Spring 2024 - Recrudescence

“Mrs. Vogel Doesn’t Need a Visa”

meet at six o’clock, and it was already almost eleven. A man finally appeared behind the small window of the Ukrainian border post. There were no white gloves on his hands, and he looked inquisitive and unfriendly. Opening Ernst’s passport, he said a few words that Ernst, of course, could not understand. Having not received an answer, the border guard gave him a look that promised nothing positive and, perhaps, he repeated what he had said.

Ernst responded in English. “I don’t understand.”

“So, so?” the guard said with surprise.

Not waiting for a further response, Ernst repeated himself in

German, just in case:

“Ich verstehe nicht.”

“Shit,” the guard softly blurted in something vaguely like German, and spat in disgust. Ernst was quite unsettled by this. “Wait here,” the guard grunted in Ukrainian, and went off somewhere. Naturally, Ernst had not understood, but he remained standing, concluding that the border guard had gone for help. He looked around. The light was dim, and a sort of grey pallor, quite strange to him, lay over everything, stirring up a feeling of terrible despair. Two young men appeared from somewhere in back. They wore leather jackets and track pants with white stripes down the sides, and, openly examining his vehicle, spoke with one another, not looking at him the entire time, as if he were not there. They spat once in a while, and one even kicked the toe of his shoe repeatedly into the rubber of a rear wheel. “Nice car, eh?” Ernst said in German, addressing them in as friendly a tone as possible, but he received no answer. The men in the track pants crushed cigarette butts under their feet, and ducked into one of the cars that stood further back. Just then, an official came out through the door of a building with Ernst’s passport in his

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