"Let's talk about less depressing things," she said when the waiters left us alone, squeezing a wedge of lemon into her iced tea. "You'd be disappointed to hear that Lucky Strikes was shut down."

"Oh come on...that is depressing," I said with mock seriousness. "Though I heard this already this morning...There goes my social life." On the upside, I thought, that since this was where I would always see Yulia, I wouldn't have to worry about the awkwardness of running into her again. Besides the Lucky Strikes, our lives never really intersected.

"The whole district is now Gulnora's turf," she explained and she knew, as she lived right next to the Lucky Strikes, though she never went. "She's opened a nightclub down the street, and all these new boutiques are going up. They're huge, no one ever goes in them, and they're full of last season's Dolce & Gabbana."

She paused for me to chime in what we would normally assume in such a situation. "Money laundering," I said rolling my eyes. The greed and venality was simply a glaring fact of life in the city. All the buildings were falling apart. The few stores around had practically nothing in them, except cheap Chinese goods. Who needed these big empty stores with luxury goods that no honest person in Tashkent could afford? Only a money launderer.

"And they all have a name with "elite" in them. Elite shoes, elite this, elite that."

"Since when was elite such a good thing?" I mused aloud. It was a cultural difference. Elitism had a lot going for it here. Our American democratic values seemed sort of quaint and naive in contrast with the local thinking.

"Also, there's a new decree out that all nightclubs are supposed to close at midnight. Naturally, hers is exempted." Everything here was monopolized. Even nightlife.

"I guess I'll be staying in on Saturday nights, drinking alone. What else can I do?"

"Don't ask me. I'm a married lady," she sucked on her cigarette. "I'm not supposed to even leave the house anymore. But, I did hear that if you call this one DJ there -- he can tell you where he sets up this kind of floating party. Apparently, last week he held one in the lobby of the Real Cinema house, but the police came at about 2 to break it up."

"Thanks for the tip." I thought, maybe I was getting too old for this kind of partying. It was pretty harmless. I didn't drink much, just danced and talked with people. Sometimes flirted. Only with Yulia did it ever get beyond that. But all in all, Lucky Strikes was something about the life here that was very charming, like Paris in the 20's, this sort of youthful, bohemian, and free space; especially within the restrictive environment in Tashkent. "How do you know this stuff?"

"I talked with my district policeman. Nice enough guy, always talks with me when I'm walking the dog."

We saw two other familiar expatriates, Alyssa and Susie, walking in. All expatriates, for the most part were familiar to us. There weren't that many expatriates in Tashkent. A few hundred perhaps, not more. It was easy to know almost everyone by name, their profession, a few personal details, some gossip. They were also in their bathingsuits and taking a very civilized lunchbreak from work like us. They were both in their mid-to-late thirties, were both lawyers, and seemed to be a part of a social circle of older expatriates involved in businesses or the diplomatic corps that mostly clung together, mainly by circumstance -- they couldn't speak any of the local languages and therefore, were pretty much restricted to a circle of other expatriates, their translators, and some English speaking local colleagues. They were also a bit of a bored bunch...probably much in the same way that Henrietta and I were, but most likely it was because their jobs were mostly babysitting small representative offices that had very little going on, representing very few companies in Uzbekistan, waiting endlessly for the economy to free up and more activity happening. But, after some time, like us, they came to know that things were probably not going to change. Things always remained the same.

For many of them, living overseas, I suppose, was this "roughing it" kind of adventure, living out in this hardship post, doing without many things. But you could find them often enough sitting by the poolside at hotels, going on shopping excursions, and spending their time atother foreigner-friendly spots, where pretty much only foreigners congregated, since they were too expensive for most locals. Living in this rarefied environment, they often had no idea what at all was going on in the country and they were always glad to include folks like me and Henrietta, as we could translate for them, or fill them in on our reputed "on the ground" knowledge of what was going on in the country, misguided as that idea might be, since we were a bit more attuned to what was happening, spoke to "real" people, watched the miserable local TV and read its absurd press. And, they seemed to be amused by whatever we reported to them.

We invited them to join us, and just as they sat down, Alyssa said that she would really like us to come to a party she would have at her house over the weekend, to welcome her friend who had just moved to Tashkent. And then she turned to me, and said, I'd really like you to meet my friend. I smiled and said, "sure thing."

