It seemed as though life would never be right again after Walter died. But, as inevitably happens, there came a time when things did quiet down and I settled into what we now call a “new normal.” It was never again as much fun, but I found comfort in working with other partners from the Surrey & Morse days, though now under the Jones Day umbrella.

On February 15, 1989 — just two weeks after Walter’s passing — the last of the Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. And as 1989 eased toward the ‘90s, it seemed as though relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were stabilizing. But the world doesn’t seem happy to remain stable for too long. In Eastern Europe, rumblings of discontent were being heard throughout Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania — in fact, the entire Eastern Bloc. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached, and the people of Communist East Germany were, for the first time in nearly three decades, finally able to reunite with their families and friends in the West. As the old folk song says, the times they were a-changin’.

But it didn’t happen overnight. The Soviet Union would remain the Soviet Union for another two years. And a client of Jones Day would begin planning a series of symposia on “Doing Business in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,” with Jones Day as a co-sponsor and presenter. I was thrilled to be able to participate. The first presentation was held in Washington, with speakers brought in from some of the Eastern Bloc countries and from their embassies in Washington. And through my contacts at the Soviet Embassy, I was able to arrange a closing reception at the Embassy itself, to the delight of the American attendees from all over the country who had never dreamt of being able to see the inside of that establishment. As icing on the cake, I was even invited to stand in the reception line at the Embassy, alongside the aide to the Ambassador. What fun!

And then we took the show on the road. First was London, in April of 1990. At last, my travel lust was to be satisfied again — and on someone else’s dime. It doesn’t get much better than that. The partners involved from Jones Day were old friends of mine — Michael Silverman and Joe Saba — as well as Vladimir, whom you will remember from the burning bed episode. And Joe’s wife Mary, also a good friend, was to accompany him on the trip.

All of our people from Jones Day had been accommodated at the Mayfair Hotel, where the conference was being held — except me. In the rush of travel preparations, someone had counted wrong, and by the time the error was discovered, there were no more rooms available. So I was being housed at a bed and breakfast in another part of the city, a few stops away from the Mayfair on the Underground (metro), in one of the largest cities in the world, and one about which I knew nothing.

The B&B was in one of those beautiful London row houses in a very nice neighborhood, so I figured the only real inconvenience would be the need to allow for travel time to and from the hotel each day. No big deal. Until I got inside, that is. Those London row houses, as beautiful as they may be on the outside, are — how can I put this politely? — old, and not the most conveniently designed residences. This one, typically, was three stories high above the ground floor, and my room was — you guessed it — on the top floor. And the one, shared guest bathroom — care to guess again? — first floor. Figuring on showers, applying makeup in the morning and removing it at night, washing and “doing” my hair, not to mention the usual bathroom usage — just the thought of all of those up-and-down trips every morning and night was exhausting.

Then there was the room itself. It must at one time have been a well-to-do woman’s clothes closet, or more likely, a servant’s room. Now, it held a single bed, pushed up against a wall to save space, a dresser, an ironing board in the wall that came down across the bed, and . . . Nope, there was no “and.” That was all there was room for. Oh, and a miniscule closet. My suitcase had to live under the bed, and it just barely fit.

Well, after making my way from the airport to the B&B, checking in and leaving my luggage in the closet . . . sorry, the room . . . I headed for the nearby Underground and by some miracle made it to the Green Park Station and located the Mayfair. Luckily, I’m good with maps. When Mary asked how everything had worked out at the inn, I told her the truth, and she immediately went into action. She found Joe, told him the arrangement was totally unacceptable, and said he absolutely had to do something. But what? There was no room at the Mayfair.

Or was there? This was the moment I began believing in serendipity. It turned out that one of the scheduled Soviet speakers had — for reasons that of course were never explained — been denied entry into the UK, and his room had just become available. We changed the name on the registration from his to mine, and we were all able to set to work for the remainder of the day. The issue of what to do about the B&B and my belongings was shelved for the time being.

