Page 10 of Cruel Demands

“That sounds plausible.”

“It sounds American.”

The position was advertised through my university as part of a paid student internship. The Office of the Governor of Moscow Oblast needed administrative interns—several of them, according to the posting—to help with administrative overflow. Filing. Copying. Preparing event packets. Sorting correspondence. Scheduling assistance. English-language materials when needed. Other duties as assigned.

Nothing glamorous. Nothing important. Probably long hours spent standing beside a copier while someone more powerful forgets my name.

But it would be real work in a Russian government office, and that matters to me more than I want to admit.

I can attend college in America. I can study political science in America. I can learn Russian from professors and textbooks and audio recordings in America. But my parents encouraged me to come to Russia, because immersion would make me fluent, because a year abroad would look good on applications, because they believed I should have opportunities they never did.

But sometimes, when I sit in a bar drinking vodka or spend an afternoon wandering through a museum, the whole thing feels dangerously close to a vacation they could not afford to take themselves.

I want something concrete to show for it. Something beyond grades and photographs and stories about snow.

I want to be able to say I worked here. That I used the language somewhere outside a classroom. That I learned how another country functions from inside one of its own institutions, even if my part in that institution was carrying folders from one room to another.

I open my email.

For half a second, I see nothing new. Then I notice an unread message halfway down the screen, buried beneath a university announcement and an advertisement from a clothing store I can’t afford.

The timestamp is from late this afternoon. The subject line makes all the alcohol drain out of my blood at once.

Interview Confirmation — Office of the Governor of Moscow Oblast

I sit up so quickly that the room tilts and spins, nausea flooding my mouth with saliva.

Anya notices immediately. “Chto?” What?

I can’t answer.

She slides closer and reads over my shoulder as I open the email with a thumb that suddenly does not feel attached to my body.

Dear Ms. Taylor Hayes,

Thank you for your application to the student administrative placement program. We are pleased to invite you for an interview regarding an administrative intern position within the Office of the Governor of Moscow Oblast. Please report to the administrative entrance at 9:00 a.m. Friday⁠—

Friday. Two days away.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

Anya grabs both my shoulders and shakes me hard enough that my head snaps back. “Taylor!”

“Stop. I’m nauseated.”

“Ty poluchila!” You got it.

“I got an interview. Not the job.”

“You got the interview because they may give you the job.”

“That is significantly less encouraging.”

“It is realistic encouragement.”

I stare at the screen until the letters blur. An administrative intern. The lowest rung on a very tall bureaucratic ladder. It probably pays barely enough to justify the commute. I would likely spend more time organizing paper than observing anything remotely political.

I don’t care.