by Talia Carner
A few minutes later she joined Olga at a window seat under an arched wood panel and a canopy of tattered brocade.
“Tell me about yourself,” Olga said. “About your family.”
Brooke touched the thin gold chain, whose Star of David rested on her back. Where could she start? How much could she tell? Brooke had always whitewashed her family’s history. Growing up, she had learned that Americans understood immigrants, but Holocaust survivors posed an oddity, their history incomprehensible. And divulging to Olga that her mother had been born in Russia and fled to Ukraine would instantly reveal her Jewish identity, as in the 1930s and 1940s mostly Jews had left—forced out. As much as she trusted Olga, this was a country with a bloody history of pogroms against Jews.
“My mother was almost forty when she had me. I’m too different from her for us to be close. I am more like my father.” Maybe her mother had once been an outgoing, curious, adventure-seeking woman; Brooke had never been able to peel away the layers of despondency and loss that had changed her so profoundly.
“Has there been love in your family?”
Brooke sat back. “Maybe not between my parents, but they protected me fiercely. They gave me everything materialistic they didn’t have in their earlier years. Even if I didn’t want it, they wanted me to want it.” Brooke pushed away the memories of her torturous years at the piano. Although her father never put a record on the player, he insisted that Bertha stick to piano lessons; his three dead children had shown great musical promise, inherited from their mother. “Intellectually, my mother never got to bloom to her full potential. She was unable to go to medical school, but later became an accountant. My father bought and sold real estate. He was very quiet.” Except for his bursts of inconsolable crying at holiday tables. An image flashed through Brooke’s head of herself, at age four, sitting on her father’s knees and learning to read numbers from the blue tattoo on his arm. Afterward, he’d often made games out of adding and subtracting numbers.
Olga nodded, as though digesting the information. “I thought American families were happy, given the freedoms you have—and money. But of course, that’s a naive generalization.”
“Like everything else, one begins to take the good things for granted. Anyway, we’re not a typical American family.”
“Is there such a thing as a typical family?”
Brooke smiled. In her mind, a typical family was one in which laughter replaced melancholy. One where going on picnics and vacations created new shared memories rather than the obsessive regurgitation of old and haunting tragedies of the past. One where there were grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings—and they even had feuds. Her family couldn’t have feuds with the dead.
Young Bertha liked to go to friends’ homes after school. In normal homes, girls carped to their parents about pimples or unfair tests. They threw temper tantrums to demand a new blouse or to lift a curfew. They could rebel and even disobey. Bertha had to block all childhood wants and teenage angst; boyfriend troubles were inconsequential to watching your loved ones being shot into a mass grave, and exasperating teachers could never compete with remembered Nazi guards.
Olga was watching her, waiting.
Brooke said, “I was an excellent student. I wanted to give my grades as a gift to my parents. It was one thing I could do well and easily make them proud.”
Olga nodded, then spoke, her voice gravelly from smoking. “I’ve thought about our conversation regarding the mafia. You are right, of course. Our women need to take action. ‘Even nightingales can’t live on fairy tales.’” The sweetness of her blue eyes contrasted with the twin lines that descended along the sides of her nose to her jaw, pulling her mouth into an expression of resolve, like Brooke’s mother’s. “Everything we’ll talk about is completely confidential?” Olga added.
“Of course.”
Olga pulled out her cigarette packet and lit one. “Last night you mentioned identifying the enemy. I’ve begun what you might call a citizen’s quest.” To Brooke’s raised eyebrows, Olga said, “I’m a sociologist, always researching one trend or another. It’s not unusual for me to look at the rise in a trend—or in a specific type of crime. But I have no experience in business, to which these acts of terror are related.” A swell of pain crossed her face. “My friend Vera was attacked at home early this morning. Her factory had been subjected to extortion, so she switched banks, thinking the old one had given the mafia the information. However, the extortion continued without interruption. The mafia knew—that same day—which bank her factory now used.”
“What kind of financial institutions were here before the fall of communism?”
“Then and now, workers are paid mostly in cash. There were some government banks where we could keep a savings book or pay for utilities, but we couldn’t write checks against our money as you do in the West.” Olga waved a hand impatiently. “The new banks are a different breed altogether. They’re private—and they are nests of corruption. They finance our government, which tells you who’s running things now.”
“Where do these banks get the money? Who prints it for them, if not the government?”
Olga opened her palms in gestures of befuddlement.
“They must use foreign currency, then,” Brooke said.
Olga shook her head. “I’m like a person who plants a tree with its roots upward.”
“If the source of the problem were one specific bank,” Brooke went on, “the extortion would have stopped once your friend transferred her business account. At least for a while. Which banks are mentioned in the reports?”
“There are so many new ones. Every self-respecting gangster opens a bank.” Olga blew the smoke away from Brooke, but it still stung her eyes. “Are you saying that the extortion is the bank managers’ doing?”
“Not the bank manager, but whoever selects this bank or that and assigns it to the venture. It comes from above the banks or the bankers. It was not your friend Vera—the customer—who selected the bank, right?”
“True.”
