Stalina: A Novel Part 5

Tanya had long blond hair and spent her days chopping wood. She was strong and hugged each one of us every day. It was a comfort. Vanya tended a herd of goats near the camp. He smelled like those goats and had the biggest, roughest hands I have ever seen. I listened while they played cards, keeping very still so that when I fell asleep I would not fall off the bed or disturb my sleep mates during the night. We were always four or more in a bed. When someone near me would start to cry, which happened often, I would try so hard to hold it back. I tried so hard to be strong.

No one escaped the siege. Bela and Leo were brothers who always shared a bunk. Neither one ever said a word. They ate their meals under the long table and refused to sleep with anyone else. For the rest of us, the bed a.s.signments would change almost every night, so if someone had bony elbows and knees or foul breath, you only had to tolerate them once or twice a week.

"Flexibility, adaptability, and strength-these are the things you will learn at Camp Flora," Tanya told us almost every night before she gave out the bunk a.s.signments.

"Leave Bela and Leo alone," she would say if someone was making fun of them.

One time Rakia, an angry student right out of Herzen University, tried to force them to separate. She was always mad about having to abandon her studies. "It will be good for them," she said in her bossy style.

When they were separated, Leo would not stop hitting his head against the floorboards and Bela obsessively ate the torn threads of a blanket.

"I told you, leave them alone," Tanya said. "I will take care of them."

"But they're not being good Communists," Rakia said, storming out.

"That's not my concern, Rakia. They are children; let them be."

Tanya disappeared one day. Who knows why? In those days it could have been anything. Luckily, Rakia did not take over.

It was two and a half years before I saw my parents again, and at first I did not recognize them or Leningrad. The city was a charred skeleton. My parents were not much better, their faces gaunt and bodies thin as branches. It was my father's smile that brought me back. Even though he had lost a front tooth, I recognized his crooked smile and plump lips. My mother managed a feeble smile through her tears. Neither could pick me up. I was healthy and put my arms around my mother's legs and tried to lift her. She flinched when I touched her. There was great distance between us.

"Stalina, it's not you. My body hurts from being so tired," she said.

Hunger exposes the nerves. Mother bruised easily and was very sensitive to the slightest touch or any sound louder than a light switch. It wasn't until I was older that she told me how they survived.

"We made bread by mixing face powder, sawdust, and tooth powder and fried it all in lipstick for flavor," she explained with her eyes closed.

I was ten years old and asked, "What happened to the stars and crowns wallpaper in our hallways?"

"We stripped it all down and sc.r.a.ped off the glue to make gruel," she continued. "I'd let a ball of it sit on my tongue for a long time."

"How did you swallow it?"

"Imagination. I'd envision the most luscious piece of chocolate cake. I closed my eyes, and when I could smell the cake as if it had just been baked, I quickly swallowed."

"Mmm, let's have some chocolate cake," I once suggested.

"Achh no, it makes me think of eating the wallpaper glue."

My mother's tastes ran to the plain and simple. Soda crackers, boiled chicken, and vodka.

Chapter Ten: Svetlana and the Crow.

I had been at the Liberty for more than two years, and Svetlana for almost six months. Each of us was at home here now, perhaps strange to say. The motel was very quiet this afternoon. I got Svetlana and brought her into the office. Mr. Suri liked to play with her.

Caw! Caw!

That crow was very protective of Svetlana. I'd never seen anything like that. She did not fly away when I picked up the cat.

Caw! Caw!

"Svetlana, you are a feisty kitty. Come here. Mr. Suri is back. Let's get back to the office."

As I scooped her up, I saw the remnants of Mr. Suri's drawings in the dirt under the pine trees. He had drawn a map of Windsor Avenue with arrows pointing in several directions and circles around squares that seem to be the other motels. I wondered what sort of plan he was thinking of. The wind had stopped as it often did at this time of day. The trees here reminded me of Lake Ladoga near my family's dacha in Karelia. Pine trees surrounded the water. There was always a bed of fallen needles three or four inches thick that we would walk through to get back to the house. A soft scent of pine followed us as we stirred up the ground in our bare feet. Sticky bits of sap would stick to our toes and heels. I would do a little jig to show off my needle-covered feet, and my parents would clap out the fast rhythms of the barnya, a folk dance that builds to an uncontrollable frenzy.

Here at the motel we used a very strong pine disinfectant called King Pine to clean the rooms. It hung heavily in the air and burned the eyes, but ultimately did the job of masking the smells of spilled liquor in the carpets and cigarettes in the drapery. My dream was to scent every room to match its fantasy scene. After all, I was an expert in the arena of aromas. The smell of rain and wet roses for "Gazebo in a Rainstorm" and cotton candy for "Roller Coaster Fun Park." At our lab in Russia, the manufacturing of scents became a cover for the vats of a.r.s.enic and anthrax we had in storage for covert operations. Make the poison smell sweet, even if it was an odorless killer like anthrax. I could be arrested for revealing such secrets. Most of the people working in the lab did not know we were making anything poisonous. I knew what was there because the technicians had to come to me for the chemical compositions and the delicate balances needed to stabilize each vat of poison and to create its camouflage bouquet. We mastered over one hundred scents. In addition to the sweet smells of lingonberries and such, we found ways to make the scents of freshly printed newsprint and an electrical storm. Of them all, my favorite was that of freshly baked bread.

"Svetlana, I bet you'd like a room scented with catnip or tuna, wouldn't you, little kitten?"

