s on Pushkin Square because she thought the group would be going to McDonald’s that afternoon. Problem was, it was the other McDonald’s we visited on Tverskaya street, not Pushkin Square. But we found her and brought her back to the boat before dinner.”
“She was so shaken up that she didn’t want to leave the boat again. She said that some hooligans tried to mug her at Sparrow Hills and she ran away and then couldn’t find her way back. Somebody helped her buy a metro ticket and delivered her to ‘the other American embassy’,” was my addition to the story.
Everybody laughed at the thought of the US Embassy as being a McDonald’s. Nikolai toasted the irony with another hundred grams of Vodka. I raised my shot of Pepsi and downed it one gulp with him.
“Do you remember that foolish woman who threw her open suitcase at the customs officer at Sheremetyevo airport during their departure inspection? Olga put her hand over her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. “It took me ninety minutes to get her out of custody and o
nto her airplane! You Americans just don’t understand that in Russia, you are nobody special and you just can’t do this to officers and soldiers! Who is going to tell them that this year?”
“And the guy who kept his passport in his sock!? I kept finding it on the upper deck of the ship and gave it back to him three or four times!” Matvei added as he joined in our chorus of disbelief.
It was so good to be among old friends. It felt like we had been members of an elite espionage squad getting back together to remember good old times and drink our troubles away. We had worked through so many crises together the last summer that we trusted each other with life and limb, literally. I felt sad that I wouldn’t be working with them again and wished I could drop my studies and work and sail the river with them one more time. What a wonderful summer that had been! So much experience. So much learned.
As the afternoon came to a chilly close, as it was still only mid-April, Yulia and I gathered up our things and headed for the gang plank. Irina had invited us again to join a cruise during the summer holidays. We could earn our room and board by translating and telling great stories to the new batch of tourists about to arrive from the USA. We were very enthusiastic about the invitation and agreed to come on board in mid-July when the boat would be docked at Nizhniy’s River Station overnight for a crew rotation. It was a great thought to have that opportunity waiting after school was out for the summer. We waved goodbye and the ladies gave each other kisses and Yuila and I headed down the gang plank to terra firma, turned again into the setting sun and waved again to our friends, then scurried up the embankment stairs to the street and the bus stop. It had been a wonderful sunny afternoon aboard the Zhukov
16. Misha
I had received instructions from Del to phone Mikhail, or Misha, as his friends and comrades called him, to set up a work schedule with the young project manager for Del’s business activities in Nizhniy Novgorod. Was this a private enterprise on the side that Del was putting together, or was it integral to the success of the hotel project? I wasn’t quite sure of either answer, nor was I completely sure of the questions. I was hoping a meeting with Misha would help to clear up some of the questions. I had resolved to phone him on Saturday morning but found all the public telephones to be out of service at the metro station so I waited until later in the afternoon in hopes of finding them operational again. They were.