Rays of sunlight filtered through swirling smoke and dancing dust heated up the little alcove. Brooke unbuttoned her jacket. “The mafia gang clearly had inside information. And since we’re seeing a pattern—the same timing, the same intimidation process—it is possible that it is one particular mafia group that instigates it. However, that would require the mafia group, as an umbrella, to recruit several bank managers as its minions. It makes no sense.”
“It does to me,” Olga said. The feathered ash perched on her cigarette, about to drop. Brooke withdrew Irina’s ashtray from her nylon bag and placed it next to Olga as the Russian continued, “The mafia collects heavy dossiers on bankers and blackmails them into opening their books. Ninety bank employees were murdered this past year alone.
“Ninety?” Hoffenbach had mentioned a couple of assassinations. But ninety murdered?
“Oh, yes. The newspapers are filled with such killing stories.”
“There you are, then. You’ve found your answer. It could be one specific mafia group pulling the strings behind the different banks.”
“I found the answer? ‘Even a blind horse can pull a cart if he’s being led.’ You did.” Olga paused. “Now what?”
Brooke rose to her feet, accidentally knocking the ashtray to the floor. It cracked into four pieces. She stared at them. This poorly made knickknack consisted of the four basic ingredients of the universe, of life: earth, water, air, and fire. Back to basics.
“Follow the money.” She gathered up the pieces. “Find out who stands to profit from the acquisition of these women-owned factories. The money trail will lead you there.”
“Money trail.” Olga enunciated the words. “I’ve never heard this phrase. I need your help in this.”
“Me? I don’t know this country or the language.” Besides the glaring fact that she was being asked to investigate business crime, she was certainly not staying the full nine days of Amanda’s citizen’s mission.
<
br /> “You have experience with money trail. With accounting—creative or otherwise.”
The pull of the need tugged at Brooke. Also, such an investigation would involve a steep learning curve about the Russian fiscal economy. It would give her great material for her article, which in turn would enhance her credibility with her new bosses. She wasn’t a great writer, but the firm’s public relations consultants would edit and then place the piece at a leading business publication, enhancing her reputation all around.
Most important, Brooke thought as Olga’s eyes, expecting, pleading, continued to bore into hers, how could she refuse?
Chapter Sixteen
OLGA DETESTED THE thought of what public transportation would entail. Sure enough, the first bus that stopped was so packed, some passengers stood on the stairs, blocking the door from opening. Only two people got off, elbowing their exit through the mass of angry, cursing riders who wouldn’t make way lest they lose their spots. Olga could not squeeze in.
The next bus arrived on the heels of the first, but this time she was shoved aside by younger, more aggressive commuters who scrambled up before the impatient driver shut the door. When the third bus finally arrived, Olga was fuming at the injustice of it all. She pushed others to hold her place at the head of the line and climbed the two steps into a hot, sweaty fog of sour breath and coats smelling of naphthalene.
She clutched the leather strap above, swaying with each turn, hoping she wouldn’t fall with a sudden stop. Within twenty minutes, her calves ached, and her feet swelled and throbbed inside her shoes. If it weren’t for the zhaba, the toad, she would have her car.
It started to drizzle. Perfect. She had left her galoshes at the office.
Metal dust and noxious chemical fumes welcomed Olga into Vera Sergeevna’s pots and pans factory. Entering the dilapidated building, she shook the raindrops off her kerchief and coat. A grating, high-pitched whine from the cutting and polishing machines broke through the thin walls, bsssssszzzzzzz, bsssssszzzzzzz like a thousand pieces of chalk scratching at blackboards. It made Olga’s skin prickle. She could never get used to working in a place like this, with the noise, the smell of machine oil, and the air polluted with metal dust. Yet, if she lost her job at the institute, she would be grateful to scrub the one toilet at this plant, shared by over two hundred workers.
Neither the matron at the front cubicle next to the hissing samovar, nor the few idle workers passing in the corridor stopped to inquire of her purpose here. As the joke went, “I pretend to work and you pretend to pay me.” Not only did they not care, but years of being expected to be their brothers’ keepers—and their resentment of this role—had taught everyone to mind their own business.
In Vera’s office, her friend’s framed photograph stood on a corner of an organized desk. Olga examined the handsome woman in her early thirties, whose beautiful cheekbones and dark complexion suggested a north Asian ancestry. Olga’s eyes misted at the sight of the luxuriant braid streaming down over Vera’s right shoulder. Long after the burn had healed and her hair grew back, her friend’s soul would remain scarred.
Olga opened the top desk drawer and found a stapled stack of papers with the letterhead of the Institute of External Market Resources. When was such an institute created? She’d never heard of it. What did the title mean? Yet a quick scan told her this was the very document she searched for. How easy! She had her first lead.
In the din of the machinery she could barely think. She stuffed the papers in her handbag and left. The daylight was melting away, and she was far from home, with no car to take her there.
Chapter Seventeen
AT FOUR O’CLOCK the merchants who had displayed their wares in the conference exhibition hall packed up. Through the tall windows, Svetlana watched the rays of the setting sun painting wispy clouds in coral-colored swirls. A string quartet played at the back of the lecture hall, a touch of culture in honor of the guests, but to her regret, few seemed to pay attention to the musicians. The crowd, like hens eager to flee their coop, was dispersing quickly. With street crimes increasing in direct ratio to the dwindling police patrol and with parliament sympathizers flooding the downtown area while the military suddenly popped up everywhere, Moscow had become more dangerous than ever.
