by Talia Carner
The officer burst out laughing. His front teeth were little blackened pins, like a charred picket fence. Pac-Man began swallowing his enemies. The officer slapped his knees and guffawed. “Rossiya.” He pointed at a little fish. “America. Rossiya eat America.”
Anger rose in Brooke. They had nothing on her. She hadn’t come to this country to be hassled. “No more. Now I go.” She grabbed the organizer from his hand, punched the escape key, and Pac-Man disappeared. Without waiting for permission, she made a move toward her strewn belongings.
“No.” The officer’s attention was arrested by a folded packet of paper she was about to shove back into her purse. He put out his hand. “What this?”
“My itinerary.” She tried to stabilize her breathing. “I’m here to teach business to Russian women—”
“Teach Rossiya women?” He smirked and said something in Russian. His colleague laughed. The guard by the door snickered.
Perspiration trickled down Brooke’s spine. Just let me go. “I’m a guest of the Economic Authority—” She stopped. The name of the local powerful man Amanda had asked to arrange Brooke’s visa on the shortest notice suddenly evaporated from her mind.
“And this?” To her horror, the customs officer held out the envelope from Seattle.
Don’t open the letter, Brooke silently begged the officer, or God. It would be like introducing a deadly virus back into her life.
His pinky nail, grown to an inch long curve, snaked under the Scotch tape that double-secured the sealed edge.
Brooke couldn’t bear to watch. She looked away and caught sight of his assistant thumbing through the money in her wallet. There were ten fifty-dollar bills there, she knew.
“Give that to me!” Reaching over, she grabbed the wallet out of his hand. “This is my money.” Her panic switched to indignation.
With clenched teeth, she pulled out three bills and handed one to each man.
Tossing the envelope back onto his desk, the officer snatched the bill from his assistant’s hand. “One hundred,” he said to her.
Her elbow pressed against her money belt under her blouse. She had followed Hoffenbach’s third piece of advice and brought an additional two thousand dollars in small denominations; travelers’ checks couldn’t be cashed in Russia.
“You keep the hundred. Fifty each for the others.”
“Nyet.” He waved the money. “You make trouble in airport.”
The bastard. She handed him two more bills and fastened her wallet, aware that he could confiscate all of it. With shaking hands she gathered up her things into her handbag on the desk. This time rather than stopping her, the assistant helped as he stuffed her black cashmere shawl back into her overnight case. He stopped to squeeze the roll of toilet paper in there, and she was surprised by the reverence with which he tucked in the loose edge.
Too near, she felt the heat of the first officer. She turned to find him gawking at her neck. His mustache quivered. “Beautiful America.” A lascivious grin twisted his mouth. “Good woman, like Rossiya, but no meat.” He pointed to an open door in the back. Through the doorway, Brooke could see a small windowless room. “Wait there,” he said.
The blood pumped in her temples. If she entered that jail cell, she might never get out to tell what happened. She visualized the headline: Female American Investment Adviser Disappears in Moscow Airport.
The man put his hand on her shoulder, and his finger curled around a highlighted strand of hair. Brooke gasped and stepped back, but found herself trapped between him and the desk. “Take your hand off me,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
His finger traced a line on the bare skin of her neck, from her earlobe down to the thin gold chain. Adrenaline buzzed in her veins, and the points of the Star of David jabbed her shoulder blade.
The guard at the door, who’d been studying his dollar bills, tucked them into his breast pocket. With new eagerness, the assistant resumed stuffing her belongings into the travel case. As he did so, Brooke caught a glimpse of the green orientation folder Amanda had distributed.
“One moment.” There was hysteria in her voice. She snatched the folder and pulled out the Economic Authority invitation, its letterhead written in embellished Cyrillic. “Look.”
The officer did a double take. He said something to the other man and pointed at the bold and flowery signature. Typed below it was the name Nikolai Sidorov.
The two men craned their necks and peered at the document in awed silence.
