The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

T he American girl had a badge around her neck, but I couldn’t see the name that was printed on it. She told me to raise my right hand and repeat after her, and so it was that I took an oath to tell the truth. I saw a ring sparkling on her left hand, sending flashes of light my way. She asked for my name, and I told her. She looked down at my passport and nodded, satisfied. She asked for the name of my fiancée, and I told her: Michael Evans. When she repeated the name, it sounded so foreign to my ears that for a moment, I thought she’d made a mistake. How could one name sound so different each time it was said? Michael. Mai- cull. My-call. Different every time. “How did you and Michael meet?” W hen Michael Evans first sent me an e-mail, I rushed to tell my friends. Lena translated the letter while the rest of us sat around the table, eyes glued to that sheet of paper. I was secretly thrilled that I’d been chosen, and chosen first, but I pretended to think it funny, scoffing at each new bit of information. “Dear Valentina,” he’d written. “My name is Michael Evans. I am 38 years old, and I work in a bank in Los Angeles …” Los Angeles! Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Rodeo Drive ... my friends and I called all of these locations to mind, and before I knew quite what I was doing, I wrote an e-mail back. My English was practically nonexistent, but Lena helped translate the ideas that the rest of us put to paper. We hit “send.” Every evening after school, we met to read Michael’s latest letter. He wrote every day, without fail, flowery letters whose meaning was lost on me without Lena. And every night, we wrote him back, my friends and I. One day, Lena squealed out loud as she read: “He’s coming to see us! He’s coming to see you! He’ll be here in four weeks. What will you wear?” Four weeks later, true to his word, he came to Moscow. We spent three days together, and without my friends standing by, I couldn’t understand what he was telling me. When he talked, I smiled brightly and tried not to notice his hair, thinning on top and gray around the edges. I tried not to look at his body, 18 years older than my own and showing its age. I focused on his eyes, grayish and flat behind glasses, and I smiled harder so I wouldn’t cry. What was I doing here? Where were my friends? What was this man saying to me? We toured Moscow together each afternoon, and the heat was stifling. The poplars were shedding thick, white, cottony pukh — Moscow’s summertime snow. The fluff made my eyes sting, made it hard to breathe. I explained to Michael how, during Soviet times, Stalin ordered his city gardeners to plant fast-growing trees to beautify Moscow. The gardeners came up with a plan to plant female poplars, the fastest-growing trees they knew. But every summer the females drop this snowy fluff, and no one knows what to do about it. Everywhere, peo- ple sneezing, coughing, covered with pukh. Michael didn’t cough once. But I couldn’t breathe. I took him to meet my mother on the last day. She primped and preened and fussed over him at our cramped table. He ate seconds, he ate thirds, and still she forced more food on him. She fanned herself with her apron — the stifling heat of Moscow’s sum- mer lay heavy over our table — and she poured him shot after shot of the vodka she’d been hiding under her bed, waiting for a special occasion. When dinner was finally over, Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. He said something I couldn’t understand and pried open the box, revealing a shiny golden ring set with a tiny stone. I stared at this stranger, not knowing what to say. My mother kicked me hard under the table. “Da, da, da! Yes, she will!” she exclaimed, and joyfully poured more vodka. F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 Continued on page 39 Donna Gorman is a free-lance writer who is currently posted in Almaty with her RSO husband, Bart, and their son Shay. Before her husband joined the Foreign Service, Donna worked as an advertising executive in Los Angeles. She has a master’s degree in Slavic lan- guages and literature. This American vice consul, when she married, would marry her equal, would marry for love.