Authors: Emily Rubin
Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Contemporary Women, #Cultural Heritage
Stalina (19 page)
That’s when Joanie told me the story of how Harry lost his thumb.
“Harry used to run away when he was a boy from his home in Brooklyn. His father fought in World War II, was very strict, and wanted to punish him after he found him hitchhiking onto the BQE for the fifth time. Can you imagine? It’s amazing Harry survived; he was only twelve years old. His father set the dog after him. The dog grabbed his hand, and as Harry tried to slip away, the dog’s jaw locked down on his thumb. Harry’s mother ran away with him from the hospital in the middle of the night. She left Brooklyn and moved here to Berlin and got a job in an umbrella factory. They heard later his father put his head in the oven in their apartment in Canarsie. The neighbors smelled gas and called the police. His father was still alive but unconscious. They revived him, but he was like a three-year-old. When his mother died, Harry went to the nursing home where his father lived. He took a gun and a bottle of arsenic, but he could not kill him. The drooling, rocking, and loud cartoons got to Harry. He told me the story when we were in high school. That’s when I fell in love with him. He’s a real mensch.”
A toast to your love, Harry and Joanie, my most loyal customers.
Thiiip!
Mmm, peppery, this vodka is.
Nadia wrote after her parents passed away within a month of each other.
Dear Stalina,
My parents are gone. Putin gave them special honors. They were mentors to young “Vladi” in his early KGB days. Did you know it is illegal to spread human ashes in Russia? I had no idea. I put their remains together in a Chinese urn my mother kept on her mantel in Brooklyn. You may have seen it when you visited them. She brought it with her when they left Brighton Beach. They sold many of their things at a flea market at the beach before they left. I wish they had kept some of their photographs from Russia. My father had a photo taken with Stalin. You can get good money for that sort of Soviet memorabilia. But the urn my mother refused to sell. It was a very valuable antique that my father purchased on one of his trips to China. I keep it by my bedside. I miss them very much. Petersburg is more beautiful than ever. Much is happening here for the three-hundred-year celebration, and of course the mafia still runs the city, so everything functions very well. Why don’t you come visit for the festivities?
Your friend and comrade,
Nadia
Oh dear urn, you earned your keep. What liars Nadia’s parents were! Maxim never mentioned anything about it being illegal when he spread my mother’s ashes in the Baltic Sea.
Thiip!
Mmm, the vodka is just the right viscosity.
Among the photographs surrounding me is the one I took from Arkady and Radya’s glass side table in Brighton Beach. It was from a photo booth arcade with a fake setup where you could have your picture taken with our leaders, Stalin and Ezhov standing next to a bridge in Leningrad. Trofim had the same photograph, but in his, which was taken later than Arkady’s, Ezhov had been airbrushed away. It was for this version I scolded my lover.
He would argue, “It’s for protection, Stalina, just like your name. I got a deal at the photo booth. They gave me extra copies. Would you like one?”
“You do look handsome on that bridge.”
I did take one of the copies, but the photograph was not enough to protect my dear Trofim. His students thought he went mad when one of them saw him eating a slice of Lysenko’s brain on a piece of sourdough bread and reported him to the authorities. The police did not mind his charade with the calf brain; they actually knew about it because the KGB had Lysenko’s real brain. It was Trofim’s experiments to improve Mendeleev’s vodka recipe that ended up being the final straw. The KGB did not want anyone changing what they already considered flawless. Olga sent me the article from
Pravda
, which I have taped to the back of the photograph.
Thiip!
