Rudy's Rules for Travel Read online

  “Sure, hon, we can plan to come back next year if you can’t do this now. Maybe next year Hungary will be even more open to us . . . but I just worry that next year they could be completely sealed off from the West. What if this is my last chance?”

  He is right, of course, about the volatility of the occupied countries, and also about promises.

  APPROACHING the crossing into Hungary, we are startled to see the border gate painted in bright red, green, and white stripes. Moments later the gate rises and soldiers look briefly at our passports and visas, waving us into the country. What kind of occupation is this that allows national colors, bright ones at that, on the border gate, and after a brief identity check simply lets us in? Immediately beyond the border, there is evidence of modest entrepreneurship: a simple wooden roadside stand displays small amounts of produce and colorful hand-embroidered blouses. For once I don’t have to beg Rudy not to bargain.

  “My mother was a seamstress,” he reminds me, adding a notable tip to the four-dollar cost of a bag of fruit and a blouse. “I wore her embroidered gowns in my baby pictures.”

  As we drive away we see what must be the merchant’s family, a woman and three children, emerging from a canvas tent behind the stand. He extends his hand to show them our money and they jubilantly hug each other, forming a tight ring. To this day I can see them; to this day I regret not having turned around and bought another blouse.

  On our way to Budapest, we take a series of wrong turns and end up in the wrong direction, lost in the Bukk mountain range. Rudy is delighted at the chance to meet rural Hungary. I want only to meet Budapest and my reserved hotel bed. We notice there are few other cars on the road and those few are old, worn models, certainly none as flashy as our little red Ford Fiesta. We get a lot of attention, horns honking and passengers waving. As we drive into a small village seeking directions, a dozen women who must have been sitting all day at their front windows immediately surround the car. Regardless of age, they wear babushkas and are missing front teeth. Yet lacking both teeth and English does not impede communication.

  They read our license plate. “Deutschland, Deutschland.”

  We choose honesty. “No, Americans.”

  This is even better. “Americans! Americans! Americans!”

  Younger women climb up on the car hood to peer down at us through the sunroof; others moisten fingertips and test the car’s white stripe for permanence. One has a cousin in Toronto, Canada, America, and begs us to say hello for her. None are proficient in giving directions to lost tourists: when we call out a town name from the map, hands fly in all directions, pointing to “best route.”

  It takes awhile before Rudy finds a shopkeeper who can interpret a map and before I have my fill of dumpling-like sweet bread. When it is time to leave, we exchange small hugs and hand touches, then drive slowly down a one-way dirt road, looking back to see the women following our car for several meters, waving good-bye until we disappear.

  “We had to go all the way to the Bukk Mountains to find someone who likes us,” I say.

  “But we found them.”

  We steel ourselves as we enter Budapest, expecting the gray tones of Prague. In truth, much is gray, but much is also Technicolor. The red, green, and white decorates some shops; in window displays, clothing is of varied colors and price ranges; major reconstruction projects signal the city’s growth. The streets of Budapest have energy compared to those in Prague, and it seems to me that pedestrians walk more rapidly, shoulders are more often erect, and eyes look at me. Men gather in small groups in late afternoon, talking quietly, but publicly, in the streets, a sight we did not see in Prague. Nearly all we meet speak German, and many speak English.

  Following directions from the state tourist agency IBUSZ to the hotel they have reserved for us, we arrive at the entrance to an elegant art nouveau edifice sited at a beautiful bridge and facing the Danube River. There must be some mistake.

  Our sense of being imposters grows: for $68 we have a luxurious river-facing suite with working toilet, sumptuous breakfast in the restaurant, and soaking time in any of the two indoor thermal spas, or two outdoor pools, one equipped with a wave machine. In each of these settings we meet tourists and Hungarians alike. We have arrived, but it is rather unsettling. Tourism is clearly a state goal, but which state?

  Road weary, we have dinner in the hotel restaurant. Gilded walls, flowers, table lamps, and highly starched tablecloths are the backdrop for attentive, tuxedoed waiters, an orchestra, and a multi-course gourmet meal. Through our stay, we learn these old-world elements are standard even in inexpensive tourist cafes.

