Part One – Here
(Western Hemisphere)
PROLOGUE – COUPLE OF WORDS TO A READER
For some reason it’s not easy to start writing “Flashes” Part Two.
Perhaps not enough time has passed to digest the important events of life, or, on the contrary, too little time has yet been spent for my memory to give all the little things of the past an “important” meaning, worthy of artistic description.
Or maybe the mosaic of events has taken on such a character that the sadness of the outcome slows down the process of describing them? I don’t know yet. But I often remember Joseph Heller’s novel “Something Happened”. For those who haven’t read it, I recommend it. I see many similarities in the author’s and my thoughts and perceptions of the world…
Nevertheless, from the first part of “Flashes” I remember that seemingly forever forgotten events and emotions come to mind when you think about them intensely. I hope the same will happen with the second part.
CHAPTER ONE – HERE WE’RE IN NEW YORK! FIRST MEETINGS AND IMPRESSIONS
1
The flight to America did not make an impression on me. It’s not that I somehow didn’t like it. On the contrary, it was the best quality flight of my life THERE, both in terms of the service and care of the crew, and in the general joyful mood. Fortunately, we avoided long-lasting emigration through Vienna, Rome, lines for admission to the USA, poverty, forced speculation and all sorts of other unpleasant feelings that my acquaintances-emigres later shared with me.
As if by magic, we flew “from point A to point B,” where our little family was greeted by a small crowd of relatives and friends. We did not soon leave the customs and passport control department, where Ana was found with an item illegal for import into the United States – a half-eaten banana, which was confiscated and incarcerated into a trash container.
I remember that dad was worried, fussing, running around to find out why everything was taking so long, but everything was as usual at the time of arrival. In addition to my dad, my Aunt Leah and her family met us; also my friend Sasha specially came from the West Coast for to meet his brother the day before and to meet us – today.
We rode in several cars to my dad’s house – to a one bedroom apartment, where the table was already set for the festive party.
Rima, excited to meet me for the first time after many years, was pleasantly surprised by my gallant behavior instead of imaginary hostility.
Sasha said: “Sorry, I don’t have the strength to climb the Twins Towers for the second time, tomorrow. Yesterday I already climbed there with my brother. You’ll have this pleasure more than once leaving in New York. Better go to the restaurant. Tomorrow I invite all my friends and former coworkers to a decent place in the town where I worked at IBM and where I bought my first house.”
I didn’t know yet then that the desire to have your own home is called here an “American Dream”. For now, I was happy with any tolerable housing. Well, we’ll discuss this topic later.
All the emigrant guests sincerely wished us success in our new life and, most importantly, employment. They already knew that this is the key for success.
Having finished the meeting, we fell asleep. Ana – on the folding bed, and we, as usual, on the sofa-bed – wide and comfortable, just like in Moscow.
2
And the next day we had our first lunch at our first American restaurant. How many more of them still will be there! We were surprised by the serving style – first the salad in a bowl, which was already on each guest’s plate, then the main course – meat or fish – depending on your choice, and finally, tea and coffee with pumpkin pie. Then it seemed to us that this food was not enough, but it turned out to be quite nourishing and tasty. And now I wonder how we could eat so much at our Georgian “Lucullus feasts”.
Here we met with old physicist friends: Grisha, with whom we were catching crayfish on Lake Bazaleti, and Oleg. Both families had already successfully settled down, worked and enjoyed their new life. In addition, there were many of Sasha’s coworkers – former mathematicians from the USSR and American mathematicians – members of the community, who were accepting Soviet emigrants. What can I say: the horizon looked clear…
3
The house where my dad lived belonged to a group of six buildings that formed a green courtyard where adults walked their dogs and children played their childhood games. But since Ana hadn’t made any friends yet and stayed at home, and we didn’t have a dog, we decided to walk to the nearest ready-to-wear store, Macy’s. This was our first independent hike in America.
It was… beautiful inside. At that time, nothing like this existed in Moscow. Some successful fashion designers created their works of art, and the shelves and hangers and even then, not all of them in department stores were filled with “junk”.
Here there were huge amount of products, which obviously created a similar problem – how to find something that suits your taste.
