Free God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell Page B

facing her, staring. She was, it dawned on her, the only woman in the entire terminal. She thought herself an attractive woman, though not anyone an American male would cross the street for. But in the present situation she might as well have been a movie star, despite her no-nonsense shoulder-length auburn hair and her breastless, mousy trimness. (She was trim in the absurd, magical way only women with large rear ends and thick thighs can be, these last two something not even five days of lap swimming a week could dragon-slay.) She found herself longing for the Slavic familiarity of Moscow and stared at the clipped black hairs on the back of Michael’s neck. Ted was behind her, still recording: “Our line is not moving. . . . Some locals appear to be staring at me. . . .”
    “Someone’s waiting,” Michael said, after looking up at the empty terminal himself. Amanda nodded uneasily.
    They got through customs, got their luggage, and planted themselves near the airport’s main entrance. No one was there. No one came. Three times Amanda had to explain to curious, walking-by
militsiya
who they were, why they were waiting. By 7 a.m. they were told to move along. Michael was in charge of this little field trip, but he’d never been given any phone numbers. It had been assumed they wouldn’t need any. Someone would meet them. Amanda and Michael were outside the airport in the pinkish, dirty light, discussing whether to call the American embassy or go to their hotel, when Ted appeared with what he optimistically called breakfast. It was some rancid-smelling meat wrapped up in a pitalike pocket and smothered with onions. Shashlik, Ted called it. “Here. I had it when I was here before. It’s delicious.”
    “No, thanks,” Amanda said. “I don’t eat anything off the street.”
    “It’s not off the street,” Ted said, and pointed. “It’s from him.” A small mustached man waved from behind the shashlik stand fifty yards away. They all waved back, idiotically.
    Michael took the shashlik from Ted and absently tore into it, tracing his finger across the map of Tashkent in his guidebook. “Look,” he said. “I say we get to the hotel. They’re probably waiting for us there anyway. Change of plans. Something.”
    Amanda stepped back; she’d let them decide. She was happy so far only to be here, to see what those numbers became when made flesh and blood. She’d see it for better or for worse and was prepared, she thought, for either. Tashkent was beginning to stir. Car horns sounded off far away; the morning was already growing hot, smog saturating the air. She sucked in sharply and with crossed eyes coughed out her intake. She’d taken hits off hash pipes less potent than Tashkent’s morning air.
    When she rejoined Ted and Michael, it appeared they’d settled on the hotel, no doubt deeming it too embarrassing to go running off to the embassy just yet for help. They accepted her back into the huddle with a nod and told her what they were doing, making no pretense that her vote even mattered.
Honest, at least
, she thought.
    “Standing up the United Nations,” Ted said, amused, polishing off his shashlik. “Now I’ve truly seen it all.”
    “Explain to me,” the American said, “how Aral can possibly be
our
problem when you people make it impossible for us to help you.”
    “How quickly you boil us down to one homogeneous people, Professor Reese. I am one man. How do I make it impossible for you to help us?”
    “I’m speaking in generalities.”
    “Ah.”
    “I’ve read briefings. People here think nothing of letting their spigots run all day. That’s why our primary advice is that you start charging your citizens for water usage.”
    “The Aral Sea is dead, Professor. Charging families who cannot afford it will not bring it back to life. You scold us like we are children. Americans enjoy this, it seems.”
    “We just enjoy paranoid totalitarian regimes forced to tell the truth for once and admit