Stalina (13 page)

Apparently, Mr. Suri had a bad reputation that I was not aware of. When I walked into the office, he was not alone.

“Stalina, what are you doing here so early? This is not a very good time,” he said.

He was seated in the office chair, several men in dark suits wearing mirrored sunglasses surrounding him. The office was close and steamy from all the bodies. They were like a pod of seals jockeying for space on a sunny piece of rock. Any one of us was about to jump or get pushed off.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I had nowhere else to go,” I told Mr. Suri.

“Who is this dame?” one of the black suits asked.

“She just works here. She doesn’t know anything,” Mr. Suri explained.

“Stalina, what kind of a name is that?” the same suit asked.

“I’m Russian,” I said. “Ever heard of Joseph Stalin?”

“Stalina, don’t be rude to these gentleman,” Mr. Suri warned.

I understood the irony from his tone. These were not gentlemen, but small-time hoods acting like big-time gangsters. I cared for Mr. Suri and could tell he was in a prickly situation. It was a mystery to me that would soon be revealed. I understood this to be a delicate circumstance, and I would, as they say, play my cards right.

“Hey, the boss is Russian. Maybe you know her; Nadia Tamovsky is her name,” said the short, squat black suit with a widow’s peak and a pencil-thin mustache.

“The
N
is for Nadia? I thought your boss was a he. You always just called her Big N,” Mr. Suri added with surprise. “You work for a woman?”

“You better watch it, Suri. What’s the difference, anyway? She’s the boss,” another black suit added as he spit a lump of tobacco into a small cup.

Mr. Suri was silent.

“I had a childhood friend—her name was Nadia Cherkovskaya, not Tamovsky, but there are many Nadias in Russia,” I said. My stomach turned with the memory of Nadia and Pepe.

The gentleman spit into the cup again. “It’s chewing tobacco, a bad habit, but I can’t give it up,” he admitted when he noticed I was staring.

“You’re going to get cancer of the mouth,” another fellow with a high-pitched voice added.

“Hey, the boss ain’t no man, that’s for sure.” Everyone laughed as the spitter indicated with his arms the ample chest with which she was endowed.

“I believe the name would be Tamovskaya, for a lady,” I said.

I heard a car door slam. Mr. Suri went to look out the window but was restrained.

“Sit!” said the smallest of the lot, who was wearing black patent leather shoes with wedged heels.

“Her nickname is ‘Treasure Chest,’” the spitter added.

“Hey, Bacco, don’t go disrespecting Big N,” said a fellow with thick hands.

“She told me she likes that name,” he added.

“Russian women are very proud of their bodies,” I said.

The door to the office opened.

“Yes, we are proud,” said the person coming through the door.

“Welcome, boss, we were just finishing up with Mr. Suri,” the gentleman with the mustache said.

“Who is this?” she asked, looking at me.

“A fellow comrade. Stalina is her name.”

It was Nadia. My Nadia.

“I knew a Stalina when I was young,” she said as she turned to look at me.

Our eyes took focus. The age lines did not keep us from recognizing an old acquaintance. A small line of a scar at the edge of her left chin was all that remained of Pepe’s bite. Nadia carried herself with importance and elegance in a tailored black suit. Her hair was long and wavy and a couple of shades lighter than I remembered. Her lips were perfectly lined with pencil and filled in with a deep red lipstick.

“I am Stalina Folskaya,” I said in Russian.

“Stalina, I know who you are. I like your hair; the color black suits you. What are you doing here?” she added in English.

“It’s a long story,” I replied in Russian.

“She works here,” Mr. Suri piped in.

“Yes, I run the front desk and design the rooms,” I added in Russian.

“The rooms of this motel have a reputation. The other motels, my motels, are losing business because of them,” she said in Russian.

We continued in our native tongue.

“Did you get married, or is that an alias?” I asked.

“I married an American, of Russian descent, to get my papers. He is out of my life now. It did not work out.”

“Business is business,” I said.

“Yes, it is. I am buying Mr. Suri out. I need the income. I want all the motels; my parents still depend on me.”

“Maybe your motels need something besides ‘lunchtime specials.’ Where are your parents?” I asked.

The black suits were getting agitated with our conversation in Russian.

