An emotional volcano had been bubbling below the surface for last week of the shoot and it finally exploded while I was doing my last minute packing that morning. It was all coming to an end after two and a half months on location in Moscow and it felt strange, nostalgic and surreal.

My translator, who was ever-present by my side from the beginning, sat eerily silent next to me on the drive to the airport. The moment was not lost on her either. When we arrived, I was greeted by one of the producers and a customs "expediter", Andrei. I was taking back home a couple of bag-loads of negative and it was important that all went smoothly.

What followed seemed to come right out of a 40's B movie. The Andrei character sported a 6-day beard, Peter Lorre glasses, a phone bud corked into his ear, a hands-free mouth piece clipped to his long coat lapel and a humorless demeanor. He gave me instructions in dead-pan to not declare any money. I had hundreds in my pocket and more in my luggage! What was he thinking? I had spent two and half months in Moscow and I didn't have a dime, a ruble in cash on me? Was he crazy!?

He effeminately dragged a puff off his cigarette as he held it between his thumb and first finger - backwards! - and repeated the mantra in monotone: "You have no money." It was too bizarre. I was put off-balance. He guided me to the customs desk and then left me adrift. I was all alone now. I could feel my corpuscles scrambling through my veins.

The customs officer was a female, handsome in her masculine Soviet-style uniform. The epaulettes echoed that 40s shoulder pad look that took over fashion a decade or two ago. She sized me up while she busied herself with my visa and passport. She, too, had that pre-Perestroika poker face. It must
be in their genes or the borscht.

Without looking up and almost as an aside and in a manner that seemed to say "This is not really important but I have to do it" she asked me if I had any money on me. It stopped me cold. Was this some kind of code? Don't flinch I said to myself. Think Stanislovski technique, sense memory of someone having a friendly conversation with a sister, the day your dog got run over by a car. Think anything. But whatever you do, don't flinch!

Well, I looked dead on into her eyes and I calmly, without blinking answered her "No." It was barely audible.

She asked again incredulously, "You have no money?" This time it was serious. That seemingly easy-going lilt she offered before shifted to the dissonant 12-tone scale and she was playing the cracks.

I gulped inside. She read right through me. She knew I was lying. I felt my eyes dilating and tipping me off even more. I still didn't allow myself to blink and once again calmly (at least I thought I came off calm) lied to her, trying to say the word evenly without any telltale inflection and louder this time, please!: "Nothing."

I could feel her smile inside even though the corners of her mouth never crinkled from the frozen somber stone face that attended her bureaucratic position. She saw right through me. I knew I was caught. I was on my way to the Gulag. I expected to hear sirens, red lights flash and a dozen Glock-carrying new KGB men surround me and carry me off.

No sooner than all of that unspooled on the screen in my head, she almost imperceptibly nodded me on. It was so subtle that I double-pumped and didn't move for what seemed like an eternity and a day. An unexpected relief charged through my body. I fought back the urge to get down on my knees and tug at her smart military dress and thank her for letting me go home and not ship me out to the tundra.

In my best acting job - ironic that Stanislovski, a Russian, could have possibly saved me from never being seen again by my friends - I turned from her and measured my steps away as if I were strolling in the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon with nothing else on my mind but conforming cumulus clouds into imaginary sculptures.

I continued my walk and without looking back entered the Duty Free shop and bought some caviar.

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