Hotel Moscow (34 page)

        
1. When Brooke first decides to go to Moscow, her goal is to gain expertise about the new market in order to save her job. Discuss the change in her goals once she arrives at the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory.

        
2. It’s widely believed that friendship can transcend cultures. Can it really? Discuss Brooke’s relationship with the Russian women she meets in light of her realization of their anti-Semitic past (Olga) or present (Svetlana).

        
3. How has escaping her sad home and the legacy of the Holocaust affected Brooke? Did she gain the freedom she sought?

        
4. With the fall of communism Russian women lost their rights and the safety nets of social services. Discuss what legal rights they had that women in the United States did not have and what rights we had that they sorely needed.

        
5. Corruption in 1993 Russia seems to have pervaded every sphere of life. Discuss what you’ve learned from the novel, what feeds it, and what, you believe, are the ways to rein it. Is it different from what we know of corruption in our own political, economic, or social systems?

        
6. In the novel, we get a glimpse of the living conditions of most Russians during communism when we visit Svetlana’s and Vera’s apartments. What, if anything, did you find surprising? In what other ways did you see the Russian government’s indifference to its people?

        
7. Judd becomes Brooke’s love interest, but it takes her time to trust him. Discuss your take on the development of their relationship. What is unique to them and where do you foresee it heading?

        
8. Brooke carries with her two secrets that threaten to destroy her career. Yet she is thrilled when one of those secrets is exposed. Does it have the potential to destroy her the way the other might? Are they viewed differently in the context of our current mores? What about your own social environment?

        
9. Svetlana commiserates with Brooke upon learning that Brooke works long hours, and believes that “they make you work so hard.” Discuss the differences in career choices and work lifestyle for people living under these the two superpowers.

      
10. In spite of her high education, Olga is ignorant about the most basic business principals. The concept of capitalism is both revered and loathed. Discuss how a government-controlled market economy is different from an open market economy—research, pricing, distribution, promotion. Do you believe that government should stay completely out of the game or impose some regulations and controls?

      
11. When President Yeltsin was frustrated in his attempts to reform the old system and to pass new democratic laws, he fired the entire Duma, the Russian parliament whose members had been elected through a democratic process. (Or had they used their former power to be elected?) He eventually used the army to force them to leave the building and to subdue their sympathizers. What were his options before, during, and after the crisis? From what you know about Russia today, how have things changed?

      
12. Brooke is looking forward to meeting her powerful host, Sidorov, until she meets him. Discuss his character. What was his motivation in inviting the group?

      
13. Jenny is a colorful character who has taken control of her life and makes sure to be noticed. How is she perceived by her fellow American travelers and by the Russian women? What is her real motivation when she speaks with Sidorov?

      
14. The Russian male characters vary. Compare Aleksandr, Sidorov, Viktor, and Belgorov. What typifies each and what motivates each?

      
15. Judd tells Brooke about his father. How had Judd—a third-generation survivor of the Holocaust—been affected by his family history?

      
16. Brooke does not want her Judaism to be defined by the Holocaust or by anti-Semitism. Yet, has she found an answer at the end of this short visit to Russia? Did the past twenty years of running away from her legacy help her find a new way? What makes her Jewish?

      
17. Judaism in our open, mostly secular Jewish society is seeking new definitions, new grooves. Discuss what it means to you to be Jewish. If you are a nonpracticing Christian, what defines your Christianity?

      
18. When Svetlana expresses anti-Semitic opinions, Brooke’s instinct to correct her is always pushed aside by more urgent issues. At the end, in spite of Svetlana’s repeated remarks, Brooke does everything to save her. Discuss what this means in terms of Brooke’s Jewish values.

      
19. Russian women seem to have strong opinions about femininity. What does the notion of femininity mean to them, and how much is it the same or different in your social milieu?

      
20. Olga gives Brooke a matryoshka doll. Discuss the symbolism of these nesting dolls both in the context of the novel and your own life.

SEPTEMBER 1911/TISHREI 5672

E
STHER’S HAND
raced over the paper as if the colored pencils might be snatched from her, the quivering inside her wild, foreign, thrilling. All this time she hadn’t known that “blue” was actually seven distinct shades, each with its own name—azure, Prussian, cobalt, cerulean, sapphire, indigo, lapis. She pressed the waxy pencils on the paper, amazed by the emerging hues: the ornaments curving on the Armenian vase were lapis; the purplish contours of the Jerusalem mountains were shrouded by indigo evening clouds. In this stolen hour at Mademoiselle Thibaux’s dining-room table, she could draw without being scolded for committing the sin of idleness, God forbid.