(By the way, that room at the Mayfair was gigantic, with a bed big enough to hold an entire unit of the Soviet Army, and a bathroom twice the size of the entire room at the B&B. Serendipity, indeed.)

Never one to stand by and do nothing, Mary pitched right in at the conference, and together we handled the nitty-gritty tasks involved in greeting, registering, and hand-holding of the European speakers, and ensuring that all the program activities went off smoothly. All was going well that first day, until the principal Soviet speaker, Dmitri Popov (not his real name), arrived and Michael referred him to me, telling him that I spoke a little Russian. And all hell broke loose upon my head.

It seemed that it wasn’t only Chinese officials who formed a liking to me. Apparently, I held a certain appeal for pompous, egotistical, overweight, over-sixty Soviet Foreign Ministry officials as well. Or perhaps Dmitri was just a horny old man, happy to be out of Moscow for a few days, wifeless, and looking for a good time. That would be my guess. In any event, he moved his portly frame rapidly across the room toward our registration table, introduced himself, and declared that I should be his helper for the next few days — totally ignoring the female interpreter who had arrived with him. He was clearly feeling frisky; I was beginning to feel nauseous. And thus began four days of weaving and dodging to avoid old Dmitri, who was usually too inebriated to keep up with me in any event. What was it with me and communists?

But I couldn’t worry about that. There was still the inn to deal with. So, after dinner — which ended around 10:00 p.m. — Mary and I hopped into one of those marvelous London taxis and headed out. When we arrived, the owners had already retired to their apartment on the basement level, and the house was quiet. So we tiptoed up the three flights, gathered my things, left a note and the key, and tiptoed back out to the waiting taxi. What that driver must have thought about two American women stealing about London at night, making off with luggage belonging to who-knows-whom . . . well, we could only imagine, and couldn’t stop giggling. But it worked, and the driver was too polite to ask questions.

FYI, the next morning I called the owners of the B&B, explained that I was needed at the Mayfair, and arranged to pay the bill for the entire five days. So, no harm done, except perhaps to our reputations. Crazy Americans, right? Then it was back to work.

During the week, Mary and I did manage to find a few hours to break away and do a little sight-seeing and shopping, and found London to be a beautiful and — in the word that I thought most fitting — civilized city. We were even blessed with unusually good weather for April. It had snowed a little — just flurries, really — on the day of my arrival, but then the sun came out and stayed out for the remainder of our time there. Bloody good show, as they say.

Finally, on the last full day of the conference, there was to be a reception at the Soviet Embassy, which I had been able to arrange through the previously-mentioned Ambassador’s aide in DC. But I wasn’t invited to this one — only the speakers and the sponsors were to attend. Which was fine with me — I had made plans with some others to head to a disco in the Piccadilly neighborhood of London. Yes, I said “disco,” as in “discotheque” — it was, please remember, 1990. Michael, Joe and Mary were to join us there after the Embassy reception.

Before that reception, however, we had our own gathering at the hotel for all of the people involved in the symposium, at which Dmitri, already halfway to Happyland on vodka, finally managed to zero in on me. I tried to keep the conversation on a business footing, but he turned it to political matters, and somehow was able to throw in an insulting remark about America’s involvement in Vietnam. He didn’t know me very well, or he would never have dissed my country to my face. While acknowledging that Vietnam had not been our finest hour, I then turned the tables and said that at least we had been there to defend the South Vietnamese, whereas his country had outright invaded Afghanistan. At that point, he puffed up like a six-foot blowfish, turned even more red in the face, and declared, “That is an internal matter” — standard verbiage when Russians don’t want to discuss something. My immediate response was, “Oh, really? Try telling that to the Afghanis.”

