The Suitcase / Чемодан. Книга для чтения на английском языке

] says to me, “Everyone who leaves is allowed three suitcases. That’s the quota. Aspecial regulation of the ministry.”

No point in arguing. But of course I argued. “Only three suitcases? What am I supposed to do with all my things?”

“Like what?”

“Like my collection of race cars.”

“Sell them,” the clerk said, without lifting her head.

Then, knitting her brows[3 - to knit brows – нахмуриться] slightly, she added, “If you’re dissatisfied with something, write a complaint.

”

“I’m satisfied,” I said.

After prison, everything satisfied me.

“Well, then, don’t make trouble…”

A week later I was packing. As it turned out, I needed just a single suitcase.

I almost wept with self-pity. After all, I was thirty-six years old. Had worked eighteen of them. I earned money, bought things with it. I owned a certain amount, it seemed to me. And still I only needed one suitcase – and of rather modest dimensions at that. Was I poor, then? How had that happened?

Books? Well, basically, I had banned books, which were not allowed through customs anyway.

I had to give them out to my friends, along with my so-called archives.

Manuscripts? I had clandestinely sent them to the West a long time before.

Furniture? I had taken my desk to the secondhand store. The chairs were taken by the artist Chegin, who had been making do with[4 - to make do with smth – обходиться, довольствоваться] crates.

The rest I threw out.

And so I left the Soviet Union with one suitcase. It was plywood, covered with fabric and, had chrome reinforcements at the corners. The lock didn’t work; I had to wind clothes line[5 - clothes line – верёвка для сушки белья] around it.

Once I had taken it to Pioneer camp. It said in ink on the lid: “Junior group. Seryozha Dovlatov.” Next to it someone had amiably scratched: “Shithead”. The fabric was torn in several places.

Inside, the lid was plastered with photographs: Rocky Marciano, Louis Armstrong, Joseph Brodsky, Gina Lollobrigida[6 - Rocky Marciano, Louis Armstrong, Joseph Brodsky, Gina Lollobrigida: Rocky Marciano (1923-69), Italian-American undefeated champion heavyweight boxer; Louis Armstrong (1901-71), famous American jazz musician; Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky (1940-96), Russian Nobel Prize-winning poet and close friend of Dovlatov; Gina Lollobrigida (h.