Stalina: A Novel Part 2

The Port Authority had a sadness to it that was strangely comforting. It was not just in Russia that people had hard times. I was being shown the real America. Clutching my valise, I went through the gla.s.s doors to a very noisy avenue. The street in front of the building was torn apart, and a deep hole made the traffic stop. It sounded as if every horn was sounding from every car. There were workers in the hole, and I could see the tops of their yellow hard hats bobbing as they threw dirt over their shoulders with shovels. I turned the corner and practically tripped over the spike-heeled shoes of a very tall woman with bony legs in fishnet tights and a skirt that came up to my nose. Her black hair stuck straight into the air like the sharp tips on barbed wire. It was obviously a wig.

I pulled back and said, "Pardon me."

She did not say a word as she crossed her long leg behind her and leaned against the wall. Another woman wearing a tight-fitting dress made of bright green satin tapped her shoulder and asked for a cigarette. Prost.i.tutes. Again I see America is much like Russia. Only our ladies of the street are not so old and hard. As I cleared away from their sidewalk s.p.a.ce and stepped toward the curb, I saw the Christ Almighty Savior Church on Forty-second Street. The angels over the arched doorway were like those on top of St. Isaac's. Next door to the church was a storefront with "Rosalinda the Psychic" painted across the window. I crossed the street to get a closer look.

The palm reader, a blond, looked like an old woman as she sat, tired and slumped in a chair. As I stood in front of the window, she beckoned me to come inside. Her hands were smooth with no wrinkles. I saw she was younger than me, perhaps forty or even younger, but even this age she wore with a heavy burden. I did not hesitate to go inside. With the streets busy and crowded, I was glad for the special attention. She stood and showed me to a white plastic chair next to a table with a crystal ball cradled in the claw of an eagle. A travel poster of a cathedral in Madrid was on the wall above where she wanted me to sit. As she turned and motioned to the chair, she moved like a dancer of flamenco. There was a curtain closing off the back, and from behind I could smell onions being cooked in oil. She sat and leaned her head down to arrange the cards and figurines on the table. She clearly needed to color her hair. The black roots at her scalp would have offended Olga, who despised very much incompetent dye jobs.

"Please relax; you look tired. My name is Frederica; my mother was Rosalinda," she explained before I asked. She took my hand.

"I am Sta-"

She stopped me. "No, don't tell me. Please show me the photographs you are carrying in your purse."

I was impressed by her clairvoyance. How could she have known I always carry family pictures? She looked through them.

"Tell me about the people in this picture."

She was asking about the photograph taken on the porch of our dacha outside Leningrad, taken in the days after the Great Patriotic War (or if you are not Russian, World War II).

"That is Amalia and me. We were childhood friends, and now I have come here to stay with her in Connecticut, USA."

"Tell me more."

I told Frederica how when we were growing up, of all my friends, Amalia had the most fascinating look. I loved how her front teeth came forward with a slight overbite, and I was full of awe because of the red birthmark that covered half her face. The makeup she applied to conceal the mark was the color of red clay and made her look very exotic. With her hair pulled back, she reminded me of the Indians riding horses in the Westerns we saw at the cinema on Sat.u.r.days when we were eleven years old. Every morning she applied makeup to her face, but by the time the sun was going down, it would fade, and the redness would be like a half mask across the left side of her face. In the summer evenings, Amalia and I would sit with my grandparents on the porch playing cards. When the sun had gone behind the house, my grandfather would light the lantern, and we would keep playing until my mother called us in for baths and bed. In the attic room where we slept, we would talk until all hours about movie stars and how we would style our hair for school in the fall. In the morning Amalia always got up first. I would hear her in the bathroom putting on her foundation and powder like her mother had taught her. I pretended to sleep until she finished and then met her downstairs. We would be the only ones awake.

"Do you want to hear all about this?" I asked Frederica.

"She is connected to your future. I want to hear everything."

