Time's Harlot: The Perils of Attraction, Seduction, and Desire

by Brenda Kuchinsky

  She was lying down to die, complaining about her cold hands. I’m better than that no-talent Mariana. She should be the understudy, Ada thought, luxuriating in the wild cheers, whistles, and enthusiastic clapping.

  They love me, she thought, after the performance ended, as colorful flowers sailed through the air, littering the stage like so many exotic birds felled at her feet. She sensed they were just for her, not the entire cast. Me. Me. Me. Her head was swimming. She was floating ten feet above the stage. Her eyes were shining with incipient tears of ecstasy, threatening to spill over and ruin her makeup.

  Splat. An overripe tomato caught her square on the forehead, dribbling dramatically down her long sharp nose. Splat. Another smashed into her arm. Splat. A third squishy explosion scattered pulpy red vegetable flesh all over her cleavage.

  The repressed tears of joy turned to tears of rage and despair, deflowering her painted face further, finishing what the tomato started. She ran off the stage, howling in frustration.

  Rudy, dressed in an ivory-colored suit in honor of Ada’s performance, waiting for the star with a mixture of pride and trepidation, playing cat’s cradle solo, nimbly dancing his fingers through the strings, rose in shocked surprise when he saw the besmirched Ada, crying and screaming, fly into the dressing room, ripping her costume off, screeching for a towel, proffering her trashed breasts to be wiped clean, as she sank into an overstuffed chair, melting into a puddle of humiliation.

  “What the fuck?” Rudy said, discarding his threads of string, mopping up the clingy tomato bits, surreptitiously licking a chunk or two off her bosom before running to fetch some water.

  Ada was dissolving in tearful torrents, unable to speak, trying to catch her breath, clinging to Rudy.

  Saucy tomato chunks showered Rudy’s ivory linen suit. Mascara blackened tears streaked Rudy’s suit. Green eyeshadow smears dotted his once pristine lapels. He resembled a Jackson Pollock masterpiece when he stepped to the door, locking it just in time, as the manager’s insistent fist thundered on the thin wood.

  “Don’t let him in, boychik. Give me my kimono. The red one with the blue roosters. The one Lili made for me,” she gasped. The hysteria had wound down to just plain misery.

  “Go away,” she screamed at the thudding door.

  “Bubbala get me the Slivovitz,” she said, holding a hand to her chest, in the vicinity of her heart. “You didn’t bring Remy, that creepy rat? That’s all I need to finish me off.” She eyed Rudy.

  “He’s a mouse for god’s sake. No. I respect your wishes. He’s at home,” he said from his vantage point on the floor, at her feet, stroking her knee, respiring her heady scent of fear, anxiety, and despair. “Who did this?” he demanded.

  “If I knew I’d be a fortune teller. I don’t know,” she said, a momentary blaze of anger, threatening to incinerate him. “I was watching all the beautiful flowers coming towards me, falling at my feet. So happy. Where I should be. Then, rotten tomatoes?”

  “Why would anyone do this?” Rudy asked.

  “I know who did this,” she said, her omnipresent paranoia, instilled in childhood in anti-Semitic Lodz, flourishing during Hitler’s heavy reign, and destined to inhabit the very fabric of her being for the rest of her life, sometimes stood her in good stead. “The hag, the witch, the machshaifeh from the camps, who gives me the evil eye in mein own building, right where I live. She wants to kill me. Poo. Poo. Poo.” She simulated spitting three times to ward off the evil eye.

  “Why would that skinny little thing want to hurt you? Did you do something to her back then in Poland?” he asked, his hackles up. He was no slouch himself when it came to paranoia.

  “You sound like Zophitchka. Where is she? Why didn’t she come see her talented Ma?”

  “She had to work. Remember?”

  “Oy. Let’s go home.”

  He rose from the wide planks and helped her to her feet.

  “Call Zophitchka. She played the detective with that rote shegetz she likes so much when Morton was murdered. She can help. Her mind. Sie kenn alle beine. Tell her to come over. Right away. Schnell. Schnell,” she screamed, smacking his rubbery butt with the tomatoey towel she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  Ada watched him calling Sophia, her stomach growling like a provoked pit bull. “I’ll put my coat on over the kimono and we can run home and eat. Hunger hurts.” She held her belly.

