Hotel Moscow (21 page)

B
ROOKE HAD BEEN
careful not to indulge in purchases that might not fit in her suitcase, but couldn’t resist a small black-lacquered box, finely painted in minute detail. She fetched her luggage from the bus driver, checked that the lock hadn’t been broken and the contents of her wheeled bag were undisturbed, then asked one of the interpreters to help her get an official taxi among the few parked at the entrance to the market. She would arrive at the airport well ahead of nightfall—and with two hours to kill before her five o’clock flight, enough spare time for any eventualities.

A half mile of dirt road led away from the market. By the time Brooke left, it was lined with people, each hawking a single possession: a bird cage, a hand-knit shawl, a steam iron, a box of imported crackers, a samovar, a book of crossword puzzles, a pair of women’s shoes, a silver candlestick, a violin, a puppy. Shifting their weight from one foot to the other, these sellers were visibly
tired, their eyes devoid of hope. Their pleas sounded desperate, urgent.

Driving past these destitute people, Brooke’s indignation rose. Russia was a superpower, not a third world nation, but the government’s ideologically driven economic policy, so misguided, had brought its people to their knees. Given its rich natural resources, this country could have done so much for its population, yet, indifferent to the deprivations of its masses, it had spent lavishly on a grand space program. Brooke rolled up the window and leaned back, emotionally drained.

She was jolted awake as the driver jerked to a stop. She heard shouting, the thunder of an enraged mob. Her eyes scanned the four-lane road. “What’s going on?”

The driver said something in Russian. Brooke rooted in her bag for a city map and showed it to him. “Where are we?” His index fingernail pointed to a junction a block away from the Garden Ring Road, the center of the city.

Brooke looked up. Along the wide road, waving the red hammer-and-sickle flags of the defunct Soviet Union, swarms of men ran past marchers who carried the white, black, and gold czarist flags of extreme nationalists. Thousands of feet pounded. Placards bobbed up and down. Raised fists sliced the air in a show of power—or anger. Shouting rhythmic slogans, some people broke ranks, wielding clubs and iron staves, while others brandished Kalashnikov assault rifles. Rocks flew and smashed into kiosk windows, shattering glass. A vendor just ahead of Brooke’s taxi cowered on the floor of his booth.

Panicked, spewing curses that Brooke actually recognized, the driver skidded into a U-turn and hit the curb, throwing her sideways on the seat. He tried again, then finally made it, driving in the wrong lane and swerving to avoid the oncoming traffic before the other drivers did the same.

This was insanity. In the mayhem, Brooke heard the rumble of heavy vehicles. An armored car veered into the road from a side street. Its wheels slammed against the corner of the curb. Two dozen men, eyes blazing, fists punching the air, hung from its windows; more stood on its steps and bumper, clinging desperately to the vehicle as it sped by Brooke’s taxi.

Her driver trailed in their wake a hundred yards until orderly troopers wearing black shirts with swastikas goose-stepped into the center of the street, saluting with straightened arms as if lifted from a Hollywood set.
Neo-Nazis.
Brooke’s blood pumped harder in her ears.

Her driver jerked the car sharply into a side street, only to face a swell of people waving farm tools. Caught between the colliding mobs, he zigzagged his way through another alley where men were piling up garbage pails, bed frames, and broken lumber to erect a barricade. The driver shot through them. Timber cracked and hit the windshield, and Brooke heard screaming and realized that the car had just injured people. Her knuckles turned white as she held on to a strap with one hand and the seat with the other. She must get to the airport, but they hadn’t left the city yet.

Brooke craned her neck and saw demonstrators destroying kiosks. In the new wave of people, the taxi slowed to a crawl.
A banging on her other side made her jump. She turned to see a man wearing a photographer’s vest, a badge of media credentials tangled with the straps of his two cameras. “American?” he mouthed. Hanging onto the taxi as it continued to crawl, he held up a name badge.

She recognized the name Peter Norcress. This was the journalist who had besmirched her client the Prince of Morocco. She cranked down the window two inches.

“May I get a ride?” he asked in American English. “I’m from the
Los Angeles Record.
”

Brooke recognized his narrow face from the photo on his column, the thinness of a marathon runner. She motioned the driver to stop and unlocked the door.

The journalist slid in and locked the door behind him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said between breaths. His panting filled the taxi. “Norcress.” He extended his hand for a shake. His palm was sticky.

“Fielding. I know who you are.”

He laughed. “I hope you know only the good things.” He eyed her. “What is an American fair maiden doing here?”

Brooke gestured with her chin outside. “What’s going on?”

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “A revolution! At two o’clock, Yeltsin’s opponents commandeered a truck and broke through police lines. Rutskoy, once Yeltsin’s darling and now his arch enemy, called from the White House balcony for everyone to take to the streets. They stormed the mayor’s office in Tverskaya Street.”

