Hotel Moscow (11 page)

Amanda shook her head.

“Well, who’s in charge of firing Aleksandr? He’s been totally incompetent.”

“He works for EuroTours, not for me.” Amanda rotated her wrist in full circles. “He means well. In the Soviet tradition, he believes he’s protecting us from unpleasant information.”

Brooke examined the red mark on Amanda’s arm. “Can you just tell me how we go about getting security, and I’ll take care of it?”

Amanda let out a little chuckle. “I’ve never known you to lose your cool like this.”

“If you had been alone, that guy would have raped you.”

“But it didn’t happen, right? So please calm down and let me go on with what will be a very busy day.”

Brooke shut her mouth. Amanda was an idealist who waltzed through life sprinkling the world with her do-good dust. Brooke would have to look into matters herself.

The maitre d’ appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, wiping his palms on the sides of his jacket. He peered around the dining room with a scowl on his face and mumbled something to the waiters, who sniggered and disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later, they reappeared with fresh plates of food. Brooke wondered how, given the economist’s tight rationing, they had these extra plates ready.

Judd reentered the dining hall. His hair was damp and patted down. His tailored blue suit caused Brooke to wonder how she had missed noticing him back when he presented at her firm. He walked straight toward the now-vacant seat on Brooke’s other side and grinned. “How are we this morning?”

Conscious of Amanda’s presence, Brooke asked in an even voice, “Is there another hotel you’d recommend?”

“Not at twenty-five dollars a night. Any European hotel in Moscow costs three hundred or more. There’s nothing in between.”

Amanda broke in. “I checked on my scouting trip in July.” Her hand swept to encompass the other women. “There’s no way we can shell out almost three grand each for a nine-day visit.”

How much did it cost not to get raped in this hotel? Brooke
watched the two women who had decided to leave after yesterday’s attack as they gathered their travel bags, said their good-byes, and walked out with Aleksandr. Their departure played havoc with Amanda’s conference plans, and Brooke hadn’t wanted to disappoint her friend by leaving too. But perhaps she should. Maybe tomorrow.

Yes. If she was unable to get an informed escort and a bodyguard, that would be the wisest move. She wanted to ask Judd about that, too, but with Amanda at her side, she didn’t want to sound like a pest.

“Have you tried the kefir?” Judd asked Brooke. “It’s made of goat’s milk rather than cow’s. It’s quite light and tasty.”

“Do they serve it at ninja school?”

He smiled, and she reached for the glass of what looked like thick milk.

“Judd, yogurt will keep you vigorous,” Jenny chirped from diagonally across the table.

He didn’t even acknowledge the comment.

Jenny pushed her plate aside and leaned forward, breasts resting on the table, causing her cleavage to rise. Her grin revealed a string of tiny teeth like a pearl necklace. “You doubly need it if you’re married.”

“Jenny, pipe down.” Amanda frowned.

Married? It hadn’t occurred to Brooke to fish for that information. So much for her new admirer. Of course, as Jenny did, she should have assumed any man in her age bracket was married. This breakfast was turning into a soap opera.

Brooke rose and pushed herself from the table. “I’ll meet you
all in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”

ENTERING THE BUS,
she breezed down the aisle, passing Judd in the front seat she had occupied the day before. Jenny could have him.

She settled toward the back, and on the empty seat next to her she placed a bag Amanda had entrusted to her. Filled with vials of leftover prescription drugs the group had brought from their medicine cabinets at home, it carried antibiotics, cortisone cream, and cough medicine—all rare commodities in Moscow, her friend had explained, and nonexistent elsewhere. Brooke had also bought dozens of vials of ibuprofen and aspirin, which, Amanda said, the average Russian had no access to.

