To Sing Frogs Chapter 27d

Sarah and Celeste with Natalia at the Moscow zoo

The now-serving number on the wall changed like a scoreboard in a hockey game rather than a basketball competition. Each time one of the five or six desk workers finished with a customer they would take a break and gab with one of their peers. This effectively kept them from progressing with the customer they were supposed to be helping. If you aren’t supposed to tell people you are better than other employees, imagine the revolution it would create if you tried to out-do another worker. I began to wonder if the Russian word for comrade really meant something along the lines of; I can work less than you can.

I had actually tuned out the lack of efficiency as well as the waiting crowd gathered in the inept workplace. Julia was really that good. She and I visited and she inadvertently gave me a lesson in Relationship-Building 101. Then a groan from the airline workers filled the room. Soon there were words in Russian from the supervisor.

Julia looked shattered. This wasn’t good news.

“What happened?”

She paused for a three-count before responding. Even then she spoke guardedly, preparing for a defense. “The computers are down.” It was 4:50. We were two goals away from the red number being ours. Julia had finally showed our ticket to me—ten minutes earlier—once she was sure we’d make it. The number on the wall wasn’t all that was red now. My blood pressure spiked in spite of medications.

Julia moved quickly. “I’ll be here a half-hour before they open, tomorrow,” she promised apologetically. “I’ll be first in line. I’ll call you at the hotel when it’s ready. You’ll only have to come down for five minutes. I’m sorry. I’m soooo sorry!”

It would take Julia an hour—one way—on the metro to get to the hotel. She’d blow her whole Saturday and she was more than willing to do it. No, not willing, insistent.

In the end I prevailed. I convinced her I traveled enough to know what I was doing. She could write the instructions for ticket changes on a paper, in Russian. If I got to the building a half-hour before they opened I’d be done ten minutes after the doors unlocked. The coordinator’s attitude about her responsibility was all I needed. The act wasn’t required.

Upon returning to the hotel I stopped at the concierge desk and bought two tickets to the Saturday night show at the Bolshoi Theater. I paid in cash at three times the face value right there at the official concierge desk. Mostly I just wanted to prove it was possible to do business the Russian way in Moscow.

 

 

The next day was spent trying to see tourist sites in a city that was all but completely shut down. Bill’s friend of a friend, Aleksander, and his wife, Natalia, spent the day showing us the Moscow zoo, the elaborately decorated subway stations, and anything else they could think of to help us kill time. That’s all it was, though; killing time until we had to separate.

I had Bill take Amy to the Bolshoi that night to use the tickets I bought. Amy would remember it for a lifetime and Bill could appreciate it. Rodeos and demolition derbies are more my style.

My waiting was far better spent playing with my new son and daughters. We sat on the floor of the hotel room while we played and ate chicken strips and French fries. By the time I gathered their sleeping bodies up off the carpet and tucked them into their beds, I didn’t know how I would be able to tell Sarah and Denney goodbye.

 

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