Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart
Over There
When I leave America, people try to kill me.
In Baku, Azerbaijan, two police officers in the metro throw me to the ground, mistaking me for an Iranian terrorist. ‘I’m just a dark-looking Soviet-born Jew,’ I explain, showing them my stuffed wallet by way of explanation. ‘Jew,’ they whisper in awe, thumbing through my money.
In Berlin, a group of angry young pub-meisters mistake me for an Indian computer programmer. They follow me around the bar shouting ‘Kinder statt Inder,’ (‘Children instead of Indians,’) as if I were an immigrant from the subcontinent out to scam the generous German welfare system. Perhaps I should take out my Jewish wallet to placate them ...