  Rudy hung up.

  “She’s concerned. She wants me to spend the night. She will come over tomorrow morning. She wants to tell Max too. So he can keep an eye on you.”

  “Not till tomorrow? See how much she cares.” She shrugged her heavy shoulders while raising her delicate long fingers to the heavens.

  “She’s working. You know she sees patients until late.”

  “Tell Max,” she snorted. “What good will that do? That husband of mine is useless. That’s why we’re through and he’s running around with a corpse, ein toytn from the circus.”

  “So what happened between you and that woman with the numbers?” Rudy asked timidly.

  He watched Ada’s eyes time travel, shooting back some fifty odd years. She contained so much in those Holocaust eyes, he had to look away, scorched by the intensity of resurrected horror, passion, and loss.

  “One day Rudy. One day I’ll tell you what happened to me in Chelmo. The life I lived for two, three years and you won’t believe it. Everything was upside down and I went upside down. You won’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. When I tell you the truth, it’ll burn you, it’ll scar you. You will never be the same. That’s why we don’t talk about it. Any of it. It never happened.”

  He felt a respect for her he had never felt before. Did he want to hear the unspeakable?

  Twenty Two

  No tomato hurling miscreant was going to tear Sophia away from Maria’s side tonight. Rudy could not inveigle her to run to Ada. The damage was done. There was nothing she could do to ameliorate the situation. Rudy would spend the night and that would have to be solace enough for Ada.

  Sophia decided to call Ta to fill him in before sitting down to hear about Bernie. Would she ever learn what Maria did with Bernie? It shouldn’t matter so much, but it did. What difference would it make? No one was looking for him as far as she could tell. Knowing more might give her worse nightmares. Ma and Ta never told her anything. That turned her into a digging-for-facts and burrowing-for-truth machine.

  This whole CIA angle complete with Russian intrigue was drawing her to Maria. Hidden depths. She wanted to know everything.

  “The food’s getting cold,” Maria shouted through the open door from the deck.

  “One more call. I’ll be there in a minute,” Sophia said, staring at the two sleeping Siamese twins cuddled up on the couch.

  “Ta?”

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Zophia? You never call me at this time.”

  “I know. I wanted to let you know. Ma was singing tonight at the Lyric Opera. Someone threw tomatoes at her.”

  There was a lengthy pause while Mathilde machine- gunned shrill questions in the background.

  “Ta? Ta? Just keep an eye out for trouble. You live in the same place. I can’t be there tonight. Rudy is with her.”

  “Rudy is there. What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. Just keep your eyes and ears open. Maybe go see her in the morning? Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay, my Ta. See you in my dreams.” Why the hell did she say that? He provided so many silences. Sometimes she filled in with whatever came to mind.

  She was grateful to shake herself free of Werniczewski drama. Her own drama awaited out on the cheerful sparkling deck, perfumed by candles, garlic, and eau de Biscayne Bay.

  After savoring almond, plum, and raisin in a few generous mouthfuls of the leggy jewel of a baby Amarone, Sophia attacked the vegetarian lasagna with a gusto worthy of the restaurant’s name. “Comfort food and comfort wine. I’m in heaven,” Sophia said, raising her glass to Mari
a, who was enjoying her filet mignon. Carnivorous dinner companions rarely disturbed Sophia. She dined with many of them.

  “It’s as if I knew you were coming into my life to wine and dine with me on this deck. It adds a new dimension to living here. I built the deck with you in mind before I knew you.” Maria smiled at Sophia with a loving look, which made Sophia squirm in her seat.

  “I didn’t know you were clairvoyant.”

  “I didn’t either. But, I guess I am. Or,” Maria paused thoughtfully, a forkful of bloody meat on its way to her thick, perfect lips. “I built it and then you materialized.”

  “Now you’re getting too metaphysical for me,” Sophia said, chewing on a toothsome mélange of creamy, piquant cheeses, spinach, roasted eggplant, pine nuts, perfectly turned out homemade pasta, and fresh garlic and basil laden tomato sauce.