  Our favorite becomes a Hungarian restaurant located on Lenin Court, famous for its traditional country-style goulash. On our second visit there, Rudy and I are hand in hand descending a staircase into the main dining room when he stops abruptly to listen to the sounds of Liszt.

  “It’s the violins,” he says. “That’s what Father told me, ‘love happened amidst the strains of violins.’’’

  His papa as a young man grew enamored with a Hungarian restaurant on 39th Street in New York City, and particularly with a customer, Francesca, a beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman who sat each night with her elderly husband as admiring violinists circled their table. Over time, Papa attracted the woman’s attention and, eventually, her hand in marriage. Divorce in that era was rare, but not surprisingly, Rudy’s father was a rule-breaker, and the people of Hungary— we can see even in the midst of Soviet occupation—have a romantic core.

  After another day of being lost driving in tangled city streets, I convince Rudy that using cheap taxis will not plunge us into bankruptcy. Better still, the cabs afford a rare opportunity to hear political theories of outspoken drivers. The first driver explains:

  “I learn English from friend. Have twelve years school learn Russian. Funny, funny, I not remember Russian.”

  “What about the children in school?” I ask.

  “In school children by compulsion learn Russian. Twelve years. They not remember.”

  And his story for today: “Reagan, Andropov, and Hungarian president riding in car. Reagan say to driver, ‘Turn right here.’ Andropov say, ‘No, no, turn left here.’ Hungarian president say, ‘Put turn signal on left and turn right.’”

  Driver Two later that day tells of a visitor to Russia who noticed a large map of Europe on the wall. All Soviet bloc countries were in red, the Western countries in white, and Hungary in blue. “That is because Hungary is nothing,” the Soviet guide said.

  Driver Two also has a brochure for us: a well-known Hungarian folk troupe dances tonight in a nearby auditorium, and he agrees to chauffeur us. As we enter, the audience seems composed of Hungarians (I am learning to differentiate Hungarian women in colorful, loose dresses from Soviet women in dark nylon that sticks in the heat). The first eight rows of seats are roped off, filled rapidly when a busload of Soviet tourists enters.

  The lively dancers with their animated faces are more than midway through their program when the mood in the auditorium begins to change. After each number, the Soviet section is clapping and stomping their feet, louder and louder, longer and longer, controlling, dominating the rhythm of the night. The faces of the entertainers tell us this is a frightening, not welcome, reception. Two of the three violinists rise from their chairs to walk behind a side curtain while dancers perform with little energy, eventually taking their bows, pirouetting from the stage and ignoring loud calls for encores.

  We learn that Hungary is considered “the happiest barrack” within the eastern bloc. Compared to other occupied countries, and against the odds, Hungary sustains a more liberal economy, press, and artistic world.

  Rudy, for one, is happy that his mother’s land resists.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE UPS MAN LINGERS ON OUR FRONT PORCH, HIS EYES asking, “You’re going to Russia?” It is nearly Christmas in 1983, and snow and communism are both in full force there. Yet here on our rural California doorstep
are two sturdy boxes from a Finnish airline, each prominently labeled “Russian Tour.” I can see that the Finnish guides are taking no chances as I pull from the boxes heavy, wool-lined snow boots and a poster-sized communiqué about emergency visas, frostbite, and hypothermia. In addition to the traction boots, we are directed to wear inner socks and outer socks, inner gloves and outer gloves, furry hats with ear flaps, and silk underwear underneath everything wool.

  Two weeks earlier Rudy is reading the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle when a small ad in the travel section has his attention.

  Waving the newspaper in front of me, he enthuses, “Look —a three-week, all-expenses-paid trip to Russia for eleven hundred dollars. We can’t stay three weeks at the local Motel 6 for that.”

  I avoid a pedantic argument about how we are not vacationing at the local Motel 6 anytime soon, focusing instead on what I see as the central issue. “But I thought there was a State Department warning, kind of an embargo against Russian travel—you remember, after the downing of that plane.”

  “Well, that embargo must have gone away. Here’s the ad.”

