I repeated that my experience had been exactly as I told him.
He continued his interrogation, “Why do you want to visit our country? For medical treatment? What? Are there no doctors in America?”
“We have tried them there. Now we would like to try someone… in your country.” I pronounced “in your country” with difficulty. It sounded somewhat ridiculous. In fact, I was going to the place where I had been born. What an idiotic thing borders were, after all.
“What’s the name of the doctor?” he asked for no reason. I answered. “I haven't heard of him. I don’t know him,” he said.
Oh, my Lord, will this be a reason not to grant us visas? What terrible red tape. I was no longer accustomed to it. I grew nervous. I wanted to answer him defiantly, but I had to exercise patience.
Then, suddenly he said, “You will have to see the Consul and explain to him what you have just explained to me, but he won’t believe you and won’t approve your visas.”
I almost choked on my words: “It can’t be true…"
But he stopped me with a gesture. “Look here. You were born and grew up in Uzbekistan?" He was looking at my mother. Mother nodded. “And your parents are buried there?” Mother answered, “In Samarkand.”
“Aha,” I thought, the conversation is shifting to a different plain, a more comprehensible one. They want money… But how can I offer them a bribe? A typist was rattling away on her typewriter nearby. Another staff member was concentrating on reading some papers.
"All right," he announced loudly and almost solemnly. "Your parents are buried in Samarkand. You left your hometown a long time ago and now you wish to visit their graves. That’s good," he turned toward his staff members as if inviting them to approve our intention. "That’s very good. You are really the loving daughter and grandson," he concluded enthusiastically and picked up the receiver. "Aziz Sharipovich? I have a family from America here… Yes, formerly from Samarkand, our people… The reason? It's a very noble one – to visit their parents' graves. Shall I send them to your office?"
The next office was even grander than the first one. It was large, with a high ceiling and windows and a huge flag of the republic on the wall. The green flag nicely complemented the somewhat colorless interior of the room. The Consul, an elderly man whose name, Aziz Sharipovich, we already knew, was installed imposingly behind a small desk and was sending inquisitive glances in our direction. I had been wrong to assume that it would be a businesslike part of our meeting. He began his interrogation.
"So! You left long ago. How is it there?"
"A bit difficult," I began, but Aziz Sharipovich wasn't interested in my answer. He had his own agenda.
"I’ve never understood people who gave up everything and left. I can't understand that. Why? Was our life so bad?"
I didn’t want to answer. Why would I? Didn’t he know that he was lying? Does he really believe that there was no oppression, no discrimination? Did he really think that people had just abandoned the homes where they had lived for such a long time, giving up everything and leaving? And if he really was so blind, it was hardly possible that I could open this bureaucrat’s eyes and he would become intelligent, kind and sympathetic. Aziz Sharipovich continued his didactic monologue.
"In my position, I have seen many of those who left Uzbekistan, the ones like you. Many of them were sorry they had done it. Some of them returned… with my help. What about you?"
I didn’t want to answer and, shrugging my shoulders, I mumbled something incomprehensible.
Then suddenly I heard my mother's voice. My silent mother began to talk, and not just talk, but talk in Uzbek. Her voice sounded melodious and beautiful, almost tender. The Consul raised his eyebrows. The Consul smiled. The Consul joined in. He pulled the teapot toward him and poured a fragrant stream into some tea bowls. Then smiling, almost cordial, the Consul offered mother a bowl of tea.
"You’re a real trooper," he exclaimed after talking to mother for a few minutes. "So many years have passed, but you still remember everything, and the language, and…"
A pause followed. Aziz Sharipovich finished his tea, put the tea bowl down and summed up the conversation decisively, "All right, three weeks – Tashkent, Samarkand and Namangan. Naturally, you know that it’s necessary to pay for visas. How much? Mmm… 800 dollars."
I’d already realized that this was a show in two acts performed solely for the sake of money, in which the lines changed slightly depending on the audience who were also involuntary participants. The closing line “It’s necessary to pay for visas” never changed. At any rate, payment for visas was a legitimate procedure. But that amount, that additional payment for the diligently performed show, was highway robbery by an official entity…
"Pardon me, Aziz Sharipovich, we are from America, but even there 800 is quite a large sum."
We bargained until we finally got it down to 350. We left for Tashkent that same night.
Chapter 5. The Smoke of Homeland
"You’ll have to wait," the white-haired soldier in the booth said.
We had landed in Tashkent an hour before. It was about 5:00 a.m. We could see through the terminal windows that it had just begun to get light. We were taken down the long corridor along with other arriving passengers, our footsteps resounding on the granite floor. And now all the passengers, suffering from exhaustion and uncertainty, were crowded into the passport control area.
"Your business visa was issued incorrectly," one of them was told.
"You don’t have a stamp. Pay for a visa at that window," another one was informed.
A long line had formed at “that window,” but no one was there to staff it. People in the line quietly expressed their indignation. You don’t find such disorder in document checking and processing in other airports around the world.
"What will he find wrong with our visas?" I thought in dismay. "They seem to be fine." But the soldier continued his examination, illuminating Mama’s picture with a blue light and glancing indifferently from her picture to her face and back.
"Is something wrong?" I had lost my nerve.
A long pause followed. "There are many fake American passports. As I told you, you’ll have to wait for my superior."
"White-haired goat!" I cursed, in my mind of course.
His superior showed up after forty minutes. He briefly perused our documents and nodded. “They're perfectly fine.” But that was not the end, far from the end. “Go there.” “Pay over there.” “Your baggage hasn’t been delivered yet.”
Mama, totally exhausted, sat down on the only chair in sight, and even it was backless. "You’ll never drag me here again."
“Yes," I thought, "Over these 15 years we’ve become quite unused to so many things." And there, outside, those who were meeting the arriving passengers had been waiting patiently all that time. Our Yakov, in leather jacket and eyeglasses, was among them. He waved his hand and smiled reassuringly from time to time.
The conveyer belt began to hum and suitcases and various bags began arriving from the far corner of the baggage claim area. Finally, our luggage arrived. The last ordeal – a search – and we were free.
A not-too-tall, well-built Yakov Gavrilovich, with his good-natured smile, hugged Mama and me. "How are you? How was your flight? Is everything all right?"
We climbed into his Zhiguli, and the wheels began to rumble along the asphalt. Mama and Yakov were talking animatedly, as I greedily inhaled the air that burst into the car. It was warm Asian air whose waves enveloped me in reminiscences. Korotky Lane… our courtyard… the apricot tree… the old town… my Teachers Training Institute… They were all here, within reach. Wide streets, ariks (small canals lining the streets), trees… They were all dormant in my memory, hiding there, biding their time, their moment to come back to life.