CHAPTER 2. WHAT I LOVED — I LOST

I withdrew cash and vanished. A thousand rubles for a ride to Moscow. BlaBlaCar works fast, cheap, and unpredictably. My travel companion turned out to be a collective farmer — that is, a resident of a Moscow-area state farm with the appealing name "For the Right Cause" — who suggested stopping at a local hotel to share a modest meal and a bottle with him, then continuing in the morning.

The collective farmer's position was something like a political officer. Before going to sleep, he promised to drive me to the embassy, wait for me, and help.

The reception regarding repatriation took place in three stages: 1 — "What've you got there?", 2 — "Not good enough?", and 3 — "Well then, take it!" The spread of documents on the lacquered table clearly stated that the applicant was the son of a Jew: his father's Soviet and Israeli passports hit the bullseye, the birth and death certificates were irrefutably linked to each other and gleamed with that fifth column, the photograph of his father's burial didn't compromise itself with a cross but quite the opposite — it shone with pious Hebrew letters, and the party card simply screamed that its owner was God's chosen. But this didn't faze the procrastinating bureaucrat in power known as a shaliach, which in the local language means "emissary."

"Could you," said the arbiter of fates thoughtfully, "bring here a photograph of your paternal grandmother's gravestone and your father's military ID?"

Such a question meant that from that moment the bureaucrat wanted to become a double arbiter of fate, because showing a military ID to a foreigner is strictly prohibited. It contains military unit numbers, military specialties, and all sorts of other information, and most importantly, samples of superiors' signatures, which, if desired, can then be successfully copied onto forged documents. If this became known, such a stunt would most likely result in prison time. Now, if anything happened, this foreign citizen would be able to leak this unpleasant fact to the right people, and the Russians would have grounds to arrest you. No thanks. Such thoughts flashed through my mind. The answer was softened and hedged in hopes of sharpening it later, if desired:

"Can I joke with you a little?"

"If necessary."

"If I had my own military ID with me and showed it to you, I'd be welcomed with open arms."

"That's interesting. Why? Is it so old it has a fifth column?"

"No, you guessed wrong! There's a column for military rank. When the first stripe is sewn onto an empty shoulder board, a sailor becomes a senior sailor, and a ground soldier becomes a private first class — 'yefreytor' — which for Russian ear sounds very much like 'Ivri,' and we easily find ourselves in our historical homeland."

"Nice. Can I joke with you too?"

"Only if you get up from the table, sit on it, and I take off my shoes and put my feet up on the table."