  THE advisory has in fact gone away. Just as the Korean passenger jet had gone away when it was shot from the sky three months earlier by Russian forces. Piecing together facts and rumors, we come to believe that the tour is among the first sanctioned after the advisory, likely subsidized by a Soviet Union intent on attracting Western dollars.

  Obviously, Rudy’s Look for the free lunch rule is in full play, but it has company. “Got to put the bucket list in order. There’s no time like the present,” he says. “In another year they might not let us visit at all.”

  When friends ask me why I am going for the Christmas season to a country that does not have Christmas, and is cold, I have to admit that once more I am caught up in the tornado that is Rudy.

  EVEN we wonder about our fellow travelers—what kind of people would live in San Francisco, not have obligations or invitations for the holidays, answer an ad on a Sunday morning in late November, and two weeks later be heading to Russia? As we survey the group assembled in the airport for our flight, one answer comes to mind: “Very interesting people.”

  Ingrid is a voluptuous blonde in her late 20s, a Marilyn Monroe-style beauty, who finds it impossible to stow her wardrobe in suitcases. She would, she tells her spectacled companion Jonathan, need to borrow a bit of money to ship her steamer trunk. As Jonathan searches his briefcase for traveler’s checks, Henri, a tall, thin, goateed man in a buttery leather jacket, rises quickly from his lady companion’s side to offer the beauty a fistful of cash. Airport personnel vie to be Ingrid’s luggage inspectors.

  Mark, full-figured, full-bearded, and covered in fur, has brought a thin quiet wife and a thin quiet daughter whose windbreaker jackets suggest they were told the destination was Hawaii. Mark is not quiet, sharing highlights of Russian history with anyone seeming to listen. The most attentive member of his small audience is Holly, who, like her teenage daughter, is clad in sandals and cotton. An older gentleman, Neal, dressed in a black suit and lacy, ruffled ivory shirt, introduces his twin, Nick, dressed in a black suit and lacy, ruffled ivory shirt. Five other older couples complete our tour group. They have to this point no distinguishing marks, except that each of the men has served in World War II.

  We have not even boarded the plane when I know that Russia itself will have to compete for my attention.

  Our overnight stay in a Helsinki hotel is advertised as time to refresh ourselves between the long flight and the next day’s bus trip to the Russian border. Outside our window, the snow falls steadily. Inside, Rudy snores his soft relaxed purr, undoubtedly replaying scenes from his beloved movie, Doctor Zhivago. Someone, however, needs to stay awake, making emergency plans for potential dramatic events of our own. For starters, I develop strategies that cover the evacuation of the American embassy, theft of our visas, and imprisonment.

  I am right. Rudy wakes up early, humming the Zhivago theme and calling me Lara.

  At breakfast we learn that one of the couples has left our frigid, adventurous tour to fly to sunny, predictable southern Spain. I would campaign for that option too if I didn’t know the Adapt rule.

  The group, minus two, boards a comfortable, warm bus to head northeast within Finland, along the Russian border. Despite our bets to the contrary, everyone appears on time, although Ingrid has many things to say about the “morning rush” and what it does to one’s composure and complexion.

  The Finnish guide Hanna is a charmer, a short, full-figured, motherly woman who we guess could soften the impact of the trip ahead and make us chicken soup as needed. In her soft voice, she lets us know that we are not taking a shortcut or even a direct route to Moscow; we are expected to cross into Russia at a more remote border.

  “This particular border is ready for us,” she explains.

  There is no way to tease out of her a definition of “ready.”

  THE group settles in for the long drive, growing quiet as we put our faces firmly to the windows, not unlike schoolchildren, seeing only the whitest of snows, and pondering what it means to be ready for us.

  After allowing us some time for what she must have assumed was meditation, Hanna speaks at length of Russian history, her voice catching on some phrases, phrases we do not know now that will decades later define our trip:

  “The Russians suffered greatly in their history, in their wars.”

  “The Finns also suffered. Borders can be difficult.”

  “There is a difference between people and governments.”

  Rudy was one of those World War II veterans who had never expected to return home, but who, when he did, began a long study to understand what had happened. When Hanna pauses for a time, he moves to sit beside her. Returning later to his seat next to mine, he bends over, looking down at his hands, and whispers, “Hanna’s sister was killed in the war. This is a hard trip for her.”

