Hotel Moscow (5 page)

“The rest of our group is upstairs,” Brooke yelled as she sprinted to the exit. “Clear everyone out of the building before the men set the place on fire!”

T
HE BUS DRIVER
had kept the door open. His radio was playing Michael Jackson’s “Black or White.” Aleksandr, seated in the first row to the driver’s right, chatted with him.

Brooke set one foot on the bus step. “Did you see them?” she called to Aleksandr, hearing her own hysteria. “Did you hear what’s going on?” At the sound of her shout, a flock of ravens perched on the high concrete wall screeched and took off.

Aleksandr fidgeted. “It’s none of our business.”

“We almost got killed! The building might catch fire with the rest of our group trapped there.”

He looked at her blankly.

She hoisted herself up the second step and brought her face inches from his. Her tongue felt thick, and her lips were parched. “Aleksandr, a man was stabbed. A woman may be dead. They’re going to burn the place down. Get the police. Now!”

“Who?” Aleksandr clutched his leather manila case to his chest. “I don’t have the number.”

“You don’t know the number for the police?”

“There’s no phone here anyway, and it’s almost four o’clock.”

“
So
?”

“The police go home.”

A chair burst through the second floor window, crashing by the bus. The ravens rose into the air again.

Workers poured out of the building. Jenny pushed past Brooke and plopped into a seat, sobbing. To Brooke’s relief, Amanda came running out of another corner of the building, the rest of the group close at her heels. Amanda counted the women entering the bus. “What in God’s name has happened?” she asked Brooke.

The shaking would not leave Brooke’s body. “They’re going to burn the place. I saw them punch Svetlana, stab the economist, and maybe kill another woman.” She swallowed. “Didn’t you hear it?”

“We were two floors up on the other end of the building—”

Brooke cut her off. “Maybe there’s a cop at a street corner.”

Without replying, Amanda took off in the direction of the gate, but turned around as soon as she rounded the bus. “The alley is blocked!” she yelled from her spot.

Brooke stepped behind the bus and saw a dark blue Mercedes parked across the passageway. “You’re not going anywhere alone,” she said to Amanda.

“The group is my responsibility.” Amanda’s brow crinkled as she tried to assess the situation. “I must get you all out of
here.” She turned and started ushering the agitated women into the bus.

Brooke got on the first step again and called out to Aleksandr. “Get up, get off the bus, and go to a neighbor, find a phone, and call for help. Now.”

His hands moved in a gesture of powerlessness. “If the factory didn’t make arrangements with the police or with a private group, it can’t get protection.”

Brooke stared at him.

“Things must be done
po blatu,
” he added. “Through connections.”

At a single uniform yelp from the women on the bus, Brooke’s head snapped around. The thugs raced out of the building and jumped into their Mercedes. The engine revved up and the car jerked forward, then fishtailed through the gate.

“Brooke, get in and let’s go,” Amanda said to her.

But Brooke’s glance took in the building and she saw Svetlana emerge, her face puffy, holding her jaw. She hurried toward Svetlana.

“Tell Amanda you should better leave. . . . I apologize,” Svetlana said, panting. “This is bad hospitality—” She broke into a sob. Brooke pulled her close, the sweet perfume mingled with perspiration. Svetlana was almost a head shorter. Brooke stroked her back. She wished someone would comfort her, too.

“Brooke,” Amanda called out.

On the front seat of the bus Jenny was crossing herself. Brooke hesitated, still stroking Svetlana’s back. She had seen enough of Russia. She knew what to advise her clients about investing in a country where even in its largest city the police went home by
four o’clock—and whose phone number was unlisted. Hoffenbach’s report about the budding violence in Russia mentioned that mafia gangs sprouted on every street, every neighborhood, every industry. Brooke hadn’t fathomed the extent of that, hadn’t imagined a head-on collision with its ugly face.

She must leave. Now. Yet, how could she drive away from these women? How had the Holocaust righteous done it? Those non-Jews who had rescued people from torture and death had risked not only their own lives, but also the lives of their entire families—to save even one Jew. Brooke had been powerless during the attack, but now the danger was over. Or was it? The “protecting” gang might still show up.

“Amanda, I’m going back in.” Not waiting for her friend’s response, Brooke snapped her fingers to get Jenny’s attention. “Take care of Svetlana.”

