The following morning, Rilda asked guardedly, “Going to do it, Sweetheart?”
I shrugged and said dismissively, “Imagine the headline, "American Army Colonel arrested by the KGB in Lvov for purchasing black market rubles." I don't think so.”
“Gee, Dad,” Pat persisted, “our guide, Ingrid, says everyone does. If you won't, give me your money and I'll do it.”
Rilda, Pat and I descended the stairs and while I was still agonizing over making such a purchase, an extremely obese man with a cherub-like face and pink cheeks approached me in the lobby of the hotel. With an Eastern European accent, he whispered with a raspy voice in English. “Mister. Want to purchase rubles?”
Rilda and Pat were smiling angelically, so I shrugged, glanced at the ceiling for a moment as if in prayer, and then acquiesced by nodding to the fat man. The extremely well fed man crooked a finger at me to follow him to his tiny car, a Traubie. This hulk of a man was a Pole who smuggled rubles and western currency across the Polish border. Western currency bought Polish zloty in Poland¾90,000 zlotys to the U.S. dollar.
The giant flicked open the passenger door and motioned me into the wee car. Then he plodded carefully around the rear of the car, glancing about stealthily. I watched him suck in his huge gut and hold his breath while he wedged himself into the driver's seat.
When the Pole stretched across me to the glove compartment, I felt a wave of terror well up from my belly and beads of perspiration erupt on my forehead. Thoughts ran through my mind at a mile a minute. Does he pull out a gun to rob me, and then drive off? Or does he show me his KGB identification and drive me to the nearest police station? Next stop, a gulag in Siberia.
The glove compartment door sprung open with a click that sounded to me like a pistol shot. I recoiled, and then stared into a cubbyhole stuffed with paper rubles, crammed into every nook and corner, with no room left for even a single kopeck coin.
“How many?” The rather large man asked gruffly as he gestured with an open hand to the cubicle.
I hesitated while my heart rate returned to normal, and answered hesitantly, “Uh. Don't know.” The human version of King Kong grimaced, so I quickly said meekly, “How about ... uh ... twenty dollars?”
The Pole frowned deeply and said, “Well, my friend. A twenty-dollar bill gets you ten rubles to the dollar.” He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a fistful of rubles.
I quickly calculated that from $1.50 per ruble at the official government rate to ten rubles for a dollar, I would have a fifteen-fold increase in purchasing power while in the USSR. I paused while thinking, Suppose they're counterfeit? Headlines. American Colonel arrested for passing counterfeit rubles.
The Pole said authoritatively, “Don't worry. They're real.” Then he smiled contemptuously at me as he waved the fistful of rubles in front of my face. “An American one hundred dollar bill will get you fifteen rubles for a dollar.”
Upon hearing that offer, I didn't need a calculator and did not hesitate to extract a $100 bill from the wad of bills in my pocket.
The Polish Godzilla licked his thumb and index finger and carefully counted out 1,500 rubles, not creating a gap in the fistful he had removed from the compartment that had not made an indentation in his monumental supply.
The Pole and I shook hands, both of us smiling broadly, nodded to each other and I stuffed his fistful of rubles into my pocket before scooting from the car. I swaggered back to the hotel where Rilda and Pat eagerly waited in the front door. When they saw my huge grin, their faces also illuminated. I looked up the staircase at them and announced proudly, “We've got enough rubles for a while.”
“Let's see,” Pat said, bouncing with excitement.
“Not here,” I said warily. I looked around furtively, and when I saw no one possibly resembling the KGB, I let out a long sigh of relief.
