Chapter 1: Arrival

A year in Europe as an exchange student; I wondered who would not jump at that. All expenses paid by the college including books, room, board, tuition, transportation, and pocket money, from July first of one year to July first of the next.

I had been the only athletic scholar admitted to the Danubian exchange program. Most of the other young men and women leaving for Germany with her were engineering, political science majors, or economics majors. One girl was pre-med, another pre-law going to Danubia to do master’s level work in comparative studies of judiciaries. The ratio in this group of exchange students was about three to one male to female.

Stepping off the airplane in Frankfurt, getting on the Griffin Airlines flight to Danubia into my life as a college junior training to be a Physical Education Teacher. Danubia had no formal team sports in competition with other nations or at the university level with other schools. Marcia had asked one of her instructors, Sarah Bushnell, during a non-major required Sociology class, how not having organized sports as part of the University of Danubia’s fundraising affected the school and its relationships.

Stating that this was an excellent question and worthy of a student’s exploration, Doctor Bushnell invited me to participate in an informal student and faculty round table. Three representatives from Danubia were present at this round table, which surprised Marcia. A Danubian priestess representing the Orthodox Church of Danubia, a department chairperson from the University of Danubia, and a consul general from the consular offices of the Danubian government in Chicago.

The exchange program between the countries is now in its ninth year, and a narrow pool of students has gone out to the University departments. Students with interests in subjects other than engineering, forestry, political sciences, and economics should be encouraged to apply for the year-long cultural and educational exchange program. I had no idea that I was there as a potential exchange candidate. I had asked my question and received smiles and nods in response from the Danubian representatives, and the University faculty.

When the official letterhead from the University came to her room in the athletes’ dormitory, I opened it fearfully. Usually, letters such as these tell a student about the scholarship such as the grades from the last semester makes the athlete ineligible for competition, or some other negative connotation.

Her letter read, “Congratulations, Marcia Shevat, you were selected by this University as an exchange representative to the University of Danubia.” I pulled out my cell phone and immediately called my mother. My family now lived in the development of modular homes in a quiet lower middle-class community three states distant from Marcia’s college campus.

I was the first in my family to attend college and had only been able to afford it by maintaining my athletic scholarship. I had been born to swim competitively. From my first doggie paddle in the post pool at age five through grade school competitions at the local community pool in the summer and the YMCA in the winter and my four years of high school. I had set one local record after another by breaking one of my own in the relay, freestyle, and backstroke. As I discussed the possible exchange program with my mother, the family’s concerns for my future spilled out. How could I afford my senior year and graduate school if my scholarship was gone? What about my brothers?

“Mom,” I pled, “I have been assured that my scholarship will be there for my senior year. I have been promised a fellowship for graduate school if my paper on Physical Culture in Danubian Society meets University standards. Doctor Bushnell has already agreed to mentor me through independent study so that this thesis will indeed meet the academic requirements. Also, if you wish to visit me in Danubia at Christmas or whenever, the Duchy government has offered you round-trip tickets.”

In the end, my mother was satisfied that this would not just be some extended spring break adventure but a real educational opportunity for Marcia to allow her daughter to participate. Twenty men and seven women stepped off the Griffin Airlines turboprop aircraft onto the tarmac of the National Airport. After a non-eventful transatlantic flight and the short hop from Germany to Danubia, I was excited to finally meet my host family.

Several host families were at the gate, just past the customs officials, waiting for their exchange students. I looked at the hand-printed signs held by the Danubian hosts and saw none for me. The other students were greeted and taken away by their host families. I waited for several hours, sitting outside customs clearance, without a sign of my host family. Finally, three people approached me. They were not the ones I had hoped to meet, the two males dressed as uniformed police officers, and the woman was a Spokeswoman for the Criminal.

It was a Spokeswoman with halting yet less American English who addressed me, “There is a problem with your student visa Marcia Shevat, and we would like you to accompany us to the central courts building to straighten the matter.”

“A problem?” I asked, concerned that I would have to return to the States in humiliation. “The Danubian Consulate approved my visa in Chicago. I don’t understand what the problem could be?” I was worried, as I had been taught in the classes dealing with customs and traditions for criminal suspects were usually stripped and possibly switched. I had no desire to have my clothing taken from me less than a day after I arrived in the country.

“Yes, a problem,” the Spokeswoman repeated, “perhaps a minor inconvenience to you, and perhaps more serious. These officers have a van outside and will drive us to the central judiciary so that we might resolve the issue quickly.”

I remembered that private automobiles, even taxicabs, weren’t permitted in Danubia. Only official vehicles existed, and this Spokeswoman had probably called the police to arrange a ride. Okay, let’s go downtown. After a short while, I found myself in the Spokeswoman’s office. By observation, I learned that the Spokespersons for the Criminal were multi-faceted as defense counsel, parole officers, and job counselors for their criminal clientele.

I also learned that Beth-Anne Takinva was a former U.S. citizen who had married a Danubian man while studying in Danubia and had stayed on to work in the judicial branch foreign criminal supervision section of the Spokesperson’s office. Before her marriage, her name had been Beth-Anne Hawkins.

Beth-Anne had not been home to the United States in six years. As an only child of only children, her roots in the United States were severed during her exchange year in Danubia. Her parents had died when their Piper Cub crashed. Her mother was flying her father home after a Rotary Club convention in St. Louis.

Following the traditional two years, one of dating and then one engaged, the couple stood before a priestess of the Danubian Church and was married. Then had two years of Danubian legal training, a short course at the national police academy, and a two-year spokesperson apprenticeship. For the last four years, she had worked in the Spokesperson’s office, now as a fully vetted Spokeswoman, dealing with long and short-term criminals from outside the Danubian populace.

She had spent those years speaking as a Danubian and now found it difficult to revert to English when necessary. Now, she had the difficult task of informing Ms. Marcia Shevat that her year in Danubia would not be the pleasantly uneventful stay she may have hoped.

“Marcia, there is no easy way for me to tell you this so I shall relate the story and then allow you to ask questions after telling the following. I will ask you not to interrupt and listen closely to what I say.” I nodded and waited for the older woman to begin.

“Your host family cannot abide by its agreement to house, feed, and maintain you for your school year. A criminal event arose when a student you were to exchange with was accused of plagiarism on her schoolwork and then lied about it to her professor. In Danubia, it is an insurrection toward a public official in the performance of her official duties.

“Her parents were so distraught that following her first switching on the afternoon of her trial and her being led off to the recovery room here in the Spokesperson’s offices, her parents went before the priests at the Temple and began a year of public penance. Here is the problem, the penance extends to the entire family. The criminal’s passport was taken upon her conviction.