My wish was finished.
After another forty minutes or so, we pulled into a driveway that led up to a large two-story dark wood house that wasn’t quite a mansion but was definitely elegant. As we parked out front, a couple in their late forties or early fifties stepped through the front door. They smiled and waved enthusiastically when they saw me, and I waved back.
After a quick exchange of warm hellos outside in the cold, Evgeny and his wife, Natalia, ushered me into their living room. Evgeny motioned toward a comfy-looking brown leather recliner, and I sat down as he stoked the fire. Natalia had disappeared into the kitchen, but she returned a moment later with a large silver tray loaded with a teapot, cups, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a cookie plate. “Warm yourself,” Natalia said, pouring me a cup of tea. I thanked her and added some sugar, also taking a small sampling from the cookie plate after she motioned toward it.
Natalia asked me about my life back home—my family and how we spent our time together, what I was currently studying, my favorite sports. Those initial questions were predictable, but soon she went deeper, asking what stimulated my mind and how I thought intellectual curiosity might be sustained throughout a lifetime. The two of them listened carefully to my answers, inquiring with more depth when I answered vaguely, which confirmed the feeling I had that their interest was completely genuine. When I’d turn a question to them, they’d respond openly, without any guardedness, in a way that made our hours-long relationship seem like it went back years.
We spoke about personal things, like the meaning of friendship and the definition of love, and international things, like borders and conflict. Evgeny asked me about my wish. When I finished talking about it, he said, “Your wish, Jeff—it really is a convergence between these two things, the personal and the international.”
“It’s heartwarming,” Natalia said.
Evgeny nodded. “Not only heartwarming. Not just optimistic. But necessary—absolutely necessary—more than you might know.”
I felt pride in that moment, like I’d passed some kind of barrier that I wasn’t sure I’d ever cross. It made me think of Richard Wright and the quote I’d memorized a few years before, about the “thirst of the human spirit to conquer and transcend the implacable limitations of human life,” from Black Boy. I shared it with Evgeny and Natalia, and it led to a long moment of quiet contemplation.
Our conversation moved to the candlelit dinner table, where we enjoyed a meaty soup with pickled cucumbers, followed by beef stroganoff, which was completely different from the microwaveable version I had back home, and a honey cake dessert. We finished in the living room, where it had all begun, with another round of tea. Close to midnight, Evgeny showed me to my bedroom, and Natalia, like a doting mother, tucked me in.
“You know something, Jeff,” Natalia said, sitting next to me on the bed. “The thirst that Mr. Wright wrote about, of the human spirit to conquer life’s limitations—it strikes me that this is your thirst.” Evgeny, standing in the doorframe, slowly nodded.
Natalia continued. “I’ve reached a conclusion. Would you like to hear it?”
I smiled softly. “I would.”
“In this conquering of life’s limitations, something we all want for ourselves, I honestly believe you have achieved this.”
My eyes flooded with tears. I didn’t try to hide them. Natalia patted my head, then leaned down and kissed both of my cheeks. A moment later, Evgeny did the same.
* * *
•
The following day, I made it back to the hotel in time for lunch. A bunch of people ran over to say hello. Kim and Heather apologized for the other night, and I told them not to worry. Mike asked what the countryside was like, and I said it was absolutely beautiful. Karen gave me a hug. “I missed you, Jeff,” she said. “Honestly, I think everyone missed you.”
During a break in our afternoon prep session, the last one before the summit the next day, one of the coordinators, Billie, asked me what it was like to visit a major political player. “I didn’t meet Mr. Gorbachev. I met with a scientist and his wife.”
“I know whom you met with,” Billie said. “Evgeny Velikhov is Mikhail Gorbachev’s right-hand man on nuclear issues. He’s the guy who led the massive cleanup after the Chernobyl disaster. I’m pretty sure he was advising Mr. Gorbachev during the nuclear summit with President Reagan at Reykjavík. The guy is huge.”
