by Talia Carner
More speeches followed, delivered with ceremonial flair by each of the supervisors and then by a male official whose role as district local administrator for internal affairs remained unclear. He poured small glasses of vodka and offered them to each of the Americans, but not to Svetlana or her colleagues. Brooke tried to pass, but Svetlana whispered to her that she must accept it.
“You are the sirens singing in the flowery meadow,” the man said, and Svetlana translated. He raised the glass on the back of his hand and tipped its contents into his mouth. Brooke just let the vodka wet her lower lip and felt its heat.
Finally the group trooped up an unlit, narrow metal staircase to the second floor.
Crude swipes of trowels were imprinted in the bare concrete floor on which dozens of sewing machines occupied a quarter of the huge loft. Exposed light bulbs poured a yellow glow on long worktables. Two dozen seamstresses scrambled to their feet and beamed at the guests.
“For years, millions of Soviet women labored in these factories for meager salaries,” Svetlana announced, sounding again as if reading from a script. “Now, privatization handed us the factories and gave us a chance to become their owners.”
Next to each “new owner” rested a stack of white cotton pieces. The finished products, looking like giant girls’ panties, lay piled by size on another long table where Svetlana led the group next. More underwear gleamed in white from clusters of open boxes.
“Before privatization we manufactured these for the navy.” Svetlana touched her hair. “They gave us the fabric, placed the orders, and bought the finished product. Now that we’re on our own, we buy the fabric and manufacture the same underwear, but we don’t know where to sell them. Can you help us export them to America?”
Jenny picked up one and examined it. “Is this a man’s brief? No fly, no front reinforcement, no slack to hold the precious Russian navy balls. You see?” She passed samples around. “The elastic is sewn on each side separately. Cheap.”
A small man with bottle-thick glasses entered the room and stood plastered against the wall. A pocket protector protruded from his shirt and black rubber bands held up his sleeves. Svetlana motioned him away, and he glided out through the door.
“Who do you think he is?” Brooke whispered to Amanda.
Svetlana overheard her. “The economist.”
“Isn’t he the one working on pricing?”
“His job is in the back office,” Svetlana replied pointedly. “Only a manager gets to talk to important guests.”
Brooke let it pass. “Who besides the navy wears these briefs in Russia?”
“All men wear underwear, even in America, don’t they?” Svetlana’s brow showed her bewilderment.
“Here’s a business problem right up your alley,” Amanda told Brooke.
Dim midday light dripped through the soot-covered windows on three sides of the loft. Brooke settled at the nearest worktable and pulled out a yellow legal pad and a pen. “Svetlana, there’s a whole bunch of issues we can discuss.”
“We’ll go ahead and check the leatherwear department two more floors up.” Amanda motioned to the others, and they followed a supervisor. The sound of their shoes hitting the metal steps echoed in the hollow stairwell.
Jenny, who had broken away from the group, was roaming the production line, chatting with the seamstresses with dramatic hand animation as she inspected their work. Brooke watched her. If only the woman could curb her tongue.
She turned to Svetlana. “In America we first research the demand in the marketplace for a specific product design and usage, and also assess the competition. What are the features of their products? How do their products sell? What do consumers want—and how much are they willing to pay? We study all of that before we manufacture.”
Svetlana’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “That’s the economist’s job. I’m the director.”
“You’re the director of the whole factory. You are not only the production manager, right? In the new system, which we call ‘market economy,’ you must learn every aspect of the business.” Brooke smiled as she wrote down a list of her points. “That’s what managers in America do. Costs and pricing, too, are crucial.”
Svetlana bit her lower lip. “Numbers and money? I wasn’t very good at it in school.” Then her face brightened. “But if that’s what I must do to become a capitalist, I’ll learn.”
