FIVE EASY PIECES IN MOSCOW

MOST RUSSIANS DON’T get up early. The shops in St. Petersburg open at ten in the morning, and that holds true even of coffee shops. Perhaps the notion of coffee as wake-up drug in Russia hasn’t filtered through the haze of the inimical climates and histories. Sometimes when the coffee shop opens, you can see jaded-looking men and women—literally jaded, a little green and sallow—drinking absinthe. Now that is a way to start the day—no wonder there is a secretion of the liver contributing to the skin color. You may ask for coffee at ten, and the counter clerk most likely will look astonished, and ask, Espressa? They tend to turn their os into ah sounds. Then it may take them half an hour to get the machine working. In the finest St. Petersburg shop, the espresso machine didn’t work for two weeks during my stay there. But this is not the story of St. Petersburg but of Moscow, which though more business-oriented and energetic, still has that late-to-bed late-to-rise rhythm, and the train schedule seems to reflect that. The express trains from Moscow to St. Petersburg were scheduled to depart between one am and two am. I got the tickets for the two am train, and since I was indoctrinated by the American airport schedules, which in this era of security demand that the passengers be early and planes late, I wanted to get to the station an hour before departure—to give ourselves a margin in case we couldn’t get a large cab easily. We were four, the whole family, with an additional member, the cello, with its huge case. We went out with our luggage and stood on the curb, next to an all-night kiosk. A few drunks leaned against the kiosk and drank from cans of beer. A small Zhiguli police car was parked nearby, bestowing an air of security on the block. I don’t know where the name Zhiguli comes from, whether it’s a play on the Italian gigolo, and whether the car is a copy of a Fiat, but there is definitely a second-hand air even in a new Zhiguli, and the cops looked a little second-hand and disinterested. In fact, they drove off. First a small car stopped, and a mustachioed man stepped out and insisted that all of us, our luggage and passengers, could fit, and was mightily offended when I said we could not fit. He would not charge much, only 150 rubles to the train station. Maybe our luggage would fit sans us. Maybe that was the plan, load up the car and drive off. After a decent amount of shouting, the man left.

Now another mustachioed man stopped with a larger car, a Lada coupe. We all fit, although it was not easy. He had some metal pipes and boxes in the trunk, which he had to spend a few minutes rearranging.

I knew the direct way to the train station, having walked it. Down Koltze, turn left, up a huge boulevard, and that is that, a simple L trip, but apparently, for this man, there was no such thing as a simple line. He drove us up Chapin, and turned right there, into a dark and bumpy street. His gas gauge kept beeping. Nice, he’s driving on empty. Maybe there’s a gas station here? Maybe he knows how to time everything? That might be a good scenario, to be out of gas, or to pretend to be, and to stop in an alley where his assistants could take our luggage and work us over. No doubt such things have happened.

The cobbles of the street made the tires purr in their loud way.

At the traffic light, the man turned off the car, until the green came back on, and then he cranked on the ignition. Oh no, Jeanette said. But the ignition caught on. Maybe the corner was not dark enough. On the other side of the corner, diagonally, there was another Zhiguli with policemen. At the next corner there was another police car and a couple of policemen standing outside of it.

“All this police!” shouted our driver. “On every street corner. That is too much.”

And true, wherever we looked there were police cars. For what, I wondered? I hadn’t seen that many police even in NY after 9/11, and this may have been related, a pre-emptive measure.

Our driver was getting more and more incensed at the sight of the police. Why should the police bother him? His being terrified of the police might have made him suspect. On the other hand, I was never particularly fond of them either, in any country, so his displeasure with the arbitrary executors of the law didn’t incriminate him in my eyes.

Anyhow, he made it to the train station, and I gave him two hundred rubles, as much as he had asked, and it wasn’t that much, six dollars, and he opened up the trunk but didn’t help me unload.

At the curb, a young man with a flatbed wooden pushcart offered to take the luggage for one hundred rubles.

That’s a lot, said Jeanette. If the cab is only two hundred, this should be less.

That’s all right, I said. He probably needs the money.