At first I was stunned, but then I recalled zipping through traffic in a government limo and it made sense. “I had no idea. But I guess that doesn’t surprise me, because we had maybe the best conversation I’ve had in my whole life.”
“That’s fantastic,” Billie said. It truly was.
We went into the summit with enormous amounts of energy. It was massive. There were five hundred participants on the Soviet side, compared to just fifty of us, so at first we felt a little intimidated. The task they handed us seemed equally large: to draft a joint document on key global issues that would be delivered to President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev—and sent to other leaders around the world. We agreed to divide up and discuss six topics: homelessness, education, health, the environment, development, and world peace. I was assigned to the last group, because it would focus in part on bringing an end to nuclear weapons. But before we broke up into groups and started on our topics, all the kids—both the Soviets and the Americans—had to listen to hours of unimaginably boring speeches by one Soviet official after another. When our groups finally convened, a Soviet kid assigned to ours said, “Now that is finally finished, I imagine we share common feeling, which is…what a relief!” All of us burst out laughing.
Despite that humorous opening, our World Peace group didn’t get off to a peaceful start. After introductions, a guy from the Soviet side said, “Shall we begin with discussion of how your Mr. Reagan brought end to Reykjavík peace talks?” That wasn’t received very well by our team.
One of our guys, John, quickly interjected.
“I think a better start would be discussing how you Soviets seem to enjoy invading other countries, like Afghanistan.”
It felt like the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees, our own cold war.
None of the adult coordinators—Bruce on our side and two Russians, Alexy and Yanna, on theirs—stepped in. It was a girl on the Soviet side who managed to calm things down. “We are young people, yes?” she said, her eyes connecting with each person in our group. People nodded. “No one in this circle decided to invade Afghanistan. No one here ended Reykjavík talks. We can spend time, how do you say, pointing fingers?” There were more nods, and the girl continued. “Or we can talk about how we, our countries’ young people, can make our leaders to support peace.”
We all looked at one another. Heads starting bobbing up and down, and grins broke out. The girl, Svetlana, had instantly reset the temperature, and a constructive conversation began.
By the end of the second day, we were in full collaboration, putting together the action plan for the World Peace group. Our plan and the ones from the other groups would be compiled into The Soviet-American Youth Summit Declaration for the Future. I was stubbornly focused on nuclear weapons, because of the threat they posed to all of humanity, and I pressed hard not only for the inclusion of a declaration calling for their end, but for deliberate, measurable, responsible steps by our leaders to move toward that goal.
At the end of the summit, each group was asked to elect a representative to present its action plan. We chose Svetlana, the seventeen-year-old from Siberia who had put us on the right path. She ended up going last, after the five other groups, and the response to her very emotional reading was massive applause. The summit was officially pronounced closed, and there were cheers, hugs, and tears.
As I was saying goodbye to some of our Soviet counterparts, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Sasha, a funny kid I really liked who’d been in the environ
ment group. He was holding two cups of Russian soda, and he handed me one. “Pretend this is vodka,” he said, which made me laugh. He raised his cup. I followed and we clinked them together. “Lyudy vezdyye adinakovyye,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Sasha, but my Russian is pathetic.”
“Of course it is. You are American,” he said, smiling. “What I tell you is ‘People everywhere are the same.’ ”
“I agree, Sasha.” I honestly did. I’d come to the Soviet Union convinced they were completely different from us, a perspective almost all of us shared, and we were going home with a strong sense of brotherhood. I really wanted Sasha to come visit. “Do me a favor and get your ass to America, okay?”
“I understand you say come to America. But what means ‘get your ass’?”
If it was hard saying goodbye to the Soviets, it was gut-wrenching to do it with my fellow Youth Ambassadors. In just under twenty-four hours we’d depart for Helsinki, and it killed me to think that once there, we’d part ways with the East Coast group, which included Mike and Karen. I wondered if I’d fly home feeling lonely.