“Brighton Beach. Where they all are,” she said and then turned to the fellow with the widow’s peak. “Frank…”

“Yes, boss?”

“Give Mr. Suri the money,” she said in English.

“Mr. Suri, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Stalina, I’ll be leaving. Madame N is giving me an offer I can’t refuse. Garson and I are moving to Arizona. There are business opportunities in the desert. Chander and his mother live there. I want to be closer to him. The money will help. I’m sorry, Stalina,” he said, holding the leather satchel to his chest.

The money and valise gave off a strong swampy odor.

“Your boss had plans that would ruin my motels,” Nadia said.

My heart sank. I would miss Mr. Suri. Bacco spit again into the cup.

“This is capitalism, Mr. Suri?” I asked.

“More like extortion. Mara’s gone already. She left with that boyfriend to Florida. I found a note. She must have suspected something,” he added.

“You two finish up your business. We’ll be taking over now,” the gentleman with thick fingers said. He wore a pinky ring with a diamond that gave off a flat glint when he waved his hand at us.

“What about me?” I said. “My job? My rooms?”

“Stalina, you stay, run the motel,” Nadia said.

“But boss, I thought you said I could run this place,” Bacco whimpered.

“Bacco, go outside and clean the pine needles off the boss’s car,” the man with the pinky ring said.

“But…”

“Stalina will be an asset to this establishment, and anyway I owe her,” Nadia added.

“You don’t owe me anything, Nadia.”

“Bad things happened after they put your dog down. It was not your fault.”

I said, “I can’t believe you still think about that after all these years.”

“I still have the scar, and my father took his revenge.”

“More than the dog,” I said.

Nadia was distracted by one of her men showing her the time on his pocket watch. She did not answer my question.

There was still unfinished business between us, but at the moment I felt inspired and empowered by my new position. I again felt the pang of the loss of Pepe, but I also had a new idea for a room inspired by a formal dining room in the palace at Peterhof. Speaking Russian again gave me the idea. The bed would be made to look like a formal dining table. “Bed-able,” I would call it. Chandeliers, hunting murals on the walls, dark purple and green velvets, and many, many mirrors.

“My dream is to have Berlin, Connecticut, become the short-stay capital of the East Coast,” Nadia added with great confidence.

“Yes!” her gentlemen all cheered.

Bacco was spitting and grumbling and hesitating to go outside.

“Go on, Bacco, clean the pine needles off the boss’s windshield.”

“I will serve your ambitions well,” I said, and then I turned to Mr. Suri.

“I had no idea Nadia ran the other motels, sir.”

“Please don’t call me sir, especially now that you’re the boss. Maybe that’s what you wanted all along.”

“Mr. Suri, please, don’t. What was it? Was it the drawings?” I asked Nadia.

“It was the drawings,” Bacco said.

“Shhh, Bacco, you talk too much. Go out and clean the boss’s car before I smack you,” the gentleman with the pinky ring said as he boxed him on the side of the head.

“Who saw them?” Mr. Suri asked.

“Go ahead, Bacco, tell him,” Nadia said.

“Alfredo from the Kiwanis Club owns a cesspool company. He’s my brother-in-law. He scoped out the site for the septic system you wanted to install and saw your drawings under the trees. Progress you wanted. Well, Frank told me that leach field would have made the other motels’ cesspools obsolete, and the zoning guy would have to close them down unless they upgraded.”

“You’re going to have to upgrade at some point,” Mr. Suri added.

“The cost, the taxes—business was slow. We never would have survived,” Nadia said.

“This place was starting to depress me anyway. I’m going to open a laundromat in Tempe. Everything clean, that’s all I want,” Mr. Suri said under his breath.

“Mr. Suri, please, I have good feelings here,” I said.

“Hey, this place provides an important public service,” the gentleman with the pinky ring said.

“I am proud to provide such service,” I added.

“Stalina, you are a very unusual woman. I will miss you,” Mr. Suri said.

My eyes still stung from the bleach and pine scent, and the inside of my throat swelled as I held back tears.

“Anything else, Mr. Suri? You need to be on your way,” Nadia said.

“What about Svetlana and the crow? Did you speak with your veterinarian friend?” I asked.

“Who’s Svetlana?” Nadia asked.

“She’s a kitten who lives here. She’s being weaned by a crow under the pine trees.”

