Hotel Moscow (22 page)

H
AVING FINALLY MET
her host, Brooke was disillusioned and disgusted. The civil war that so troubled Olga and Viktor seemed to be just a backdrop for Sidorov’s indulgence.

When the night clerk hesitated to return her passport—she hated not having it in her possession—she paid him ten dollars. Upstairs, she lay on her cot. Everyone had a price, Jenny had said. Brooke stared at the ceiling. Twenty years ago, she, too, had had her price.

Two weeks after leaving the hospital, no longer in the care of the kind strangers who had sheltered her for a month each in five different homes and then taken her baby away, Brooke vacillated between searing loneliness and feeling numb. She had been deposited at a truckers’ motel room along Seattle’s Rainier Avenue, where she alternated between sleep and crying. None of her recent benefactors visited her, and she ate nothing until the maid started bringing her sandwiches, apples, and Coke. Brooke almost broke down and called her parents, but being the
designated caretaker of their hearts, she couldn’t hurt them with a disappointment that topped all possible letdowns.

Returning to school was her only hope, her lifeline to sanity. However, having missed the spring semester, she had lost her scholarship.

The depression—a rock stuck in her heart—left her fuzzy, spent. Yet, in her moments of clarity, Brooke knew that her parents had survived much worse. She would endure this, and perhaps even find a future, if only she could pull herself together.

A week into her stay, the motel clerk informed her that her bill was no longer covered. She took the bus downtown, and the first employment agency she walked into sent her, as a summer temp, to the billing department of an entertainment magazine. She had no choice but to accept minimum wage pay, knowing it would be insufficient to pay tuition.

Her breasts were still full; her milk hadn’t dried in spite of the shot and the pills she had received at the hospital. Her stomach, though, was already as flat as a virgin prairie. She was beautiful, a photographer at the magazine told her. With heavy makeup and a wig, no one would ever recognize her.

Four months later, when her nude photographs were published in
Penthouse,
her figure was back to its boyish self, and she was back in Berkeley. The money had replaced the lost scholarship. Her parents never learned of her betrayal, never had to face the disappointment.

For twenty years, Brooke had been on the lookout for those photographs, certain they would jump out of her past and bite her, reclaiming every penny she had received with a compound interest that would leave her life in bankruptcy. Five days ago,
they had finally arrived—and then immediately been lost at the Moscow airport’s customs office.

Fighting the depressing thought that she was being blackmailed, Brooke rose from her cot, grabbed her thermos, and set out to ask the floor matron to fill it with hot water. At the end of the corridor, several men hung about, waiting for their turn with the prostitutes. Brooke caught sight of two striking young women chatting outside their rooms, both dressed in lace, taking a smoking break.

A man emerged from the elevator and inspected her. Brooke quickened her steps. As usual, the floor matron’s door was wide open, and the old woman sat across from a blaring TV, her elbows resting on her protruding belly. She turned her head toward Brooke. Rivulets of tears streamed down the creases of her face.

The pain in the hooded eyes startled Brooke. Silently, the woman pointed to the TV, which showed soldiers fleeing in all directions, chased by crowds brandishing clubs and farm tools. Bystanders hurled cobblestones at a group of soldiers, who fled into a building.

“
Uzhasno,
” the woman cried. “
Uzhasno.
” She shook her fist at the TV set, and began to sob, mumbling in Russian.

The sight of the defeated soldiers alarmed Brooke. If wild crowds were winning against a trained army, it could only lead to anarchy. “
Dah. Uzhasno,
” she said. The picture suddenly cut to a rectangle of storming snowflakes. The old woman rose to her feet, sniffling. Brooke wanted to retreat, but the woman yanked the thermos out of her hand. “
Keep-ya-tok.
Boiling water,” she said, and filled it.

“
Spasiba.
Thanks.” Brooke handed her a packet of gum and returned to her room. She had given the rest of her tea bags to Svetlana, but Amanda had left a used one in a plastic baggie. Brooke dropped it into the steaming thermos.

She searched her packed suitcase, took out Olga’s nesting matryoshka, opened all six dolls, and lined them up on her night table. The carved wood was thin, the hollowed-out insides as smooth as little wombs.