The pounding in Brooke’s ears crescendoed. “Give me my money back,” she commanded, “or I’ll tell Nikolai Sidorov.”
To her surprise, they reached into their pockets and pulled out the money. “Everything okay?” The officer’s mouth twisted in embarrassment. “Okay?”
“Nyet. Not okay.” She checked that her case was fully zipped and her passport tucked in her purse. She fastened the bungee cord. “I am leaving.”
“Want toilet?” The officer asked. “Good toilet,” he added, sounding conciliatory.
She glowered at him. Her bladder was pressing, but did he think she’d lock herself in one of his little rooms? She headed to the door. “I’m going now.”
The guard accompanied her as they followed the signs to the passport control area. With hand gestures, he kept offering to roll her carrier, but Brooke held on to it. Still distrustful of the sudden turn of events, she marched on. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, what could have happened. She felt the officer’s finger tracing a line on her neck as if a jellyfish had stung her skin.
Who was her host, this Nikolai Sidorov? She caught the name again as the guard said it to the passport control officer, who stamped her visa with no further question.
Finally, Brooke was through into the vast luggage claim of the Moscow airport. Soldiers armed with automatic weapons glared at travelers as if supervising prisoners plotting escape. Brooke spotted Jenny, a walking showroom of her own fashion accessory business. The short, plump woman wore dangling earrings in primary colors and a matching oversize pin, waist-length necklace, and bangles. Twirling her necklace on her index finger, she smiled at an apple-cheeked, blue-eyed boy in military uniform.
Brooke started toward Jenny to warn her that these men were not to be messed with, when Amanda bounded toward her. “Brooke, are you all right? Where have you been?”
I could have been raped, Brooke wanted to scream. She felt eyes piercing her back as if she were still being observed by the customs officers. The curious gazes of the ten other women in the group were upon her. Jenny let go of her soldier and sauntered over, full hips swaying. “You look like hell.”
Amanda touched Brooke’s cheek. Her Eurasian eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
Brooke choked the urge to fall into her friend’s arms. There would be private time later to tell her story.
“Just a little red tape,” she said.
Chapter Two
AS SOME GROUP members waited for their luggage to be inspected by customs, Brooke struck up a conversation with the group’s translator, a young woman named Svetlana who was also the manager of a recently privatized manufacturing cooperative.
Since Brooke had rejoined the women fifteen minutes earlier, the young Russian had been openly studying her clothes and shoes.
“What industry is your factory?” Brooke asked.
“Industry?”
“I mean, do you manufacture housewares, paper goods, or medical supplies?”
“Oh. We sew clothes.” Crimson climbed up the young woman’s rounded cheeks, as though merely speaking was a daring act.
“Fashion. Great.” Brooke touched her arm and smiled. “We’ll accomplish a lot in just a day or two. I promise.”
Svetlana continued to study Brooke’s clothes as if shopping for them. The scrutiny, though innocent, made Brooke uneasy. “I’m very excited to be here,” she added.
Twenty feet away, porters unloaded piles of huge equipment boxes labeled CBS and CNN, and a tea
m of lethargic customs officers pried open each box, then examined and registered each piece of equipment on a clipboard. The American crew members protested that the standoff between Boris Yeltsin and his parliament would be over before the inspection was completed.
Watching them, the political clash became real for Brooke. It was nearby, not just news on TV. Russia? A lion’s den crawling with anti-Semites? These would have been her mother’s words—had Brooke informed her parents about this trip. Her mother would have been devastated by a sense of betrayal. Somewhere west of here was the Russian village where she had been born and from which her family had been forced out. Her mother’s people had escaped west to Riga—then in Russia—and ultimately had been herded farther west, to a concentration death camp only her mother had survived.
Brooke pushed the thoughts away. She was American, a child of the land of freedom. While the Holocaust had been fed into her with every spoonful of rich food she was forced to swallow, forever owing to her parents’ years of starvation, her psyche was detached from her parents’ haunted pasts.
