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Prague, November 1988. I am alone, walking along a deserted, dimly lit street, looking around me in the hazy smog to see if I'm being followed. I know the way to Rita's apartment: I was there on my last human rights mission, less than a year ago....I'm nervous—about the police: Are they watching me? Will they arrest me? Will they find the money? I have a history in Czechoslovakia. In 1983 I was arrested and expelled from the country for meeting with dissidents. Ever since, I've been uspect. Just a few hours before, at the airport, I had a run in with the state security police. My name must be on a computerized blacklist, for when I presented my travel documents, the officer in charge disappeared with them for thirty interminable minutes. He returned with some customs officials. Together they led me to a curtained booth where they searched my suitcase thoroughly. They went through my handbag and my wallet, counting my money, turning the pages of my address book, examining every scrap of paper they came across. I was not surprised. This type of search has become routine for me whenever I enter Czechoslovakia. It is their way of saying they are watching me. Strapped to my waist under my sweater is a money belt containing two thousand dollars, a small fortune on the Czech black market. It is a grant from Helsinki Watch that I am bringing to the new underground Helsinki Committee in Prague. I did not declare it on my customs form; if I did, I would have to explain, later, where and how I spent it. I was gambling that they would not inspect my bulging waistline—and I was right. That didn't stop my heart from pounding loudly, even after I had left the airport in a taxi headed for my hotel. I can't wait to get the money to Rita. She will know what to do with it. Now, entering her apartment building, I am afraid. The staircase is so dark: I can not find the light switch and I've forgotten to bring the little flashlight I usually carry with me. I stumble on the stairs, light a match at each landing to read the names on the doors. Finally I see a brass plate that reads R. KLIMOVA. I knock softly, the door opens and Rita—short, stocky, a bundle of contained energy—greets me warmly but wordlessly. I enter the apartment without saying a word, taking my cues from her. To my surprise there is a slight young woman standing in the living room. "Milena" Rita whispers, and I realize this is her daughter, the child I never met. I know Rita's son Vladya who is deeply involved in underground publishing. But Rita has kept Milena away from dissident activities to protect her, her two small children and her job as an art historian. Rita signals me with her eyes and hands: Where is it? I lift my sweater, unstrap the money belt and give it to her. She hands the belt to Milena without unzipping it or counting the bills, and Milena buries it at the bottom of a laundry basket full of clothes. Kissing her mother and giving me a little wave, she disappears down the dark stairs, the basket resting on her hip. Rita and I relax and begin to talk in the bugged apartment. No one listening in would know that Milena and I had even met. That was November 1988. We did not know—we would never have dreamed—that a year later communism would end in Czechoslovakia. There would be huge, peaceful demonstrations. Rita would become the English-language voice of the revolution, telling the outside world what was happening, interpreting for Vaclav Havel as he was rushed into power. Back then we could not have imagined that Rita would make an amazing trajectory from dissident to diplomat, becoming the first Ambassador to the United States from a new, post-Communist Czechoslovakia. Any more than I would have guessed, some thirty-five years before when I began studying Russian literature at Columbia University, that I would some day be involved in events that would end the long reign of tyranny in Eastern Europe. |
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PAPERBACKISBN 978-1-58648-288-6 Pub date: 02/01/05 Price: $22.00/29.50 Canada 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 416 pages 24 pp b/w photos Carton Quantity: 24 Biography, Human Rights Selling Territory: W Pub history:
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