  “I’m delaying the inevitable because I don’t want to ruin our meal.”

  “Let’s enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and especially the tastes. Then we’ll talk.”

  As soon as they were done enjoying the meal, Maria rose and began clearing away the dinner remains.

  “You sit,” she insisted when Sophia began to get up from her seat to assist her.

  “Okay. I’m relishing this wine too much to argue,” Sophia said.

  “I’ll bring out a cheese plate and we can open another bottle. Why go for coffee when you can continue drinking booze?” Maria winked.

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Are we going to talk inside?” Sophia asked.

  “Are you kidding? I was in the CIA. I’ve been out for a while, but for all I know my place is bugged. Audio and video. Possibly double-bugged. The Americans and the Russians. Outside is the best bet. Just stay put madam and I will bring you cheese and wine. Do you want your smokes? I’m going to have a cigar.”

  “Yes, please. You mean people may be listening to or watching us have sex?” Sophia asked, beginning a slow ear tug.

  “Sex is a prime commodity in the information gathering business. We used to hear and witness so much sex, we became inured to it. That’s the best way to hook someone. Once you’ve got them by the genitals, they’re an easy mark. Putty in your hands,” Maria grinned, batting Sophia’s hand away from her ear.

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know my own strength.”

  “So there I was buried in Russia in ’95. I was always on my tippy toes in that place. I’d been an agent for ten years. Since the tender age of twenty four. Clinton made it easier for dykes, for all gays in ’95. Used to be that if they found out you were queer, you lost your security clearance. The reasoning was that if you were gay, you’d be an easy mark for blackmail by the other side.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Sophia interrupted. “If you were free and clear to be gay, there’d be no potential for blackmail.”

  “Don’t ask for logic when it comes to homophobic government policy on gays. It was a catch-22. Anyway, Clinton cleared it all up in ’95. You couldn’t lose your security clearance for being gay. End of that story.”

  “I never cared for that pervert. Guess he was good for something,” Sophia said.

  Maria plowed on. “So here I am with my perfect Russian language skills buried in Moscow as a double agent. Working for the Communists. Working for the Capitalists. I remember those posters plastered everywhere when I was a kid. A dashing Castro holding upraised hands with a beaming pudgy Khrushchev. Like two lovers. I digress with childhood memories. Of course, I was really a triple agent, working for Russia, Cuba, and the U.S. Cuba, not so much. Of course, I was always loyal to the U.S. That’s another story for another time.”

  “This is unbelievable. I don’t mean to be callous, but Bernie can wait.” Sophia puffed and sipped and listened, mesmerized by this alien world. She heard so many stories as a therapist, but nothing like this.

  “So, I’m working with one of Yeltsin’s right hand men. Everything and everyone was on shaky ground after the Soviet Union went belly up in ’91. By ’95 so much kaka had hit the fan, it was a veritable stinking shit storm there between trying for a free economy and Chechnya as a perpetual headache. I bed Yuri.”

  “Don’t look so shocked. You said I could be a convincing big momma. Fucking people is a big part of intelligence work. I told you. Get them by the genitals. I can be feminine sexy if I have to. In a bold way. I don’t know. My features are classic feminine. There are a lot of powerful Russian women. Yuri liked them big and strong, I thought. His wife had dried up years ago. He was a pussy cat and a pussy hound. He’d beg to be tied up. It was fun, actually. I got off on it. I can see him now with his shiny balding dome, his quivering paunch, and his pleading puppy dog eyes. Begging for more abuse. Groveling and reveling in it.

  “Don’t stop,” Sophia said when Maria took a breather. “I can picture Yuri now. I can smell him.”

  A zephyr, breezing in from the bay whispered over them. Sophia breathed deeply, emitting a long gentle garlicky sigh.

  “So I’m getting all this information from him. Economic skullduggery with unscrupulous American companies using all sorts of party tricks to get in on the messy business of Communism transforming to Capitalism. A wide- open market. The hucksters and hustlers on all sides could feel the green crackling in their palms. And the rebellion and murky terrorism among the badly behaved Chechens caused the Russians to behave very badly indeed.”

  “What a scary mess.” Sophia said, entranced.