Aleksandr settled across the aisle. Brooke took out her map of Moscow and motioned to him to look at it. As he bent over the map, looking perplexed, she grilled him until she figured out where they were heading and the travel route there. She wished the driver would not bypass the center of town so she could see what was going on with the showdown between the parliament and Yeltsin from the safety of the bus. Later, after her Frankfurt office opened, she would call Hoffenbach and get the names of his colleagues here. Any contact might come in handy. And when Sidorov finally showed up at the conference today, she would speak with him directly rather than rely on Amanda’s, Svetlana’s, or Aleksandr’s mediation.

At one intersection,
Hustler
and cheap porno magazines, wrapped in cellophane and held in place by clothespins, hung on a rope stretched in front of a kiosk. Brooke averted her eyes,
but visualized the photographer’s studio: a basement shop with a stage set of a bedroom framed by drop cloths. Were the women who posed exploited or did they freely sell the commodity of beauty they had been blessed to possess?

“I was in America last summer with my wife and daughter. Miami,” Aleksandr interrupted her thoughts. From his leather case, he produced a small album with snapshots of supermarket aisles and close-ups of price stickers with dollar signs. “The food displays—they were the best thing.” He sighed.

Brooke tilted her head toward Aleksandr, giving him her full attention. “Did you like the beaches?”

“Everyone drives a fancy car,” he said, and continued to flip through more photos of supermarket aisles. When he replaced the album in his folder, he said, “I have a Zhiguli car and a dacha, that’s a country home, yes? If I get gasoline I drive my family out for the weekend.”

“You can’t always get gasoline?”

“Two days on line.”

“You sleep in the car at night while waiting in the queue?”

“I pay someone to move the car along the line, then come back when it’s my turn. For the trip to the United States, I was in line at the bank for six months to buy American dollars. First I came once a month, then once a week, then twice a day—two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, yes? You have to be there when they call your name or you lose your spot.”

Brooke took a moment to digest the information. “Right this moment, are you on line at the gas station for the weekend?”

He looked at his watch, a brushed aluminum Rolex—or a good knock-off. “Since five o’clock this morning.”

Brooke wished he had invested a fraction of this effort to buy them the English-language newspaper. As the bus rumbled on, she kept her eyes toward the window, watching the lumbering pedestrians, overdressed in coats too heavy even for the morning chill. On street corners, soldiers with Kalashnikovs strapped across their chests puffed on cigarettes.

This was not the face of democracy. She lowered the grimy window pane and clicked her camera. As she captured images of soldiers stopping pedestrians to check their papers, she became conscious that she was photographing her parents’ prewar experiences, when they could taste the threat hanging in the air. Her mother’s sister, Bertha, was no longer around; she had died in a pogrom a decade earlier while she and Brooke’s mother tried to hide in a large oak tree. Bertha lost her footing on the first branch and fell, and Brooke’s mother watched helplessly from the thickness above as her sister was raped by five local men they had known all their lives. When the men were done, they beat Bertha to death. After that, the family fled to Riga, but that, too, wasn’t far enough.

Brooke could smell that Russia was on the brink of a civil war. She should tear herself from her promises and leave.

D
RIVING TO HER
office, Olga was raging about Vera’s torture when, two miles from the Institute for Social Research, her “tin-can on wheels” Lada was rear-ended by a massive Volga. Olga’s head whipped backward, but her hands gripped the steering wheel and steadied the car before it could skid into a ditch. The male Volga driver passed her, shouting and giving her the finger. By the time she’d rolled down her window to shout back, he was gone, leaving her seething. One more man who believed that women had no business on the road.

She revved the engine and pulled once again into the traffic. She’d be damned if she let anyone take away her freedom to move about; she had worked hard for decades to reach the administrative ranking that entitled her to a government car.

At her office, she hung her coat in the armoire, rubbed her sore neck, and plugged in her samovar. The muted buzz of gossip and unanswered ringing phones droned in the background. As in all Soviet institutions, most employees considered their jobs
sidyet,
sitting at one’s chair without being productive. Olga locked her door, then sat down at her desk with a cup of fragrant tea.

