We're Not in Texas Anymore
Autobiographical Fiction by RIG Anonymous
We’re Not in Texas Anymore —
Moscow, Russia—
by RIG Anonymous
And all of this led up to a series of mistakes. Throughout my life, I have seen the worst out of humankind. What I have seen frightened me; frightens me still. On this trip, however, I was thinking only of Ziza. She was about to become a mother, and I had to help her to understand. I have to warn Ziza. That’s what I kept telling myself.
Outside of my wife and kids, Aziza Nomadova was my only surviving family member. The journey to visit her was long. A twelve-hour layover in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport transit area, a long pause en route to Bishkek, had few advantages. The narrow corridors of shops within the transit area offered thousands of copper cylinders on the ceiling peering down with constant video surveillance—the bustling and shuffling of designer footwear resurrects cigarette ashes into the air from the concrete surface. On a sign I read that the airport was recently dedicated to Alexander S. Pushkin; despite the discomfort of my wait I couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride for the spirit of the dueling poet, alive in these halls.
Shopping for perfumes, sipping streams of Nescafé, chewing salmon caviar—these pleasures trimmed fragments off the layover. Tourists stretched their legs or nervously smoked throughout the vast transit area. The stress of a potentially lost passport haunted the tourist’s psyche; border agents held passports until two hours from departure.
“Passport and visa.”
“Yes, Mam. Passport is here.”
“Tak. I see you have no visa to enter Russia. You must take bus from international airport to national airport to get to Bishkek. You arrive a day early, Sir. Must wait here until I call you.”
“Yes, good. My passport please.”
“I’ll have it for you at the end of my day. It’ll be here. You have no visa to enter Russia, Sir. Listen to me! You must wait here, do not leave this transit area. Listen to me, do not go outside.”
Glancing outside, I saw a few soldiers wearing ushanka-hats and olive fatigues, each of them carrying their very own Kalashnikov rifle while patrolling outside the airport.
I turned to the passport control officer, “Thank you. Understood. Where’s the restroom?”
“Toilet there, toilet nalevo.”
“Nalevo?”
“Yes, nalevo—to the left.”
It was an early spring morning, the kind of day that would have been perfect for walking outside, not stuck in this stale air. I noticed a young American couple arguing with a pear-shaped female border guard. As I came and went, passing my time, they argued back and forth for hours. Neither American trusted their passports in the hands of the Russian, showing obvious disgust for the Russian system. Their childish squabbling helped to combat my boredom. The two Americans didn’t have a visa to enter Russia. They were enroute back to America, but timing or weather had held them in transit for two days straight. Apparently, their e-ticket wasn’t in the system. The Americans had no proof of a reservation and were facing another night in transit.
“No photo,” the border agent kept ordering. I’d heard this order to the young American couple as I passed by the station a few times. By the tone of their voices, I suspected a show would soon be underway.
I just finished Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, so I chose to drop my bags and exercise. Nine hours into my layover, I needed a little action.
“No photo,” I heard again. Then, in a moment of rare silence in the bustling transit area, I heard the click of a camera phone. The passport control officer charged from behind her desk to grab the American woman. “Now, you go to police.” She snatched the American by her forearm and plucked the smartphone out of her hand.
A slight struggle ensued. The young American woman belted out, “Don’t touch me, I’m American!” I cringed. There was a cultural faux pas if I’d ever heard one.
“You’re not in America, you’re in Russia now” snapped the officer.
The American man came running to the woman’s defense, presumably trying to diffuse the situation. The Russian officer hooked them both, sumo wrestler style, and pulled them off their feet. I flinched at the sound as all three heads hit the concrete floor. Then all I could hear was screaming and cursing. “You’re crazy—–!”
The officer released the woman, but latched onto the man’s throat with both hands while trapping his flailing arms between her thighs. The American woman slowly took to her feet and pleaded for an onlooker’s help. His gurgling and wheezing, and her frantic gestures, didn’t seem to alarm the bystanders. The hold was effective—the officer disabled the man from moving.
Eventually a short stocky policeman ran over to the scene. “Ot-pusti-ti yevo,” the policeman ordered. The passport control officer released her grip and rolled off the American man.
The American woman walked around pleading for help from fellow travelers. The man eventually took to his knees and coughed. He wobbled to his feet, looking like he just stepped off a rollercoaster. The dumbstruck daze cleared from his face as he focused on the policeman who approached with his club drawn.
“Problem, problem!”
“No, no problem,” the American man gasped and put his open hands up to hedge a protective yet calm defensive posture. Two more Russians approached in navy business suits, first speaking with the border agent and then with the two Americans. All four Russians shot looks around the area; like the other bystanders, I didn’t keep eye contact. I continued my exercise stretches as the well-dressed worldly men consoled the hysterical American couple.
The American woman kept looking at me, pointing in my direction. “He saw everything.” I was unmoved. I needed to get myself safely to Ziza, and then back home to my family. There was no way I was going to put myself in harm’s way for the sake of these strangers. I didn’t even have my own passport in my possession.
After almost ten hours floating in the liminal space of transit in Pushkin Airport, I had punctured the phony ideal of The American. I’m only one in three-hundred million out of seven billion, I told myself. Simply being born in America didn’t make me a hero. My only goal was to get the hell out of Moscow.
DING-DING THRONGUE—
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the transfer from Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport to Moscow Domodedovo National Airport for Aeroflot flight 182 Moscow to Bishkek is now boarding at the trolleybus gate number seven.”
*An earlier version of this story first appeared at Flights From Hell.