We loaded a large suitcase, and four smaller ones, and Jeanette carried Joseph’s cello.

The porter wasn’t officially attired. He didn’t have the cap. He was a young somewhat Asiatic looking man, perhaps from southern Siberia, if there is such a thing. Such a huge region should have a south as well as an east. He had a black blazer as though he were a waiter at a fancy hotel and black thin-soled leather shoes which didn’t give him much traction, so that as he pushed he slid backward, but he progressed. He didn’t go to the side where he could avoid the stairs, but directly forward. He couldn’t lift the pushcart over the stairs, and he needed my help. I got the lower, heavier end, but I didn’t mind. It entertained me to see him at work. He huffed and puffed as though his job were horrifyingly hard.

He’s putting on a show of labor for us, I said.

Why, it must be hard work, Jeanette retorted.

We paused for a second at the huge schedules board until we identified the express to St. Petersburg, departing from the number three platform. The train stretched all the way down the long platform, seemingly almost a kilometer.

We are in the first coach, I said.

That’s all the way down, he said.

Yes, I guess so.

He moaned. I can’t go that far. You should pay me more money for that.

One hundred is plenty. We’ll make it there easily, no stairs.

He pushed fast, so we could barely keep our pace with him. Now we were, in the good American way, almost an hour early. It was just slightly after one. After we left the roofed part of the train station, the lighting was scarce. This was no St. Petersburg, no white nights here. It was quite dark. The platform was inordinately high above the tracks. Naturally, everything in Russia is big—the subway is deeper underground than anywhere else in the world, the tracks are wider, and the platforms are of course, taller, so we naturally veered off from the edges.

How come there are no other passengers around, asked Jeanette.

I don’t know. Maybe not many people are traveling.

Here, there were no police either. It seemed bizarre that in the middle of such a crowded city, you’d find this empty space, next to the train connecting that city with the second most crowded city in the country.

We arrived to the end of the train, the last coach, after which there was nothing, not even the engine. There was light in the first window of the coach.

I handed a one hundred ruble note to the porter.

That was a lot of work, said Jeanette. Give him twenty more.

No, that wasn’t bad, what, ten minutes?

The porter stood there expectantly, and when I handed him twenty more, he returned it.

What, you don’t want that?

It’s one hundred a piece. You have five pieces.

No, we said, one hundred for the whole thing.

He said, One hundred a piece.

I said, one hundred, and it was understood, for the whole thing.

Understood by who? It goes per piece. OK, give me four hundred.

No.

What? He was freaking out. He put the one hundred piece back on my suitcase, and said, Give me three hundred. I will not take less.

Isn’t that incredible? I asked Jeanette.

Obnoxious. How much is it anyway?

Ten dollars.

That would be decent rate even in the States.

Well, it’s not really that much, but it is too much for this country.

I remembered that at the Shermatovo airport in Moscow the mafia cab drivers wanted one hundred and twelve dollars from us to take us to the center of town, and only after much negotiation, did we get the fifty dollar rate, and our friends thought we got a bargain. So, the prices in this country could be high, but it didn’t make sense. Teachers got paid only fifty dollars a month. So a teacher would be better off carrying your luggage four times, once a week, at this rate. No, this couldn’t be the rate, I decided. After all, a cab in St. Petersburg cost fifty rubles, usually, if you didn’t go far.

Four hundred rubles, he said, again. Or ten dollars and a hundred rubles.

I rummaged through my pockets. What the hell, I could give him a hundred more, or even five dollars, the devil take him. But I didn’t have that. I had only a five hundred note, and a twenty euro note. I would not give him that much. Now, that was perhaps petty. You travel, you pay, and this was a big city, late at night, we could just be done with it.

I thought, all right, but ten dollars or three hundred rubles should be the absolute limit. Do you have two hundred rubles? If you do, I will give you the five hundred, and that’s that. Amazingly good pay.

He rummaged through his pockets. He would clearly do this if he had the money. No, I don’t have two hundred. Give me five hundred. It was five pieces, one hundred a piece.

