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not recognize fills his head. It takes a minute or two before he discovers, to his relief,
     that it comes from the steel carillon tower on the wood line of the hill. Further down MainStreet, he ducks into a Kampus Kave with something called “A Money No Object Pizza” advertised in the window, hikes himself
     onto a stool, orders coffee from the woman reading a comic book behind the counter.
    She looks up. “With or without?”
    Afraid of appearing ignorant, Lemuel replies, “If you please, one of each.”
    The woman snickers. “Now there’s one I ain’t heard before.”
    Warmed by the coffees, one with, one without, Lemuel asks directions to the general store. He winds his khaki scarf around
     his neck and sets out. Passing a modern, one-story glass-and-brick building, he spots an electric billboard flashing the hour
     and the temperature and something called “Today’s Money Market Rates.” He notices a line snaking out from the building’s vestibule.
     Without giving the matter a second thought, he joins it.
    “If you please, what are they selling?” he asks the girl in front of him.
    Her jaw stops working on a stick of gum as she uncorks an earphone from an ear. “Huh? Sorry?”
    “Could you say me what is for sale.” Lemuel gestures toward the vestibule with his chin. “With such a line, it is undoubtedly
     something imported.” He rummages in his pockets for the small notebook that he always carried in Russia, opens it to the page
     containing his mistress’s measurements—brassiere size, glove size, shoe size, pantyhose size, hat size, shirt size, inseam,
     height, weight, her favorite color (crossed out, with a note in Axinya’s handwriting next to it saying “Any color will do”).
    The list arouses in Lemuel an aching nostalgia for the familiar chaos of Petersburg.
    “The line’s for the ATM,” the girl explains in a whiny voice. Plugging the earphone back in her ear, she executes a little
     shuffle with her feet, almost as if she is dancing to a snatch of music.
    Lemuel turns to a young man who has joined the line behind him. “If you please, what is an ATM?”
    “Automatic Teller Machine.” He notices the bewilderment in Lemuel’s eyes. “It distributes bread, as in money?”
    Lemuel assembles the pieces of the puzzle. The phrase “Money Market” on the electric billboard, an ATM that distributes bread
     as in money, the twenty or so people queuing patiently despite the minusten degrees Celsius. What could be more logical? In Russia you queue for bread, in America the Beautiful you queue for another
     kind of bread. The streets may not be paved with Sony Walkmans in this Promised Land he has come to, but it is nevertheless
     a country full of wonders.
    Lemuel turns back to the young man to confirm his suspicions. “When my turn comes,
bread
“—he winks to show that he has caught on to the code—”will be distributed to me?”
    “You have to have plastic.” The boy holds up a credit card for Lemuel to inspect.
    “You need plastic to get bread?”
    “Yeah. That’s the deal.”
    “Where can I acquire plastic?”
    “Inside. But the bank only gives plastic to people with bank accounts.”
    Lemuel eyes the building. “This does not look like a bank.”
    “It looks like what?”
    “It reminds me of a dacha I once saw in the Crimea.”
    “What’s a dacha?”
    “A dacha is where the nomenklatura spend their weekends.”
    “What’s a nomen-whatsis?”
    “In Russia, they are the ones who decide which side is up. If I can offer you a word of advice, young man, in any given country,
     the single most important thing you need to know is who decides which side is up.”
    Lemuel startles the young man with an awkward high-five, then slips away from the line to continue exploring the Promised
     Land.
    Lemuel’s
Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Manual
vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds; he knows expressions Raymond Chandler, may he rest in peace, would have to look
     up