At this point, it was the end of mine and Henrietta's chatter about our personal problems that we tried to let circulate in the orbit of the expatriate circle, and so the conversation turned to more typical expatriate talk, mostly about shopping. We talked about where to buy fine Uzbek ceramic crafts. There was a master ceramicist and his son, who held small exhibitions of their work, for foreigners, usually at the palatial homes of these foreigners, and where they sold the work for hard currency prices. Also, we talked about the carpet seller, who sold hundred year old silk woven carpets from Samarkand and Bukhara for $400. Today, he would be in the lobby of this very hotel to sell his latest treasures. And, we talked about the tailor who knew how to tastefully use some of the local fabrics into professional tailored suits, but he took his time; sometimes you wouldn't hear from him for months, and then he'd call you when he was ready to receive you for your next fitting. Henrietta looked over at me once or twice and winked at me over the course of the next thirty minutes or so while we endured this light and shallow, yet pleasant conversation. My phone rang again, it was Yulia, and I told the group that it was my office, and that this was a signal that I needed to go.

Henrietta walked me to the lobby. "I wonder who this 'friend' is," she said coyly. "I'll call you later."  ¶ 10:49 PM 0 Comments

  I spent the morning pushing through the papers that had accumulated on my desk, reading through mail, returning the phone calls, catching up with staff correspondents and stringers on what was going on in the country and in the region, sitting with the office bookkeeper to sign bank requisitions and payments. I accidentally picked up the phone, finding the "extrasensory" woman on the other line, and tried to get her off the phone for nearly half-an-hour in which she talked rapidly and excitedly about her ability to detect where the faultlines were in Tashkent, which buildings were most at risk, including the new constructions going up, such as the luxury housing complex near my apartment. She left me with the words, "this city will come tumbling down with a great force."

I wondered if she was completely mad, or if she was like the Greek Cassandra, taken for mad, possessing the gift of prescience, but no one heeded her words.

I had the office driver, Lev, an elderly, good humored and silent Russian man, drive me to the Tata hotel, where Henrietta would be waiting for me by the pool. He was a kind man, always seemed tired, resigned, impossible to read, with portraits of Russian religious icons decorating his dashboard. He always knew how to talk to the numerous traffic police on the street whose jobs seemed only to collect money from drivers for the most arcane, and most-likely made up of reasons. Though he knew where, Lev had no idea what he was taking me to, and never asked me any questions. Henrietta would be waiting inside for me, but I suppose if word got out that I was meeting a woman in a hotel, it would be assumed only one thing -- sex. Sex in the afternoon. Sex, perhaps with a married woman. Or, since I was a foreigner, a journalist, I could be suspected of something more cloak and dagger as well in the somewhat cynical environment tinged with its Soviet legacy. Little would anyone suspect that I was going to sit by the pool, enjoy lunch and gossip with a friend. But Lev asked no questions. He asked how my family at home was, and I told him that everything was fine. He asked if they had heat in the summer there like here. And I said, there was, but it was different, it was humid. Within moments, we were there at the hotel and I told him not to wait, that I'd make my way back to the office myself. It was probably best not to be seen walking out with Henrietta. There were plenty of taxis by the hotel; this was the famous site of where I had caught a taxi in my shorts many months back and was mistaken for a male prostitute, so I sent Lev off.

The hotel, like all of the luxury hotels in Tashkent seemed spacious and devoid of people. Almost never did anyone stay at the hotels in Tashkent. At the very best of times, the hotels had a 20% level of occupancy, though large numbers of US military and diplomatic personnel now camped out at the Intercontinental or the Sheraton. The Tata, which was sometimes called Le Meridien, when it changed management, and probably had a new name and management, which was around much longer and was quite nice, never seemed to have anyone staying there. A young man staffed the concierge and I paid him for entrance to the swimming pool in the courtyard. There were few people by the pool, and I could recognize Henny sitting by the pool, her legs dangling over the edge, her hair wet, her solemn face, faced down to the water, hidden behind a pair of large dark sunglasses, looked up and she threw out her hand to wave at me.

I walked over to her, dropped off my bag on a lounge chair, kicked off my shoes, rolled up my trouser legs and dropped my feet into the pool beside her gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Missed you, sweetheart," I said. She seemed somber, subdued, not her usual self. Just when I wanted to ask her what I missed out on, a waiter came up to us and asked if we would like to order some food. We ordered sandwiches and salads. She seemed to light up. "How was it?" She asked.

"It was OK. You know...everything's still there, still the same. Except for the World Trade Center. Definitely some reverse culture shock for me, mild feelings of alienation, and family drama. My mother in particular. Kind of hysterical."

"All mothers are crazy," she said.

"I don't know about that. Something makes me think that mine is exceptionally worse than the others. She does bring out the worst in me. I'd come to visit her, and I'm barely at her place an hour and she's harping on me to take out the garbage, while I was having a jetlag attack. I thought she might have been a bit more sympathetic."

"Sorry to hear it. Just because you've gone doesn't mean her life hasn't stopped. Her garbage still needs to be taken out."