When Amanda returned, both of them silently readied for bed. Brooke peeked under her blanket for cockroaches and, finding the bed uninvaded, crawled in. She fell into the long tunnel of sleep.

The first knocks on the door, a light rapping, became a part of a dream where she leaped and hopped in a tribal circle. There was some ancient, deep, and monotonous chanting, and a soothsayer disguised as Olga stood in the center, tapping her stick to the rhythm. The tapping became louder and more insistent. Jerked out of her sleep, Brooke bolted upright.

“Amanda? Brooke?”

“Judd?” Brooke jumped out of bed and opened the door, conscious of her thin negligee and bare feet. “What is it?”

Judd stepped into the small vestibule and closed the door behind him. In the light coming from the bathroom, there was something strange about him, but she was too self-conscious about her own state of undress to stare.

She brushed her hair from her face. The travel clock on her night table indicated it was two-thirty in the morning. “What’s wrong?”

“The uprising is getting nasty, possibly dangerous.”

“How bad?” Amanda asked from her bed. She rose to lean on her elbow.

“Yeltsin is finally responding, but the army is on Rutskoy’s side. So Yeltsin’s asked
civilians
to fight.”

“That already happened, yesterday at five o’clock,” Brooke said, recalling her conversation with Olga. “What’s different?”

“Fifteen thousand people showed up and thousands more are flooding into the city—in addition to the many thousands that had poured in these past two weeks of standoff.”

Cold sweat erupted on Brooke’s back. “Civil war?”

“So far, the army says it’s not their job to shoot Russian citizens, but that could change.” Judd’s tone was urgent. “Without the army, Yeltsin might not make it.”

“We could wake up in the morning back in Communist Russia,” Brooke said to Amanda. “I don’t get it. Yeltsin’s had weeks to prepare.”

Amanda got up and stepped to the vestibule. “What are we supposed to do?”

Judd said, “I want the group packed and ready to leave. I don’t want the bunch of you stuck here with no protection.”

Brooke stared at him. “Where would we go? The airport is shut down.”

“What about the embassy?” Amanda asked. “We are registered with them.”

Judd shook his head. “Their compound is closed. I’m checking some possibilities, maybe move you all to a village outside of town.”

“You sound like you’re back in Vietnam.” Brooke’s eyes suddenly took in his clothes. He wore tattered pants held up by a
rope, and the soles of his work shoes had separated. “Why are you dressed like a hobo?”

“I’ve been outside tonight and didn’t want to attract attention.”

“With the curfew on?”
Who was he?
Brooke hugged herself, hearing the distant roar of something heavy thundering down a hill. “Are those tanks?” she asked.

He nodded.

“If the army doesn’t support Yeltsin, where are the tanks going?”

“We’re caught in a goddamned war.” He crossed the room and pushed the window open. Brooke heard the muffled rumble punctuated by the
rat-a-tat
of machine guns. The air smelled of gun powder and something orangey, like rotten garbage.

A cold breeze rushed in. Brooke threw open her suitcase, yanked out her robe and put it on. Whatever scheme Judd was concocting, he was the only one trying to help them. She began placing the matryoshka dolls one inside the other. How she wished she had Hoffenbach’s home phone number. Although it was still the weekend, she hoped he had received either the message she’d left at his office or news of Moscow before heading to the airport to fetch her.

Judd closed the window and lifted the phone receiver. Brooke could hear the dial tone’s flat shrill. “We may lose electricity soon.” He hung up the phone and stepped to the door.

“What should we do?” Amanda asked.

“Stay tuned.”

N
O ADDITIONAL NEWS
arrived. Amanda woke the rest of the group and asked them all to pack and be ready—and then catch sleep for the rest of the night in their clothes. They’d have to wait to leave until curfew was lifted. Brooke’s memories of her harrowing journey through downtown Moscow still fresh in her mind, she was relieved not to have to brave wild masses or barricades in the dark of the night.

