Ten Years as a Ghost

By Michael Raikhlin

"I entered the city like my own ghost, floating, as if invisible, down the familiar streets. I did not own up to my relatives that I was back in town, making it easier for them to be honest while answering police inquires about me." Anyone who has enjoyed The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad will be fascinated by this gripping tale of a citizen of the new post-soviet Russia who loses his identity to take on many identities to survive in a complex life of crime, a life that enables him to adapt to many countries, including Israel, Cypress, the United States and Britain. The devious paths chosen by the protagonist through the moral morass of deceit, fraud, robbery and shady business deals will hold the reader spellbound. In essence the book demonstrates the value of a good name and a tangible, respectable identity in a world that has become an ethical quagmire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9780595777174

Michael Raikhlin

Born in the Soviet Union, Leningrad, 1971, Michael Raikhlin graduated in Toxicology from St. Petersburg Medical Academy. He tackled drug-addiction related problems in various countries and as a result has communicated with people from a wide diversity of backgrounds. He is now settled in London and, apart from his private medical practice in the Harley street area, his close study of the English language has resulted in small pieces of literature.

Book preview

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Where am I? What kind of people are around me? What am I doing here among them? There is no way I belong to this shouting and.. .somehow desperate crowd.

What are they up to? I even seem to have forgotten what happened yesterday. I’m trying a bit harder. It doesn’t make any difference. Lost. I have got to sit down, come to terms with this state I’m in and think it through. Uniformed guards are not entirely happy with my idea of being parted from the moving mass. However, the sitting position is taken, eyes are closed, noise starts ebbing away and gradually some fragments of the whole begin to piece together.

First of all, I need to find out who I am. This should be quite simple. How about I check the contents of my pockets? All of a sudden a very strange guy corners me. He talks relentlessly and, to add confusion to my mental condition, I can’t make out his point. The words in themselves are familiar, but the way he talks and the subject he appears to be so excited about, are not at all appealing. It must be his accent. I remember abstract pictures of me travelling away from home when I was a kid, but I never talked much to the natives. I was always part of a group of people well-known to me.

One of the most repeated words rings a bell, though—’Israel’. A mnemonic word? No, but by hearing it, an overwhelming despair disables me. I know nothing about it, but it seems that this word is the main cause of my life falling apart. I need to find out this connection. I’m sinking deeper into my thoughts and the outside world is slowly disappearing.

After I pay no attention to his pushy attempts to bring me out, the guy, to my relief, backs off. Finally, I regain my now so vulnerable peace. I can feel this is a tetchy situation so I must hurry up. Back to the original plan to the stage where I left off...pockets...nothing in there that can give me a clue.what a disappointment this idea has crumpled into. But wait, what is this? It appears very much like money, but not the sort I’m used to having in my pocket. I take a closer look. American dollars! 120 altogether! It’s a hell of an amount, uniformed guards around, no personal documents, myself as if screwed to a vegetable state. The only way known to me to extend this sequence further is arrest, trial, court room, and sentence, prison. It is time I did something about it. The guy who just talked to me...Why on earth didn’t I listen to what he had to say...Who was he? I should have guessed.so obvious.a plant! I’m getting the idea. The whole story is bound to be a major set-up. What is my part in it? I am drifting.. .There’s no way I can make out this noise. Don’t become too relaxed. Get yourself together! But I believe the sleeping brain is more likely to conjure up a sudden lead. Very strong noise.. .repeated time after time, but regularly.. .engines.. .turbines.. .jets.. .airport.. .I must be in an airport.

You’re not supposed to be sitting here! A guard’s voice came crushing down on me. What is your flight number?

Since I couldn’t come up with a more or less acceptable suggestion I just mumbled something back to him. He took it really badly. It would be right to say as a personal insult.

I’ll give you what for! he whispered, squeezing my shoulder.

It was the last thing I needed. The officer switched from angry to furious even without my helping him. I realised I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance of talking him out of taking me in. Besides, even if I could, where would I go? It’s clear now—I’m in the international airport, the size and the language suggest Moscow, and just a few steps away, as I reckon, from the first interrogation in my life. I can see other officers heading towards me. A ring of them already surrounds me. No police around means I have managed to pass the passport control. Then where is my passport? Why haven’t I joined the crowd? I remember being advised to stay within the limits of reasonable recklessness. Regretfully, some things that are said to you take ten, twenty years to unfurl their entire significance. Apparently, according to the direction the situation is heading, I didn’t stick to this advice. It’s all because of my stupid habit of inventing too much incident.

Chapter 2

Here I was, in this very small, stale smoky room, windowless, gridlocked with the officers trying to figure out my intentions—not the easiest task since I had none. I would say the interrogation was uninformed and haphazard, officers taking turns to throw swift glances at me, snatches of unconcerned wisdom, and this indifferent placidity troubled me. At the very moment they started questioning me, the solution hovered in sight of a huge bearded plain-clothed man who, however, clearly belonged to immigration. They all had a brief private chat and I was ordered to accompany him.