I then turned on my heel and walked away for a while, giving the now apoplectic Dmitri time to cool down, and apparently to have another drink or two. When next he caught up with me, he was feeling amorous again, and asked if I would be attending the Soviet Ambassador’s reception. I told him that I had not been invited, and would instead be going out with some friends, to which he grandly declared, “Then I invite you.” When I reminded him that that would be a major breach of diplomatic protocol on both our parts, he ever-so-magnanimously offered, “Then I also will not go.”

At that point, I had had all I was prepared to take from Dmitri Popov. The symposium was over, and I no longer had to be nice to him. With Michael, Joe, Vladimir, Mary, and several others watching in obvious amusement, I began poking Dmitri in the chest with two fingers, gradually backing him up against a wall as I loudly told him the facts of life:

“Listen, Dmitri. You did not get where you are in life by being stupid. [Poke] Don’t. [Poke] Start. [Poke] Now. You are going to the Ambassador’s reception because that is your job. I am going to a disco with my friends because that is what I want to do. You are free to join us later if you wish. End of discussion.” Please note that I never told him the name or location of the disco, but he was too snockered to realize it.

We had a great time that evening, drinking, dancing, and carrying on as travelers do. Dmitri never showed up, though Michael, Joe and Mary did. At 2:00 a.m., when the disco closed, one of our English friends led us to a nearby all-night diner for an early breakfast, where a customer slam-dunked a waiter for some unknown reason, but was quickly quieted down and the two shook hands like true English gentlemen. I told you: civilized! Then it was back to the Mayfair for a couple of hours of sleep. But before turning in, I pushed a dresser in front of my door, just in case Dmitri regained consciousness and got any bright ideas. Fortunately, he didn’t.

I stayed on in London for an extra day of sightseeing (and shopping, of course), and it wasn’t until I got back to the office on Monday that I learned from Vladimir what had transpired at the Embassy reception. Dmitri, bombed out of his gourd, had made a complete jackass of himself. At one point, he had cornered Vladimir and started asking questions about me. Trying to be tactful, Vladimir mentioned my study of Russian, and asked what Dmitri thought of my linguistic ability, to which the reply was, “It’s pretty good, but it’s Zhidovskiy Russkiy.”

Let me explain. Zhidovskiy is the derogatory — really offensive — Russian word for Jewish. And Vladimir, being both Russian and Jewish, was, to put it mildly, less than amused. That was his “I-really-want-to-deck-this-guy-but-I-know-I-can’t” moment, and I completely empathized with him. I also greatly appreciated his sticking up for me.

I am happy to report that there were no diplomatic repercussions — not on our end, in any event — from our run-ins with Dmitri. I sometimes wonder what happened to him, but only out of curiosity, not concern. Dmitri was the master of his own fate, however it may have turned out.

[Grammar footnote: Is it “run-ins” or “runs-in”? You know, like “mothers-in-law,” “attorneys general,” and “Knights Templar”? Just wondering. This unfortunately is the sort of thing that eats into my sleep at night.]

We recreated the symposium that September in Budapest, Hungary, which was another incredible trip: riding the nearly vertical funicular railway up to the Royal Palace and Fisherman’s Bastion; a private, guided tour of the magnificent Parliament as arranged by Michael; a boat trip up (or down, I’m not sure which) the beautiful Danube to the artists’ village of Szentendre; a bit of antique shopping; dinner with a local attorney at a non-tourist-y neighborhood restaurant owned by a Jewish family and employing Gypsy musicians; and some of the most delicious food (and pastries) I’ve ever eaten. And, as a bonus, no Dmitri. The trip may have lacked the drama of London, but it was more than made up by the wondrous, historic beauty of a country then in the throes of reinventing itself as a free nation once more, and the hospitality of its beautiful people.

And squeezed in between trips to London and Budapest, during the blistering hot July of 1990, there was a visit to the Confederate Air Force in Harlingen, Texas, with the Minister-Counselor of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, his wife, and two American lawyers. What a rip-roarin’ time that was! Details next week — see y’all then.

Brendochka
2/9/23