At seven, she placed a phone call to the embassy—just in case someone picked up—but there was no answer at the other end. Only a few members of the hotel staff could arrive this early, so the women settled in the seating area on the ninth floor, drinking tea and munching on their supplies of crackers and cookies. Brooke couldn’t read the thin smile on Amanda’s colorless lips, but her own eyes burned from lack of sleep.

Aleksandr had surprisingly managed to show up early, and so had the bus.

“Just check us out,” Amanda told him. “We’re ready.”

“We can’t check out until we settle the bill.”

“It’s long settled. We paid EuroTours in advance.”

“I must talk to my boss first. The guards won’t let you take out your suitcases until they get approval.”

“Whose approval?” Amanda asked.

“Let’s ditch the bags and get the hell out,” Brooke said.

Before Aleksandr had a chance to protest, Jenny yelled from the floor matron’s room, “Come quick! Everyone! CNN!”

On the screen, tanks rolled down the boulevards, scattering citizens. Clusters of people, huddled in winter coats, flattened themselves against walls as the heavy armor moved through. Alternate cameras zoomed in on units of militiamen and soldiers taking up positions in city squares and in front of office buildings whose super-size Soviet insignias indicated they belonged to the government.

Bile rose in Brooke’s throat. Except for the color picture, she could be watching a World War II movie. In the corner of the screen showing the besieged parliament building appeared the bearded face of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, his words dubbed into Russian. Brooke searched for Aleksandr to translate, but he hadn’t bothered to enter the room.

Judd, who had come up behind the group, said, “Looks like the army’s negotiated with Yeltsin and has finally agreed to support him. Yeltsin’s counterattack has already begun—”

“Can you read Blitzer’s lips?” Jenny asked. “You’re full of surprises.”

Brooke said nothing. Judd’s keeping secret his knowledge of Russian annoyed her.

“If the uprising is contained—” Amanda began.

“Yeltsin unleashing his army on civilians is hardly a comforting thought,” Brooke said. “I’d rather hide in a remote village than be stuck in the city.”

“We’re far enough from downtown, so we’re better off staying put,” Amanda said.

“With tanks and lunatics all over the place, we may not be safe here,” Brooke said, and looked at Judd for guidance.

Amanda glanced at a watch she had picked up at the craft market, a huge Russian-made contraption with a hammer-and-sickle emblem on its face. “Let’s see how the next couple of hours develop. Our meetings must be canceled, so there’s no place we need to be. Let’s ride out the storm here.”

“In the meantime, please get EuroTours to release us from this prison,” Brooke said. “We can’t be beholden to some mistake.”

As the women filed out, murmuring, she slunk back to her room to think and evaluate the situation. Judd must have a way to get things done. What kind of people were his contacts here? What had been his purpose when he prowled the streets during the night? What village had he planned to take them to?

Olga’s was the only voice of reason she knew in this city. She called her again.

A radio was blaring on the other end. “I saw the tanks on TV,” Brooke said. “What’s really going on?”

“
Disinformatsiya.
The old propaganda, all half-truths.” Olga’s voice plodded on as through sludge, and Brooke figured that Olga was starting her political campaign in case someone was eavesdropping. “When Gorbachev established
glasnost
in the late 1980s, it meant ‘openness.’ He promised to end these predigested slogans, these force-fed scripts. He promised free
dom of expression, freedom of the press—and we began to believe it. Yet here we are, five years later. No democracy looks, sounds, or behaves like this—”

An explosion jolted Brooke. A louder
boom
followed. The glass in the window quaked, once, twice. “Did you hear that?” she called out to Olga.

“Hear what?” Olga paused as though listening, and then whispered, “Go with Svetlana and meet me later at my office.”

It took Brooke’s brain a few seconds to switch gears.
Go with Svetlana where? Go to the Economic Authority offices?
Bile arose again from her gut. “Today?”

“Just go in for twenty minutes, she’ll translate for you, then you leave.”

“Olga, I can’t—”

“It’s simple.”

The line went dead.

B
ROOKE SLID INTO
the back seat of a private car Svetlana had hired as a taxi. As they headed out of Lenin Hills, all Brooke could discern from Svetlana’s responses was that the cab wouldn’t drive them to the Economic Authority building—only to the subway that would take them to the station nearest their destination.

