I don’t know why airports are so far from the cities they supposedly service, but they are, and Moscow is no exception. The airport is miles and miles from the city, and the road goes through pine forests, through farms, and through endless potato and cabbage patches. There were rough roads and smooth roads. The French courier had anticipated everything. He had sent his driver out for a little lunch, so that on the way in to Moscow we ate piroschki, and little meat balls, and ham. And by the time we reached the Hotel Metropole we were feeling much better.

The Hotel Metropole was a rather grand hotel, with marble staircases and red carpets, and a great gilded elevator that ran sometimes. And there was a woman behind the desk who spoke English. We asked for our rooms, and she had never heard of us. We had no rooms.

At that moment Alexander Kendrick of the Chicago Sun, and his wife, rescued us. Where, we asked, was Joe Newman?

“Oh, Joe! He hasn’t been here for a week. He’s in Leningrad, at the fur auction.”

He had not received our cable, nothing had been prepared, and we had no rooms. And it was ridiculous to try to get rooms without preparation. We had supposed that Joe would get in touch with whatever Russian agency was responsible for it. But since he hadn’t, and hadn’t received the cable, the Russians hadn’t known we were coming either. But the Kendricks took us to their room, and fed us smoked salmon and vodka, and made us welcome.

After a while we didn’t feel lonely and lost any more. We decided to move into Joe Newman’s room to punish him. We used his towels, and his soap, and his toilet paper. We drank his whisky. We slept on his couch and his bed. We thought that was the least he could do for us, to repay us for having been miserable. The fact that he didn’t know we were coming, we argued, was no excuse for him, and he had to be punished. And so we drank his two bottles of Scotch whisky. It must be admitted that we didn’t know at that time what a crime this was. There is considerable dishonesty and chicanery among American newspapermen in Moscow, but it has never reached the level to which we brought it. A man does not drink another man’s whisky.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Atkinson, Oriana. “John Steinbeck, and Robert Capa, Record a Russian Journey.” New York Times Book Review (9 May 1948): 3.

Benson, Jackson. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: Penguin, 1984.

Clancy, Charles J. “Steinbeck’s A Russian Journal.” A Study Guide to Steinbeck, Part II. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1979.

Ditsky, John. “Between Acrobats and Seals: Steinbeck in the U.S.S.R.” Steinbeck Quarterly 15 (1982): 23-29.

FBI File #100-106224 (subject: John Steinbeck).

Sherekh, Yuriy. “Why Did You Not Want to See, Mr. Steinbeck?” The Ukrainian Quarterly 4 (1948): 317-24.