You Did What?!

© 2013 EARLE W. JACOBS. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 1/14/13

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0582-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0580-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0581-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013900397

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

FOREWORD: Author’s notes, apologies, disclaimers, etc.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

FOREWORD

Author’s

notes, apologies,

disclaimers, etc.

This of course is a story of fiction, purely from the imaginings of your author. I have been to the Ukraine several times but never to Russia or Central Asia. For this reason, some of the names of people and places I have dreamed up or used may seem a little strange to any of you folks who may be of Russian or Central Asian extraction—my apologies.

I have used many Russian words and phrases and in many cases, I did not follow with translations. I of course used my version of the phonetic sounds of the words as they sound to me. I think you will figure out most of them. As you are no doubt aware, you can also find a number of Internet entries under, Common Russian words and phrases. You might find them of interest. Some of those mini dictionaries also use phonetic spelling, sometimes different from mine. I also tossed in a few words in some other languages, as they seemed appropriate, just to keep you all on your toes.

All persons herein are purely fictional—as far as I know. Should any appear to resemble any of your family, friends or acquaintances—my condolences? Congratulations?—Whatever seems appropriate. I assure you no harm was intended.

I hope you get as much enjoyment reading this story as I got in writing it.

Your (favorite?) Author

(Note: some of this story was written several years ago under the title, Lost and Found. It did not do well; partly, I think, because of the drab book cover and I found out later, there were several other books with the same title. I should have checked on that before sending it to the publisher. This story now has been considerably expanded. With any luck this is its final form!

Part One

Tell me now; just exactly what would you do if you were to open a small suitcase and find that it contained a lot of money?— Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars (American) to be specific, not drachma not pesos, golly Ned, that’s a quarter of a million! Take a few minutes; I will wait for your answer. I am really quite interested in what you might tell me because I have just found myself in that very position. I know, I know; I did all that—looked around, quickly, to see if anyone was watching me and no, I did not see a soul doing that. I guess that should not have been too surprising, at ten o’clock at night and on a bus out in the middle of nowhere. Not only that, I was not really sure exactly where this particular nowhere might be; somewhere near a little village on the east side of the Ural Mountains is all that I am sure of.

Do you suppose that is why I must then have gone a little bonkers, talking to someone I know is not really here?—Anyway, enough of that. Perhaps it is best that I just tell you, whoever you may be, the whole story. I think it is going to take a while. I’m pretty sure it is going to capture your interest. Maybe it might be a good idea if first you get comfortable, as I said, this may take a while. Ready?

The little rental car I was driving had conked out on us almost five hours ago. I’m not much of a mechanic, nor apparently is my assistant, the one and only, Arthur Penobscot Smythe, III, A twenty-two-year-old nephew of my company’s Vice President/Comptroller. His Uncle Edgar just happens also to be a major stockholder of our company. Arthur, thus far, had been unsuccessfully enrolled at several of our country’s more prestigious institutions of higher learning, including both Harvard and Yale. Except for a certain affinity for drinking and carousing, our Arthur Penobscot appears to have had little interest in availing himself of the other learning opportunities made available to him and to date, has been unable to successfully complete even one semester of higher learning despite being reputed to have an unusually high IQ.

Our esteemed vice president’s sister, Agnes, One of the Penobscot family, who was also a major stockholder of the company, has prevailed on her brother to hire her wayward son before he wound up in some serious trouble and caused more embarrassment for the family.

Our company publishes a very successful travel/adventure magazine that has been in business for a number of years. I am on the payroll as a photojournalist and have been so employed for the past three years; a job that I really have enjoyed. I get to do a lot of travelling and to unusual, interesting and often faraway, esoteric and exotic places. I suppose it is not too surprising that when this particular assignment of mine, taking me to Central Asia, came to the attention of our vice president, it was determined that I would obviously need an assistant. Arthur Penobscot Smythe, III, it was decided, would fill that position perfectly. The fact that this assignment might take some time to complete apparently made it an even better assignment for Arthur’s first venture into gainful employment.