"Well, it's nothing. I'm back here, a million miles away from it all. So, you know. Out of sight, out of mind. In that way, glad to be back." I looked over at her. "What's up with you? Why so down?"

"It's Ali."

"What's going on with him?"

"Well, he doesn't seem to get it...."

"What doesn't he get?"

"Well, I'm not ready for babies, not now...Not even sure I want his babies."

"Oh no," I said, not knowing how to respond. I didn't really like her husband so much. He was a sweet enough guy, but seemed to be like a big child, in the way I imagined most Uzbek men to be.

"I've got my career right now. And I want to go back to school for my PhD. That was the plan. We were going to move back to the US next spring, but he wants everything to stay the same, for us to stay here. For me to work, for him to futz around, and to do whatever pleases his parents, which is just to have babies." She paused for a moment. "Can we just not talk about this. I'm sorry for bringing it up. It's just too depressing right now?"

"Ok, honey." She got up to go to her bag to pull out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. A cell phone started ringing.

"Is that mine?" She said, nervously fingering through her bag for her phone. "Yours."

I got up and looked at the phone, saw the number coming through, "Yulia," my heart sank, I had been dreading her awaited call. I put the ringer on silent and put the phone down, reminding myself that I should have Dildora change the phone number when I got back.

"Is that your girlfriend?" She said sarcastically.

"No, it's just the office. They can wait for now," I lied. She could tell. I always took my calls from the office.

"Are you still with her?"

"I don't think so, I mean, you know...I need to tell her that."

"You do," she said in a very schoolmarmish voice. "Did you get your ass whacked in New York?" She pronounced 'whacked' like 'waxed.'

"No, none of that. But you know...I'm not straight, not even bi. I don't have any feelings for her and I'm scared, you know, what if she got pregnant..." I grabbed her pack of cigarettes and pulled out a cigarette and lighter and lit up and mumbled, "if I don't watch it, I could wind up married and stuck with her..."

"Like me?"

Before I could respond, or not respond for some unintentional affront, our privacy was interrupted by the two waiters, who laid down our sandwiches and iced teas on the beach table beside us, laying out silverware and napkins, all in a complete and pregnant silence.  ¶ 11:07 PM 0 Comments

  The office was in the middle of a quiet residential area, an Uzbek "makhalya," which had streets lined with walled off compounds that inside had a house and a garden. Many were occupied by the offices of international organizations, businesses, embassy staff, and nothing about the area could even closely resemble the bustle of a city, let alone a business district, with not a person in sight on the streets, and all activity happening behind high fortress-like walls, through gardens. Some of the houses were quite luxurious, built on a grand scale with questionable acquired money by the country's elites, with such western conveniences as jacuzzis and bidets (we had these in my office as well), saunas, small swimming pools, and constructed of materials including marble, exquisitely carved wooden doors, ceramic floors. The gardens would be filled with a variety of trees that in this time of year would bear pomegranates, quince, a small fruit that was something like an apricot, and other local fruits, such as the "hurma," all hanging low and easy for picking, giving one the sense that one did not have to toil hard to reap such goodness from the earth, and this perhaps reflected itself in our corporate work ethic, far from the eyes of our Western based headquarters.

It was early still, so there were few cars parked along the streets of those starting their workday. I unlocked our front door with the big metal key, and entered our garden in full bloom, pulled a pear from a branch for my breakfast, and waved to the hunky security guard, Dmitri, shirtless in his track pants, splashing his face with water from the fountain in the garden. I went to the fountain for some water to wash my pear. His face was a bit cut up, and he always struck me as one of those silent and strong, maybe thuggish types, that turned me on, as he sheepishly put his shirt back on. He had once been a boxer, then a security guard for the presidential apparatus and naturally, was related to someone already working in our office, which was generally the case with the security guards working for the offices in this district, I was told. It was impossible to trust anyone here, except relatives, as the thinking went, and I'd heard stories that security guards among the president's security outfit were often culled from the state orphanages, because you'd find more loyal cadres there -- not compromised by their own personal or family interests, as they themselves were wards of the state. There was a long history of this -- during the Soviet days, the communist party secretaries from the Central Asian Republics were all raised in orphanages, seen to be loyal to the supreme soviet and free of extensive ties with the tight clan and tribal systems of the indigenous populations.

