Issue #09/64, May 6 - 20, 1999  

by John Dolan

Our booth was sandwiched between two others, both full of obnoxious, loud people. On one side was a booth full of noisy, silly old Brits. In the other, a tanned old American was boasting about money and the South of France. Too tired to talk much ourselves, we settled in to rest, wincing at the scraps of babble that reached us. It was like being in one of Altman's more annoying crowd scenes.

At first the Brits were the more annoying. They have a way of raising their voices about twenty decibels when they're going to say something offensive, so we always heard the worst. But they quickly improved their standing with one simple gesture: they left. A lot of honking and blithering while they struggled into their mothy coats, but then they were gone, no longer broadcasting, off the air. It was bliss.

Except that in the relative quiet, the other booth, the American/Russian one, was more audible. The American was getting excited, too, going into some sort of sales pitch, raising his voice. Matt and Masha were facing away; only I, on the other side of the booth, could see them. There were four people in the booth: a leathery American man in his fifties, a Russian girl of thirteen or fourteen, and a Russian couple, both around forty, poorly dressed, sitting stiffly as if they didn't belong here. There was something odd about the rhythm in their talk: there would be a phrase in quiet Russian from the girl, then a phrase in much louder English from the American. I thought he was translating for her; Masha corrected me. I'd got it backwards: in fact, the Russian girl was translating the American's words to...her parents? Masha, even without being able to see the actors, insisted that the girl was translating the American's words into Russian for her parents. She had already grasped what I was unable to believe: the actors in this little scene were the fourteen-year-old Russian girl, her parents, and her...fiance.

This old man? This filthy...old...pervert...NO WAY! I couldn't believe it at first. But there was something deeply wrong with the scene, that was clear. The American and the Russian couple weren't eating, but the waitress delivered to the pubescent Russian girl the biggest sundae in the world. It must've cost a year's pension for the the average Muscovite and it looked like a stripper's prop, complete with the maraschino cherry. The girl had to crane her neck to see over the whipped-cream peak, but she dug in like she'd gotten used to this sort of dining. And not at home; her parents had the pinched, tired look of Muscovites who are trying to live on a few thousand rubles a month. Her mother--I could see now that it was her mother--sat there stunned, looking into the table. Her father leaned forward anxiously, listening to his daughter's translations while staring at his..."prospective son-in-law," I guess you'd have to call him. Who had to be at least ten years older than his prospective father-in-law.

As the girl spooned away at her sundae, the American went on with his sales pitch. "You'll love America," he said lazily, sure of his pitch. His daughter translated in a bored voice between bites of her sundae. The American was going on about spending half the year in France and half in Florida. The daughter translated, phrase by phrase, between bites. She ate faster than anybody I ever saw. The huge chalice of the sundae, full of multicolored glop when it first caught my eye, was empty of all but a few butterscotch streaks the next time I looked.

She couldn't be as young as she looked. But she was. Of course--that was why her fiance needed to do a sales job on her parents! If she'd been more than sixteen she could get her own passport; if she was over seventeen, she could leave the country without a doverenost', or parental permission. But if he wants to get his little Lolita out of the country legally, he has to get that doverenost'. Hence this cozy little chat.

But I still didn't want to believe it. Masha was sure, but for all my surface decadence I couldn't really believe that we were eavesdropping on negotiations for the sale of a pubescent concubine to a leathery old foreigner. But Masha was right; that was exactly what was going on. The American's next sales pitch made that clear. The American said, "Zhenya doesn't seem like a girl to me..." Zhenya translated this for her parents without any change of expression. She was busy scraping around the scraps of butterscotch for a last spoonful. Her father blinked when he heard it; her mother stared down at the table. The American threw his arm over the side of the booth and became expansive: "Zhenya's more of a woman to me than any woman I've ever been with." Zhenya translated this too without any change of expression. Her parents looked like people do when they feel the first faint spasm of seasickness.

"I don't think age really matters," the American went on. Zhenya translated, as flatly as ever. "Zhenya's more of a woman to me..." he repeated. He hadn't looked at Zhenya once in the whole exchange, nor she at him. Zhenya looked at her sundae; he looked at his target audience: her parents. He must've seen something in their stunned faces which made him change his sales strategy, because he tilted toward Zhenya's father and said, "You're going to love Florida." Zhenya translated. "You'll make more there than any doctor makes in Russia...You'll make a half million dollars and pay a hundred thousand in income taxes, and I can help with that too..." Zhenya translated all this in the same bored voice.