I asked Karen if we could meet up after dinner, and she said yes. When we did, I told her to close her eyes and hold out her hands. In one, I placed a card. In the other, I put a small wooden box. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Which one first?” she asked.
“As you wish,” I answered.
Karen opened the card. It was about the beauty of friendship, and how grateful I was to have met her. She moved on to the box and slowly opened it, pulling out two silver rings I bought for her when we were walking around the city. “Friendship rings,” I said. “I’m not personally into jewelry, so you get to wear both.”
She smiled and put them on. “They’re beautiful, Jeff.”
We talked for a bit longer, but this time I was the one who looked at my watch. Curfew was ten minutes away. I lifted my wrist and she nodded. Then she snatched me up in a hug. “Sleep tight.”
* * *
•
On our first leg of the flight home, while Mike, sitting next to me, was taking a nap, I decided to sum up the trip in my diary. I couldn’t find it in my backpack. I knew I’d packed it—that morning I’d written in it, itemizing all my spending, since Dad would definitely want to know exactly how I’d gone through the wad of cash Mom had given me—but it wasn’t there. I was on search number three when Karen tapped me on the shoulder. “Looking for this?” she asked, holding a purple notebook. She had a devilish smile on her face.
“How’d you swing that?”
“You went to the bathroom. Mike helped. I didn’t read anything, I promise. But there’s something in there for you.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“You’re…well, you know what you are. Anyway, I’m exhausted, so I’m gonna try to copy Mike.”
As she walked back to her seat, I shook the notebook, expecting something to fall out. I flipped through the pages, looking for a card. Nothing. I began a careful search. After getting to the end of all my chicken-scratch entries, I found this, in Karen’s beautiful cursive.
Jeff,
I doubt I could ever express to you how deeply running my feelings for you are in my heart. We have so much in common—our love for Mother Earth, our desire to help bring peace to this disturbed world, our love for our friends.
You have made me feel so special. Thank you once again for the rings. They’ll always remind me of our friendship.
I hope you can find your niche in this life. Be who you are. Do what you want to do. Keep your dream alive. You have touched the lives of millions by coming on this trip. You are loved by all.
I’m not going to say goodbye. I will see you later. You have profoundly touched my soul.
With love from your partner in peace,
Karen
I read her letter slowly, returning to the beginning when I finished it, doing that over and over again. I knew what was ahead for me: a battle in my mind and in my heart over whether, in this journey, I’d succeeded or failed. Karen, in addition to sharing her appreciation of our friendship, was laying down the argument for success.
So, so much, I wanted to believe her.
The moment I stepped through the doors from customs along with our local coordinator and some other kids from the L.A. area, Mom hollered my name. She was at the other end of a long hallway, pressed up against the barrier, wearing her favorite black cashmere sweater over muted red pants, with people packed in on either side of her. How she could pick me out of a distant crowd so easily, I’ll never know, but that lady has eyes like an eagle’s. I could make out the smile on her face, it was so wide, along with her frantic waving, but not much else. I turned to our local coordinator and pointed at my mom, and he gave me a thumbs-up. I waved at the other kids and started to run.
I was exhausted, having flown (or waited for a flight) for most of a day. I was also pretty bummed to have had to say goodbye. I was all teary-eyed in the airport in Helsinki when I had to say goodbye to Karen and Mike, my closest, dearest friends on the trip, but it was probably better to get that over with abroad and have time to reflect on the way home. The Velikhovs were also on my mind; they’d told me the morning I left their dacha that I would always be welcome in their home. And then there were the Russian kids we’d worked with throughout the summit. We definitely didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but we shared a vision for a better world, and we realized how important it was for our countries to cooperate if we were ever going to achieve it.
As I approached Mom, she pressed her hand to her mouth and inhaled. There were tears in her eyes. I felt her love, and it warmed me.