No way. Five easy pieces, I said.

I put the money in my pocket, handed him over a hundred and a two-euro coin.

He returned these.

How much is the euro?

Thirty-five, so it’s one hundred seventy rubles, five and a half dollars, all it’s worth. That’s minimum wage in the States, and this is less than an hour of work.

But he won’t take that, Jeanette commented.

He’s stupid. At this rate, he’ll get less.

I told him as much. This is the best you will get.

You think? He shouted. You fool, durak! Give me my money, give me three hundred rubles, or we go to the police.

What nonsense. You have nothing to do with the police.

You think. Harasho, poshli! Let’s go. He started putting the luggage back on the cart to push it into the station and look for the police.

No, you can’t put the luggage back, I said, and I took it off. Ha, you don’t want to see the police! he said.

There’s no reason for that. Why drag the luggage all over the station? They will get here eventually.

You think? No, they won’t. I know. Give me my money.

You mean, give you my money?

Now this had been going on for fifteen minutes and there still were no passengers.

My kids—Joseph, ten, Eva, six—were tired.

Why can’t he go away? asked Eva.

He wants money.

I saw through the window a train conductor, a blond woman with a blue cap. I knocked on the door, but she wouldn’t open. This was forty minutes before the departure.

Give me money, shrieked the porter.

I gave you the money. Take it.

One hundred a piece, five sumki.

No, I will never give you that.

You must, you durak. I will call my partners.

He pretended he would pull out a cell phone. Then he spat and coughed. His spittle was green.

You think he has TB? Jeanette asked. I read about TB in Russia.

I have no idea what he has. He’s demented, for sure. He could have picked up the money and brought luggage for someone else, twice already. Do you believe he has partners?

You never know. That could be unpleasant, she said.

I imagined the scenario, his partner thugs, coming out of the dark and attacking us. How would they know where he was without a phone? They could observe him. Maybe he has to pay money to them.

He put two fingers from both hands into his mouth and blew air and whistled.

His technique was good—the whistle was loud and even seemed to echo from another train. He waited silently, admiring the echo, or waiting for someone to react to the call.

I thought, what the hell, let me see if they show up.

Nobody showed up. He looked down the platform. Here they come, he said.

I looked. There was a group of four, and they walked slowly, carrying heavy luggage. They were Asian, two men, a woman, and a child.

I laughed. These are your partners?

Yes, he said.

They look like travelers.

They are travelers, he said. They could probably change your money.

Go ahead, ask them, not a bad idea.

Give me the five hundred bill, and I’ll ask them.

Just ask them, and if they have the change, I’ll change with them.

He went to them and talked. They didn’t utter a word. They turned their back on him and walked back.

He came back, and said, Give me my money.

What, your partners won’t give you any change? I laughed.

They went to call the police to get you, he said.

You think I believe that?

Now he spat and coughed and grew incensed, and came close to me, leaning into my face. He was shorter than me, and I thought, I could grab him by the throat, or punch him, but what would that lead to? If we had a fight, and I beat him, the police would show up and I’d be in trouble. If he proved very quick and we had a big fight, we could both injure each other. Maybe he has a knife? Why should he be so insistent and cocky?

Give me money, or you will die! he shouted.

Now, that is too much. I am not going to give you anything, you idiot, I shouted at him.

Death, death! he shouted.

You think this works? Your threats are nonsense, you are an idiot, here’s your one hundred, and go to hell!

Now my kids cried. Daddy, what is going on?

He’s a madman, I said.

Hey, look, you aren’t ashamed? These are little kids, and you want them to be terrified?

Give me the money, right now, he spat again. He felt inside his jacket as though to ascertain that his gun was still there.

Move away from him, you’ll get TB or he’ll knife you.

No such thing. I might hit him if he keeps it up.

I knocked on the door. The train conductor put down the blind, obviously wishing nothing to do with this dirty encounter of dirty Americans and porters.

Just go away, I said to him, and offered him one hundred and twenty rubles and two euros—close to two hundred rubles. He put the twenty ruble note back on the red piece of luggage and the two euro coin right over the note. He slid the one hundred note into his pocket and shouted, Two hundred more!