I, of course, was not aware of the reasons behind this sudden appointment of an assistant, which occurred, just shortly before my embarking on this assignment. After ten hours flying across the Atlantic however and then several days driving across Europe, Arthur had pretty much given me his history to date. Actually, to me he didn’t seem to be such a bad sort and surprisingly, we seemed to hit it off pretty well. I was beginning to enjoy having someone along I could talk with and help me lug around some of the cameras and equipment I had with me.

We fortunately had made it to a small town, really a large village I guess, before our transportation refused to go any farther. I raised the hood, bonnet or whatever they call these things out here, to see if I could detect the cause of the engine’s malfunction. We then poked around tentatively at various and sundry parts of the motor and attached parts. It was soon apparent that poking about was not going to produce any worthwhile results. That was when Arthur pointed out that it seemed Old Betsy had given up the ghost in front of what appeared to be some kind of auto repair establishment. The fact that we could see someone with his head inside the motor compartment of a car gave that impression at any rate.

I have one of those fancy little electronic gadgets that translate English into about fourteen thousand different languages and programmed with various phrases useful for all sorts of occasions, such as, where is the bathroom, How much is that doggy in the window? and other useful phrases like that. Assuming the battery has not run out, it will even pronounce some of these stock phrases and words. After fiddling with the thing for about a half hour it was apparent there was no stock phrase in Russian in this gadget for, do you fix cars here?

In the meantime, the head that had been under the hood of the car was now examining us with apparent interest. Soon the possessor of that head approached us carrying a large wrench, or spanner for you British-inclined folk, and clearing his throat asked, American? Many talented Arthur immediately, jovially replied, Si, amigo; nous am Amerikanishers; peutetre ici vous et automobiles here fixen? Our man with the wrench had a somewhat bewildered look for a few moments and no wonder, I know I sure was; then, he snapped his fingers and asked, Ah, car broken? Arthur clapped him on the back, laughing and said, Si, Amigo, si; car she sure is kebroken; kennen zie fixen? I was beginning to wonder about then if Arthur Penobscot knew what country we might be in.

After considering Arthur Penobscot’s pronouncement, our erstwhile mechanic came over and put his head under the hood of our defunct transportation. He poked around a bit with the same result we had previously obtained. Then he said, Da, Ya fixen auto, mojet buite tree, sheteree, pyats days. Arthur said, I think he says it will take a couple days to do the job. Most likely he must get a part somewhere. Da, ya get part; Wei guavaritsa paEngliski? Aha, I saw that in our little translator. It means, Do you speak English and I can answer. I said, Da, ya guavaroo paEngliski; ya poneemyo paRuski nee ochen kurashow. Our friend now told us, I speak only the few words English I learn from school long ago; ya ne poneemyo Deutch, Franc, Espain language." I showed him our little handy translator then and he was fascinated. He caught on how to work it right away and could translate from Russian into English using that. Why didn’t I think to do this a long time ago?

Yes, he can fix our car as soon as he can get the part, which is not available locally. It could take anywhere from three to five days before the part will arrive. Well, my appointment in Pietagorsk is in three days. There is no car rental in this town and I find if I am to make this appointment on time, I will have to take the local bus. It is due here in one hour and will be here for thirty minutes to take on and discharge passengers. The next bus will be here two days hence assuming all goes well. I can’t chance it. I will have to take this next one. Arthur will have to stay here and bring the car and our luggage and equipment when the car repairs have been completed. He will have to find a place to stay for a few days and I will leave the translator gizmo with him. I told him his mixture of fractured Spanish, French and German tended to be somewhat confusing and reminded him that Russian was the Lingua Franca here. He told me not to worry—no problemo, Kemo Sabe.—Sheesh.