Once inside the building, Brooke dashed up the stairs two at a time, Amanda and some others at her heels. In the second floor loft, the fetid smell of sweat, gasoline, and blood hung in the air. The economist, the supervisor, and another seamstress lay on the ground, crumpled white cotton fabric tucked under their heads. A few women surrounded each of the injured. One pressed a wad of cotton against the economist’s bleeding abdomen wound. Wearing only one shoe, another worker hobbled about as though trying to figure out where she was. “
Slozhno,
” she wept. “
Slozhno.
”

Slozhno.
The hair on Brooke’s arms stood. Her mother had used that word. It meant “complicated, exhausting,” and whenever her mother uttered it, little Bertha had felt powerless to ease her suffering.

Brooke caught the woman’s hands to stop her pacing. “Are you okay?”

As though awakened, the woman startled.

“Telephone. Taxi. Hospital.” Brooke gave the woman a few single dollars and pointed toward the injured.

Amanda knelt next to the gray-haired woman on the floor and took her pulse, then began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Brooke scanned the devastated factory, the broken sewing machines, and the damaged rolls of raw material. All that cotton could have been cut in new designs that better served the market. In Brooke’s years as an investment manager, she had devised funding for river dams in China and had worked with experts to build a desalination plant in Saudi Arabia. But this? Nothing had prepared her for the reality of the Russian women’s business environment.

She breathed in gasoline fumes and stared at the broken windows. She couldn’t muster a single spiritual, comforting thought. She had been delusional, thinking she could fix any of this. In her head, Brooke could hear her mother’s horrified reaction if she found out her only child had joined a mission to help the hated Russians, of all people.

Brooke sagged against the rough cinder block wall and covered her face.

When she looked up again, the flock of ravens circled above the fence, made a sudden dip, then flapped upward again, screeching.

D
URING THE HOUR-LONG
drive to the hotel through traffic, gloom settled in the bus like smoke. Even Jenny, suffering from what she called the heebie-jeebies, was quiet. Brooke tightened her coat and sank deeper into her seat. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was until Amanda, seated next to her, twisted the cap off an Evian bottle, and offered it to her. Brooke took a big gulp, then another. The lump in her throat remained lodged.

I’m alive.
The gruesome fifteen-minute event was only one brief scene from the nightmare her parents had experienced day after day, month after month, year after year. No wonder their well of emotions had dried up.

Brooke turned to Amanda. “The mobsters saw the bus. They knew we were there. Why didn’t they put off their attack until a more opportune time?”

Amanda shook her head. “I didn’t see when it happened, but
I saw the aftermath. It’s horrible. I’d never expected anything like this.”

“There are no laws and no police here,” Brooke said. “What if the mobsters want to get rid of the witnesses?”

Amanda gave her a strange look.

“We need security,” Brooke pushed on. “Aleksandr saw these guys enter the building but he didn’t even come looking for us. Can we replace him, get another escort?”

“I’ll certainly put in a request. And also ask for protection.”

“We need a small army.”

“The escort from EuroTours is assigned by the Economic Authority. Security is a different story. Obviously, I can’t just hire people off the street.” Amanda sighed. “As soon as we get to the hotel, I will contact the American Embassy, see what they suggest.”

“May I help? I can make phone calls.”

“You’ve been through a lot. Let me take care of things. But we could both use a good cup of tea. Will you please ask the
dezhurnayia
to fill our thermos with hot water from her samovar?”

The driver turned on the radio again, and Gloria Estefan sang “Coming Out of the Dark.” Brooke looked out the window, her body tuned to the rhythm of the wheels, their syncopated sound broken by the untuned clanking of rusty parts. The streets seemed cold even when filled with people, the pedestrians’ gaits lethargic. Other than an occasional aluminum and glass kiosk, there was no sign of commerce on the boulevards. The buildings, even the magnificent ones, had no store-front windows, cafés, or restaurants. How long would a change take—if democracy won?

Springs jutted out of Brooke’s seat cushion. She shifted her body to ease her contact points, but could still feel their jabbing. The month before, she had helped Prince Jamal of Morocco buy a Rolls-Royce at an auction. What was she doing on this clanking bus—and in this dammed country?

Words from Svetlana’s welcome speech crossed her head. “Women have the special compassion to put old grievances aside and find the common denominator of the many things we share, to be friends.” Tears sprouted into Brooke’s eyes as she recalled hugging Svetlana. There had been more hugs today—the well-wishers at the airport, the cafeteria workers, the seamstresses at the factory—than she had received from her own mother over a lifetime. She had connected with these women whose language she didn’t speak and whose wretched lives she barely comprehended. She had been inspired by their valiant hope. If the past of her parents’ generation had come and gone before she was born, now she was staring at an alternate future for these Russian women, a future beyond the current obstacles they faced. Their desperate present shook her, but she had in abundance what they needed to change it: knowledge.