I continued to tell her how in the morning Amalia would prepare two bowls of fresh plums and cream, our favorite secret breakfast together. Amalia taught me how to kiss on those mornings. Frederica s.h.i.+fted my palm in her warm, chubby hands with rings on every finger.

"Continue," she said.

"Amalia would say, 'Watch me, Stalina. This is the way it's done.' After peeling back the skin of the plum and revealing its brown and purple flesh, she would wet her lips. 'Remember, don't tense-let them relax, feel full. Your lips must be soft and determined at the same time.' Lifting a plum from the bowl, she would bring it toward her lips and lean in a little over the cream. Her lips and the plum became one."

I explained how we would continue to eat in silence, bobbing the peeled plums, watching the morning sunlight bounce off our spoons onto the walls. Karlik and Meeya.s.sa, my two cats who would be called Little One and Meat in English, swatted at the flickerings along the top of the refrigerator. One cat would swipe and hit the other. Timid Meat would jump down first and hiss back up at Little One and go under my chair, where I always put the bowl of unfinished cream.

As I spoke, Frederica continued to look at my left palm. With a long, sharp fingernail she traced the lines in my hand. Her black nail polish was peeling. The sunlight was streaking in a slant through the front window, hitting her heavily made-up eyes. Flecks of mascara were clumped on her lashes, and her lips were painted deep purple, the same color as the plums. The lipstick had seeped into the age lines around her mouth like the ca.n.a.ls that split off the Neva River at home.

Frederica spoke as if a vision had come to her. "You are on a long journey."

This clairvoyance did not impress me. After all, I had not slept in twenty-four hours, my eyes were heavy, I had my valise packed full at my side, and even though I speak English with good confidence, my accent is quite thick. She could tell I was not very impressed, so she held both my palms in her hands and stared at them.

"Are you comfortable hearing about past lives?" she asked.

I said yes, not because I believe in life after death, but I still had forty minutes before my bus would leave, and I was curious.

"You were in a desperate situation because of your religion."

"Once a Jew, always a Jew," I said, laughing. "Let my people go? Inquisition? Would you like me to continue?"

She was serious.

"One of those. Your safety was compromised, and you were forced to take your four children away, which ended in great tragedy. There were deaths. Your husband was not of your religion, so he was safe. At the time, your relations.h.i.+p was one of much dependency. That all fell apart, and you never recovered."

For some reason I keep getting sent back as a Jew.

"'You, you, always a Jew,' the angels yelled down at me from St. Isaac's Cathedral before I left Russia," I told her.

"Angels, that's good. They don't hate Jews-they're just doing someone else's bidding."

"Could have fooled me," I said under my breath.

"Please may I see the other pictures?" she asked.

I pulled out the pictures of my grandmother, our neighbors, my mother, father, and Trofim.

At that moment an official car with a siren blaring and lights flas.h.i.+ng pulled up out front. It was the police, and two officers got out and came into Frederica's salon.

"We have a warrant for the arrest of Anthony Hermona," one of the officers announced.

I froze. I did not want to be part of anything illegal during my first hours in America. Frederica said nothing, just indicated with her eyes and a tilt of her head to the curtain at the back of the room. The officers went through, and there was a scuffle in the back. A few moments later a young man with dark, oily hair and sweat stains at his armpits was led away in handcuffs. Frederica was silent until the police had driven away. I stared at a moving waterfall in a frame that was also a clock. It was three o'clock. I waited for Frederica to say something.

"He's my nephew. He sold cocaine to the wrong people. They'll let him out in a week. I told the police he knew a lot. Now they'll watch out for my store. Sorry for the disturbance."

She gave her nephew to the police! I realized that America is more like Russia than I imagined, only there the police would never have stopped at the door. The clock now said five after three.

"My bus is leaving for Hartford soon. I must be going," I explained as I stood to leave.

"There were betrayals among these people," she said, giving me back the pictures.

"Betrayals? It was common," I responded.

"You were not the one betrayed. But you will be. Five dollars, please," she said.

"There is a Russian saying that goes, 'Being the daughter of the betrayed is like having alcoholic parents. You may end up becoming a bartender.' Why five dollars? The sign says three."

