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On the basis of Sergey’s sincere promise, the friend had ushered him into the Intourist Lounge at the airport. Strictly speaking, you were supposed to be a foreigner to sit there. But there was no one watching the door, and even the foreigners came and went as they pleased. He knew he really couldn’t pass for a foreign tourist under scrutiny. His haircut was good; he was rather proud of it. His friend Masha had clipped it for him, after a style from a French magazine. He considered it very dapper and modern. But one glance at the shabby, plastic shoulder bag hoisted over his worn work jacket would reveal the truth. Waiting patiently in the lounge, Sergey tucked his bag under the chair, sat back, and attempted to look western.
“Wait until after the big tour group is given their boarding passes,” his friend had said. “There’ll be room.” The big tour group were English speakers—at least they spoke mostly English and sometimes rather bad Russian. They were students, perhaps. Sergey wished he had learned English in school; it would be convenient in Moscow. Leaning over casually, he attempted to read the luggage label on a foreigner’s flight bag. Sanaba, Sanada, something like that. Oh, now he knew: Kanada. Home of the Toronto Miple Lefs or was it Mapple Lifs. He saw a red maple leaf embossed on the luggage—definitely the hockey player country. Well, if he got bored waiting, there were always a few things to discuss about hockey that surmounted linguistic barriers.
Sergey Ivanovich drew his attention back to the matter at hand. He had some knowledge of the Aeroflot plane that already stood on the tarmac outside the window. He knew how many passengers it could hold. After the large tour group, which would get first priority in boarding, and after the five official-looking functionaries who also used the foreigner’s lounge but appeared to be Soviets, and after the handful of soldiers he could see waiting outside of the lounge, it was dubious that Sergey Ivanovich would find a seat. He began to count, and as he did so, he did some thinking.
A worker such as he should have priority, but that was rarely the case particularly when you came from an outlying republic. The Tatar Autonomous Republic was actually part of the greater Russian republic; it was like the worm living within the swine. After raw materials had been extracted from the Tatar earth—crude oil on which the state depended—they might as well have been part of Siberia for all that Moscow was concerned. He didn’t dislike Russians, in fact Sergey was the product of a Moscow-born father and a Tatar mother.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 