They drove along the southern embankment road that followed the twisting Moskva River. Beyond it, hills curved up and away, nestling under a blanket of red and yellow trees as picturesque as upstate New York would be right now on the other side of the globe. Apprehension welled in Brooke. She told herself that Olga was right; she had the savvy to read the files, and if she was lucky, a brief glance accompanied by Svetlana’s translation would give her all the cues. In and out in twenty minutes, she would offer some basic assistance to women working in Svetlana’s or Vera’s factory.

Only a few passengers were on the train when she got on with
Svetlana. When Brooke sat down the ridges of the window frame dug into her back.

The train swooshed through Moscow at full speed. “Hey! It didn’t stop at the station!” Svetlana called out as the empty platform disappeared behind them.

All Brooke wanted was for the ordeal to be over, the uprising to be squelched, and the airport to reopen.

Fifteen minutes later, they managed to get off and take another train back. This time, they were delivered to the station they wanted. When the door opened, Brooke saw soldiers moving about the platform, their guns hanging from shoulder straps as they stopped random passengers and interrogated them. She clutched the train door until it began to close. Svetlana gave her a quizzical look, and Brooke stepped out.

A couple in front of them fumbled for their passports. Brooke touched Svetlana’s elbow and, holding her chin high, strutted on. Svetlana imitated her, and the soldiers let them through.

As they emerged from the underground station, cannon fire shook the ground under Brooke’s feet. Windows rattled in the building above her, echoing the booming explosions. Brooke covered her ears. This was indeed a war zone.

She pulled Svetlana back inside the entrance. “This is insane.”

“Dr. Rozanova said—”

Brooke’s heart pounded. She produced a notepad and map of Moscow. “In case we get separated, show me where we are and where we’re going.”

Svetlana traced with a bitten fingernail the ten blocks to the Economic Authority, and Brooke’s blood ran cold. “The building is only a few hundred yards away from the White House!”

Svetlana dropped her head. “I know.”

Did Olga know that? Brooke scanned the empty street. The military must have cleared the unruly mob she had seen the evening before. She glanced back into the long corridor of the subway and considered turning around.

It was too late, she realized. They were here. There might never be another chance to check the files. “Please write down in Cyrillic Dr. Rozanova’s office address,” she said, handing her notepad and pen to Svetlana.

Nearby, cannon shells exploded and the rapid fire of machine guns rattled the air. Svetlana handed the pad back to Brooke, who tucked it in her bag. Then she glanced right and left and stepped back into the street, incredulous at her own foolhardiness. Linking arms with Svetlana, Brooke whispered, “Don’t lose me.”

They scurried along, keeping close to the buildings. Brooke’s heartbeat thumped loudly in her ears. Smoke hung in the air like the aftermath of a fireworks display, making her eyes and throat burn.

They darted across a wide street, and Brooke caught sight of the Novoarbatsky Bridge a hundred yards away. She had passed the bridge with Viktor some forty hours earlier. A few brave bystanders were still gathered on it. In the open space, the noise of the cannonade was deafening and dust thickened the air, but the people seemed untroubled as they watched the battle raging around the White House in front of them as if it were a sports competition.

Brooke quickened her pace, ignoring Svetlana’s labored breathing. She let out a sigh of relief as they entered the unheated
lobby of the Economic Authority just ahead of a nearby blast. A guard behind a desk clutched the edges of his coat against the cold. Brooke was prepared to give him a five-dollar bill, but the man only wiggled the end of a finger poked through a buttonhole, waving her and Svetlana in.

The hallway on the eleventh floor was deserted, the lights off, the doors closed on both sides. Wan light poured in from the uncovered window at the end. A thin carpet absorbed their footsteps. Neither woman spoke until Svetlana stopped in front of a door.

“This is the Finance Department,” she whispered. “Where they approved my loans.” She put her ear to the door. “My friend Katerina works on this floor.”

A cannon shell exploded outside, its echo reverberating through the hallway. The window at the far end shattered, and glass flew toward them, some pieces landing just feet away.

“God Almighty.” Trembling, Brooke pressed herself against the wall and shook her clothes to free whatever minute shards might have stuck to them. “You’ll just read and translate for me the important page from each file and then we’ll leave.”