“Yes, I spoke with him,” Mr. Suri said. “It’s most unusual, and the behavior should be documented.”

“Take photographs?” I asked

“Photograph it, film it. It is a freak of nature and would be invaluable for research.”

“A scientific oddity, like King Kong!” Bacco said.

“Like Jojo the Dog-Faced Boy. Will it make me famous?” Nadia interjected.

She had not changed at all since we were children. She was still an arrogant, self-serving megalomaniac. Jojo was born in Leningrad and was exploited his whole life by his father in the hands of P. T. Barnum. He spoke German, Russian, and English, but he only barked and growled in the sideshow where they exploited his unfortunate deformity. It was strangely comforting to know that Nadia had not changed.

“That cat is going to be famous, and hopefully a good mouser,” Mr. Suri said.

“She’s gotten lazy with the crow feeding her,” I said.

“Worms won’t satisfy her for too long. Soon she’ll be wanting real meat. Stalina, take pictures before it’s too late,” he urged.

“Amalia has a film camera. I’m sure I can borrow it.”

“You live with Amalia, don’t you?” Nadia said.

“I do. How did you know?” I asked.

“She’s the dispatcher for the Majik Cleaning Agency. I’m surprised she did not say anything about me. I got this from her,” she said as she reached inside her suit to pull out the strap of her brassiere.

I recognized the pink embroidered flower on the small metal ring that joined the satin strap to the elastic adjustable band. This was one of my bras.

She continued in Russian. “It’s hard for me to find a bra that fits well and is pretty. Amalia got these from Russia. Most people have no idea what great lingerie we have at home.”

I was devastated. How dare she touch my things and help herself to those bras. Those were mine to sell.

“That’s strange, we were just talking about you. She never mentioned anything to me,” I said.

“She gave me a great price for it. I heard about her husband’s death from my sister, very sad. It was good to see her. I was always jealous that she got to wear makeup when we were young. My mother would not let me wear any until I was twenty years old,” Nadia said, guiding the strap back into place under her suit jacket.

“My bras…she stole my bras,” I said in disbelief.

Nadia acted as if she did not hear me.

“The stupid Soviets made her feel like her husband betrayed her and the whole country,” Nadia said. “We all had to leave; life is better here.”

Russia betrayed Amalia, and she betrayed me. It was all very Russian.

“They were my salary, my hard-earned…things. She stole from me. Sometimes I miss Petersburg,” I said.

“You won’t need those bras, Stalina. We’ll make money; things will be better.”

“Better?”

“We have a short-stay empire to run. Stalina Folskaya, manager/designer. How does that sound?”

Mr. Suri had been silent, but he pulled out a red gift box from the desk drawer and said, “Stalina, remember this? I found it when I was clearing out my things.”

“Yes, I do.”

It was the box Mara found unopened in the room. He handed it to me.

“I think it’s the same as what she is wearing,” he said, indicating Nadia’s bra.

I opened the box. It was also one of my bras.

“Boss, we’ve got a lot to do today,” interrupted the fellow with the pinky ring. He was looking at his watch again.

“Don’t rush us,” she said. “Let me see that, Stalina.” She turned to me and spoke in Russian. “Is it my size? I have these boys mesmerized by my money and my boobs.”

When she said the word
boobs
in English, her red lips pursed. The sound of the word made me laugh and her fellows uneasy. My own breasts swelled slightly.

Mr. Suri faded into the background as he prepared to make his exit. He took his jacket off the hook and then grabbed an uneaten apple and one of the Statue of Liberty postcards from the front desk. He held the suitcase of money between his legs as he put his jacket on. I don’t know how much they gave him, but I hope it was enough at least to replace his failing automobile. We held hands for a moment before he walked out the door.

“I’ll write, Stalina.”

“I have much to thank you for, Mr. Suri.”

“I’ll miss you, Stalina.”

As he walked away, I watched his elegant long legs carry him across the gravel. There was a steady rhythm to his gait, but with a slightly defeated tempo. When he pulled out of the driveway, his Delta ’88 coughed and gagged. The drowning gurgle of the car reminded me of how my mother sounded when I left her in Petersburg. They say Arizona is a good place for such human ailments. Mr. Suri and his car disappeared down the hill.