As I drove from Toronto to Montreal on the eve of еру Canada Day (there's
no place to celebrate Canadian unity like Quebec, eh?), I started
calculating for how long I’ve been acquainted with my Montrealean friend Fernando. I found out that we had first met 25 years ago.

I was stunned. One cannot live as long, let alone to sustain the long distance relations. But it's true: Fernando first appeared in my parents' home when I was a schoolboy and he was my father's student in the southern Russian city of Volgograd. And this time it was the first time we were going to meet since then!

I have no idea why my farther picked up that tall tanned Cuban guy to be his favorite among the hordes of his students. Maybe Dad felt some
parental feelings toward him – the feelings he has always been lacking toward me. The way or another, Fernando frequented to our home in Volgograd for a few years in early 1980s.

Fernando is some five years older than me, so I used to perceive him as
my senior brother. We used to play chess, and he tried to teach me
Spanish. I can't say he succeed in his pedagogical efforts -- after
all, his major was Marxists theory, not Spanish as the second
language. So all I can still utter in Spanish thanks to his lessons
is El Pueblo, Unida and Hasta manana, baby.

Fortunately, Fernando's Russian is a way better than my Spanish, so
there has not been any problem in our communications.

Fernando was a splash for the Volgograd girls. Russian girls are often
attracted to any foreign man, especially true it was in the Soviet years when any person coming from abroad was a rare bird. And just imagine Fernando: tall, tanned, well-built, well-spoken and, in the end of all, Cuban. Soviet
people all knew from the childhood that Cuba was the best friend of
the USSR, Soviet sink-proof aircraft carrier near the US shores. To cut a long story short, Fernando was awashed with the local girls attention, so he could easily afford himself to be selective or even picky.

But he was not. I was too young those days to understand the subtle gender
affairs. I remember my father explaining Fernando that he might
be in some big troubles unless he stop dating a certain girl or
another. Later I’d learnt that my own father was a guru in that sort of
affairs. Still, I am not as well certain that his advices helped Fernando much.
Soon after graduation, Fernando left Volgograd with a speed of a ballistic missile leaving behind him at least two of his girlfriends pregnant.

This Canada Day Fernando and me are sitting on the lawn in front of the
Montreal Mayor's Castle, and my friend recalls what was
driving him two decades ago -- actually, in the other life.

-- I tried to explain those girls that having a child in the Soviet
Union would be a huge mistake, not to say a crime. No responsible
parent will ever let his or her child be born in Russia, the
country of the smileless people, bleak nature and rigorous government.

Strangely as it may seem, my father fully supported that opinion
(although he was not consistent, judging from my own existence).
Fernando proved to be more dependable in his deeds: after receiving his diploma in Marxism, he left for Czechoslovakia, found a girl in
Prague and was living happily for a few years until the Velvet Revolution stroke.

Fernando's skills as an expert in Marxism turned out to be in a little  
demand in post-Communist (and, therefore, anti-Communist) Prague those days. Since the theory of the working class’ struggle against the capitalists was the only practical skill he’d acquired during his five-year studies, he’d
found himself hopelessly overqualified and desperately undermployed in Gavel's Czech Republic. For a few months Fernando browsed the county's job banks in a desperate hunt for a source of living but succeeded only in finding a prestigious white-collar position of a night guard in the Prague Zoo. The elephants and tigers slept worriless guarded by a Cuban Marxism teacher.

By sheer coincidence (of course!), Fernando's current passion announced
precisely that time that she was expecting. In spite of zealous
Fernando's explanation that having a baby in such a disturbed country
in such humaneless times would be a huge mistake or even a crime
against a baby to come, his girlfriend was not quite convinced.

This Canada Day we are sipping coffee as we looked at the girls strolling to and fro along a Montreal street. Fernando points to one or another:

-- Look, that dark-skinned kitty in a mini-skirt... Once I got a
very similar one in Mexico-city. Your father once advised me to
emigrate to Mexico, and after I had to left Czech Republic, I’d actually moved there.

Fernando's Mexican soul-mate soon proved to be a complete bitch (in my friend’s own words). She was great in bed but in all other circumstances the affair was a full-time nightmare. The only thing she was interesting in were the TV soap operas starring Veronica Castro. The series seemed never come to end, and so seemed Fernando's troubles.

-- I left home in the mornings for a job hunt, and she stayed in bed
watching Veronica's character crying for her lover. I returned home in
the late evenings torn-off, and she still were in her position in
front of the screen watching Veronica's character rejoicing with her new
lover.

Needless to say, that the TV-addict one day announced (during the break for
commercials) that they are going to be three in a few months. That time Fernando was experienced enough not to waste his time explaining what a crime it would be having a child in that lawless country. He quietly gathered all his belongings (that is, a briefcase packed with the Lenin's writings and samples of sand Fernando collected in various countries he used to live) and left on tip-toe while the mother-to-be-soon were consumed by another Veronica Castro's trouble.

