On Julia Kornberg’s 'Berlin Atomized'

I used to play a game when I lived in Moscow in my early twenties. I would see how deep into a flirtation I could get while pretending to be a Russian girl; in actuality, I am American. My Russian-language skills were limited, but in a famously patriarchal culture, a young woman like me wasn’t expected to talk much. It was always a great amusement to be squashed up in a booth with some American finance guy or Russian gangster, thigh against thigh, breathing in his booze-breath, waiting for the breaking surprise on his face when he’d finally ask a question complex enough that my accent would show. The simulation was not difficult: if I dressed right and carried myself right, sometimes I made it for hours. This was the mid-nineties, the Iron Curtain had only just lifted, and we all still knew who we were.