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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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We could hear her squeal with excitement. And he said, “Well, come right down here.”

So Mina arrived with her baggage for four weeks, which consisted of a kind of handbag containing one clean shirt waist and a toothbrush. That was all she had--plus the trim little costume that she had that she had worn all day--a little bit like an airline stewardess.

Q:

So she went with you?

Cerf:

She greeted us with obvious pleasure. Now, the question was, how could I win Mina. I didn't want to get kicked out of the country. By this time she knew I was the single one, of course. Well, we had to go right down to the boat. She was given all the tickets and the itinerary. The boat, it turned out--we wondered what kind of a boat it would be on the Black Sea in Russia--was a fine vessel that had been built in Germany. It was our first example of what went on in a Communist country. It had three classes just like anywhere in the world--first class, very sumptuous--where we were--, second class, quite adequate, and third class, with the peasants squatting on the deck.

Mina indicated a stateroom for two for Harold and Harvey, and then we went a couple of steps further and she said, “This is for you and me.”

I said, “You mean you and I are going to have a cabin together?”





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