As deputy director of the institute she was granted a spacious office, larger than her apartment and converted from two rooms whose triple doors had been removed. Her furniture was a mismatched collection: her boss’s former wooden desk and a pair of swivel guest chairs, worn but comfortable, sat in front of three bookcases—one made of teak, the others of metal—all filled with ring binders, boxed research material, and volumes of academic reviews. In the adjacent room, two upholstered armchairs covered with woven colorful quilts and a coffee table with an imitation lace tablecloth created a cozy seating area.

Olga flipped through new reports in her in-box: A recent survey found that 75 percent of schoolgirls aspired to become prostitutes, while a second survey found no basis in fact to support these figures. Another stated that the average life expectancy of the Russian male had dropped, yet again, to fifty-seven years, due to heavy alcohol use. After arranging the material for later reflection, she unlocked her desk drawer and pulled out a file containing newspaper clippings detailing stories of the intimidation of businesses and of violence against bank employees.

The terrorizing of women’s enterprises was a police matter, no doubt, but there was also no question that the police were in on it. Olga lit a Dukat and leaned back, staring at a two-page news photo spread. Some crime syndicates had become so smug that photographs of their leaders, “The New Capitalists,” who were the privileged courtiers of Czar Boris Yeltsin, made headlines. These mafia dons were shown attending the ballet and the
opera, often with beautiful young women—most likely not their wives—hanging on their arms.

Olga sucked on her cigarette. Brooke had thought each violent intimidation was initiated by someone who stood to profit from the acquisition of a particular factory. It made sense. Could it be the same one person with an umbrella operation?

“Democracy or Kleptocracy?” Olga scribbled the heading of the report she would produce once she had gathered the facts. She looked at the title as pain contracted her abdomen and her nostrils recalled Vera’s singed skin. The doctor Olga had fetched at dawn told them that she had seen worse mafia tortures.

Olga balled the title page of her report and set it on fire in her oversize ashtray. There would be time to put it all in writing. Letting out smoke, she stared up at the milky-yellow ceiling, where the paint had chipped to form an octopus, its tentacles spread out in all directions. Investigating this problem was overwhelming. Brooke’s idea was to follow the money, but for that, Olga needed access to documents.

Should she start by driving to the agency that registered business ownerships? The bureaucratic maze would be too complicated to get straight answers—and certainly not on the spot. No “public records” were open to the public. She could use her contacts to reach someone high up, but everyone was either on the take or on the make. Her initiative would be reported immediately to whoever didn’t wish the information revealed.

There was only one place to start: the original forms to transfer ownership, which Vera had refused to sign. They were at Vera’s office in Metal Works 456.

Olga ground out her cigarette, unplugged the samovar,
and grabbed her coat and wool scarf. Walking down the corridor, she almost collided with a teacart rounding the corner. The two-tiered silver tray on it indicated that her boss, Arkady Ilyich Chestikov, again expected visitors, and lunch had been sent from Chez Philippe, the first French restaurant just opened in Moscow. The son of an
apparatchik,
a high-ranking party member, Arkady was the director of the institute, although he had no academic or scientific qualifications. Since Olga had not been invited to his luncheon, the visitors’ business must be unrelated to the institute’s core social research issues. Her boss was up to no good.

“Dr. Rozanova!” Arkady’s secretary motioned to her with long, crimson-colored nails. The young woman, decked out in a red leather bodysuit, her black-rimmed glasses tucked into scrunched blond curls, flicked a mascaraed glance at the key ring dangling from Olga’s index finger. “Arkady Ilyich wants to see you.”

Olga suppressed a sigh and stepped in.

The oak paneling was new. The executive green leather chair seemed to give the diminutive Arkady added height. His huge mouth on his small face, his eyes set far apart, and his bald forehead slanting backward made him look like a toad perched on a lily pad.

“Arkady Ilyich, are you sitting on the holy Bible again?”

He laughed but did not remove the book as he had done before, showing her a new level of disrespect. Olga settled into the plush guest chair. From the adjoining seating room came the clinking sounds of dishes being set for lunch. The buttery, smooth aroma of chicken Kiev made her mouth water.