Dmitry extended one of his small, but thick and stubby hands for me to shake, and quickly disappeared back inside the office. He always was silent around me, sometimes sitting alone in the garden, staring up at the sky, during those nights that I would be alone working late in the office. One morning, when I came in early, he was sitting behind one of the computers. Shortly after he left, I took a quick look at the computer, at the history of sites opened on the internet, and found scores of pornographic sites. I couldn't blame him -- it was probably boring sitting in this empty office with nothing else to do, and no one was watching, and likely, he wasn't aware that anyone could see the history of sites he'd been checking out. On the other hand, I was a little surprised that in a country where clearly, the Internet was monitored and sites that published materials critical of the state were blocked from access, that pornography was so easily accessible. The cleaning lady, Hilola, and her daughter were quickly tidying my office space, and I could see Dmitri from the window, with a small duffle over his shoulder, existing from the garden at the end of his shift. On my desk, I could see Hilola organize neatly the thick stack of pink "While You Were Out" notes that Dildora had left for me in my absence. I picked them up and leafed quickly through them, all written in Dildora's perfectly neat cursive Russian. Sometimes she's write what was clearly her personal sarcastic commentary on the caller, such as a familiar visitor to the office, a woman who called herself an "extrasensory" who had special divining powers, such as the ability to point out on maps where gold lay or gas reserves, who always insisted on talking to me, and not to my local staff, who had hear from her over the years, since she said that local peoples didn't understand or value her powers, that only foreigners could. There were the various human rights cases, some of which might be legitimate, and the others which were more of the leaky roof nature, many of whom had exhausted all the places to turn to get their voices heard. There were the fallen-from-grace government bureaucrats or police, who came to me with their "exposees" of the government, and they might later be able to use their "whistleblowing" as an argument for their asylum cases before American or European consulates. A large part of Dildora's job was to sift the wheat from the chaff, screen and shield me from the non-legitimate ones, who sometimes were even able to somehow find my cell phone number, and then require me to change that number,which Dildora did for me every few months. Perhaps now would be a good time to do so again, I thought, maybe to keep Yulia away from me for a while. She was bound to call one of these days. I had this dreaded feeling that she could be pregnant and I wondered how easily that could happen. And how if it happened, I would be stuck.

The chief censor at the Ministry of Information was retiring after 30 years of service, one of the notes said with a press release stapled to it. The government now touted that censorship was over. This, after years of claiming that there was never any pre-publication censorship and that the reason for the ass-kissing journalism was simply the fault of the country's journalists. There was a press conference that I was invited to. I already could imagine what would be said about the great progress of the country in its transition to democracy -- all the window dressing given for the benefit of the US, Uzbekistan's newest best friend. Essentially, I had to show up to these things, as it was my job, and to put on my best face to disguise any trace of cynicism, sarcasm, doubt.

In my email box, there was a curious message from a correspondent from the New Jersey desk who wanted to get some information from me about a courtroom case she was following about the eldest daughter of the Uzbek president, Gulnara. She had left the US with her children and didn't show up to custody hearings in a long and ugly divorce case she was going through with her American husband. The husband reported her to the authorities for kidnapping the children, and this therefore resulted in her getting put on an Interpol list. You even found members of the US congress from New Jersey as proxy advocates for each side of the marital dispute. This could potentially be interesting, given how it might tie into US-Uzbek diplomatic relations, given how personal and political relations were to closely intertwined here, and were never warmer than now. The daughter was back in Tashkent now, and it seemed like she was determined to make her mark, opening up a string of new boutiques, beauty salons, and nightclubs.

Dildora was the first one to walk in. She was flushed and sweaty, like me, but nonetheless embraced me tightly saying how much she missed me, that she counted each day in the office without me, that it was boring. No news.

"What about the censor quitting?" I said trying to hide my cynicism and resisting smiling.

"It means nothing," she said. "He could have long ago retired, because our journalists know very well what they should and shouldn't write. Their system works perfectly well, they have plenty of control." Dildora, herself once a young and idealistic graduate of the journalism school went to work after her graduation for one of the state papers. The story goes, that apparently after a few weeks of reprimands and heavily censored news bits of hers that made it to print, she came to us begging for any kind of work. The erstwhile receptionist was preparing to emigrate to Russia and the timing was perfect for Dildora. In time, she grew to be more than just a receptionist, but did a fair share of fact checking, vetting sources, and she was doing some reporting on the side for some opposition websites, and she conducted a torrid long-distance affair with one of the main exiled opposition politicians who lived in Turkey.

"Here's some news, well not big news, but news that might affect you," she said as she walked away to her desk. "Madamoiselle opened up her new nightclub. And now, no other nightclub in the city is allowed to work after 12 midnight."

"Does the one have to do with the other?" I asked, and she turned to me shrugging. I suspected a probable yes from the look on Dildora's face, but knowing that it would be impossible to know, given that it was impossible to get any information here. We'd have to ask someone in the office who had relatives working in the police force who might know about some internal memo about nightclubs. On a personal note, I was disappointed. She was right that this would affect me. I wondered where I would go out at night now. I suppose that my favorite nightclub was affected as well.  ¶ 4:59 PM 0 Comments