“You’ll be a great capitalist,” Brooke said. “Let’s start with the most important elements: product, and the flow of money, in and out.” She would explain distribution later. “Jenny will discuss product design with you. It must meet European or U.S. standards. For the revenues, let’s talk to the economist. Together we’ll go over costs and evaluate the pricing strategies so you, the director, can participate in the decisions—”
A woman’s sudden scream reverberated up the stairwell and into the work loft. Blood surged in Brooke’s chest. Shouts and angry male voices followed. Svetlana’s porcelain skin turned ashy pale. Her eyes widened as furious shouts became louder, closer.
The economist, his glasses askew at the tip of his nose, stumbled into the room. His shirt was hanging out of his pants, and his hand clutched his side as blood spread under his fingers.
Three thugs in bright red-and-green jogging suits and Nike sneakers burst through the door behind him. Their faces looked flushed, their foreheads shiny with sweat, their eyes fierce.
Svetlana jumped to her feet and gripped the nearest pillar, her lips moving in silent discourse. Brooke sprang to the deep end of the loft, where Jenny stood rooted to her spot. Brooke grabbed her, and together they skittered to the farthest wall, away from the thugs but also too far from the door to escape.
The economist stumbled forward, then regained his footing. One of the ruffians with shoulders so massive that his big head seemed to be attached to them without the benefit of a neck, shoved him. “Chort!”
The economist fell down. Brooke heard the bang as his head hit the hard concrete floor. Nazis. That’s how they must have smashed the heads of her father’s three children while he watched. Brooke imagined him lying wounded on the ground as the economist did now. He must have looked dead or the Nazis would have shot him.
Pressed against the wall, she felt his helplessness. Minute details crowded into her awareness: screws on the sewing machines, the rough lumber of the worktables, the rust of the support steel columns, the sagging electric wires overhead. She must flee. But how? To where?
Another thug, with a Slavic face and porkchop sideburns, dragged a woman into the loft. Brooke recognized the blue-and-brown plaid skirt of a factory supervisor she had hugged in the cafeteria. The woman clutched at the doorframe. “Yob tvoyu mat,” the man cursed, kicking at her. A spasm ran through her, then she crumpled to the floor, listless.
Before her mind could stop her, Brooke’s body sprang into action. “Hey.” She stepped forward. “Stop it!”
Jenny pulled her back, reaching up to clasp a hand over Brooke’s mouth. “Are you nuts?” She wheeled Brooke around. “Don’t even think of it.”
Brooke struggled to get free, then stopped. Jenny was right.
Svetlana seemed to have found her voice. Her palms gathered in supplication, she called out something to the third gang member barreling toward her, who looked like a rooster with his red pomaded hair. Her tone was a cross between an argument and a plea.
Brooke saw the neckless man wave a can of gasoline and douse his path with splashes of liquid. Her skin prickled. Her gaze darted between him, Svetlana, and the seamstresses clustered behind the farthest support pillars. It would take only one match to turn all of them into live torches. Beside her, clutching at her arm, Jenny started to whimper.
Svetlana cried out in Russian, her lips trembling. Brooke’s knees buckled. “We must get help,” she whispered to Jenny.
“Pizda.” The rooster man was so close, Brooke could count the freckles that covered his pinkish skin. He had taken off his jacket, and his arm, tufted
with red fuzz, bulged from under a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt.
“Americans.” Svetlana held up her hands in surrender, then added something in Russian.
Rooster glanced at Brooke and Jenny, but moved on to Svetlana. Without warning, he punched her jaw, upward and back. She stumbled and fell against a steel column, but she recovered her breath and continued to plead as she held her jaw.
The smell of gasoline filled Brooke’s nostrils. She pulled Jenny along the wall toward the door. The cinder block’s jagged roughness caught at the threads of her tweed suit jacket. At the far end of the workroom, the Slav porkchop lifted and hurled sewing machines and smashed chairs. Rooster shifted his attention from Svetlana as he joined his friends in destroying the place. The neckless thug poured gasoline on the finished piles of navy briefs.
Svetlana slid along the wall toward Brooke, stealthy as an alley cat. Brooke’s body shook as she and Jenny continued to edge their way along. Thirty more feet to the door.