Norcress spoke to the driver in Russian, and the driver continued to pull forward through the crowd. There were angry
people whichever way Brooke looked, streaming in no particular direction. “Water?” She handed Norcress her water bottle, and he took a large gulp.

“So far, Yeltsin has ordered his troops to hold their fire,” he continued. “Whether they’ll obey him is yet to be seen.”

“It only takes one soldier to disobey—or panic—and the shooting will begin,” Brooke said. “I need to get out of here. I’m on my way to the airport. I don’t want to miss my flight.”

“The airport is shut down.”

“Shut down?” The hair stood on Brooke’s arms. She should have left yesterday. Or the day before. Her heart pounded hard as the provoked mob broke in a roar, and torches bobbed over the crowd.
Just get me out of here.
“Until when?”

“Who knows? And the State Department has issued a warning to Americans not to travel to Moscow.”

“Too late, isn’t it?” She scanned the street while the driver continued to move at a turtle’s pace. People pounded on the car hood as they passed. A man pressed his face to the window, and his distorted features grimaced at Brooke. She recoiled and slid away from the window. Then a group of angry people surrounded the car and started rocking it.

Brooke slid down as much as the tight space allowed, and bent her head into her knees. The driver gunned the gas pedal and forced the mob to scatter.

In the next street she raised her head to look out. “How do I call the American Embassy?” she asked Norcress.

“By the time you find a working phone, you’d be better off just going there. It’s not far, but you’ll need to walk. It’s right by the White House.”

How could she walk through this wild mob? What would she do with her two pieces of luggage? Brooke crossed her arms, pressing them hard into her body. “What about an international phone call?”

“Cash-call. At the central post office—if it’s open.” Norcress gestured behind them. “Good luck!”

A huge blast tore the air, followed by more blasts. “Cannon. The army is firing its cannons,” he said, his voice excited. “Action!”

Brooke covered her ears. She recalled the artillery she had seen surrounding the White House. A seismic shift of world power had begun—and she was caught in its epicenter. “It doesn’t sound like a good idea to walk toward it,” she said when the noise receded.

“No, although I should be out there.” He craned his neck to look out the window. “Maybe not.”

She followed his gaze. At the near corner, policemen held white shields and raised Kalashnikovs. Their presence offered no comfort—nor were they any deterrent to the roaring mob that continued to swarm in every which way. “I must get out of here,” she said. “Is there an airport hotel?”

“Where were you staying until now?”

“I checked out of Hotel Moscow this morning.”

“Isn’t that in Lenin Hills? It’s far from the action. Get your ass back there.”

She dropped back into her seat. “I guess I have no choice.”

Norcress gave the driver new instructions. The driver gunned the car again, cut across a street corner, slalomed the wrong way down a street, and finally found a less crowded avenue.

Brooke took in a big breath of relief. “I didn’t think you were a war correspondent,” she said to Norcress.

“Why is that?”

“When you crucified my client the Prince of Morocco, you seemed to have a bleeding heart. Not the right kind of temperament for war reporting.”

He let out a short whistle. “He deserved every word I wrote. If he’s your client, you must have seen the squalor his people live in right outside each of his twenty-three palaces, while he diverts his fortune to investments abroad.”

He was right, of course. Although at Brooke’s suggestion the prince had dug hundreds of wells that saved women hours of walking to fetch water, she had been powerless to change the abject poverty she had seen. She was glad Norcress hadn’t seen the one hundred pure-bred horses living in a palatial barn, fifty decorated stalls on each side of a magnificent octagonal reception hall. The hall’s dome was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and semiprecious stones, and the display of gifts given by dozens of heads of state included a larger-than-life, diamond-studded U.S. eagle. She never asked which president had given it.

When she said nothing, Norcress added, “My assignment is to look for the people’s stories. How they manage change.”

“Or don’t.” Brooke waved toward the world outside.

He fished in his vest for a business card, and handed it to her. “Just in case another one of your other clients has a better tale than that Moroccan dude.”

They rode the rest of the way to Hotel Moscow in silence. He didn’t let her pay when he dropped her off, saying he’d continue to his hotel. “I owe you one,” he said.

“Two,” she replied.

He raised her water bottle. “May I keep it? It will make three.”

B
ACK AT THE
hotel, Brooke could hardly believe that she could feel so safe in this shabby place. Again she submitted her passport at the reception desk, and a ten-dollar bill gave her the key to Amanda’s room.

Although it was the weekend, she phoned and left a message at Hoffenbach’s office. Should she call Olga to tell her about the forced change of plans? After all, they had said their good-byes. Brooke’s need for information overcame her hesitation. She dialed Olga’s number, surprised yet again at how easy it was to place a phone call in a hotel—and a city—where nothing else worked smoothly.

