by Talia Carner
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
She tried to nod, but the movement caused his finger to dig deeper into her chin.
“What were the Americans doing at the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory yesterday?”
A worm wriggled in her stomach. “It was on their itinerary! I was to meet them at the airport and later bring them there for lunch—”
Sidorov let go of her head and walked backward to his desk. His gaze assessed her body from top to bottom. “I see you got the idea.” He perched on the desk’s edge, and his finger beckoned her.
She didn’t like the gesture. Fear snaked its way up her throat, yet how could she not approach? Her factory and its workers depended on this man’s goodwill. “What idea?” Taking tentative steps, she crossed the Persian rug.
His loosened his tie, then flattened down the imaginary hair on his bald pate. “You gussied up for me, yes?”
She gulped. She had only meant to show confidence, like the elegant Americans.
“Tell me, do you know what it means, ‘Do not cut the bough you’re sitting on?’” Without taking his eyes off her, he pushed off from the desk, and in a few large steps walked over to the door. He turned the key in the lock, then returned to his spot close to her. Too close.
“Nikolai Antonovich—”
He cupped her breast. His fingers found her nipple and squeezed hard. Dark patches swayed behind her eyes. “No, please. . . .”
His voice, heavy and smooth as cream, cut her off. “Come now. Be a good sport and turn around. I want you to sit on the bough.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Oh, uh, no. . . .”
“You’ve been a bad girl. You took our guests to where they were not supposed to be.”
“I— I didn’t! You’d told me to. Because I speak English, you said!”
His fingers pawed her other breast. “Don’t you want to continue working with the Economic Authority?”
Natasha. How would I feed her? And what about all the workers? Each of the women—her friends—had children at home, or sick mothers to take care of. And what about the Americans? If Sidorov removed her from this assignment, her dream to learn from them would shatter.
“Turn around and lift your skirt.” His hand still gripping her breast, Sidorov brought his other to his collar under his double chin and released the top button.
She stared at his moving fingers, “No. Please . . . Nikolai Antonovich—”
His brows raised quizzically. She could tell he thought her stupid for making such a fuss. He swiveled her body around. She clutched the desk as he lifted her skirt and tugged at her underwear over the garter belt.
Her palms pressed the cold, smooth mahogany. She grasped the corners and squeezed hard, staring at her whitening knuckles, wanting them to hurt. He fumbled behind her, and the fabric of his pants brushed against the bare skin of her thighs. The sound of the opening zipper made her jump, but his hand on her hip pinned her in place.
“This rump is made for fucking.” His hand caressed her right buttock. “A good-size shit basket.”
Stinging tears blinded her as his fingers searched her opening, pushing her forward. Her head tipped downward, and her necklace with the tiny gold cross dangled near her face. She grabbed it in her mouth and sucked on it, tracing its hard edges with her tongue. Wordless prayers formed around the cross.
“You see why you shouldn’t cut the bough?” Sidorov shoved himself into her.
Svetlana felt her mouth twist in a silent scream, and the cross fell out. She’d always been terrified of an attack by strangers, in dark woods and deserted stairwells, not in well-lit offices. But this was different. She had seen Sidorov’s photograph in the newspaper with President Yeltsin. He was a powerful man. You couldn’t fight someone like him.
Natasha. God help me, but I have to. For you, for us, for my friends at the factory.
Sidorov’s breath came in short gasps. “All you bitches want a real man.”
Loud drums beat in Svetlana’s head. She willed her soul to turn to ice, as she had done with the gang and later, with her husband when he had forced sex on her between beatings. She told herself that like in marriage, it wasn’t a rape if the man was the boss. Sidorov had such rights. He had power, and this was what powerful men did.
“Show appreciation,” Sidorov huffed from behind. His hands on her hips commanded her to gyrate in widening circles. “Or I’ll remember you didn’t want to sit on the bough.”