“Want to see a picture of my girl?” Svetlana drew Brooke’s attention again. “Natasha. She’s nine years old.” The accent—with its extra y inserted in the vowels, u as a full “yu,” and l rolling into “lyu”—was stronger than Brooke’s mother’s. Svetlana displayed the photo of a lovely, pale girl.
Would it be inappropriate to reciprocate with a photograph of her cat? “She’s adorable,” Brooke said, and busied herself by unzipping her suitcase and taking out a small Crayola box. “Here’s something American kids like.”
Svetlana tucked away the photo and extended both hands as though accepting a sacred offering. “This is very expensive.”
“Is your daughter a good student?”
“She’s very smart.”
“Then she should have it.” Brooke pressed the box into the Russian’s palms. “Please.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Your English is terrific.” Brooke turned as a porter arrived with a large cart. His gestures as he instructed the women to load their luggage, making no effort to help them, made the situation comical. Brooke hauled her suitcase on. “Where did you learn it?”
“I studied to be an interpreter.” Svetlana touched her coiffed, honey-colored hair. Her nails were bitten down to the quick. “But then they sent me to sew clothes for the navy.”
The dissolution of young dreams, the absence of choices. Her tone soft, Brooke said, “Life under Soviet rule must have been so incredibly frustrating.”
“It is still very hard.” Svetlana sighed. “My friends at the cooperative made me a director because of my education, but I don’t know what to do.”
“We’re here to show you. And you can teach me Russian.” Brooke smiled again. Here was an intelligent young woman with whom she’d enjoy spending time. She checked her watch. It was well past midnight in New York, and her body was ordering her to go to bed, not to start another day. “Are we going to the hotel now?”
“After the welcome ceremony.” Svetlana walked away into a group of a dozen Russian women dressed in colorful suits and dresses.
Ceremony? Jet lag made her eyes feel grainy. Brooke glanced wistfully at the terminal sliding glass doors, where a napkin of frosted sky gleamed outside.
The news crews continued to argue with indifferent Russians. Brooke yawned.
Jenny placed her camera in Brooke’s hands. “Look at those soldiers’ cute butts. Take my picture.” She posed next to a soldier whose back was turned, and fluffed up her red curls. “These muzhiks love Western women.”
Muzhiks? Brooke’s mother spoke of those low-class peasants that had turned on their Jewish neighbors. Stop it, Brooke told herself and took in the backside of neatly fitted khaki pants, a shiny black belt, and knee-high polished boots. Nazis everywhere, she heard her mother say. No, she must stop these obsessive thoughts. Brooke clicked the camera. History was what the word indicated—over. New times were here.
Amanda slid to her side. “I’d like to tie and gag Jenny,” she whispered.
“She’s colorful.” Brooke snapped a second photo.
“You’d find something nice to say about Saddam Hussein.”
Brooke watched Jenny saunter away toward another soldier. “Why did you invite her?”
“All the jewelry she’s wearing? Women in Africa and Asia make them for her. She sets up home-manufacturing in all kinds of godforsaken villages. She shows these women how to use their artistic skills in designs that sell in the West.”
“A great idea all around.” Brooke rubbed the spot on her neck where the customs officer’s finger had touched. “It’s been a long night. When can we move on?”
“In just a minute—Here is—” Amanda stepped away to hug a stout babushka wearing sensible shoes and red plastic beads over a flowered jacket. “Everyone! Meet Dr. Olga Leonidovna Rozanova. A sociologist, but really a woman the Russian army should fear.”
With an effusive sweep of her arms, Dr. Rozanova gestured to the group of Russian women to approach. Those were the representatives of the women’s organizations, Brooke figured. Moments later, their hugs and the spicy smell of the pink carnations they handed each of the Americans melted away her desire to flee the airport.
“You came to us as sisters, seeking our guidance as you venture into this new, exciting world of entrepreneurship,” Amanda said in an impromptu speech, delivered with uncharacteristic formality. “But we are the ones filled with awe at your courage, and we expect to renew our spirits in your boundless optimism.”
