RogerEvansOnline.com

A few minutes ago, I was swimming in the sea and the head of another person who was, like me, swimming on his back, collided with my own head. We both laughed, and he apologized profusely in perfect English. He then immediately asked me where I was from, and I said that I live here. I thought it only polite to ask him where he was from, and he said that he was a Cuban living in Moscow. He said he was a doctor and he lived there partly because the education for women was so good (supposedly pointing as he said it to two people whom he identified as his wife and daughter but whom I couldn’t see without lenses). I mumbled something about how we always hear about the excellence of Cuban medicine. “Oh, I wasn’t trained in Cuba but in the States.” He then said that he no longer practices medicine because he is so busy with business affairs. I said, laughing, “And because you’re so busy going around bumping heads with people,” and headed for dry land, all smiles.

I thought of a line of Fanny Brice’s mother in Funny Girl: “Strangers should be strange.” I don’t entirely agree with that, but there’s something to it. I couldn’t help feeling that this guy was up to something. Then, as I walked home, it occurred to me that I might be influenced by current news about Russians being up to something and Americans who get caught up with them. I like to think that I’m as free of nationalistic prejudices as a person can be, but this brief episode made me wonder.