It reads,
St. Petersburg
April 15, 2002
Physicist Found Dead in Vat of Chilled Vodka
The body of physicist Trofim Nayakovsky, who had been missing for several years, was found dead in his former lab at St. Petersburg University. He was thought to have gone crazy after a student saw him consuming a slice of a human brain, and soon after he disappeared with no trace. His body, preserved in a vat of chilled vodka, was found when renovations for the tercentennial started and the lab’s refrigerated vault was emptied. Death by drowning was determined, as it was hard to tell at so late a date if there were any signs of a struggle. One of his former students said that after he was seen eating what was thought to be a piece of our scientist Lysenko’s brain, the authorities started making inquiries about the professor’s activities. The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the authorities that in addition, the professor’s teaching had become scattered and erratic, and he was obsessed with developing a new recipe for vodka. The brain was actually that of a calf. The vat filled with vodka, in which Prof. Nayakovsky was discovered, had been placed inside a large centrifuge that was being stored inside the cold vault. Relatives were contacted, and after the body thawed, they requested cremation. He is survived by his wife, Tatiana, and children Yosip and Nina. During the next year, many institutions are having facelifts in preparation for the upcoming celebrations. We wonder what other surprising discoveries will be made.
Liars! Trofim would not have been so stupid as to fall into the vat and let the lid close. If he was that well preserved, instead of cremation, maybe they should have put him on display at the Academy of Science next to the jar with the African Pygmy.
Olga wrote a note below the article. “Bollocks! Stalina, can you believe how they covered up this one? Poor Trofim, at least he was drunk when he went.”
Nostrovya!
To you Olga, my dear friend and legendary hairdresser!
Thiip!
At least I can look forward to the possibility of Trofim greeting me when it’s my time to go. A toast to my dear love, Trofim! My heart still aches for you, Trofim.
Thiip!
Mr. Suri sent me pictures of his laundromat in Tucson, Arizona. He wrote on the back, “Stalina, we have named our business ‘Liberty Laundry’ in honor of the motel, our favorite tourist site, and it also reminds me of you.”
Prost!
A toast to you, Mr. Suri, and your heart-shaped tub which I have filled with bubbles of a lavender scent for its therapeutic qualities of relaxation and contemplation. I think of you often.
Thiip!
Still I have not made it for a visit to the real Lady Liberty. She has been closed to the public for the time being. The brochures I have read say that it is a thrilling view from statue’s crown. There have been some hard times on these shores, and many restrictions have been enforced. What a shame, and it is all just after I became a citizen.
Nostrovya!
Lady Liberty! To the day when you are free again to have visitors touch your robes and appreciate your toes.
Thiip!
They say she is very shapely underneath all the drapery. Her measurements are thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-six—feet, of course. She’s a voluptuous, big-boned gal, very Russian. An immigrant just like myself. From France she hails, not Russia, but the French always loved the Russians and vice versa, so I can imagine that Mr. Sculptor Bartholdi had one or two Russian models to base his lady on. The officials say it was his mother he used, but I tend to think with such a figure underneath her skirts, it was one of his many lovers. Like many artists, he had a reputation for being a ladies’ man.
I raise an arm to Lady Liberty and her shapely figure. You would look wonderful, dear lady, in one of my imported Russian bras. I’m sure I would have had one to fit your shapely size had they not all been stolen from me.
Thiip!
I heard from Amalia. That thief! It’s sad we are no longer friends; there’s so much between us—good and bad—that can never go away. Her mother passed away. I knew how difficult it would be, so I did what I could to help her understand what was coming. She thanked me for the push to go home so she could say a proper good-bye. The Magik Cleaning Agency has folded without her special business sense, and she has become very successful in Petersburg. She was one of the first to start a business to introduce American men to Russian women. Now the classifieds in the
St. Petersburg Times
are filled with ads for such enterprises.
Amalia calls her business Veeshni Kazenoor, or Cherries Casino. The office is upstairs on Nevsky near the Kazan Cathedral. It’s just her and a computer and a waiting room with red satin walls. Olga sent me this entry from the computer log written by one of her “lonely” women.
Something is missing in my life, and I know if I could only meet the right man I would be fulfilled, complete. I am divorced and have a young son. I am a doctor and know that I could be caring and healing to you as well. Please choose me as I know I will satisfy your needs and be a proper and faithful wife. My English is close to perfect. I would like to learn more from you. Choose me please. I wait holding my breath to hear from you.