On our way along the numerous corridors, elevators, and doors, I tried to clear up my status. He seemed to find my amnesia funny and with the carelessness of a guy observing me for the last time in his life, he gave me his version of events.

We were in Sheremetjevo—the major international airport in Moscow. My name is Rupert. I came from Leningrad. I am no longer a citizen of the Soviet Union—my right to it was withdrawn because of my wish to emigrate to Israel. He hammered home that the last of his concerns was to establish under what spell I had decided to betray our motherland. I was travelling alone, my family was back in Leningrad, and I passed out on my way to the boarding gate. Probably, as he pontificated, the payback time had already begun for me. And his utterance was ominous and terrifying in its simplicity. The immigration staff were half-toying with ideas of what to do with me, but luckily I hadn’t missed the plane which was waiting for me. What is more, their interests did not extend as far as stateless people, so he was escorting me to my plane to Tel Aviv and I had a last chance to say ‘good bye’ to the Russian soil. I tried to argue that I didn’t really recall this decision being made, let alone remember my own life up to this point. All those comments went unanswered, apart from rotten luck, pal! and a nasty frown. He was keen on getting rid of me as quickly as possible.

To take a last look around was exactly what I had enough time to do and we were talking with a stewardess in the restricted area before the plane. Soon he handed me over and tramped off, leaving me, who had no desire to be there, there.

On the plane I rejoined the very same crowd I had been trotting along with, before my black-out occurred, towards a happy future in the Holy Land. I was trapped, at first glance, without any chance of escape. I wish I’d known what surprises and shocks were in store for me in the immediate future. And if I had, I would have considered a way out more seriously.

Can you imagine a 747 fully loaded with excited Jews? It struck me as opposite to, but simultaneously like, images from the German camps. Some of the immigrants had been waiting for permission to leave the country for decades and finally they were there on the verge of taking off from the soil they firmly believed they hated. And on the flip side there were some passengers who were just looking forward to a better life or adventure abroad and who, deep inside, might regret coming to this, but still were nurturing some hope that their struggle for life might take a different, more human form. As far as my disrupted memory allowed me I was associating myself with this second group and trying to locate someone I might be able to find common ground with for a chat. It’s enough, after a few minutes of ocular tangle. Despite the unnatural atmosphere of such longed-for happiness and freedom that logically ought to open people’s hearts, nobody seemed to be ready for it. Either the influence of Soviet mentality was too strong to allow sincerity, or they were just.. Jews.

We were heading towards the take-off line. Minutes or even seconds were numbered.

Stateless refugees, as they were, they maintained the pretence of having the remnants of control over their lives.

It was high time I adjusted to the thought that I was one of them. In sober truth, not a long choice left for me. We were in the air. Cries of joy were exaggerated above any possible expectation. I said, O God! Let us not all end up disappointed!

Chapter 3

We were on our way to Israel. Thanks to the brief recap I’d got between the last Russian office that I had the pleasure of attending and the plane, I remember my background. It doesn’t help much to understand what to expect at the end of this flight, though. I have an Israeli phone number to call on arrival. people there are either friends of the family or even relatives whom I never met before. My grandfather gave this number to me suggesting that they might put me up for a while. The other nagging quiz in my head is about my parents’ feelings with regard to my departure. Are they against or in favour of this decision? Even though we never discussed it, I could feel an ambiguity in their views which added to my lack of confidence. One thing is definite: there is no route back. My secure life has ended today. Just a year ago everything seemed so stable. Nothing will be happening without effort any longer.

How could I possibly survive so far away from my family? All those thoughts are too depressing. Doesn’t look like the best way of presenting facts for this moment. I have got to try positive thinking. How about this kind of mantra: ‘From now on the future is in my hands.’ Or: ‘I am capable of changing my destiny.’ Something like this could do. However, the main question that cannot be ignored is, what am I running from? Something must have pushed me out of the country. I have another four hours remaining before landing to understand those reasons.

What is my personal sketch of the USSR or of what is left over of this great state by the year 1990? Apparently, my daughter was born in this year. It was very wrong for me to leave my wife and a month-old kid. Was it really necessary? I thought I had to move forward to support my family. The whole financial system was being shattered and it seemed the situation was likely to deteriorate further. Life was no longer affordable. People were looking for other, disrespectful ways to survive. I could not see my place in this new environment. Am I just afraid? Maybe my choice is not the worst one, or am I just running away from responsibility? Familiar stereotypes are no longer applicable to the new life that is mutating rapidly and very chaotically. At least an average citizen stood no chance of predicting the changes for the next day. Savings were mostly lost; salaries were held back for months throughout the country. The nation, after being used to Soviet well-being, was watching all this in disbelief and shaking. My wife and I were nineteen years old—in broad outline, teenagers set to play an independent life. It seemed impossible for both of us to keep on studying. In such circumstances we could only rely on family support. No problem as far as attention and routine tasks or moral help were concerned, but financially everyone was being let down