I grabbed my carry-on bag, my best digital cameras and took off for the bus station in the next block. Thank goodness, it was not too far. I showed my passport there and bought my ticket. I discovered it is apparently quite some distance to my destination. It also appeared the bus was going to be a little late today; apparently, not an unusual occurrence and I took a seat on the bench outside to await its arrival.

In the time of the Tsars, Galina was the upstairs-maid in the house of a wealthy merchant in Odessa. All in all, her life was not unpleasant. The family was not a large one and she had much free time to do as she wished. She also now had a few nice clothes and her bedroom on the top floor was bright and cheery. There were many women in Odessa who would gladly have traded places with her. Unfortunately, Galina, however, was not happy with her lot, even though her life was now much better than the one she had lived previously. She would like now to have a more ornate bedroom and bedstead and some fancier clothes—more like the ones her mistress enjoyed.

She began scheming then for a way to improve her circumstances. She had not felt like applying herself to her studies while attending school; she therefore was not well educated. She was however, very shrewd, or thought she was. One thing in her favor, she had a very voluptuous, enticing figure and she assumed that was going to be sufficient for her purposes in advancing her station in life.

In addition to the husband and wife that employed her, the family also had a son, Boris, age twenty and a daughter, Irina, age six. Her employer was a slightly portly, rich, forty-one year old. Galina decided that one or the other of the men in the family would be her means of acquiring the lifestyle she was sure was her due. She made sure now, whenever she was within view of either of these men, to make the most interesting parts of her figure especially noticeable. She did her best to insure that her mistress of course did not see quite as much of her. She was sure that she had been successful in that regard and that her mistress had no idea what she was doing.

In less than six months, she had successfully seduced both father and son. Neither of them however, knew about the others affair with the voluptuous Galina. Unfortunately, for the voluptuous Galina however, her mistress was not the fool she had taken her to be.

It was only her third or fourth midnight tryst with her employer, when she slipped back to her room only to find that the door to her room had somehow become—locked! Her mistress appeared then, accompanied by the cook, butler and footman. Without a word, she was unceremoniously, ushered down the stairs to the front door and deposited outside, clad in only her skimpy shift. She found a small pile of her belongings there in the street, which, she discovered, were the things she had brought with her when she had started work here, nothing more, and nothing less. This was definitely not as she had planned things.

She had only a few rubles to her name now; only enough for a week or so lodgings in a crude dockside inn. Nothing at all like the cheery bedroom, she had recently enjoyed. The voluptuous figure, however, kept her from starving or having to sleep in the streets. The work however, she soon discovered, was much more exhausting than that to which she had previously been accustomed.

It was four months later, that she found out—she was pregnant. She had thought it some other kind of malady until the doctor who examined her told her that it appeared she was approximately four, maybe five months, pregnant.

The Russian Revolution had started several months prior but was not a concern of Galina’s. Besides, wasn’t Saint Petersburg a long way from Odessa? Galina’s former employer however did not get rich because he was stupid and he had been paying close attention to the events happening throughout the country. He had shipped his entire inventory, his family and all their belongings to France while he could do so. He had converted his money to francs before the ruble had become worthless outside of Russia and that money was all safely on deposit in a bank in Paris as well.

Galina was sure, of course, that the father of her baby must be either her former employer or his son. This was of course what she had been planning on all along. Now, she would confront them and demand they provide for her and their child that she was carrying. She wondered which one she should accuse as the father. The son, she had discovered, was very accomplished and energetic in bed but his father was very much the richer. She decided that the father it would be. She would confront him the next day.

The large, three story residence where she had once been employed, she discovered the next day when she called there, was now an office for the NKVD, whoever that was. These people seemed to her to be remarkably ill bred, unpleasant individuals when she went there to confront her former employers. They had no idea where her former employers might be and, she was informed, they could care less. The holdings of all those of the bourgeoisie, in any case, were being confiscated. She found out later, many of them had already been executed, using whatever flimsy excuse had been at hand. The people who had worked for them, she was