Mr. Suri came into the office; he looked agitated. There was something about him I found very attractive. It had been a long time since I had felt anything for a man, but he intrigued me. I wanted to know more about him. I liked watching Mr. Suri walk. He had long legs, and his slacks danced around them as he moved. He was graceful, and I thought that he must be a good dancer. I like that in a man.

"Mr. Suri, how was your day?" I asked, coming in from outside with Svetlana in my arms.

"In order to be approved for a new septic system, it seems I have to join the Kiwanis Club."

"I am familiar with these kinds of things. It was typical in Russia."

"I'm not a joiner," he said. "I just want a decent place for the you-know-what to go."

"Mr. Suri, we have a situation." I attempted to tell him about the comatose customer.

"We will have a very bad situation if I can't properly deal with people's-"

"Yes, well we have a man unconscious in room two."

"Oh great, now the police will come. That's all we need."

"His lady friend didn't want any help."

"He's alive, I hope?"

"I haven't seen him, but all she wanted was ice."

"I could use a drink myself."

I liked how honest he was. "I have vodka," I told him.

"They want me to contribute five hundred dollars to become a member of the local chapter, and then they'll give me the permit to hire another member to dig the leach field that we need to make a proper septic system."

"Leeches?" I asked.

"I wonder how many of the Kiwanis Club brothers are motel customers," he asked. "I'll see at the next meeting I go to."

"That could be very good for business. Five hundred dollars is a small investment," I added.

He played with his mustache. "What about this gentleman in room two?" he asked.

"I added another hour to their stay."

"They have until four forty-five?" he asked.

"Correct. I'll go knock on the door to see how they are doing."

"I don't think you should get involved, Stalina."

"His lady friend sounded upset. I don't mind helping out."

"It's on your own time," he said sternly.

He put his hand on top of mine. His touch embarra.s.sed and distracted me, and I dropped Svetlana. She scrambled under the desk and was trying to wiggle through a hole in the wall.

"I hope that cat will earn her keep and catch some mice," he said, suddenly placing the hand that touched mine into his slacks pocket, and he jingled some loose coins. I stared at the pocket. The bottle of vodka was in the cabinet under the desk in between a broken fax machine and several rolls of toilet paper. I fumbled around for the cat and at the same time picked up the vodka.

"What's that cat's name again? Vodka?"

"No, Svet-lana," I p.r.o.nounced her name slowly, "like Stalin's daughter, but Vodka's a good name for a cat. Why leeches?"

"Stalina, didn't you have plumbing in Russia?"

"Leningrad is a very civilized city. There is central plumbing. Sort of."

"And what about in the country?"

"Leeches had nothing to do with it," I said indignantly.

"Some other time I'll explain about leach fields. What about room two? Or excuse me, the 'Roller Coaster Fun Park.' Those rooms might be causing more trouble than we need."

I loved his efficiency, but he worried too much. Little Svetlana would be a good mouse catcher, and the rooms would make him money.

"The kitten needs to go back to the linen room, and then I'll see what's going on in roller coaster land."

"Let her stay here-maybe she'll catch something. Call me if you need anything."

"Thank you, sir."

"Stalina, please stop calling me sir."

"Suri, I meant, Mr. Sur-i."

Outside the wind had picked up again. I'd been monitoring the cracks in the concrete path along the front of the motel. They were getting bigger. The roots from the pine trees were growing under the driveway and breaking up the cement. Mr. Suri's Delta '88 was parked near the trees. He loved that car. It was his symbol of America. My symbol was the Liberty Motel and all it offered its guests. The freedom to love, to share an intimate time away from all your worries. Through my room designs, I had made a place for my customers to let their minds travel beyond their difficult circ.u.mstances. They could enjoy happiness, no oppression, for a short time, and it did not cost so much. There was great freedom in the value of my fantasy rooms. They might not be for everyone, but those who came kept returning. I took great pride in this, and it was here I found happiness I had never known. I thought the Liberty Motel was a place of beauty for the soul.

I walked with the vodka bottle in my hand over to the linen room, where Mara was asleep. I hoped she had brought the ice to the Roller Coaster Room couple. The pink door to the linen room stuck like all the other doors.

"Mara," I said as the door whined.

The light was out.

"Mara!"

"Huh," she responded, sounding dazed. "I was having such a bad dream."

"Did you bring the ice to room two?"

"I knocked, but no one came to the door. There was something about a vacuum in my dream. I was outside vacuuming, and one of those crows that lives in the pine trees got sucked into the tube. The vacuum took over and was pulling up everything in sight, including the clouds and the stoplights on Windsor Avenue. I couldn't let go, and the whole time the crow was screeching CAW! CAW! from inside the vacuum."

"I think it reflects your conflicts about work."

"Please, don't a.n.a.lyze me. Isn't your s.h.i.+ft over?"

"Never mind," I said, closing the door.

"Stalina, what are you going to do with that bottle of vodka?" she said as I closed the door.

"It is to help a difficult situation," I replied.

The door to room two looked like all the others, painted pink with a hammered copper number nailed to the front. I could smell cigarette smoke, menthol mixed with our pine disinfectant. A nice smell, I thought.

Chapter Eleven: Vodka.

Knock. Knock.

No answer.

Knock. Knock.

I hear a bit of scuffling.

"Who's there?" a raspy woman's voice asked from behind the door.

"It's the front desk receptionist. We spoke on the phone."

Still from behind the door she said, "I thought someone was going to bring me ice for Harry's head."

"I have the ice."