  “Meanwhile, at first, he’s feeding me all this disinformation to pass on to my people. But then the pillow talk is getting passed on. The genuine article. Everyone is in seventh heaven.”

  “So what disrupted this orgy of information?” Sophia asked, pouring herself another glass of wine. Maria hadn’t touched hers.

  “You know I’m in the mood for a double Johnny,” Maria announced, heading for the kitchen. “I’ll be right back. All these memories are fucking with my head,” she said, sitting down with what looked like a triple.

  “Do you want to stop?” Sophia asked, all the while hoping she would continue. Curlicues of smoldering blue haze meandered up from Maria’s cigar, scenting the air with a whiff of Cuba.

  “I’d love to stop and bury my head in your bush,” she said, eyeing Sophia lasciviously. “But I feel driven to go on.”

  “Good,” said Sophia.

  Maria swigged the whiskey exuberantly, puffing on her suggestive cigar, looking out over the peaceful bay, and travelling miles and years in her mind’s eye.

  “Put the blame on Mame,” Maria said.

  “What?”

  “You asked what happened.”

  “Put the Blame on Mame is from that film noir Gilda. Rita Hayworth sings it in that movie. You saw the Gloria/Gilda poster in the bedroom?”

  Sophia nodded in the affirmative.

  “You know the movie?”

  “Yes. But I don’t remember much.”

  “You know that film noir shit. Never grows old. Gilda is the femme fatale. That song she sings blames three catastrophic events on Mame.”

  “So Gloria was a femme fatale?”

  “When I first saw her, I held my breath. I didn’t want to disturb her fragile beauty even by breathing.”

  “Wow.”

  “Fragile beauty, my ass,” Maria snorted. “My fantasy. She was hard as nails. Harder. Cold and calculating. Not a spontaneous bone in her voluptuous body. I loved her the minute I laid eyes on her. The steelier she revealed herself to be, the harder I fell. The ice queen.”

  “How did she fit in?”

  “She was Yuri’s new secretary. The old one got herself killed. The minute she came on the scene, everything heated up. Funny how a frosty beautiful woman can generate so much heat.”

  “Ironic,” Sophia whispered.

  “I went after her right away. What did I have to lose? In a week I was in her pants. I melted that pussy, but her heart never thawed.”

  “She was a lesbian?”

 
“She was anything you wanted her to be, if it helped. She would have had sex with a viper, if it helped.”

  “Gloria was larger than life. People like that hook you. Then they mess with your head because their head’s not screwed on too tightly.”

  “You said it, sister. I was smitten. I followed her around. I was at her beck and call. Pussy whipped,” Maria spat out, finishing her drink. “I need a drink. I’ll be right back.” She rose unsteadily, wavering off to the kitchen.

  “After this, you’re shut off. Last call,” Sophia shouted after her, hypocrite that she was, switching her drained wine glass for Maria’s full one.

  Maria wavered back out.

  “Things were going along great, I thought. Stupid Maria had love blinders on. I didn’t see it coming. Coming? It was already arrived. Did I say arrived? Must be bombed.” Maria was still, surprisingly, not slurring her words. She leaned back in her seat and puffed away, rehashing her own regrets.

  “What didn’t you see coming? Don’t keep me in suspense,” Sophia said, fidgeting in her seat.

  “I came back early from a trip to the States and went directly to the office. Yuri’s eyes were rolling up in his head, while he was squeaking and gurgling in his seat, leaning way back. I thought he was having a heart attack or something. Those Russians have a lot of heart attacks. Like Yeltsin. They hit the vodka hard.”

  “Stop with the asides. What was happening?”

  “I pulled him away from the desk, chair and all. Gloria was under the desk gobbling on Yuri’s sorry turkey. I must have yanked him out of her voracious mouth. I was frozen first, watching him deflate. Staring at her on her knees, mouth open. I guess I was the circus performer. She was the sex goddess performing on the master. Suddenly, I went into action. I yanked her out of there and bashed her brains in with the butt of my Glock. Then I blew him away. One right between the eyes. It all happened so fast.”

  Twenty Three

  A protracted inebriated silence filled the air.How many sudden deaths had this woman spawned?