“The riots are spreading. Things have gotten out of control.” Olga’s voice was so loud, Brooke had to shift the receiver away from her ear. “Communists and nationalists are fighting in the streets. About ten thousand—” Olga’s cough turned into a fit.

Viktor took the receiver from his wife. “We’ve heard that the rebels blasted through the door of the Ostankino television station. They fought the police inside. Yeltsin’s troops opened fire. Shot everyone in sight.” He sounded as agitated as his wife. “Half the armed staff in the parliament are registered fascists. Their leader, Zhirinovsky—”

Olga recovered enough to call out, “The man is a joke.”

“Nobody took Mussolini and Hitler seriously until it was too late,” Viktor said.

“What do they say on CNN?” Brooke asked.

“Wait. Viktor is turning to the channel,” Olga said, back on
the phone. After a moment, her voice dropped. “Nothing. Another economic crisis in Brazil. A soccer game in Hong Kong. Nothing.”

In the background, Brooke heard Viktor call out.

“The Russian channel, it’s all fuzzy,” Olga said. “Now it’s a blackout. Wait! Yegor Gaidar, the prime minister, is on!”

“The government recaptured the TV station?”

“It’s another station.” Suddenly Olga cried out. “Oh, no! He’s telling Yeltsin’s supporters to gather at the City Council and set up barricades. He’s calling for a civil war!”

The brief history chapter in Brooke’s guide book covered in one sentence the last civilian clashes during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, when the czar had been overthrown. “Who exactly is fighting whom?” Brooke asked. “I saw demonstrators destroying kiosks. The owners were their own people!”

“Those kiosks sell capitalists’ goods. They represent Yeltsin’s free-market plans. All capitalistic economy has done so far is bring corruption out into the open.”

Olga was silent for a while, probably watching the ongoing reports on TV. Finally she said, “
Uzhasno.
Terrible. These are terrible days for Russia. We’ve been humiliated and depersonalized for so long. All we wanted was our freedom, yet look how miserably we’re managing it now that we have it.”

Who had said that people received the rulers they deserved? Brooke could offer no words of comfort. This had nothing to do with her, she told herself. Her Russian chapter was closed. She wished she were at the airport now, just in case she could talk her way onto an oligarch’s private plane.

I
N THE HOTEL
dining hall, Nikolai Sidorov raised his glass of vodka. “Another toast! One more toast!” He winked at Amanda, seated next to him.

Jenny, seated farther down the table, adored the way Russians toasted, always with drinks, especially the male officials she’d seen. Russians knew how to have fun, so unlike boring American gatherings, where she was expected to hold back raucous laughter and to smile at stupid jokes.

She admired Sidorov’s dexterity as, for the fifth or sixth time, he balanced the tiny glass on the back of his hand. “To beautiful American women—and real Russian men.” With a swift movement of his wrist, he tipped the glass and downed the contents in one gulp.

Jenny picked at the chopped beets, black olives, and herring swimming in cream on her plate, but her eyes were on the only man in the room. She felt like a lizard sitting on a tree limb, waiting for a bug to stumble her way. It would, soon. The heady com
bination of attractive American women and vodka had erupted in perspiration on Sidorov’s forehead. His eyelids were heavy, and his waxen-blue pupils glimmered in arousal.

Jenny glanced around the table at the other women. They were talking about the revolution, or uprising, or whatever it was Brooke claimed had started, but there was no sign of it here. Sidorov, in fact, seemed insouciantly jolly.

“We might be looking at another totalitarian regime, this time with nuclear power,” Brooke whispered to Amanda. “But he’s acting like he’s partying in a brothel.”

“C’mon, Brooke,” Jenny shot. “You’re upset that he hasn’t hit on you.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Jenny, it’s been a long day.”

Jenny would have died for that thick brunette hair curling at the shoulders, reflecting the light. “Admit it: Wouldn’t you drop that big-time job of yours for the right rich, gorgeous man? Everyone has a price. You too.”

Brooke pushed herself from the table and walked away, just as Jenny had hoped. She liked Brooke well enough, but right now Jenny wanted her out of the way. Until Sidorov stumbled her way, she would enjoy the garlicky sautéed meat that was now being served with steamed cabbage flavored with lard.

Sidorov rose to salute again and tried to wrap his arm around Amanda. She squirmed and disengaged from his hold. “To the new American–Russian friendship,” he roared. He chugged the glass of vodka.

“To our host—and the boss!” Jenny called out, raising her glass. She emptied it down her throat although she had never taken to its taste.

Still standing, Sidorov threw a lascivious smile at her, finally noticing her. “In business, you women have so much more to offer than we do,” he declared to the table. “You can always close a deal by using what nature gave you.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Sidorov, that American women do not do business that way.” Amanda slid from her seat to the chair Brooke had vacated.