"You are too stuck in your past, and that was the old sign."

"I have to get on a bus to Hartford-that's the future."

I handed her five dollars. Amalia had sent me a stack of five-dollar bills so I would not have to change money right away. The rubles I took from Russia were stuffed inside the hollow centers of my porcelain cats protected by the bra.s.sieres. Months later I would wish it had been the cats protecting the bra.s.sieres.

Frederica scrutinized the five-dollar bill in the sunlight. As I left, she pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and placed my money inside her bra.s.siere. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater that showed off her sagging but plentiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She stood in stockinged feet on the plastic fake gra.s.s mat in front of her store. Through her black opaque stockings I could see her toes were painted red and she had a bunion on her left foot. She drew loudly on her cigarette and exhaled even louder. A sign of an addict, I could tell. I walked to the corner and went inside the Port Authority. The bus was waiting at gate fifteen.

The bus driver said, "Let me put your bag under here," indicating somewhere deep in the belly of the bus.

"No, thank you," I replied.

"Sup to you," he said.

English was still often baffling to me. I wondered what "sup" meant, but I did not dare ask as the bus driver was busy with the next pa.s.sengers.

The seats were soft, the bus dark, and the diesel fumes once again made me feel cozy and relaxed. As the bus rumbled out of the depot into the narrow streets, I could barely see any sky between the tall buildings. We went into a tunnel, and in the darkness I fell into the exhaustion of my journey and slept. In my dreams, I was still in Russia.

I was deep in a Russian forest and could hear, but could not see, someone chopping down a tree. I was nervous for the person chopping, as if the tree was going to fall on them. Eventually after much effort, the woodsman felled the tree. I could see through the clearing that it was my grandfather. He was holding up his right hand, showing a mangled index finger. In his youth it was common for young men to chop off their trigger fingers or shoot wax into their leg veins to make them varicose to escape serving in the czar's army. My grandfather's finger was mangled in real life, but I never knew how it happened. A flash went off in the dream-a spy wearing a black hood photographed my grandfather burying the top joint of his finger.

I woke, startled. My mouth had dropped open, and my tongue was parched. I looked at the watch of the man sitting next to me and saw that it was almost six o'clock. I had slept for a long time, and in order to see where I was, I read the signs on the stores as the bus sped by.

Arturo's Haircuts-Best in Hartford-Only $5 The bus stopped at a traffic light. My legs were numb from the weight of my bag.

"Prroh, prroh, prroh..." the man next to me started to splutter. He was dreaming and sounded like a motorboat engine struggling to start. I held tightly onto my bag.

"Prrr...prognosis!" came out loud and clear. His breath smelled of sour milk. He startled himself awake, sat up, and stared directly at me.

"You were having a dream?" I said.

"I said something?" he asked.

"You said 'prognosis,'" I replied.

"Strange-sorry to disturb you."

"Not a problem."

"I can't remember what I was dreaming."

The wisps of brown hair on his head were going every which way. He held his gla.s.ses in his hand and had to squint to see me.

"Are you a doctor?" I asked.

He put his gla.s.ses on. The lenses were thick and tinted blue. He was round in his belly and had a young cherub face. He looked much friendlier now that his mouth was closed.

"No. Why? Oh, I said 'prognosis.' I remember now-it was a dream about having a terrible illness."

"I hope that is not the case," I added.

"No, I'm fine. I watch too many of those hospital shows on television. I like your accent."

"I'm Russian."

The bus started moving again. We pa.s.sed more signs.

Pete's-A-Place: Hartford's First Sicilian Pizza "Pete's-A-Place, Pete's-A, piz-za-that's funny," I said to my neighbor.

"You have pizza in Russia?" he asked.

"Yes, we enjoy it very much."

Freddy's Gla.s.s Eye Emporium-Buy and Sell Connecticut I hope never to need one of those.

Berlin Sneaker Circus The bus turned onto Windsor Avenue. We pa.s.sed motel after motel.