Nevertheless, at least forty attendees still lingered, waiting for a second round of door-prize drawings. This door-prize concept still escaped Svetlana’s grasp. She had obliged when Amanda asked her to distribute the small, red numbered tickets, but told Amanda it was wrong to give anyone something she hadn’t earned. Amanda only laughed, which made Svetlana even more perplexed. How could Americans think of something so unfair? Not only were the drawn gifts of unequal value but there weren’t enough for everyone. Some people received nothing. Wasn’t democracy supposed to mean true social justice?
Irina, who should have been ashamed of her oily hair and unfeminine dandruff, looked full of energy for the game. Of course, she must have cheated in the first round. How else, with only one ticket, could she have won both a hair clip and a bottle of cough syrup? Eyeing a boxful of yet-to-be-raffled-off goodies, she now tried to coax Svetlana into dispensing one more ticket. When Svetlana refused, Irina went on to say she had another business idea to discuss with Brooke and needed an interpreter.
“I am not at your service,” Svetlana responded, her tone haughty.
When Irina pushed her way toward Brooke, Svetlana rushed behind her. Brooke seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of Ziploc bags with precious surprises, and Svetlana wanted to protect her.
“She’s only trying to exploit you for another gift,” Svetlana told Brooke. “She says she has a new idea, but don’t believe her.”
“Let’s hear it,” Brooke said, smiling at Irina.
Svetlana fumed, but had no choice but translate. “My brother, he works for a garage,” Irina explained. “When he’s drunk, I go instead and jump-start cars. Russian cars are bad. They stall all the time. So I make jump-start cables and sell one every time I help someone. Next time they don’t call garage. My brother is mad, but I make money.”
“You know how to make jumper cables?” Brooke asked.
“If I can get black and red cables and those big—” Irina made a clamping motion.
It irked Svetlana that Brooke took Irina’s hands in hers with obvious delight. “Write me a list of the steps you must take to manufacture a large quantity,” Brooke said with enthusiasm. “Ask around and find out where to buy the raw materials you need—and research their costs. Calculate what you need now and the quantities you will need a year from now. Find out how much these jumper cables cost in the open market.” She waited until Svetlana translated. “Figure out a facility where you can work. Maybe rent a small warehouse? Talk to people who may want to invest with you or give you loans.”
“What people?” Irina asked.
“Friends, neighbors, family,” Brooke said as if it was self-evident that anyone had money to spare—or that money had any value from one day to the next. Svetlana wanted to explain this to the American, but Brooke was too excited as she pointed at the packet of class notes in Irina’s hands. “Write a business plan. Think where else you can sell your jumper cables, not only through your brother’s garage calls. Then telephone me at Hotel Moscow. We’ll talk more. Okay?”
Svetlana wished she could come up with an idea that would make Brooke similarly thrilled, but none came to mind. No wonder she couldn’t even manage her cooperative.
AS SOON AS the Americans climbed onto their bus and she waved them good-bye, Svetlana hurried to the Economic Authority building, a fifteen-minute subway ride. It was past work hours, and she was scared of the purpose of the meeting.
When Sidorov had called Svetlana at home early that morning, she told him she must first fetch the accounting books from the factory, but he’d said not to bother. Already a bad omen. She was behind, yet again, in repaying the loan the factory had received thanks to the Economic Authority’s recommendation. What cou
ld she possibly say in her defense? That she had to pay protection money before all else? That she had paid the wrong gang, clearly, because it had failed to show up and fight off the attackers? Sidorov had already insisted that the Economic Authority couldn’t tolerate her delinquency just because she claimed to have paid the mafia. Now her factory lay in ruins.
Svetlana clutched the workbook she had received at the conference. It would be hard to write a marketing plan, but she was determined to somehow do it. Brooke had said it was necessary for the cooperative’s success. She said that Sidorov would respect her vision if he could see how she planned to handle the factory’s recovery.
Before entering his office, Svetlana stopped in the washroom, where she rinsed her face and quickly applied makeup. When Svetlana had complimented Brooke for the rust-color shade of her lipstick, the American insisted that she accept the tube. And Jenny had given her the green eye shadow “to match your eyes,” she had said, and added a mascara.
But Sidorov’s wrath still scared her. Examining the effect of the makeup in the mirror, Svetlana thought that Brooke would never let a man intimidate her—and neither would Jenny. She squared her shoulders and walked the short corridor into Sidorov’s office.
To her astonishment, he smiled. “I plan to join the sexy Americans for dinner tonight.”
“I . . . tonight?” She wished she sounded more intelligent. “They have tickets to the circus.”
He hooked one thick, rough-skinned finger into the soft hollow under her chin, forcing her head up, his face much too close. She avoided looking into the waxen blue eyes that scowled from under tufted brows and focused instead on the few hairs at the tip of his bulbous nose. The smell of vodka hung heavy on his breath.