As one after another the Russians launched into flowery greetings about the collective power of women and expressed their hope for future friendship between their nations, Brooke, who was still holding Jenny’s camera, found herself the official photographer. She framed Dr. Rozanova’s face and her beaming blue eyes, liking the way the woman seemed to have been born middle-aged. Something about Dr. Rozanova reminded Brooke of her own mother, although she couldn’t pinpoint any obvious resemblance between the Russian’s round body and sturdy stance and her mother’s gaunt, self-deprived figure and furtive gestures. Perhaps it was the acquired resolve of the thin lips, a mouth confined by twin grooves of exiled sorrow.
A pale man by the name of Aleksandr was introduced as the group’s escort in charge of travel arrangements. Unlike the gruff manners of the Russian men Brooke had seen in the past hour, Aleksandr’s seemed hesitant. Wordlessly, he gestured for them to go outside.
At last. A gust of wind whipped at Brooke with a spray of drizzle that made the morning feel like December rather than the end of September. She let out the stale air trapped in her chest, and put on her raincoat, glad she had kept the wool lining buttoned in. “Where’s our bus?” she asked the backs of a few women ahead of her.
“Holy shit,” Jenny called out.
Brooke peered around Jenny. At the curb, two men pinned a third against the back door of a small, rusty bus. One of the assailants, a short man with a trimmed black beard and the raisin-dark eyes of a Cossack, waved a long knife.
Brooke tightened her coat around her. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she whispered to Amanda. “Where’s our bus?”
“This is it.” Amanda said.
Dr. Rozanova walked into the midst of the fight and said something in a commanding tone. The second assailant, a massive blond man with flat Slavic features, shoved her away. For a moment, Brooke feared the older woman might fall, but undaunted, Dr. Rozanova went on arguing. Brooke heard her say “America” several times.
“What’s going on?” she asked Svetlana.
The young Russian was breathing hard. “This mafia gang controls the airport. No private cars or buses are allowed.”
“How are people supposed to leave the airport?”
“Pay them.”
Aleksandr motioned toward a road curving around the terminal building. “It’s less than a kilometer to the back parking lot. No problem. Or pay what mafia charge
s for taxis.”
The Cossack raised his sword and slashed the bus’s right front tire. He turned to the group and announced in accented English, “You pay one hundred dollars, or I cut more tire.”
“Nyet.” The momentarily released man, who Brooke realized must be the driver, lunged at him, but the Slav dug his elbow into the man’s throat, pinning him again.
Brooke had had her fill of extortion for one morning. “Where’s Nikolai Sidorov?” she asked aloud, hoping the name that had helped her out before would do so again.
No one seemed to hear her. Amanda’s face was ashen. “We’ll give the guy the money,” she told Dr. Rozanova.
“No. It is a bad lesson.”
“I know,” Amanda responded, “but we must get going.” She pulled out her wallet. The group’s pool of funds earmarked for incidentals would be depleted fast, spent on bribes, Brooke thought, as she watched her friend handing out the bills.
“I apologize.” Dr. Rozanova nodded her head sadly. “I am embarrassed for this inhospitable welcome.”
“They’ll sell us another tire in the parking lot.” Aleksandr shrugged. “No problem.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Brooke asked him.
“The mafia,” he said, and Brooke was surprised at the reverence in his voice.
“I’m so sorry,” Svetlana mumbled. “The driver paid someone for permission to pick you up, but there are so many gangs, maybe one hundred. Not like in Italy.”
“Let’s go before it costs us even more.” Brooke signaled the porter toward the curved road, and turned in that direction before he asked the group to push his cart, too.
In the parking lot behind the terminal building, the replacement tire was paid for with more of the group’s funds. When Brooke finally boarded, she found the floor littered and the windows covered with a thick film of dust. She spread her coat on the seat right behind the driver, where she could stretch her legs. She wished she could lean her head on the window to sleep, but the filthy glass squelched her desire. Svetlana passed by with Dr. Rozanova, the two of them whispering in quick Russian.