A pale gecko popped up on the chiseled stone of the windowsill and scanned the room with staccato movements until it met Esther’s gaze. Her fingers moving in a frenzy, she drew the gecko’s raised body, its tilted head, its dark orbs focused on her. She studied the translucency of the skin of the valiant creature that kept kitchens free of roaches. How did God paint their fragility? She picked up a pink-gray pencil and traced the fine scales. They lay flat on the page, colorless. She tried the lightest brown—

Her hand froze. What was she thinking? A gecko was an idol, the kind pagans worshipped. God knew, at every second, what every Jew was doing for His name. He observed her now, making this graven image, explicitly forbidden by the Second Commandment,
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

With a jerk of its head, the gecko darted away. Esther stared at the paper, her hand in midair. She had never imagined a sin like this.

Mlle Thibaux walked in from the kitchen nook, smiling. Her skin was smooth, luminous, and her brown hair uncovered, its coquettish ripples pinned by twin tortoiseshell combs. She picked up Esther’s drawing and examined it. “
C’est merveilleux! Quel talent!
”

Esther blushed. The praise reflected what Mlle Thibaux’s raised eyebrows had revealed that morning in sixth-grade French class when she had caught Esther doodling. To Esther’s consternation, her teacher must have detected the insects hidden inside the branches and leaves. The teacher turned the page this way and that, and her eyes widened. She then asked Esther to stay after school, and Esther was certain she would be ordered to conjugate the verb “to be” hundreds of times on the blackboard:
je suis, tu es, il est, elle est
—Instead, Mlle Thibaux invited her to her apartment at the Hospice Saint Vincent de Paul, a palace-like building with arch-fronted wings, carved colonnaded verandas and balustraded stairwells. The teacher was a
shiksa
, a gentile. Newly arrived from Paris, she probably didn’t know that while it wasn’t forbidden in Esther’s ultra-Orthodox community to decorate with flourished letters and ornamental shapes, drawing God’s creatures was another matter.

Now, holding Esther’s drawing, Mlle Thibaux smiled. “Here, try mixing these two colors.” On a separate page, she sketched a few irregular lines with a pink pencil, then scattered some short leaf-green lines in between.

Esther chewed the end of her braid. Fear of God had been instilled in her with her mother’s milk and in the Ten Commandments tablets displayed everywhere, from her classroom to the bakery. In addition, the Torah pronounced that any urge must be suppressed, as it would surely lead to sinning. The quickening traveling through Esther again proved that what she was doing was forbidden. Her mother said that Esther’s harshest punishment for sinning would be failure to become betrothed at twelve, as every good Jerusalem maiden should upon entering her mitzvah age. Yet, as Mlle Thibaux handed her the pink and green pencils, Esther silently prayed for God’s forgiveness and recreated the hues inside the gecko’s scales. To her astonishment, they blended as a translucent skin.

A knock sent Mlle Thibaux to the door, her back erect and proud as no woman Esther had ever known. The teacher accepted a pail from the water hauler and carried it to the kitchen while Esther collected the pencils into their tin box.

Outside the window, slicing off the top of the Tower of David, a cobalt-blue sky hung low on the horizon like a wedding
chupah
with a ribbon of magenta underlining it. A flock of sparrows jostled for footing in the date palm tree, then rose in a triangular lace shawl formation before settling again. The warm smell of caramelized sugar wafting from the kitchen made Esther hungry for tonight’s dinner, a leftover Shabbat challah dipped in milk and egg, fried and then sprinkled with sugar. Closing the pencil box, her hand traced its scene of a boulevard in Paris, lined with outdoor cafés and their dainty, white, wrought-iron chairs. Women wearing elegant hats and carrying parasols looped their arms through men’s holding walking sticks, and the open immodesty of the gesture shocked Esther even as it made something inside her tingle. In Jerusalem, only Arab men, dressed in their striped pajamas, idled on low stools in the souk and played backgammon from sunrise to sunset. Their eyes glazed over as they sucked the mouthpieces of hoses coiled around boiling tobacco narghiles. Paris. Esther had never known a girl who traveled, but when she had been little, her father, her Aba, apprenticed at a bank in America. It was a disastrous exposure to “others,” her mother, her Ima, said, because it filled his head with reprehensible new ideas, worse than the simpleton Hassids’. That was why Aba sent his daughters to a school so elegant that Yiddish was frowned upon. Most subjects were taught in English, and Esther mingled there with Sepharadi Jewish girls who spoke Ladino and Arabic as well as with secular girls—heretic Zionists all of them, Ima said—who spoke the sacred Hebrew.

