The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

Michael smiled, relieved, and kissed me hard. Sweat from his forehead dripped onto my cheek. And I was engaged. “H ow did you and Michael meet?” she continued in Russian. I wanted to tell my story to the American vice con- sul, to tell her how my friends wrote the letters and my mother said “yes,” while I coughed and sneezed and the poplars shed their fluffy seeds. But I didn’t know where to start. So when she asked how we met, I smiled my bright smile and replied simply, “on the Internet!” She frowned slightly and made a note in my file. “How many times have you seen each other?” “Just once. For three days. But I have all of these letters —” She cut me off with a quick wave of her hand, her ring glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights. “Thank you, but I don’t need to see those.” Still I clutched that envelope, useless now, and damp with sweat. “Do you speak English?” “A little,” I lied. “Does he speak Russian?” I shook my head no. “How do you communicate?” Again, I thought of telling her about my friend Lena, the English translator, about my mother who kicked me under the table and said “yes” for me. But I was too embarrassed. This girl, this American girl, would she understand? Would she laugh? Was she perhaps in love right now, with her very own American? Would she go home tonight and laugh with him and tell him about her day, tell him about this girl who couldn’t speak English but had a whole packet of letters from a man she’d met just once? This American vice consul, when she married, would marry her equal, would marry for love. She wouldn’t think about her future, about her children’s future. Her mother wouldn’t push her, saying, “Think of your family, Valentina. Think of the opportunity this gives us.” My brain was spinning, and I couldn’t answer her question. She looked at me closely, through the glass, and some glimmer of recognition seemed to cross her face. I opened my mouth, but no answer came out. I closed my mouth and she looked back at my file. When she looked up again, she asked in a soft voice, so soft I could barely hear her through the glass, “Are you aware that Michael has invited three other women to the States on fiancée visas, but he’s sent them all back?” My vision narrowed. All I could see was that thick pane of glass, with the vice consul behind it and my reflection still in it. “No,” my reflection said. “No, I didn’t know. Does it matter?” “Does it matter to you?” she asked. I thought again of my mother. Of my friends. Of the poplar dust that choked me every summer. I pic- tured Los Angeles. Hollywood. Malibu. I imagined my friends coming to visit me. I’d casually show them the sights as we drove through town. “Oh,” I’d remark indifferently, “I almost forgot to point out Rodeo Drive. Michael and I were there just last weekend.” I watched my face in the reflection as it stretched into that same big smile. I heard my own voice say to the American vice consul, “Of course it doesn’t mat- ter. I love him.” She stared at me and I at her. I kept my smile frozen neatly in place while the seconds passed. I waited for her to tell me that no, she was sorry, but she couldn’t give me a visa today. I would thank her politely, of course, gather my purse and my grimy envelope of letters and head back outside, to where my friends were waiting across the street. She would set my file aside and call the next woman forward, forgetting all about me. I smiled, waiting for all of this to happen, but she just looked at me, silent. She fidgeted with her badge while she watched me. 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 39 Continued from page 37 He wrote every day, without fail, flowery letters whose meaning was lost on me.