When we were looking at a woman’s pantsuit on a mannequin at Macy’s, a saleswoman approached us and asked,
“How can I help you?” We smiled and shook our heads, saying nothing was needed and continued our conversation, not paying attention to her presence. Lilya pointed to the suit and said, “Excellently tailored” (“Has tailored” in Russian sounds “Sshit”) I couldn’t help but agree: “Fact!” (“Indeed”).
The saleswoman’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God,” she said and spread her arms. Only later did it dawn on us that we, decent-looking man and woman, were swearing dirty, using the most popular words in America, “shit” and “fuck.”
4
After checking out the surrounding shops and making sure they had everything we needed for modern life, we decided to take our first trip on the metro. Here it was called the subway or underground; it was simple in design and… dirty. In places at the ends of the platform there smelled of decaying urea. However, I note that more than thirty years later it became much worse… the smell spread to any random place including train cars. There were bright lights, the benches were colorful, and the walls of the cars, in addition to advertising, were decorated with aphorisms of various poets (on the initiative of Joseph Brodsky), smoothing out the gloomy atmosphere of the subway.
Dad and Rima were very worried about how we would go to Brooklyn, being completely unaware of the complex layout of the local subway. But we didn’t even understand what the problem was after getting to know the Moscow and Leningrad metro. And indeed, huge diagrams of lines and stations hung everywhere, and the turnstiles were the same. In a word, we fearlessly drove into Brooklyn, unknown to us. We drove for a long time, an hour and a half; the main problem was not to miss a transfer or exit.
But we got there without any incident. And we were going to visit Maya’s classmate, to whom his mom sent luggage using my ticket, since he was an “illegal immigrant.” It was he who found out from Sasha what to study in order to achieve high positions in programming. As you remember from the first part, Sasha really liked his approach, which bore the harvest, but more on that later.
In the meantime, the four of us had a home-style dinner and went to the entrance to see the “local sights.” They turned out to be traces of bullets from a recent gang shootout. We should not had frightened the older generation with such facts…
5
But all these above are observations and entertainments of the first three or four days in our new place of residence, that is, in America, but the main initial trip turned out to be a trip to NYANA.
NYANA stands for New York Association of New Americans. This organization welcomes legal immigrants of all ethnicities from different countries to New York. Already at the airport on the day (evening) of arrival, we were given packages with documents about the legal status of entry and advised to rest for two or three days, switch to a new time and without delaying come with the whole family to NYANA.
In short, we soon found ourselves on the fourth floor of a building on the Broadway in NYANA and waiting our turn to meet our instructor. This was approximately like waiting your turn for a consultation at a bank.
Gradually, the instructors, some Russian-speaking, others English-speaking, called out the names of the families who followed him or her to his or her office and received orientation there. It was even interesting.
Two important issues were resolved immediately: adults were sent to English language classes depending on their level of knowledge, which was determined in two to three minutes of conversation. They were also given a check for $200 for each person, including children. (For comparison, when leaving, we were allowed to exchange rubles for $200 per family). They also asked if there were any medical problems. We didn’t have them, but Ana had asthma and her front teeth were broken when she fell from a horizontal bar. They promised to help and tell me where to go.
Satisfied with the progress of things, we left NYANA. An unusually large amount of money in my pocket pushed me to take action. I noticed a bank building across the street and decisively headed into it. “Where are you going?” the wife asked me with fear.
“Just to open our first bank account!” I answered and winked, “I asked Sasha, he allowed me to refer to him as to a guarantor, where necessary.”
It was needed immediately. I didn’t have any appropriate American ID, although I had a white card (the right to enter the country). The most impressive thing for the bank manager was the international master’s diploma in mathematics and physics with my photograph, which was presented to me by the university party organizer, my former friend on Physicists Day, Komsomol organizer Gogi. Still, the Perestroika was pulsating, after all!
Bureaucracy in the bank was kept to a minimum: a call to the guarantor, confirmation of the guarantees, and lo and behold, we came out with an elegant checkbook and a bank card. All these words were familiar to me then only from books. These did not exist at home for ordinary people.
But it should be noted that new and good things are always encouraging.
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