Route Five Pay and Stay Amalia had written me about these places.

Windsor Castle Motel She was a dispatcher for the Majik Cleaning Agency of Hartford. She mentioned that they often hired maids to clean the rooms, and she would try to get me a job at one of them. At first I thought I would easily get a job in my field of science, but I quickly learned that was not going to happen. I needed to work. I went to several testing labs for hospitals. Amalia suggested they would need someone with my training. But in order to work for these places, I would need certification from a school in America. They are very particular about how samples taken for testing are handled and disposed. All new employees are required to work with the most contagious materials. I was not impressed with the conditions, nor did I have time or money to go to school. And on top of that, the idea of working with dangerous waste was not what I wanted for my life here. I know it is important work, but it felt good to leave at least some of my past behind me. Amalia understood, and soon after my arrival she told me of a cleaning position available at the final motel the bus had pa.s.sed. Plain, honest work. The Liberty Motel. I liked the name. It was the reason I was here. The bus was just minutes from the Hartford depot. My neighbor had fallen back to sleep and was snoring loudly.

The last lab where I worked in Russia kept me on because of the hazardous materials they were storing. Anthrax and smallpox were their specialty. It was dangerous to work around these things, but as a Jew I was very dependent on the ebb and flow of who was in charge, so in order to keep my job I was willing to work under conditions that many others would refuse. "Your sickle must rest silently," the head of the lab would say. That was no issue for me.

But in Connecticut, just before the Christmas holiday in 1991, I was very pleased when Amalia organized a job for this Jew at the Liberty Motel a few weeks after I arrived in Hartford, USA. At first, Mr. Suri, the manager and owner, resisted hiring me because he wanted someone younger.

"It's not because you're Jewish, he just prefers younger employees," Amalia a.s.sured me.

She told me how the last maid he hired, a woman my age, was caught giving favors to a customer in the laundry room.

"I'm trying to run a legitimate business here. Don't send me any more of your hard cases," he told Amalia.

"I have someone perfect, Mr. Suri. She has dignity. We were childhood friends. Her English is excellent. Stalina will be a great a.s.set to your establishment," she told him. "Trust me."

Chapter Six: Liberty Motel, Rooms for the Imaginative.

One of the first things I noticed about the motel was that Mr. Suri hung postcards of the Statue of Liberty, his favorite tourist site, over the front desk. There was one picture of Miss Liberty in profile that reminded me of my mother. A strong jaw, full lips, and a nose that came straight down from her forehead. On the back of the postcard it explained that the spikes of her crown represent the seven seas and seven continents. I would like to visit her one day. It looks like a lovely spot, and you can walk all the way up inside her. She has a crown like a queen, even though there is no royalty here.

After working there for a few months, I learned the Liberty Motel is also something of an attraction. Known in the business as a "short-stay" establishment, it's a place for lovers in need of privacy. Prost.i.tutes and politicians, traveling salespeople, truckers, and teenagers living at home all frequent the hotel. Money flows easily through such hands. Sometimes it's all in single-dollar bills. Sixteen dollars and fifty cents per hour paid up front. I treat everyone the same, underworld and overworld. But it's not always easy to do. Once a prost.i.tute was so badly beaten that I wanted to call an ambulance, but she refused to go to the hospital. I took care of her, and when I removed the ice pack from her swollen eyes and cleaned her makeup, it was only then I realized she was just a girl, sixteen, seventeen. Times like that bring sorrow to my day. But it's not always like that, not even often.

Stained carpet, broken side tables, and stale smells from cigarettes and alcohol were the basic decor of the rooms when I first started working here. One day I asked Mr. Suri if he would let me redecorate the rooms. "What's wrong with them?" he protested. "There is a heart-shaped Jacuzzi in one room that cost me five hundred dollars."

"Yes, and when people leave that room, they tell me how much they like it," I patiently explained.

"Stalina, let's leave it at that."

"I can make beautiful rooms."

"No."

"Sixty dollars per room."

"No."