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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Nominee
eBook Description: She had left Russia when she was a little girl. And now she was returning for a brief visit, sixty years later. There were only two short weeks to see the house of her birth for the last time before the permanent and absolute Closing of Russia to the outside world was to happen and she would be locked away from it all forever. But she never planned on the power and magic of childhood memories. [Cover image photo by Lazette Gifford. Used by permission.]

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Age of Reason: Stories for a New Millennium, ed. Kurt Roth, 1999
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2002

30 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [96 KB], eReader (PDB) [37 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [25 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [23 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [71 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB], hiebook (KML) [87 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [89 KB], iSilo (PDB) [21 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [26 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [86 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [38 KB]
Words: 7137
Reading time: 20-28 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Russia is dead!" cried the old beggar woman, looking at me. "Ti shto, baba? Zachem priyehala?" Why had I come indeed. I stepped off the last rung of the detachable rolling staircase that was docked with the transcontinental airplane, using my right foot to make the first step onto land, for good luck. Underneath me, underneath the concrete, ancient Moscow earth. Fifty years stood between my last step and this one. Fifty years ago, as a girl of eight, I had taken a similar step, right foot first, upon the superstitious urging of my mother, onto an old Aeroflot plane. At the height of the Cold War, I was leaving the country of my birth forever, with all its stagnation and rancid Soviet decay. And now, here I was again, at the time of Closing. The land beneath me was still the same, the one from which I had sprung. But the desolation was different. Yes, I had prepared myself psychologically, knowing what lay ahead, knowing what to expect. I had taken the inoculations, and the extra protein-rich rations, and the chemo-chlorine solution to add to all drinking water--which I had been told to avoid, and to consume only bottled imported liquids. I had also calmed myself with the hypnotic self-induced trance of indifference that I had practiced during the long flight, the visualization of things through a fine inner film of apathy. I stood now, and felt a moment of vertigo, as the land spun beneath me while the milky sky stood still--or was it the sky spinning? For a moment I couldn't tell, because the long stretch of concrete between the plane and the airport building was charcoal gray, spotted with puddles of the recent rain, and the sky was lighter slate, so that the two blended. Early fall.... The old woman just before me, holding out her palm in automatic supplication, had come out of nowhere, and was ignored by all passengers descending from the plane. Maybe I had been the only one who momentarily glanced her way. Or maybe she could tell that I was the only one of all those people who was actually Russian? Whatever it had been, she honed in on me and uttered her tirade, then stood aside, her palm still outstretched. "Pomogi chem nibutz..." she added quietly. Help me. "I am sorry," I said, averting my eyes. I switched automatically into Russian, feeling oddly self-conscious about the manner in which it slid off the tongue. "I am sorry, I don't have much...." Bullshit. I had everything. It was just the sudden panic coming over me, the old habit dying hard. Refusing beggars is a habit they teach you inadvertently, a habit of fear. Whether you have something to give or not, just mumble anything and step away. Or else pull out some coins or a bill, and hand it to them with the superiority of those who can afford it. But not here. Here was different. There had been no beggars in the memory of the 8-year old girl that was myself. Or rather, she could still remember two separate shocking instances, the sight of human beings covered with an unmistakable sheen of gray, of dirt, sitting on the street, wallowing in it, while all around, busy feet of pedestrians, and her father's cautionary voice explaining in her ear, "These are neeshii. These people have no home...." There had been no beggars in Russia, officially, under the Soviet regime. Everyone was guaranteed a home no matter how crowded or poor. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the latter part of the 20th century, chaos came to reign, for the repression-pustule had burst, and with sudden freedom, all screaming hell had come loose. Beggars became the norm, as the doctors and engineers and scientists, all members of the intelligentsia, joined the factory workers on the mafia-ridden streets and openly asked for handouts from the pitying foreigners, though rarely from their fellow countrymen. Hell had come to Russia and as months and years went by and workers were living on IOUs with no salary in sight, the ruble rode waves of devaluing fluctuation, and food became scarce, even in the form of relief aid from the west. And after that, the negative birth rate took its toll. Together with the despair, the unrelieved hunger, and the children being born with severe birth defects from malnourished parents, the population started to decrease at an alarming rate. In the year 2000, when other countries merely worried about technological compliance, Russia was on the brink of a down-spiraling irreversible trend. And the following several decades did not change the rate of extinction. And then.... And then became and now. The times have swept through me, and with the memories emerged shame and wonder at myself, at what I still carried inside after all these years. "I am sorry," I said again, this time locking my gaze with the watery eyes of this nameless stranger. "I am very sorry." And then, I stood aside, allowing the stream of passengers to walk past me to the airport building, while I put down my carry-ons, rummaged through my purse, took out several bills of International Market Currency and handed them to the woman. She was not that much older than me, maybe in her early seventies. And she was dressed decently, not like a beggar at all. She took the IMC, without a thank you. It would not be of any use to her after what was going to happen in three weeks--we both knew--but for now it still had significant value. She then turned, and I expected nothing more, for it had been her right. And yet, the woman had stopped and stared back at me, and her lips moved, as though with a muttering. I was not sure if it was a curse or a blessing. Or maybe it was just a wetting of the lips.