excerpt

open his mouth, she went on, “And don’t stall by calling me an ‘amazing woman.’ I need that explanation—before I agree to anything.” Her head throbbed; it was difficult to maintain this anger.
He sighed, puffed slowly, looked her in the eye. “Do you think me intelligent? Educated?”
She nodded.
“Yes, it is true. I attended the higher learning institute. Passed my tests. Fluent in languages, good at mathematics. Then why am I working at a lowly job fixing machines for a nasty man like that one last night?”
“He’s your boss?”
“You do not understand. He is everyone’s boss. He signs the papers, he records the problems. Remember, we have only one employer in the Soviet Union—the state. You cannot understand. Let me tell you about my life…when I worked for Intourist, he—or another one like him—wrote down that I did not hand out these special pamphlets about how Lenin built the art galleries and museums. That note is placed on my record. Then he wrote down that I am friendly with the American woman. That is on my record, too.”
“Yes, you told me about that…”
“So I am sent to another job—in the department store. Same thing. This man writes that I do not volunteer for the special work shifts or some other nonsense. So it goes on….”
Jennifer was silent.
“And now I work in the streets with vending machines. This is how they grind us down, make us behave.” He snorted again. “And Americans worry about how many political prisoners there are in labour camps.”
She shifted uneasily. It was she who had told him about the current status of the dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his books that documented the hardship of such camps.
“It is not necessary to send me to a labour camp,” he continued, his voice rising. “I am just a little man. Why do they need to build a labour camp for me when I can be demeaned right here in Leningrad at no expense to the state?”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I had to understand.” The sheet had slipped to the floor and he stood before her naked, a perfect, muscular figure but a flawed human being, a petty dissident who liked jazz, neither a threat to the state nor a blessing. She was surprised to discover that she loved him.
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