Svetlana turned the door knob, and Brooke hurried after her into a room lined with wooden filing cabinets, handwritten Cyrillic letters marking each drawer. She took out an Evian bottle, twisted open the top, and, after taking a sip, handed it to Svetlana. “Do you have the list?” she whispered.

“I memorized it, then destroyed it.” Svetlana struggled with the latch of a drawer.

Another explosion boomed outside. When the windows stopped rattling, Brooke peeked out and realized that that side of
the building overlooked the Moskva River. All she could see was a hanging stripe of smoke bifurcating the sky: crisp blue morning above, murky gray below.

Svetlana laid out four files on one of the desks. “Which one do you want me to translate?” Her voice quaked.

A huge explosion tore the air, shaking the windows. Brooke fell to her knees, then crawled under the desk. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Gunfire followed. Svetlana, crouching next to Brooke, reached for the files and put them on the floor. Brooke couldn’t help but admire her tenacity. She looked dubiously at the files. Each was one to three inches thick. What had made Olga think it would take only twenty minutes? Of course, she realized, Olga had never seen a business folder. As educated as she was, the sociologist possessed not a shred of knowledge of the world of commerce.

“We can’t go through them now,” Brooke whispered. The
rat-a-tat
of machine gun fire sounded.

“We must do as we’re told,” Svetlana said.

“Not to get killed. I’m not staying.” Brooke glanced at Svetlana’s glum expression and compromised. “Let’s take them and get out of here.” She withdrew her folded nylon bag from her purse. “You’ll return the files another time.”

Svetlana’s fingers fluttered near her throat. “We might get searched.”

“You’ll tell the soldiers that we’re on a special assignment for Yeltsin,” Brooke said, her heart hammering, and her patience wearing thin. She regretted her blind acceptance of Olga’s assurance that this was simple. Simple? If she got caught, she might be charged as a spy and her government might be unable to save
her; it had failed to release American hostages in Iran and Lebanon. Still, she stretched the bag open. “Put the files in.”

Svetlana’s lips were pale. “Nothing is right when the whole thing is wrong in the first place,” she mumbled, dumping in the files. The weight strained the bag’s straps.

Svetlana was right, of course. The whole scheme was insane from the get go. Heading toward the elevator, Brooke searched for words to keep the young Russian calm. Her own safety depended on it. “So far so good. It’s great that you know the building.”

“My friend wanted me to apply to work here. They hire people who know two foreign languages—” Svetlana stopped. An expression of horror settled on her face as she slammed her hand against her forehead. “
Bozhe moi,
my God.” She leaned against the marbled wall. “I forgot!”

“Forgot what?”

“That place,” Svetlana replied weakly. “Katerina told me about it— I must check—” She shook her head as though to clear it.

“Now? What place?”

“The eavesdropping center.”

Unwillingly, Brooke followed Svetlana back down the hallway.

Svetlana opened a door. “You wait in Katerina’s office.”

Brooke stood gaping. All around the room, laid out on mismatched shelves, stands and small tables, were recycled marmalade jars, tin cans, and butter crocks holding large and small house plants in every shade of green. “This is incredible,” she said.

“Katerina can’t grow them at home. She has no window.” Svetlana handed her a watering can. “Pretend you water the plants.”

An American caught watering plants in the Economic Authority? “Hurry back, please.” Brooke surveyed a sweet-potato vine that was so long it had been snaked up to the ceiling and was tied to the overhead light fixture, where it intertwined with other plants suspended from hooks to create a canopy of leaves. Spider plants and ferns hung in front of the window, while large ficus and elephant ears stood in the corners. Jade plants, aloes, cacti, and a midget palm completed the thick foliage.

Who was this Katerina who could create such a sanctuary of beauty in the midst of drabness? In what kind of hovel did she live if it didn’t even have a window? Brooke rationed the water in the can to make it last, and pictured this unknown, spirited woman. Would a woman with such a soul turn on her Jewish neighbors?

The door swung open, and a young man in uniform barged in. His eyes assessed Brooke’s clothes, and he glowered at her, then shot words in Russian.