Ina D.
* * *
Knock! Knock!
“Yes?”
“Stalina, it’s Carmela. Shosta and Kovich want to come in and sit by your bath.”
The bubbles fascinate those two. I am no longer angry with them for the death of the crow—they are cats, after all—but Svetlana is still the better mouse killer.
“Let them in, Carmela.”
I hear two cars leaving the driveway as the door opens, and the cats race in to be the first at tub side.
“Carmela, are things busy tonight?”
The top of Carmela’s head and her shiny black hair glisten from the outside light. Her eyes are cast down, even though she knows the tub filled with bubbles conceals all. She has beautiful long eyelashes.
“Yes, three rooms are filled, and two people just finished. You relax. Have you got everything you need?”
“Thank you, I have what I need. The door sticks a bit at the top left corner. I must trim the edges before too long.”
“I’ll help you with that tomorrow.”
“Come sit, Comrade Carmela. Have a bit of vodka with me. I am celebrating.”
“Since you are now a U.S. citizen, must I call you Citizen, or do you still prefer Comrade, Stalina?”
“Why not Citizen Comrade? I am celebrating my ten years here at the Liberty Motel!”
“A quick toast, then. I have to go clean the rooms and mind the desk. Remember, we have a business to run.”
“You are a feisty one, Carmela. Come sit for a moment; we’ll hear when someone comes up the drive. Take another cup from the bathroom. Close the door.”
Shosta and Kovich are circling the tub, sniffing the lavender bubbles that have escaped over the sides.
“
Cht, cht, cht
. Come here, comrade kitties, I’ll blow some bubbles for you.”
The bubbles scooped in my hands are soft as silk. They tickle my palm the way Trofim used to when we would sit at our favorite tea shop near the Moika Bridge. He’d make a circle with his finger in my hand and then move it up to my lips to test which was softer, the lips or the palm. When my lips were dry, he would kiss them. When my palm was dry, he would massage my hand until it sweated just a bit. The lavender bubbles do just the same. Shosta and Kovich know the game; they wait for me to blow the bubbles in their direction.
“Here’s some bubbles…
ffft!
For you, Shosta!
Ffft!
For you, Kovich! Come, Carmela, pull up a chair.”
“Stalina, how many toasts have you made tonight?”
“Bubbles floating on the air like my head from the vodka.”
“I’ll join you.”
“To each of these rogues in my gallery of photographs, and now to you, the best partner a bubble-soaked Russian could ever have!
Nostrovya!
”
Thiip! Thiip!
“Shosta and Kovich don’t care which country you call your own, as long as they have their bubbles,” Carmela said.
“To Shosta and Kovich, the expatriated cats, and their undying devotion to eating, sleeping, and bubble play. If only they would speak, so we could truly converse. It’s the same problem Alice had,” I responded expansively.
“I am sorry, Stalina, I don’t know any Alice.”
“Yes you do, from the book.”
“The one about the mirror?”
“The looking glass, yes. Alice thought if a purr meant yes and a mew meant no, then at least we could have a conversation with them.”
“I always thought a purr meant ‘I am content,’ and a mew meant ‘I need.’”
“That’s the spirit, Carmela.”
Thiip! Thiip!
“You have taught me how to enjoy your country’s drink, Stalina.”
As Carmela tipped her head back to take down the vodka, I noticed a jagged scar behind her right ear that I had never seen before.
“Carmela, what do you dream of?” I asked her.
She thought for a moment as she pulled her hair back behind her ear and covered the scar. She seemed self-conscious that I had seen it.
She said, “Juan Mendoza, I dream about him often. I left him at the bar of the Hotel Nacional in Managua. His letters stopped coming soon after I arrived here.”
“Sandinista?”
“Schoolteacher.”
“Dangerous.”
“Apparently to someone.”