  Sometime later the bus slows, turning onto a narrow pathway that leads to a barricade and a long wooden hut sitting off to the left, alone in the snow. Sounds of our engine bring half a dozen soldiers, armed with rifles, to posts along the barricade. One with more medals than the others indicates our bus is to halt and that we are to enter the hut.

  Hanna, again in that quiet voice, says, “You will please follow the guards’ directions very carefully . . . yes?”

  We all nod. I check to be sure Rudy does too.

  And so we bundle up to stand in the snowfield, somewhat alphabetically, holding our possessions. Inside the hut five more armed soldiers stand behind a long wooden counter, holding stacks of paper they consult each time a passport and visa are presented. In the meantime, soldiers at the barricade search inside and beneath the bus, under its hood and in its luggage compartments.

  Very gradually, the group begins to realize that we are all being cleared for entry. Eyes widen and a few confide to companions, “I can’t believe this,” or “Who would guess?” Most of us had apparently concluded that our fellow tourists must be C.I.A. agents. Who but a paid employee would be on this trip?

  We have a second surprise: as the barricade is lifted, a tall, muscular woman in a dark fur coat and hat, carrying a small black valise, comes from inside the hut and walks stiffly, purposefully, to our bus.

  Hanna shakes the woman’s hand and turns to us. “This is our Russian Intourist guide. She will in some ways be in charge now.”

  The woman seems to have questions about the wording of that last sentence. “In some ways?” she repeats loudly. “I am Antonina. I will show you my country.” Then she adds, “Officially the name it is Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, but it is acceptable for you to call it Russia.”

  I turn to look Rudy straight in the eyes, hoping to forestall any resistance he might possibly have to a highly authoritative woman. In what I admit is a hissing voice, I say, “Promise me you’ll keep a low profile and not get into any trouble with this lady.”

  “I’
ll try.”

  Try? I worry about that response.

  Within an hour, the smokers on board call for a break, and the bus stops in a rural wooded area where snowy hills are checkered with small, two- or three-room wooden huts. These, Antonina explains, are dacha, summer vacation homes reserved for loyal city workers as a reward from a grateful government.

  She ignores the question, “Why do all these ‘summer homes’ have plumes of smoke coming out of their chimneys?”

  SEVERAL men in the group follow Rudy’s lead, sprinting off up a hill to seek the answer, and to have, as he phrases it later in their defense, “some people-to-people exchange.” A small, elderly man inside one of the huts opens his door at the first loud knock, spotting in astonishment a fancy bus parked down the hill and five well-garbed foreigners on his porch. There is standing room only for the visitors, but his wife turns to the wood-burning stove to see how far the stew might stretch.

  While Antonina screams below, hurling threats of deportation, the men empty their pockets of gifts of ballpoint pens and coins, taste spoonfuls of stew, admire family photos brought from a closet, and discover that Rudy’s childhood German, along with pats on the back, is sufficient to cement new friendship.

  Antonina is not to be pacified when the men return to the bus. Through more shrill screams we learn that those who had gone visiting had endangered our trip. Our group must be reported, and we must never leave her side again. Nearly tearful, she tells us she could lose her job and implies that Hanna might also face some sort of unnamed trouble. One by one the men come forward to tell her they are sorry.

  The days before Moscow are spent seeing small towns, the nights spent eating simple dinners and sleeping in simple rooms. I, and even Rudy, seem to have made peace with the terms of our travel.

  With little to see as the bus drives on in the light snowfalls, we turn for entertainment to what Rudy has labeled “our motley group.” Each morning the identical twins in identical clothing claim the same front seats. The teenage girl still in her sandals positions herself close behind the driver where, if she turns just right, she can watch his brown eyes and blond hair in the rearview mirror. In the meantime, her mother, also still in her sandals, moves closer to Mark, the better to follow his daily talks on Russian history. Henri and Ingrid gravitate toward the rear of the bus, leaving their original companions up front to compare notes on Moscow museums. Across the aisle from us, one of the older men shares his life goal: to see every remote village in Siberia and Micronesia.