“You’ve met the Americans?” Arkady asked.

“Yes.”

“A bunch of dykes, I’m sure. Our women have enough problems without corrupting their brains with new ideas.”

“Women make up eighty percent of our unemployed. They’re starting businesses in order to survive. Female entrepreneurship is the hottest trend in Western economies,” Olga retorted. What was really on her boss’s mind?

The secretary returned, teetering on stiletto heels and carrying a sterling silver teapot. She placed a plate of little almond cakes and a silver pot of marmalade in front of Olga and poured a cup of jasmine tea. Olga watched with growing suspicion as the young woman heaped four spoonfuls of white, sparkling sugar into the china cup.

“For your Tuesday symposium with the Americans, here’s a list of people who should address the audience.” Arkady handed her a typed sheet.

“Now you’re bringing this up? The program was set weeks ago.” Olga put down her cup and glanced at the dozen names on the page, drumming her fingers. “These bureaucrats have no working knowledge of modern market economy, which is the whole point of this symposium.”

Arkady puffed up his chest. “Fit them in.” He picked up a letter and held it between his stubby thumb and forefinger. The cuffs of his white dress shirt sported hand-embroidered initials. “We have an invitation to participate in the International Convention on Social Changes in Tokyo.”

So, this was his agenda for the impromptu meeting. Yet again, he wanted to hijack her place on a trip abroad. Olga stopped
drumming her fingers and closed them into a fist. She sat back, but couldn’t control the frustration that erupted in a groan. She had so anticipated going to Tokyo. She needed the exchange of knowledge with like-minded fellow professionals, to gain new insights into research methods and up-to-date issues in capitalistic economies.

“You’re not a scientist,” she said, suppressing the tone of her fury. “In the past two years you went to the conferences in Paris and Buenos Aires that
I
was invited to—”

“Just prepare the reports, surveys, what have you,” Arkady cut her off. “I’ll read them aloud.”

“You won’t be able to field questions from the audience.” Her anger soared like a swarm of bees. Had nothing changed? Would idiot bureaucrats continue forever to represent Russia in such international forums? For decades, their ignorance had been the butt of jokes of the foreign academics. She rose to her feet. “Since I have no say about anything, I might as well get on my way.”

“Please hand over the keys to your Zhiguli. We need to use it for institute affairs.”

She gasped. She might as well have been hit by a train. “You can’t do that! You’ve already taken my shopping privileges and my vacation allowance.” She stopped before she said,
and have redistributed them to some of your party bigwigs.
Nevertheless, as the saying went, “Those who lived among wolves must learn to howl like wolves.” She steadied her voice, but let it cut like a razor. “Arkady Ilyich, in my position at the institute—and my seniority as a government employee—I am entitled to these perks. They are not yours to terminate.”

“Olga Leonidovna, if you don’t watch yourself you’ll end up
sweeping the streets for a living. These days Ph.D.s are exchanging their pens for mops and their podiums for pails.”

Her mouth went dry. “And who will turn out important scientific data that gives this institute its prestige?”

He sipped his tea. “You know about Yeltsin’s new directive. There are plenty of qualified unemployed
male
sociologists waiting for an opportunity.”

Olga drew in her breath as a new, unfamiliar fear joined her pent-up frustration. Never before had Arkady’s treatment of her been so dismissive. For fifteen years he “had ridden in her sleigh, joining in her song,” as the saying went.

He extended his hand. “The keys.”

Since everything left in the car could be stolen, she kept only one cigarette and matches in the glove compartment. She tossed the keys on the desk as tears gathered in her throat. The loss of this hard-won perk resonated in every fiber of her body. Wordlessly, she stuffed Arkady’s list of speakers into her bag and walked out.

He would learn his lesson soon enough when she published her “Democracy or Kleptocracy?” paper. With the exposure of what surely would point an accusing finger at his party’s cronies, they would take away more from him than just the keys to his car.