“Russian women have no such inhibitions.”

“In the United States, it’s called sexual harassment, and it’s a crime.”

“Our women don’t mind. Ask Svetlana Alitkina here.” He looked around the room. “Where is she?”

“Curfew. We’ve sent her home,” Brooke said from the door. She was holding Amanda’s video camera and trained it on Sidorov.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.

“I assume you won’t mind if we record you. Americans would be interested in your views.”

“Put it down. Shut it off.” Saliva gathered in the corners of his mouth.

Svetlana. Jenny thought about their conversation. Maybe she could help the little Russian woman. There was a time, long ago, when inside Jenny a Svetlana had resided—timid, afraid to taste life.

“I don’t think we’ll stay for coffee.” Amanda rose from the table.

Everyone but Jenny finished eating in a rush. Cooling herself with a Chinese fan, Jenny threw Sidorov an inviting smile. He lumbered around and took the empty seat beside her. Still fan
ning herself, Jenny opened the top button of her silk blouse. As Sidorov had just said, in any successful transaction, a woman should put her best-selling point forward.

“You’re a real woman.” Sidorov assessed her cleavage with an appreciative gaze.

She lowered her eyelashes. The vodka was sending pleasant sensations throughout her body. “Only a real man would know. But I haven’t met any here—until now, that is.”

“You’ve been wasting your time in Moscow, then.” He refilled her vodka glass, and she drank it in two gulps. How she loved Sidorov’s deep, baritone voice as he said, “Nothing exciting, uh?”

“Not when I’m with women day and night. The most they want to do is play spies.”

He burst out laughing. “And whom would the beautiful ladies spy for, the C.I.A.?”

“Well, maybe. Actually, I’d like to hear your advice about it.” She stroked her neck, allowing her hand to disappear into her blouse. She could help Svetlana and herself at the same time. “We’re looking for Russian terrorists.”

Sidorov gave out a hearty chuckle. His eyes were glued to her rippling blouse. His nostrils flared. “What kind of terrorists do you expect to find?”

Jenny leaned closer, one of her breasts brushing his arm. “The kind we saw at the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory. Scared the living chibaberini out of me.”

Sidorov sobered up. “Oh, yes. I’ve heard.”

She raised her Champagne glass and licked its rim. His eyes followed her tongue. “We’re talking to people,” she added.

“Who’s talking?” He bent forward, and she inhaled the masculine scent of cigarettes, vodka, and Armani aftershave.

She motioned with her head toward Brooke, who was about to go up the stairs leading to the lobby, then regretted diverting Sidorov’s panting attention. To draw him back, she said, “It’s too warm in here. Would you protect me if we went outside?”

Beads of perspiration trickled down his temples. He mopped them with a napkin. “Would you like to take a ride? I have a Rolls-Royce.”

T
HE GUARDS NODDED
deferentially as she and Sidorov passed through the lobby. Once they descended the steps to the street, he told his chauffeur to take a hike.

The joyride lasted three hundred feet, to the end of the empty parking lot, which was fine with Jenny. Sidorov could bestow this aphrodisiac of a car ride on his little Soviet girlfriends. If she cared one bird-poo about a Rolls-Royce, she could buy herself three.

At the edge of the lot, where a large oak tree blocked the glare of the only lamppost, Sidorov killed the engine and turned toward her.

This was going to be exciting. Jenny opened the door, slid out, and resettled in the back seat, motioning the Russian to join her.

He laughed, got out, and plopped himself down next to her. He pawed at her neck and breasts, slathering saliva all over her skin and blouse. His eagerness was contagious. She felt a low, deep rumble of gratification flare up at the bottom of her tummy.

She reached for his pants and unzipped his fly. Taking him out and covering him with her hands, she mumbled, “What a big
boy. Better than any American man.” She leaned over and took him in her mouth.

He groaned. “That’s a real woman. Knows how to appreciate a good thing.”

Her loose knit slacks slipped off easily. She led Sidorov’s right hand toward her moist cavity, rocking over his manicured, thick fingers as they entered her. A few minutes later, she moved to straddle him. Her thighs felt luxurious, full and feminine as his hands squeezed them while he buried his face between her breasts. His muffled grunts of pleasure were music to her ears.

She directed a nipple into his mouth. “Suck on it, big man,” she moaned. “Suck hard.” She brought up the fingers of his right hand, still glistening from her moisture, to his nose. “American caviar.”

Sidorov inhaled and groaned. His upward pumping grew faster.

“What a big man.” Jenny slid up and down over him, meeting his pace.

He strained and, in three more quick thrusts, climaxed.

Triumphantly, she gyrated a few more seconds. Mission accomplished. Nothing was better than feeling that a man found her utterly irresistible.