Go away. You got all you’ll get. You could have got more but you are crazy.

Give it to me or I’ll kill!

You know what, you are an idiot, I shouted at him. Let’s go to the police. Right now! Poshli.

I grabbed the big red piece of luggage. Come along! I said. We don’t even need your damned cart. We can carry it all ourselves. Jeanette grabbed the other luggage.

Now, this had a strange effect upon him. He grabbed his pushcart, panted frantically, and leaped off with it from the platform, and ran over the large gravel pieces to the next side, scrambled to get up, and ran off into the dark.

What? He’s gone? I asked.

It looks like it, Jeanette said.

Strange, he bluffed all the way along. When we really meant police, he didn’t want to see them.

Of course not. He probably doesn’t have the license to work as a porter.

What, does he just come out occasionally at night to torment foreigners?

Probably.

And now as soon as he was gone, passengers strolled down the platform and after them two policemen. The front door opened, and the female attendant invited us in. Why hadn’t she done that before? A policeman walked out of the next coach. Was he there all the way through? What was he doing? Sleeping? Flirting?

We got into our sleeping car and stretched out the beds. My throat was dry and sore. I had shouted just as much as the porter; the confrontation had got me more nervous than I thought. I couldn’t fall asleep, but kept going over the encounter and imagining how it would have been if I had punched him in the face, let’s say if I bloodied my knuckles on his teeth. Would that have felt good? Or would I now be interrogated by the police, imagining at the same time that my blood should be tested for hepatitis? The gall that man had! Or should I have let go of the five hundred, sixteen dollars, and not experienced the annoyance? That would have been better but would have felt like robbery, a minor one but still, a robbery. Well, tourist robbery, with a surcharge for being an American late at night.

We need water, Jeanette said.

You are right about that, I said.

I walked down the platform to the first kiosk in the station, and bought two bottles of water. I handed the five hundred ruble note and wondered whether I would get the exact change back. I got 460 rubles back, quite fine. If I had bought the water first, I would have had the change, and I would have given three hundred to the porter, and the nearly half hour long shouting match wouldn’t have taken place. Now, that was a strange way to practice one’s Russian. I was surprised in retrospect that at no point had I been confused by his Russian or he by mine. For such intensely packed and alert conversation, one would pay thirty dollars an hour, so for half an hour, the five hundred rubles would have been quite fair, in the States, that is.

I thought the man was completely in the wrong. However, when we got back to Moscow, we had even more luggage, and now it was the middle of the day (we wanted to spend at least one evening in Moscow), and as a porter with a large pushcart—uniform and officer’s cap and all—came toward us, I wanted his help although I thought I was done with porters. I read the sign on his cart, fifty rubles per piece of luggage. Ah, so they do count it per piece? In other words, when the thug porter said one hundred, he did mean right away, one hundred per piece, and since I said yes, he could expect to get that, no matter how unfair the price was, and at one in the morning, perhaps the normal price was the double of the day price? Or at least, the porter could aim for that? This current porter took five pieces of luggage of ours and walked in a measured way to the exit and down the walkway and he needed nobody’s help. He ran into another porter who had twenty pieces of luggage—in other words, one thousand rubles right there on the cart. That porter asked, What, only five pieces?

A job is a job.

So, totally ungrudgingly, I gave him 250 rubles, and then tipped him fifty. The man made three hundred in five minutes, which was fine. He got us to a cabby, and here a new round of negotiation started. The cabby wanted five hundred. Five hundred? I said. Normally it’s two hundred.

But there are four of you, and you have so much luggage, and my car is a Volvo, he said.

You got a point, but …

OK, will you cut it out? Jeanette said. Let’s just take it. Three hundred, I said.

Four, and that’s the best I can do for you, said the cabbie.

Fine, no problem. We sat in the car and five minutes later we were at our address, and the cabbie helped us unload and asked why my Russian was so good.

It’s not that good, I said. I’ve had good lessons, though. low and perfectly