COLUMNISTS

Deidre Dare

The other day, whilst lying half-naked next to him, I pissed Ben Affleck off.

I've recently had what is commonly referred to as "enough."

As you probably know, I was fired by my English law firm for writing a book. All well and good, I'm suing them.  Well, these guys have challenged English jurisdiction, meaning that they are arguing that I have to sue in Russia and under Russian law.

What this would mean for us expats is that we would all be subject to the law of the jurisdiction where we were posted. It's a good thing I wasn't posted to Saudi Arabia or I‘d be subject to Sharia law, in which case the firm could have just legitimately stoned me to death and been done with it.

("Don't write that," my New Zealander Boyfriend warned me, "the Saudis will put a fatwa on you."  Since my old firm already has a fatwa out on me, another one is neither here nor there, I decided.)

Then my English "lawyer" (a no win/no fee dude) ended up being to lawyers what Josef Mengele was to doctors, and I fired him. Now, I'm going to have to represent myself, finances being what they are.

I imagine myself in a navy blue Chanel suit, which I do not currently own and cannot possibly afford, striding across a courtroom and occasionally shouting, "I object!" with all the heated passion that phrase deserves.

Everything else was getting to me as well, so I told Peter I was with Paul and told Paul I was with Peter. I told some people I was going to Singapore and others that I was in Kaliningrad with a random lover. I told some people I was detoxing and others that I was retoxing. Amazingly, I told some people I had "business to attend to abroad" and they bought it.

I took an assumed name (Tabitha McKenzie, if you must know - a character from a previous novel I wrote) and went off on my own for a while in complete anonymity to a special, secret place which is the only truly safe place I have ever known.

This is a place where people have been known to spontaneously levitate and I could spend my mornings doing tribal dances to live drums or being walked on by Native American medicine men or practicing my increasingly good witchcraft. It's a place where you can do a hard reset on yourself and your life, like you do on a BlackBerry by removing its battery.

Of course, it's filled with Americans. What self-respecting Russian or Brit would bother with that kind of stuff? It's a purely American pastime.

The minute I was around Americans again, including Affleck, I realised how completely different from the Russians they are. Americans are open and friendly and optimistic and confident. They have feelings of entitlement and empowerment. Most interesting, they possess a patriotism that hasn't a hint of nationalism. It is truly uplifting to experience the American psyche when you've only hung around Brits and Russkies for a long time.

But still, there's something fundamental the Americans have in common with the Russians: they are afraid.

With the Americans, it used to be AIDS. Then it was The Environment. Next, Terrorism (which fear, perversely, included a horror of liquids and shoes whilst flying). Now, it's The Crisis. But the Americans' fear is different than the pervasive fear the Russians have, in that Americans clearly LOVE to be afraid.

Americans adore the drama of fear. They relish fear as a conversation opener. They can't get enough of thinking of themselves as experiencing something terrible together. 

Americans are mad about being collectively terrified. Maybe it brings us together, the way a common enemy is known to do.

Personally, I don't believe in Osama Bin Laden. (Yes, I actually don't think he exists - I wonder if that will merit yet another fatwa?

If he does, could he please let me know? I promise not to turn him in despite my own, personal financial crisis - the $25 million would be tempting, but my word is sacred).

I believe the Bush Administration was trying to tap into that American love of shared fear with this whole OBL myth and by and large, I think we fell for it.

The Russians are afraid in a complete different way. They hate to be afraid and they don't want to be, but they can't seem to help themselves. And there's nothing remotely uniting CSKA sees major shake-upabout their fear - if anything, it's divisive.

When I was around these Americans, I felt happy, relaxed and at home even when sitting in a seminar entitled "Chaos & Loss", surrounded by weeping men and women.

But then I met Yevgenia.

The minute our eyes met over a paraffin hand treatment she was giving me, I knew she was a Russkie.

When she opened her mouth and starting chiding me in that typical Russian accent because my eyebrows weren't perfectly even, the strangest thing happened. I became desperately homesick for Moscow, despite being surrounded by my "own kind".

So I came home, to Russia. 

Oh, and just how did I piss Ben Affleck off? Quite frankly, I told him he was a "fancy pants".

If it wasn't for our semi-nudity, I think he most certainly would have jumped up and shouted, with all the heated passion the phrase deserves, "I object!"

xxoo, DD

Deidre Dare's novel "Expat" and "Moscow Moments" video reports can be viewed online at: www.deidredare.com