The Map Behind the Curtain
By: Ted Cheney
Having left the Russian border town of Tyotkino thirty-five minutes ago, we pulled up to the nondescript building in Glushkovo within the time limit they had given us. Before turning off the van engine, I turned to everybody and reminded them to let me do all the talking.
As we exited the van, I caught Vova’s eye. I said, “Remember, guys, do not translate for me.” My last comment was clearly intended for him, and he knew it.
When we entered, I held the door open. As the six of us stepped into the room, a Lance Corporal in a green uniform was sitting at one of the two desks in the room. The soldier pivoted his head towards us and barked, somewhat aggressively, “Shto ty khochesh?” [“What do you want?”]
The other five, now starting to comprehend the gravity of the days’ earlier proceedings, didn’t speak. They simply parted: their work boots made a hollow, shuffling noise on the worn wooden floor. I stepped forward and said, “I don’t know. Your buddy in Tyotkino told us to come here.”
I replied to the surprised look on the Corporal’s face by stating, “I’m guessing that you don’t speak English.” Suddenly, the scraping of a chair followed by the whack of it tipping backward onto the bare wood sounded in a room off to the left. A slightly older soldier immediately stepped into the room. He repeatedly flattened his uniform with deliberate, almost ceremonial strokes, as if the act itself might make him look more commanding, before speaking to us in Russian.
Pretending that I didn’t understand him, I glanced at the others. Everybody stood there quietly—for a moment—then Vova started to say something. Before he could speak, Pasha, his roommate back at the orphanage in Moscow, poked him in the ribs.
Intentionally, I responded, “Ne ponimayu tebya.” [“Don’t get you.”] This was the most rudimentary way that I could say that I didn’t understand—even though I did. An impertinent Muscovite would say it this way to brush someone off. For me though, I was playing head games, and I continued my charade by asking him, slowly and deliberately, “Do you speak English?” The second soldier, now clearly flustered and not knowing how to respond, simply crossed the room to a door on the other side. He opened the door and made a sweeping gesture, indicating that he wanted us to enter the office.
Once in the room, there were two chairs directly in front of the desk. Somebody had positioned four others along the wall behind those two. I immediately moved one of the two chairs back against the same wall beside the others. I told my guys to take a seat as I positioned the remaining chair directly in front of the desk.
In the absence of anyone from outside of our group in the room, I continued the conversation that we had riding over in the van. Standing before my crew, I ask, “How are you all doing? You good?”
A jumble of yeses and yeahs punctuated their nods.
“Any questions?”
Vova seemed relieved that he could finally talk, “What is going on? What did we do wrong? Why are they asking us all these questions?”
“There is no need to worry, Vova. As I said earlier, just tell the truth. We are rebuilding the dyetskayavannaya, where they bathe those children from the Tyotkino baby home. It’s that simple. Last winter, I asked their orphanage director, Alexander Mikhaylovich, what he needed the most. He asked me if we could rebuild that room. Isn’t that exactly what we have been doing? Nothing else needs to be said.”
A glance at the others assured me that they had understood our purpose from the discussion during the ride here. To prevent any further inquiries from Vova, I turned and sat down facing the desk as we waited for whatever was going to take place next.
Surveying the desk before me, I noticed it was devoid of any personal items, except for a desk nameplate identifying the resident of this office as a Major in the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service—the FSB. Major Petrov’s title caused me to ponder more deeply the reason why the post-Soviet offspring of the KGB were detaining us.
While I was mentally questioning the events of the last eighteen hours, a loud, rattling vehicle came to an abrupt stop outside the office window. A man jumped out of the passenger side of the boxy, four-wheel-drive UAZ finished in dark green camouflage. While I could see that there were markings on its doors, mud caked the simple, utilitarian ride and obscured them. A long, spring-loaded antenna was whipping back and forth on the rear bumper from the sudden stop.
Surmising that this was the man who commanded the desk in front of me, I looked over my shoulder and told my guys, “Gentlemen, gird your loins.”
As I turned back around, I noticed there was a map of what looked like the local area affixed to the wall behind the desk. It was hard to tell the location for sure because a scuffed-up piece of plexiglass, covered in black and orange wax-pencil markings, obscured it. A bare copper wire drooped loosely above the map. Two coarsely made curtains cut from a blue, gauzy-like fabric hung from the wire. The curtains were pulled to the sides, framing the map.
The sharp, vocal grunts coming from the room with the two desks drew my attention. As I turned and looked towards the office entrance, the man I assumed was Major Petrov suddenly filled the opening. In his left hand were the passports that they had taken from us in Tyotkino.
Just as he was preparing to speak, the officer’s countenance froze. I followed the direction of his stare to the wall behind his desk. When I looked back towards Petrov, a ferocious growl erupted from the anger that propelled him rapidly towards the map. His heavy strides forward boomed on the floor. Ricocheting everywhere, our passports flew from the Major’s hand as he reached the map and whipped the flimsy curtains shut.
As quickly as he hid the map from our view, the Major raced towards the two soldiers in the other room, yelling.
Instantly, our predicament crystallized in my mind. I feared that Petrov slamming the door shut as he exited was a foreshadowing of what was going to happen to us.