Time had come for him to return to his home land. After all, Cuba
seemed to be the only country in the world remaining where his
Marxists background could be of some use.

Motherland he left over ten years ago was so familiar. There was their
own star Castro. Fidel's speeches were as endless as his Mexican
namesake's series. Though the speeches Fidel delivered were very the
same he used to deliver during Fernando's childhood, the rest of the
country had long been changed dramatically. People there didn't need
Marxism indoctrination any more. They were looking for a spare dollar
rather than for the workers solidarity. Fernando's efforts to apply his
skills to acquire those he was sent to the Soviet Union fifteen years
ago were as successful as it could be the efforts to sell a
fashionable tie to a voyager dying from thirst in the desert.

Fortunately for Fernando, Cuban climate allowed him to sleep rough around
the year, since even in the Freedom Island one must pay for
accommodation -- the thing Fernando couldn't afford.

The native girls suddenly ceased to be as friendly as they used to be
in a bleak Russia, humaneless Czechoslovakia and lawless Mexico. May
be they were intimidated by Fidel's totalitarian rule and fear to
approach a guy spending all his life in an alien countries. Or,
rather, they were simply not interesting very much with a 30-something
man living on the bench in a Havana's park. So my friend had no
opportunity to explain anybody what a crime it would be to bear a
child in this country.

That Canada Day we are sitting in Fernando's law office in the Montreal
center-ville and he proudly shows me around.

--Here's my desk, and there are the samples of the sand I collected in
Russia, India, Spain, Malta and other locations around the world. I am
very grateful to my fortune that allowed me to study Russian language.
I would never find this job unless I spoke Russian fluently.

After Fernando spent six months in Havana's streets, his old friend
succeeded to find for him an one-time job as a translator for the
Cuban delegation heading to Moscow for sugar-for-Kalashnikovs talks.
Fernando's Marxism knowledge had nothing to do with that; his command
of Russian was up to the point. For the first time in nearly a decade
my friend had a job that matched his real abilities.

Fernando drives me to the Montreal's old port to see the site, and
he remembers as he drives.

-- The delegation's plane made a stop-over in the Montreal Trudeau
airport for refueling. I don't know what exactly pushed me the very
moment I entered the airport's transit hall, it was a sort of eclipse
of my reason. But I approached an immigration officer and asked for
asylum. I didn't even think at that moment about my briefcase left in
the airplane. All seemed unimportant but the officer's reaction: will
she let me cross the gate or throws me back to my "comrades" hands.
I'd rather not to think what could happen to me if they learn my
intentions!

But it was Fernando's lucky star over him that day. The immigration
officer didn't hesitate for a long and let Ricardo in the country.

-- I was so happy that I didn't even think of how I am going to make a
living in Canada. After all, I spend half a year living in the streets
of Habana, so I will cope somehow in the streets of Montreal, I
thought. Voila!

Canada appeared to be more user-friendly than Cuba or even Mexico. As
a refugee claimant, Fernando enjoyed all the privileges a newcomer in
Canada may enjoy: free English language classes performed by unprofessional  volunteers, free medicare by doctors who could hardly talk flu from diarrhea, but, above all, the shining prospective of obtaining a dear
Canadian passport one day. The passport was worth malnutrition and
harsh Quebec winters. But, in the end of all, Fernando didn't forget
the winters in Russia, so they would hardly scare him much.

One of the short winter days Fernando came across the guy in a cafe who
spoke in very poor Russian to another man. Russian is not a language
commonly spoken in Quebec (may be only English is less spoken
there), so Fernando unwillingly started to overhear the conversation.

First man, he soon learned, was an immigration lawyer who helped poor
creatures like his vis-a-vis to accommodate themselves legally
in Canada. Alas, the lawyer was complaining, there were so many
Russian-speaking newcomers to the country, but I was still unable to
find anybody who would be as fluent in French to assist me!

Fernando responded in no time flying down to the adjoining table.

The miracle happens. Two solitudes had
found each other. The desperate lawyer found a job-thirst French-
Russian-Spanish-English fluent assistant; the desperate Cuban
immigrant found a job he would not dreamed about a few hours earlier.

Fernando and me are watching a World Cup match Portugal vs England
in the very same cafe the miracle happened. Fernando says,

--Look, here is the table I was sitting that day, and there is the
table those two guys were occupying.

One more miracle happened in the cafe before our very eyes: Portugal
qualified for semi-finals. Fernando looked as happy as he, likely, was
five years ago in the same place -- but for a different reason.

-- Life is turning better and better for me. The newcomers arrive
steadily, our office is busy all the time. And who may explain an
immigrant all ins and outs here better than me, former refugee
myself!

Fernando now plans to start also his own business as a property broker;
he recently finished special training in property laws. Some time in
future he plans to undertake a cruise along the European shores, so he
also obtained a captain's license. True, prosperous men love sailing.

You may hardly believe it, but Fernando has even seriously considering marriage and children-making. Obviously, Canada is not a country where having a child is a huge mistake.

Clearly, Toto, we are not in Kansas any more.