“
Chérie
, will you light the candles?” Mlle Thibaux walked in from the kitchen nook and placed a silver tea set on a spindle table covered with a crocheted napkin. The high collar of her blouse was stiff over starched pleats running down the front to a cinched waist, but when she moved, her long skirt immodestly hinted at legs. Had she ever walked in Paris with a man, daring to loop her arm in his?

Mlle Thibaux smiled. “It’s four o’clock—”

Four o’clock? Esther’s hand rose to her throat. Ima, who expected her to attend to her many chores right after classes, had been laboring alone while Esther was indolent. Ima would be furious. “I must go home—”

Mlle Thibaux pointed to a plate with slices of glazed cake sprinkled with shaved almonds and cinnamon. “It’s kosher.”

“
Non, merci.
The neighborhood gates will get locked for the night.” Saliva filling Esther’s mouth, she gathered her long plaid skirt and backed toward the door. She had never tasted a French cake; it had been ages since she had eaten any cake. But Mlle Thibaux’s kitchen was
traife
, non-kosher. Esther wouldn’t add another sin to her list. “
Merci beaucoup!
”

She ran out of the apartment, down the two flights of steps, and across the stone-paved yard to the street facing the Jaffa Gate in the Old City wall, where camels awaited pilgrims and Turkish soldiers patrolled. Restless birds chirped in desperation to find shelter for the night. Wind rustled the tops of the tall cypresses and whipped fallen leaves into a spin. Maybe it would rain soon, finally replenishing the dry cistern under her house.

Running downhill, she turned north, her sandals pounding the cobblestones. At least she wasn’t barefoot as she had been that morning, putting her sandals on at the gate to Evelina de Rothschild school to save the soles. She vaulted over foot-wide sewage channels dug in the center of the alleys. Then there was the open hill with only rocks and scattered dry bushes flanking the dirt path grooved by men, carts and beasts. Climbing fast up the path, she listened for sounds beyond the trilling of crickets and the buzzing of mosquitoes. In the descending darkness, a Jewish girl might be dishonored by a Turkish soldier or murdered by an Arab. Just on the next hill, the grandfather she had never met had been assassinated while inspecting land he purchased for the first Jewish neighborhood outside the Old City.

A scruffy black dog stood on a rock. Esther’s heart leaped. Dogs were despicable creatures; they carried diseases that made people insane. It growled and exposed yellow-gray teeth. When Esther swerved out of the path, it gave chase. She screamed, running faster, the dog barking behind her. She grabbed the hem of her skirt, and her feet pounded on rocks, twisting, stumbling. If she tripped, she’d die. Now that the Ottoman Empire was crumbling and the sultan neglected his subjects, hungry Jerusalemites ate even rotting scraps of food, and starving dogs bit people. The Turkish policemen killed dogs on sight.

Was that the dog’s breath on her heels? She gulped air. Her wet cheeks were cold in the rush of wind. A blister burned the sole of her foot. The dog must smell her sweat, her fear. She couldn’t outrun it. Her punishment for drawing idols had come so soon! It had never occurred to her that there could be a fate worse than Ima’s warning about failing to find a groom. To Esther, that threat had always sounded like a blessing.

Cold pain sliced her rib cage, and her lungs burned. She could run no more. She stopped. Whirling, she faced the dog, exposed her teeth and snarled, waving her arms like the mad girl she’d become if it bit her.

To her amazement, the beast halted. Another snarl rose from Esther’s chest, tearing her throat, and the animal backed off. She flailed her arms again, and the dog tucked its tail and slunk away.

Her heart still struggling to escape its confinement, Esther whispered a prayer of thanks and then fumbled for the amulet in her pocket to stave off the evil eye. Her pulse drummed in her ears. She broke into a trot. Five more minutes to Me’ah She’arim. Her inner thighs chafed over her belted socks, but stopping wasn’t an option. Wicked winds—worse than dogs—gusted in search of a soul deserving punishment, one that had defied God.