But when they were almost at the door, a thought flashed through Brooke’s head. How could she flee, a coward, and leave the other women to fend for themselves? She struggled to free herself from Jenny’s clutches, but Jenny shoved her toward the door with surprising strength. “Don’t you dare.”
Jenny was right. What could she do? She’d better get help, Brooke decided just as Svetlana reached them, grabbed her other arm, and pulled her into the dark stairwell. Brooke threw a last glance at the hoodlums. They were hurling chairs at the windows. Glass shattered.
“Call the police,” Brooke cried out.
Jenny crossed herself, pulled off her pumps, and sprinted with unexpected agility down the stairs. Following her cue, Brooke yanked off her shoes, pressed them to her chest, and ran. “Amanda!” she screamed upward into the stairwell. At least the hoodlums hadn’t lit a match yet. Once they did, they’d run down right behind them, through the only stairwell here. Her friend and the rest of the group would be trapped in a burning building. “Amanda!”
A gust of cold air swept over Brooke as she, Jenny, and Svetlana fled to a back office. After a quick exchange with more trembling workers who huddled there, Svetlana reported that someone had run over to fetch their protection gang.
“The rest of our group is upstairs,” Brooke yelled as she sprinted to the exit. “Clear everyone out of the building before the men set the place on fire!”
Chapter Five
THE BUS DRIVER had kept the door open. His radio was playing Michael Jackson’s “Black or White.” Aleksandr, seated in the first row to the driver’s right, chatted with him.
Brooke set one foot on the bus step. “Did you see them?” she called to Aleksandr, hearing her own hysteria. “Did you hear what’s going on?” At the sound of her shout, a flock of ravens perched on the high concrete wall screeched and took off.
Aleksandr fidgeted. “It’s none of our business.”
“We almost got killed! The building might catch fire with the rest of our group trapped there.”
He looked at her blankly.
She hoisted herself up the second step and brought her face inches from his. Her tongue felt thick, and her lips were parched. “Aleksandr, a man was stabbed. A woman may be dead. They’re going to burn the place down. Get the police. Now!”
“Who?” Aleksandr clutched his leather manila case to his chest. “I don’t have the number.”
“You don’t know the number for the police?”
“There’s no phone here anyway, and it’s almost four o’clock.”
“So?”
“The police go home.”
A chair burst through the second floor window, crashing by the bus. The ravens rose into the air again.
Workers poured out of the building. Jenny pushed past Brooke and plopped into a seat, sobbing. To Brooke’s relief, Amanda came running out of another corner of the building, the rest of the group close at her heels. Amanda counted the women entering the bus. “What in God’s name has happened?” she asked Brooke.
The shaking would not leave Brooke’s body. “They’re going to burn the place. I saw them punch Svetlana, stab the economist, and maybe kill another woman.” She swallowed. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“We were two floors up on the other end of the building—”
Brooke cut her off. “Maybe there’s a cop at a street corner.”
Without replying, Amanda took off in the direction of the gate, but turned around as soon as she rounded the bus. “The alley is blocked!” she yelled from her spot.
Brooke stepped behind the bus and saw a dark blue Mercedes parked across the passageway. “You’re not going anywhere alone,” she said to Amanda.
“The group is my responsibility.” Amanda’s brow crinkled as she tried to assess the situation. “I must get you all out of here.” She turned and started ushering the agitated women into the bus.
Brooke got on the first step again and called out to Aleksandr. “Get up, get off the bus, and go to a neighbor, find a phone, and call for help. Now.”
His hands moved in a gesture of powerlessness. “If the factory didn’t make arrangements with the police or with a private group, it can’t get protection.”
Brooke stared at him.
“Things must be done po blatu,” he added. “Through connections.”
At a single uniform yelp from the women on the bus, Brooke’s head snapped around. The thugs raced out of the building and jumped into their Mercedes. The engine revved up and the car jerked forward, then fishtailed through the gate.