Just then, I saw the forehead of a man standing behind her. The deep grooves across it were familiar. So was the thin brown hair. As Mom extended her arms toward me, she shifted her weight, and that was when I saw my father.
“Oh, honey!” Mom said when I reached her, grabbing me in a long, tight hug. She released me, but didn’t completely let go. Her hands locked onto my shoulders and she gave me a quick shake. “Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes examining mine. I was looking past her, at Dad.
I was nervous. I wondered what Dad was going to say. But Mom needed to be reassured, so I smiled at her and told her I was fine.
“I’m just happy you’re home,” she said, hugging me again.
Dad extended his hand and I shook it. “Welcome home, son,” he said. “How was your flight?”
“Exhausting. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the trip.”
I felt like I needed to share my story right then, how Leningrad was just like Paris, the interview with Nikolai Sivach, my visit to the Velikhovs in the Russian countryside, the summit in Moscow, my new friends. Maybe I wouldn’t go into all the details then, but I wanted to start the story.
“Are you hungry, Jeff?” Mom asked. “We could stop for something.”
“No thanks. I ate on the plane.”
“If I were a good mother, I would have brought you something,” she said, shaking her head.
I was waiting for a question about the trip. I looked at Dad, but he turned to Mom. “Shall I get the car and pick the two of you up here?”
I interjected. “No, let’s walk together. We’ve got lots to talk about.”
We left the terminal. Dad offered to help me carry my bags, so I handed him my suitcase. “By the way, Bob,” Mom said. “Remember the accident? We might want to take the freeway.”
Dad slowly thought it over. My shoulders tightened. I wondered when we were going to talk about the trip. “They’ve most likely cleared it by now,” he said. He looked at his watch. “The freeway will certainly be congested at this time of day.”
Mom frowned. “I’m not so sure, Bob.”
We’d entered a massive parking garage. I saw the big red sedan with its custom pl
ate, BOPH, for Bob and Phyllis. I couldn’t believe my parents weren’t asking any questions or showing any curiosity. I looked at Mom with my eyebrows raised, but she just smiled, looking perfectly content.
I exhaled sharply. “Don’t you guys want to know anything about my trip?” I asked, frowning.
“I’m just so happy you’re home, honey,” Mom said.
Dad popped the trunk, lifting my suitcase into it. He turned to me. “I have a question,” he said. I stiffened then, from my feet to the crown of my head, clenching my fists. I knew what he was going to ask.
“Did you meet with Mr. Gorbachev?”
I swallowed. Dad’s eyes were fixed on mine. Mom zeroed in as well. I popped open my hands, lifting one to rub my head. “No,” I finally said. “I didn’t meet with him, okay? Something came up.”
“I see,” Dad said. He motioned toward my backpack. I shook my head. He closed the trunk, walked around to the driver’s-side door, and unlocked it.
My lips were pressed together. I dropped my head and closed my eyes. I’m sure Dad didn’t notice. “What’s wrong, Jeff?” Mom asked.
I looked at her. “What I did over there—it doesn’t matter to you, does it? It doesn’t matter to either of you. Just because I didn’t meet Premier Gorbachev, you think it was a failure.”
“I didn’t say that,” Mom said. “Your father didn’t say that.”
“You haven’t asked me a single question, Mom. And Dad obviously only cared about that one thing—look how he just walked away.” I shifted toward him. “Is that it, Dad? You see my trip as one big failure?” The thought swirled around in my brain before the truth of it hit me hard. I raised my voice. “It’s more than the trip, isn’t it, Dad? You’ve reached the conclusion that your son is a total failure.”
He spun around then, his jaw tight. “I said no such thing.”
I looked him straight in the eyes. “Maybe not, Dad. But you believe it, don’t you? You definitely thought my trip was one big distraction in the first place. Now it’s even worse. You see me as a loser.” I waited for him to defend himself, to tell me I’d gotten it wrong. Honestly, I wanted him to. But he was silent.
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