So the father's a doctor. Maybe they aren't that poor. (Maybe they're more grasping, though...) Of course, every Russian knows how rich American doctors are. But isn't there some problem about getting the licence? Don't Russian doctors have to go all the way through med school again before they can practice in the US?

Matt was getting very angry very quickly. "That guy's lying," he said. "I used to be an employment counselor. There's no way a Russian doctor can practice in the US in less than five years."

"Or make that kind of money," Masha said.

All three of us were getting angry, angrier than I at least wanted or expected to be. What are we, missionaries? None of our business anyway. But that didn't help. There was something truly vile about what was going on in that booth. I kept cursing, unable to believe it. Masha was shaking her head. Matt was thinking combat.

Zhenya's dirty old man went on about the money to be made by a Florida doctor. If he knew about the problems getting a license, he wasn't telling; and Zhenya's father, who hadn't said a word so far, didn't break up the old American's rap with any questions. He just kept leaning forward nervously, trying to see into the face of his daughter's suitor--"purchaser."

I kept looking at Zhenya herself to see how she felt about all this. The only thing that seemed to interest her was the sundae. She was very young--absolutely not more than fifteen--but not particularly beautiful. She didn't seem all that bright either, somehow (though her English was good enough to manage instant translations). But the American who was buying her probably cared a lot more about age than brains or beauty, the sleazy little chickenhawk.

Zhenya was quite opaque, a very bored, ordinary-looking girl. She had dark hair in bangs down to her dark eyes, and a pale pimply complexion. She wouldn't draw a second glance on a Moscow street, and probably wasn't considered one of the pretty girls in her class. But her value in Florida as a perfectly legal underage white concubine would be enormous.

And perhaps Zhenya knew that too. She didn't look scared or confused by what was happening. She looked bored at having to go through all this. Maybe she knew her parents would give in. Maybe she was just in it for the desserts, and didn't care how the negotiations for her purchase turned out. If she was really clever, maybe she just wanted a green card, and planned on "trading up," as Masha put it, once she hit Florida. Which she could. The value of a Russian girl is dozens of times higher in the US than in Moscow. And with a nice quick divorce, possession of Zhenya would revert to Zhenya herself. Hell, she and the old pervert probably deserve each other...

But even as the three of us sat there listening, doing our best not to get emotionally involved, there was something outrageously offensive about the transaction that would not go away. You just wanted to kill him--I mean really kill him, twist his leathery turtle neck till the spine snapped like a broccoli stem... He was so bland, so vain, going on about the beauties of Florida: "You'll live in warm weather all year, you'll have grandchildren--we'll give you a couple of wonderful grandchildren and you can help us bring them up!"

One big happy family. What next--a round of "It's A Small World," with instantaneous translation by Zhenya? The American was quite comfortable discussing the grandchild business with Zhenya's folks. He looked smug enough to start demonstrating how the grandchildren would be produced right in front of them, right there in the booth. Zhenya wouldn't've minded either, perhaps--as long as her spoon-hand was free.

We had to go. Tired, late...and though Matt and I had been talking about confronting the bastard or just smashing his face in, I knew we wouldn't, that it was all just talk. We got up to take our coats and get the hell out of there, forget about it if we could. But luckily, Matt didn't seem to be playing by the rules I knew; as soon as he got out of the booth he went over to theirs and addressed Zhenya's father: "I'm sorry, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation and what this man has been telling you is just not true--Please, translate for me" (turning to Zhenya). Masha was pulling him away and I was already halfway to the door, but Matt stayed there, looming over their booth. When Zhenya, looking at him with her usual dull expression, failed to translate for her dad, Matt switched to Russian, repeating what he'd said, stressing that the old American was lying, lying, lying.

The American was fazed only for a second. He was some kind of sales animal, and they have hides of pure kevlar. He made some vague protest and Matt zoomed over to him, got in his face and said, "You got a problem with that?" Masha knew too well what comes next in that scenario; she grabbed Matt and started pulling. I went back and took his other arm quickly...because if Matt hit this old terrapin lecher, he (the lecher, that is) would die. And I've heard all these stories about Butyrka which make it sound like the sort of place one would like to avoid.

The burlier cooks and waiters were converging on our tableau and it was time to walk away. We looked back inside as we walked through the park toward the Ring Road. It was like looking into the famous Hopper painting of the Depression diner. The light was very bright inside the diner. The four of them in their corner booth were exactly as they had been, as though nothing had happened. As far as I could see, negotiations for the sale of Zhenya continued undisturbed.