“Brooke, get in and let’s go,” Amanda said to her.
But Brooke’s glance took in the building and she saw Svetlana emerge, her face puffy, holding her jaw. She hurried toward Svetlana.
“Tell Amanda you should better leave. . . . I apologize,” Svetlana said, panting. “This is bad hospitality—” She broke into a sob. Brooke pulled her close, the sweet perfume mingled with perspiration. Svetlana was almost a head shorter. Brooke stroked her back. She wished someone would comfort her, too.
“Brooke,” Amanda called out.
On the front seat of the bus Jenny was crossing herself. Brooke hesitated, still stroking Svetlana’s back. She had seen enough of Russia. She knew what to advise her clients about investing in a country where even in its largest city the police went home by four o’clock—and whose phone number was unlisted. Hoffenbach’s report about the budding violence in Russia mentioned that mafia gangs sprouted on every street, every neighborhood, every industry. Brooke hadn’t fathomed the extent of that, hadn’t imagined a head-on collision with its ugly face.
She must leave. Now. Yet, how could she drive away from these women? How had the Holocaust righteous done it? Those non-Jews who had rescued people from torture and death had risked not only their own lives, but also the lives of their entire families—to save even one Jew. Brooke had been powerless during the attack, but now the danger was over. Or was it? The “protecting” gang might still show up.
“Amanda, I’m going back in.” Not waiting for her friend’s response, Brooke snapped her fingers to get Jenny’s attention. “Take care of Svetlana.”
Once inside the building, Brooke dashed up the stairs two at a time, Amanda and some others at her heels. In the second floor loft, the fetid smell of sweat, gasoline, and blood hung in the air. The economist, the supervisor, and another seamstress lay on the ground, crumpled white cotton fabric tucked under their heads. A few women surrounded each of the injured. One pressed a wad of cotton against the economist’s bleeding abdomen wound. Wearing only one shoe, another worker hobbled about as though trying to figure out where she was. “Slozhno,” she wept. “Slozhno.”
Slozhno. The hair on Brooke’s arms stood. Her mother had used that word. It meant “complicated, exhausting,” and whenever her mother uttered it, little Bertha had felt powerless to ease her suffering.
Brooke caught the woman’s hands to stop her pacing. “Are you okay?”
As though awakened, the woman startl
ed.
“Telephone. Taxi. Hospital.” Brooke gave the woman a few single dollars and pointed toward the injured.
Amanda knelt next to the gray-haired woman on the floor and took her pulse, then began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Brooke scanned the devastated factory, the broken sewing machines, and the damaged rolls of raw material. All that cotton could have been cut in new designs that better served the market. In Brooke’s years as an investment manager, she had devised funding for river dams in China and had worked with experts to build a desalination plant in Saudi Arabia. But this? Nothing had prepared her for the reality of the Russian women’s business environment.
She breathed in gasoline fumes and stared at the broken windows. She couldn’t muster a single spiritual, comforting thought. She had been delusional, thinking she could fix any of this. In her head, Brooke could hear her mother’s horrified reaction if she found out her only child had joined a mission to help the hated Russians, of all people.
Brooke sagged against the rough cinder block wall and covered her face.
When she looked up again, the flock of ravens circled above the fence, made a sudden dip, then flapped upward again, screeching.
Chapter Six
DURING THE HOUR-LONG drive to the hotel through traffic, gloom settled in the bus like smoke. Even Jenny, suffering from what she called the heebie-jeebies, was quiet. Brooke tightened her coat and sank deeper into her seat. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was until Amanda, seated next to her, twisted the cap off an Evian bottle, and offered it to her. Brooke took a big gulp, then another. The lump in her throat remained lodged.
I’m alive. The gruesome fifteen-minute event was only one brief scene from the nightmare her parents had experienced day after day, month after month, year after year. No wonder their well of emotions had dried up.
Brooke turned to Amanda. “The mobsters saw the bus. They knew we were there. Why didn’t they put off their attack until a more opportune time?”