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joined my parents at the kitchen table and scanned through the list of competitors. There, as part of the Soviet delegation, were the names Sergei Federenko and Gregory Ziskin. My mother asked my father what this meant. Did it mean we would get to see them? Did it mean they would see our apartment? It had been little more than a week since the last time the paramedics had come, wrapped my mother in an orange blanket, strapped her to a gurney, and taken her to Branson Hospital. For months she had been stricken with paralyzing anxiety and a lethargy that made it impossible for her to undertake even the most basic household tasks. These had been months of boiled eggs, Lipton chicken noodle soup, an accumulation of sticky patches on the kitchen floor, and dust in the corners. My God, Sergei can’t see the apartment like this, she said.
    I sprang up from the table, unable to restrain my enthusiasm. I pranced around the apartment singing, Seryozha, Seryozha, Seryozha. Seryozha is coming!
    My father told me to be quiet already.
    –Seryozha, Seryozha, Seryozha.
    My mother got up and handed me the broom.
    –If you can’t sit still, start sweeping.
    –Seryozha is coming, I sang to the broom.
    Five years before we left Latvia my father operated a very successful side venture out of the gym at Riga Dynamo. At that time he was one of the head administrators at Dynamo and was responsible for paper shuffling and budget manipulation. Before that he had been a very good varsity athlete and an accomplished coach of the VEF radio factory’s soccer team. For a Jew, he was well liked by his superiors, and so they turned a blind eye when he and Gregory Ziskin—a fellow administrator and Jew—started their bodybuilding program in the evenings. At best, the directors hoped that the class would lead to the discovery of a new lifter; at worst, it meant they would get a piece of the action.
    Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from six to nine my father and Gregory unlocked the back door of the Dynamo gym and admitted their eager bodybuilders. Most of these were Jewish university students and young professionals who wanted to look good on the beaches of Jurmala. They were hardly inspired athletes but they came regularly and were pleased with their results. My father and Gregory assigned routines and oversaw their exercises. For my father the class was a welcome break from the obligations of Soviet bureaucracy—the endless documents, detailed reports, and formal presentations to the Dynamo directors and visiting dignitaries. Also, the money was good. After kickbacks to the Dynamo directors and a few rubles to the janitor, my father and Gregory each pocketed thirty extra rubles a month—more than double the rent on our three-room apartment.
    My father and Gregory ran the class for several years without incident. The directors received their cut and kept quiet. As long as the Dynamo teams were placing well, nobody was willing to mess with a good thing, and at the time, Riga Dynamo was clicking along: Victor Tikhonov worked magic with the hockey team before being promoted to Moscow and Red Army; Ivanchenko became the first middleweight to lift a combined 500 kilos; and the basketball and volleyball teams were feared across Europe. So nobody paid much attention to my father’s class.
    It was only in the mid-1970s that things started to turn. As Jews began to emigrate many of my father’s bodybuilders requested visas to Israel. Dynamo represented the KGB and someone at the ministry started making connections. It was pointed out to one of my father’s directors that there was a disturbing correlation between my father’s bodybuilders and Jews asking for exit visas. My father and Gregory were invited into the director’s office and informed of the suspicions. These were the sorts of suspicions that could get them all into trouble. It wouldn’t look good at all if the Riga Dynamo gym was sponsoring anti-Soviet activities. The director, an old