A metallic taste filled Svetlana’s mouth as he climaxed with a shudder and a low moan. Crying openly, she bent down to pull up her frumpy cotton underwear that lay in a small heap at her ankles.
“Stop making such a big deal. I did you a favor.” Sidorov opened his desk drawer and pulled out a roll of toilet paper. He cleaned himself and, aiming like it was a basketball, tossed the crumpled tissue into the wastebasket. He passed Svetlana the roll and she wiped herself, still trembling, tears streaming down her face.
He opened another desk drawer and withdrew a Hershey bar. “Here.” His tone was almost kind. “For your kid. Next time I’ll get you pantyhose.”
Next time? She forced her hand to take the chocolate. She should throw it away as soon as she got out of there. But how could she not give it to Natasha? Or sell it?
She turned to leave and felt a slap on her buttocks. At the door, blinded by tears, she fumbled with the lock.
“Svetlana,” he called to her. “You be good, and I’ll arrange for another business loan.”
Another loan? If she weren’t so distraught, so eager to escape, she would have told him that the factory couldn’t pay the interest on the few loans already stolen right at the bank lobby by gangsters. She would have begged Sidorov to help erase those loans, not add to the factory’s debt. But the door was now open, and she couldn’t begin to speak.
In the bathroom, she inspected herself in the mirror over the sink. Since there was no soap, she used her handkerchief to violently wipe away the green eye shadow and the brown smears of mascara. Red patches appeared where she rubbed her skin too hard. So much for using makeup; it was all her fault for giving Sidorov the wrong impression. She hadn’t fought him; she’d even gyrated a bit, helping him along so the ordeal would be over. It wasn’t rape if it was her fault.
A woman of loose morals, the committee had once decreed. That’s what she was, for life.
Her fingers yanked at her curls, ruining the rigid set of hair-spray. She pulled the tendrils in all directions until they stuck out and gave her the look of the madwoman she now was. She scrubbed away Sidorov’s stickiness, swiping at the back of her thighs with her panties. Again. More. Harder. Anything to undo the imprint of his flesh.
She wanted to run away, to jump out of her skin. She couldn’t face going home; she couldn’t face Zoya and her harassment, nor could she ever face Natasha without breaking down. Yet, there was no other place to go. Nowhere in all of Moscow to hide.
Outside the washroom window, an oppressive blanket of inky sky had descended over the city. Svetlana folded the leather coat Katerina had loaned her, straightened its sleeves and lapel, and placed it in her string bag. Never again would she attempt to look elegant. It attracted the wrong kind of attention. She stepped out to the street, into the familiar darkness, permeated with the stagnant smell of the city.
Chapter Eighteen
BACK FROM THE conference, Brooke looked around the lobby of Hotel Moscow and felt the claustrophobic environment tightening around her. She pulled out her camera and aimed it toward the forever-closed and dark gift shop.
With uncharacteristic speed, two guards were upon her. “Nyet!”
“Okay.” Why fight it? In a few minutes she would be upstairs, call the embassy, and catch whoever was on duty. They must work after hours; it was the American Embassy, not the Russian. She put away the camera, chiding herself for her impetuousness. The guards could have yanked out the film and exposed it to light. The photos she had taken at the conference would have be
en lost.
Heading to the elevator, she remembered that her passport was still at the reception desk, where Aleksandr had deposited it upon their arrival the day before. In all European cities she’d visited, passports were returned after registration had been completed. Brooke swiveled on her heel and headed to the reception area.
Behind the desk, a young woman with a small face and a huge hairdo was absorbed in a book. She didn’t raise her head as Brooke waited.
“Dobriy dyen, good day.”
No response.
“Passport, pazhalusta, please,” Brooke finally said, using the words of politeness that had come back to her. “Fielding.”
Without looking up, the girl scribbled something on a piece of paper, slid it toward Brooke, and continued reading.
“Ten dollars? What for?”
“Government,” the girl replied in English without looking up.
“You don’t understand. I just want my passport back. I’m not checking out.”