Brooke’s vision swam. She held the watering can over a plant, trying to act natural. “Do you speak English?” she asked.

Her words seemed to jolt him. “America?
Handzup,
” he said in a heavy Russian accent. “
Chia
?”

Whatever he meant, she shook her head vigorously. “No. No.”

“
Russiya
—K.G.B. America—
Chia,
” he said.

Chia
? C.I.A.! Dread spread down to Brooke’s toes. “No
Chia.
” She shook her head again. “
Nyet.
”

A cannonade rattled the planters. The soldier drew a pistol
from his belt with his right hand, and brought out handcuffs with his left. “
Handzup,
” he said, cowboy-style.

“I’m okay.” She suppressed the tremor creeping into her voice. “Okay. Look.” She pointed at her purse on the desk. “Dollars?”

His eyes narrowed. The slight movement of his pistol indicated she could lift her bag.

She didn’t count the wad of twenties in her wallet; just handed it to him and watched it disappear inside his pocket. She must catch Svetlana before she returned and walked right into this trap. Swallowing hard, Brooke moved toward the door and picked up her blue nylon bag. The files shouldn’t be found in Katerina’s office, implicating an innocent woman.

All the way down to the lobby, the soldier remained so close at Brooke’s heels she could smell his sour sweat. In the empty lobby, he gave her shoulder a rough shove toward the exit door.

Stepping out, Brooke held herself from breaking into a run. The street was devoid of traffic. The cannon blasts were deafening. Brooke turned in the direction of the subway station. Sooner or later Svetlana would have to get there.

Her senses heightened by adrenaline, she began to retrace the ten-block route. She tried not to catch the eyes of the men who milled about by the bridge. Thirty feet ahead, a half-dozen teenagers frolicked, roughhousing and laughing through the din.

Suddenly Brooke was thrown to the ground. Her brain jiggled inside her skull. A huge boom followed a split second later, her teeth slammed together, and a sharp pain pierced her tongue. Her eardrums hurt as a shower of stone and thick dust fell on her. She tasted blood.

Echoes of the blast ricocheted around the high-rise buildings
along with the sound of glass falling and then what sounded like a wall collapsing. It took willpower to wiggle her fingers and toes. She took inventory of her limbs. A helicopter rotor chugged in her ears, and she registered that the sound came from inside her head. A strong hand pressed her pulse, and she forced herself to scramble to all fours as a kaleidoscope of yellows and reds pulsated behind her eyes. Her tongue throbbed and her body felt like lead. Two arms in militia fatigue snaked from behind her, closed on her chest, and pulled her up. A voice behind her commanded something in Russian.

“I’m okay,” Brooke tried to say, but it came out as a croak. The straps of the blue vinyl bag were still looped on her shoulder, and the bag’s weight bore into her flesh. She staggered to her feet, and pulled the militiaman’s arms apart, stepping away. She coughed out dust. “What the hell happened?” she asked, realizing a moment too late that she should have kept her mouth shut rather than speak English.

The soldier responded in gruff Russian.

Brooke scanned her surrounding, her brains swimming in confusion. A large hole gaped in the middle of the street in front of her. A teenager was writhing on the ground eight feet away, and it took Brooke a couple of seconds to digest that the detached leg with the sock and sneaker lying at her feet belonged to him. Horror spread through her, the street swayed, undulated, and she blinked twice, wondering whether she would faint and hit her head again.

The militiaman pushed her against a wall to steady her. Soldiers ran to the hole and hoisted out the bodies of two more boys.

“I’m okay,” Brooke said. She forced her brain to focus. She
must get away fast. What if they inspected the vinyl bag? She had lost her courage; she would dump the files if she had to.

The teenagers’ bodies were hoisted on stretchers. Another boy, seemingly unhurt, stood at a distance, screaming, his hands and face raised toward the sky. Brooke clutched the vinyl bag to her chest and inched away from the wall. Her mouth was filled with soil and blood. “I’m okay,” she repeated, feeling her tongue swelling. She reached down for her purse, and nearly lost consciousness as she grasped it. The boy’s detached limb was inches away from it. Tears spurted into her eyes.