Lost and Found in Russia: Encounters in the Deep Heartland by Susan Richards

of my fake identity to myself. By the time the plane touched down I knew who I was—but not where we were.
    The heat made the air buckle as we stepped out of the plane. The low hills all around looked like crumpled brown paper. There were armed guards, but they did not appear to be looking for anyone in particular. Relaxing slightly, we boarded the bus heading into town. It drove along suspiciously good roads, between well-built five-story blocks, letting passengers off as it went. Whatever this place was, it was large and rich. There was no trace of an old Uzbek town, or of agriculture. Apart from the desert scrub, there was hardly a plant in sight. A sign by the road read:
    THROUGH THE WILL OF THE PARTY AND WITH THE PEOPLE’S HANDS THE TOWN OF ZARAFSHAN SHALL BE BUILT HERE .
    Finally, Ira and I were the only passengers left. Where did we want to go, the driver asked? “Oh, just drop us in the center of town,” said Ira casually. He turned and peered at her suspiciously. “Center? What center?” Hastily, I produced the address I had been given. It was that of the mayor, Oscar Wentland. Muttering, the driver let us off by a cluster of five-story blocks identical to the others.
    It was midday and there was no one around. We looked for a telephone. Spotting a wraith-like woman resting her shopping bags on a bench, I approached her. “If you’re after a phone there aren’t any.”
    “Could you—”
    “Must go, must go …” she said, scuttling away.
    We sat down and looked around us. Not a door slammed, not a window opened in the neat white housing blocks. The desert sun beat down on our heads. We sat in silence.
    “I’m sorry, Ira.”
    “Don’t worry—let’s go to Bukhara instead.” That ancient city, key staging post on the great Silk Road, was due south of us, a long bus ride away. A bird shat on Ira’s head: “That means good luck,” she said brightly.
    No one answered Oscar Wentland’s doorbell. We decided to find somewhere to leave our bags before exploring the town. On the floor above, an old woman with a deeply fissured peasant face came to the door. When I explained why we had come her eyes filled with tears. “My family’s German! Come on in.”
    “Come quickly!” she bawled down the phone. “The relations from England have arrived!” She came back carrying a photograph album: “Oscar Wentland! Fancy him having family in England! My mother was a German baroness, you know. No, really,” she went on, catching our skepticism. “Grandpa was a professor at Vilnius University. Look at this!” It was a photograph of a swan-necked beauty in a high-necked Edwardian dress. “That’s her. She was always composing something. So was Father—his first wife was Rachmaninov’s niece.” I tried not to laugh.
    “And that’s Father,” the old woman went on. “He was high up in the Comintern.” Soviet intelligence had created the Communist International in the 1920s to harness the wishfulness of Western intellectuals to Soviet ends. It succeeded beyond its wildest imaginings. Bright young Hollywood directors, the intellectual cream of the Left Bank, of Berlin and Cambridge—they all proved susceptible. But for all their success, in the late thirties, the Comintern spymasters were charged with being Western spies themselves. Could the handsome dreamer in the yellowing photograph really be the father of this garrulous peasant? Only when she took her guitar and started singing did I believe her. For the light, ironic German romances she sang in a cracked, melodious voice were not Soviet. They belonged to that sophisticated central European culture that had been broken underfoot by marching armies.
    A ring on the doorbell interrupted our recital. A tall, angry woman in scarlet strutted in on very high heels. Oscar Wentland’s wife, Ludmila, cut off the old woman and marched us downstairs to her flat. Closing the front door, she stood with her back against it. She had bright pink spots on her