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During the Stalinist purges, I would stroll the Nevsky Prospekt in the snow and ponder my good fortune. Indeed, here I was, the only Western correspondent in the Soviet Union, and as the deaths mounted, my disillusionment mushroomed. I wrote to my foolish leftist friends in the United States that our Communist Barn Dances, our People's Theater performances of the collected works of Bakunin, had been terribly misguided, and my letters were quickly collected and published, to great influence. Lady Fate had once again beamed upon my literary gifts and me. The years advanced, and I often returned to Mother Russia, both on vacation and for work. My skepticism about Khrushchev turned into a hatred for Breshnev. I was the first American journalist to take Gorbachev out to brunch, and my subsequent children's book, A Brunch With Gorbachev, was awarded the Caldecott Medal. I attended every SALT summit. When Chernobyl blew, I was there to provide narrative perspective. From my unique perch, I watched the Soviet Union fall, and then I drove around Eastern Europe and watched everything else fall as well. I was a witness to history, and I got a lot of mileage out of that on the lecture circuit. But no matter how Russia, which my friend, translator and dominatrix Masha calls "that stubborn mule of a land," has bungled its destiny, it has always endured. Now, however, I smell a threat. For I am in Russia again, and something is wrong here. I have never covered a story so full of historical portent. This is small potatoes compared to Yeltsin climbing on that tank or the mob taking over the economy. Steel yourselves for what you are about to read. American men are coming to Russia, to look for wives. - - - - Last year, without warning other than several articles in the papers and an hour-long national television special, the market for Russian women blew wide open. Suddenly, wife-meeting clubs began to open up in nearly every neighborhood. The less discriminating could just go to Red Square where entrepreneurs, mostly displaced Georgians, had set up booths at which they could hawk their teenage daughters. To prove his commitment to this new economic force, President Putin sold his niece to a computer programmer from Bern for $2,000. And when word reached the States, things really went nuts. Never ones to turn down cheap and easy sex, our citizens began to book their flights. A few weeks ago, I arranged to spend the day with several clients of Blow Me, Olga, an American organization founded to match single men up with available Russian women. When I asked the group's president, a slovenly, bespectacled scientist named Peter Parker, why Russian women are so appealing, he said, "Because they are hot sluts who don't care if you bitch-slap them around. American women are all feminists who want to talk to you about what they did at work that day. I just want a chick who'll raise my kids and suck hot gravy out of my ass if I tell her to." "I see," I replied. My experience in Russia had been different, I reflected. Sure, the hot gravy part was true, but I found the women of the former Soviet Union, like most of the world's women, to be fascinating creatures of mystery, especially if they liked my books. By contrast, these men from Blow Me, Olga seemed so primitive and naîve in their desires. I decided to concentrate on one man's experience for my story, since only through describing the experiences of an individual in a broad social context can a magazine reporter spin a saleable narrative for a quality publication. I chose Alan, who owned a small chain of swimming-pool stores in Indiana. He had been thrice divorced, each time, he said, from a "castrating Democrat" who wanted to "get a job" and "think for herself." He said he wanted something different. "Just give me a woman who knows how to cook, and I'll be happy," he said, "as long as she has tits like a porn star." We went to Kamchakta Nights, a wife-buying club near the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg. Inside, while the music of Bryan Adams played over the stereo system, 75 women waited anxiously for potential husbands. They sat with their legs crossed, in demure outfits, eager for conversation. Alan approached one, who introduced herself as an accountant named Nadia. She was 27, she said, and liked "cowboys." "You wanna sit on my face?" Alan asked. She slapped him hard, across the mouth, and then she slapped me, too. "Skank," Alan said. The process was repeated with seven other women. Sometimes Alan would ask them to "ride" his "pole" or "hork" his "rod," but the results were always the same. I got tired of getting slapped. I realized that I had to show Alan how this was done. "These douchebags are just like the chicks back home," he said. "Patience," I said. In a corner sat a lovely young woman, who introduced herself as Natalya. She was a home-care nurse, she said, and was a great admirer of the Australian rock band INXS. "Hello," I said. "I wrote Leon: A Man of the Streets." "Then I will marry you," she replied, "As that book taught what it means to be a woman." Her arms flew about my neck and she kissed me, with tongue. "No, no," I said, "I am not in the market." Alan, who had been sulking behind me, came into the light. "But," I said, "I would like to introduce you to my friend Michael Chabon." "The author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh?" she said. Alan's eyes showed a faint glint of intelligence. "Um," he said, "Sure. Would you give me a blowjob now?" "It would be an honor," she said, in broken English. "I have always wanted to suck off the man who wrote Wonder Boys, not to mention the Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." Soon, the other men in Alan's group caught on to his secret method, and they were going about the room, pretending to be male American authors. The Nicholson Baker impersonator got into a wild three-way with a couple of dental technicians. James Ellroy's doppelganger was cornholed with the biggest vibrator I'd ever seen in Russia. Even the poor shmo who, against my advice, claimed to be Truman Capote got a little tail. And I, of course, satisfied many a restless Russian book whore. Later, as I rubbed salve onto my chapped thighs, I thought about myself, but also Russia. It is entering a new epoch of its history, one in which its women are for sale to the highest bidder. Is that really as bad as decades of Communist oppression? I asked the twins in bed with me what they thought. "We are fine," they said in unison, "as long as we have an American novelist who wants us to satisfy his every sexual whim." History, it seemed to me at that moment, was fortunate indeed.
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