The girl tapped her red fingernail on the written note, not bothering to repeat herself.
Brooke felt Amanda joining her. “I don’t believe it,” Brooke mumbled.
“Let Aleksandr get all our passports,” Amanda said. More women, now off the bus, gathered behind them.
Not wishing to dampen the exhilaration of the day by arguing with Amanda, Brooke stepped back to the lobby. It took fifteen minutes before Aleksandr lumbered over, a stack of blue passports in his hands. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and closed it.
“May I have mine, please?” Brooke asked him.
“Well, the front desk, they were insulted.”
A muscle in Brooke’s back twitched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His face turned crimson. “You argued with them. They must be treated with respect.”
“Respect?” She bristled. “That clerk was rude, yet she has the audacity to complain that I asked for a clarification about some phony tax?”
“She was insulted.”
“Too bad!” Brooke yanked the passports from his fingers, found hers, and distributed the rest to the other women.
“You should give her a gift,” Aleksandr said to her back.
She pivoted on her heel to face him. “So that’s what this is all about? You’re accusing me of insulting the clerk only to milk me to tip her? Has it occurred to you that you’re insulting me? And where is my room key? Did you get it at the same time you got the passport, or should I pay someone for it?”
“Take it easy.” Amanda went to retrieve their keys.
Arguing with Aleksandr had the effect of a dog barking at a lamppost. Brooke plopped down on a vinyl-upholstered bench, and dropped her face into her hands. Her fingertips pressed on her tired eyeballs. Last year, in a Taiwanese factory, the director had demonstrated the pressure points his Chinese employees massaged after long hours of stringing fine electric wires. Now she must retrieve her key, get to her room—and to the phone. She would do the rest of the group a favor by arranging bodyguards. Maybe she would also call Delta Air Lines to find out their schedule for the coming days, as she needed to keep her options open.
“Having fun?”
Even before raising her head, Brooke knew by the whiff of cinnamon-and-wood aftershave who it was. She looked up, certain he could see the flush sweeping her face. “You look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Don’t you ever get tired?”
Judd’s laughter revealed a set of straight, square teeth. “I’m the product of postwar starving Eastern European immigrants fattening up their kids with good nutrition.”
She stared at him. Was he, too, a child of survivors? She had never been able to speak about her second-generation experience with an adult who had actually shared it. Holocaust survivors were assumed to have been damaged by exposure to hunger, abuse, loss, cold, degradation, and death. What kind of life could they make for their children? Once, a son of her parents’ friends pointed at a lampshade. “Meet my uncle,” he said, and Bertha, age eight, burst out laughing, immediately getting it: The Nazis had made lampshades out of Jewish skin. The following day, she tried the joke on a playdate. The girl didn’t understand, and the next day she declared in school that Bertha was a liar who made up horrible stories. Afterward, Bertha didn’t tell anyone that the Nazis had also made soap out of Jewish fat.
Brooke swallowed and let a moment pass. “How was your day?” she asked. “I didn’t see you at lunch.”
He smiled. “I was busy at private sessions, and I’ve picked up some business ideas. A meat-processing plant, a cellular-phone company, chains of laundromats, an equipment leasing venture—”
“Are you joining the government privatization feast? If I were you, I’d invest in cement. I’ve never seen so much construction in concrete.” She flipped back her hair. His presence suddenly made her feel recharged. “But then again, a deal gone sour might end up with you inside a mixer.”
He laughed.
Just then Brooke caught sight of Svetlana arguing with the sentries at the entrance. Her hair, which had been neat after a full day at the conference, now stuck out in clumps. Red scratches ran down her cheeks, and her eyes were swollen.
Brooke rushed over and waved her in past the guards. “It’s okay,” she told them. She put her arm around Svetlana’s shoulders. Stifling her shock, she whispered, “Have the hoodlums come back?”
Svetlana wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No.”
“What then?”
