Journal Entry 1

What am I doing here? Why am I wasting my time with these people? I feel as though it’s only a matter of time before our little group collapses, before one of us realizes that there is no point in what we are doing, we’re getting nowhere. Today we have money in our pockets, but everyone keeps on burning them on cheap liquor and women, it’s getting more and more difficult to keep our budget. Adding to the fact that everyone in our group is a complete nincompoop, I don’t know what to do. Chinh is incapable of doing anything, I don’t even understand why he’s still here, he can’t even do his job in the university, the one he keeps on priding himself with. All he does is sleep and talk. They disgust me, people like him, those who are no different than their capitalist enemies. Everyday Chinh preaches and preaches against everything we do , from the music we listen to in our free time, to the dances we go to at night, yet I am sure that if one of his superiors was to say that those were now Russia’s ideals, that he would rise in the Party if he adopted those habits, he would sell himself off just as he has sold himself to us. I know that the only reason why he continues business with us is because we provide him with the most money for the least amount of work.

Today I watched the Moscow streets while waiting for a taxi. I watched the women clutching their handbags walk swiftly to and fro, going in and out of buildings, their frowns become ever-the-more deeper as the day wore on. I watched a group of young children play football in the alleys, I listened to their innocent arguments about who was going to be goalie and wondered what was going to become of them. How many of them would be forced to sell their ideologies, dance with their shadows just as everyone in the Party has been forced to do during these difficult times. I saw a beautiful women pass close by, I could smell her perfume from where I was sitting, I could feel her soft white skin from the look the she gave the pavement. I feel as thought the hardest thing to do is to love, I wonder if she has not yet become cold to it. I wonder who she is thinking of, whose arms are going to hold her tonight, or whether she will be forced to waste away her beauty in order to take care of her family, like my mother. 

Tonight I will be forced to go back and face Chinh in our room. He says he says that he has prepared a new trunk of merchandise full of imported goods that are going to be going on the next boat. He claims that he has everything under control , that this is going to be the jackpot that will give him the kick start he needs. We say, how are you going to do it old man, you neither know Russian, and you’re as poor as the dust on your tables. He says no, he says he knows exactly what he doing. We’ll see about that.