“Uh, it’s personal.” Svetlana’s hand fondled the “Attitude Is Everything” button, and she glanced suspiciously toward Judd as he approached.
“You look like you could use a shot of vodka.” He snapped his fingers like he had just remembered something, and walked away.
“Would you like to speak in private?” Brooke checked her watch. Only forty-five minutes before the group was to leave for the circus, and she still had to make those phone calls. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
“Nichevo, never mind.”
“Please. Something happened to you.”
Svetlana shook her head, then her face crumpled.
Brooke tightened her arm around the heaving shoulders and pulled Svetlana outside.
At the line of trees, there were two flagstones. Brooke sat down, motioning to Svetlana. “Can you tell me now?”
Svetlana made a visible effort to control her weeping. She shook her head.
Brooke took a Wet-Nap out of her purse, tore it open, and dabbed the red marks on the Russian’s face. “It helps to talk,” she said in a soft voice.
“We don’t talk about these things.” Svetlana pulled away, found a cloth handkerchief in her vinyl handbag, and swiped at her tears.
“Please, I may be able to help. At least let me try—”
“I don’t want foreigners to laugh at our misfortune.”
“Laugh? Did I laugh yesterday? Let me tell you something. Each of the women in our group has taken vacation time off her job and most paid from their own pockets to be here.”
“How much?”
Brooke recalled the women in her workshop who didn’t understand helping others. “Twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“Two thousand, five hundred dollars? Each of you?”
“Some, like Amanda, are funded by an organization. I am not.”
“But why would you pay so much to come here?” Svetlana’s face clouded. “It’s because you’re Jewish.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Jews are greedy. Maybe you want to steal our ventures?”
Brooke jumped to her feet. “Come on, Svetlana, you know better.” Czars toppled, religions disappeared, villages were erased by pogroms, regimes revolutionized, but like a deadly virus, anti-Semitism was immune to change. “What about the women in the group who aren’t Jewish? What’s their motivation?”
“But why would you come here?” Svetlana repeated.
Brooke sat down again. “Who’s going to help women around the globe? Not men,
for sure. Not the mafia.” She hesitated, realizing that volunteerism on such a scale was more foreign to Svetlana than Mars. Svetlana could more readily grasp the anti-Semitism she’d heard all her life than the notion of extending kindness toward strangers. “Only women who’ve made it can understand—maybe Jews even more so, because of our history of suffering. Jews believe in helping; doing good is one of the foundations of our religion.” She took a deep breath. “So maybe you should trust me, like you trust your neighbor, that doctor you told me about.”
Svetlana nodded slowly. “Yes. I admire you for going back into the factory yesterday. It was dangerous.”
“Can you now tell me what happened this evening?”
“No.”
“Then how about what happened before yesterday’s incident? What led up to it?”
Svetlana bit her lip. “Okay. I will tell.”
It had started three months earlier. After confirming that the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory could turn out a profit from orders placed for its leather outerwear in the coming season, the Economic Authority guaranteed a loan for the purchase of hides.
The morning the money cleared in the bank account, the thugs appeared. They wore suits. They were polite. They asked the economist to accompany them to the bank and withdraw the money. He had to comply. He gave them the money right there, so it wasn’t a robbery.
“It’s still a robbery even if done in full daylight by polite people,” Brooke said. “Was it the bank manager or a lower-level clerk who collaborated with them?”
Svetlana shrugged, a gesture of resignation that contained all the contradictions and tribulations of life in Russia. “What’s the difference? Someone at the bank had given them the information.”
“If it was a clerk, you could have complained to the manager.”
“Complain?” Svetlana spit out words. “Only stupid people complain. Nothing would be done anyway. Only trouble.”
Of course, Brooke thought. With no expectation of justice, Russians sought to circumvent problems on their own. Like an industrious ant, Svetlana diligently blazed a new trail each day. “Go on.” She reached out for Svetlana’s hand, hoping to uncover the circumstances of Svetlana’s disheveled appearance. “What happened next?”