The dusty, mildewed air in the bus mingled with the aroma of discarded carnations. Brooke struggled with the window’s latch until the glass panel slid down a notch. She sank back in her seat and sipped water. She must remember that she had come here to gather information, to exploit the trip in order to boost her prospects of keeping her job—not to get herself raped, beaten, or burned to death. How could she risk her life for the people who had persecuted her family? She touched her Star of David, hidden under her buttoned blouse. Helping people in despair
was a Jewish value, the rabbi had said just last week. That was what defined her Judaism, not the Holocaust.

The bus rumbled through a densely inhabited area with wide streets that were strangely almost devoid of people, as if this were a deserted Hollywood set. No patch of grass brightened the exposed dirt, no benches welcomed pedestrians to rest along the boulevards, no stores beckoned shoppers. Brooke wanted to pierce through the massive buildings, right into people’s kitchens, to understand this strange, complicated city whose fierce cruelty still contained a genuine vein of warmth.

B
ACK AT HER
hotel room, Brooke changed into an oversize T-shirt. All her joints ached from the earlier surge of adrenalin. After retrieving hot water from the floor matron, she made tea for Amanda and herself, sat at the desk, and pulled out her yellow pad to write a fax to her parents. As much as she hated telling them where she was, worse would be her vanishing in this vast country without a word. Her father, at least, should know her whereabouts. Maybe he’d keep it from her mother.

“Writing to the office?” Amanda asked.

Brooke shook her head. Normally she would. The partners of her firm were men who had once mentored her; later, as she gained their trust and appreciation, their professional lives merged with their social lives. She attended Fourth of July barbecues at their homes, often the only single woman. Sometimes the hosting wife invited a nephew or a young neighbor, but beyond several dates, nothing ever came out of these matchmaking efforts. When it came to emotional intimacy, Brooke forever
felt herself floating in a bubble of Holocaust second-generation syndrome.

Now, with the recent buyout, she could see that her office had given her a false sense of family, not unlike her parents’ sad home, not unlike the bosom of her Berkeley commune of her college days: All were transient.

“How do I fax from here?” she asked Amanda.

“Aleksandr can bring them to his office tomorrow, while we’re at the conference.”

“Before or after he’s fired?”

“Brooke, you’ve been witness to a horrific scene today. I’m sorry about it. Luckily none of us got hurt. Let’s try to muster positive thoughts.” Amanda rooted in her suitcase, and brought out a purple candle. She placed it on the edge of the desk.

“What’s this for?”

“A scented candle. For healing.”

Brooke rose and went to the window, but could see nothing. Darkness had fallen on Moscow early, suddenly, skipping the twilight stage, surprising her with its finality. She turned back to the room. “Will a candle heal the economist stabbed in his side? Or that woman you gave CPR to? Or Svetlana’s jaw? What kind of powers do you attribute to a man-made candle—lit or not?”

“It gives me peace.” Amanda struck a matchbook. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

This was what Brooke’s mother had railed against all her life: How, while members of their tribe had been slaughtered, Americans—Jews and non-Jews alike—were silent, inactive. Later, as the horrors came to public attention, Americans preferred first to ignore them, then turned them into clichés. In war
films you couldn’t feel how cold it was, her mother said, how the sewer where Jews hid stunk, how Nazi bands’ music echoed in hungry stomachs, or how the odor of the incinerators where Jews burned stayed on the skin.

“Living in New York City, I too prefer to think that we’ve put cruelty and bigotry behind us,” Brooke said. “When that ‘We Are the World’ song came along, I too nurtured the delusion that the world is one large global community. Today, I stared evil in the eyes.”

“What do you think I’m doing here in Russia, organizing this mission?” Amanda asked. “I just don’t show my compassion with your intensity.”

Brooke clammed up and stepped to the bed. Lifting the covers, she peeked at the linens, then lay down. Frayed from years of repeated washing, the cotton sheets felt surprisingly welcoming. “Sorry to dump on you. I’m tired.”

Sitting cross-legged on a towel she’d spread on the carpet, Amanda said, “Here’s a lovely thought to fall asleep to. You have an admirer.”

“Not Aleksandr, I hope.”

Amanda smiled. Her face was at a level with Brooke’s eyes.

“Nikolai Sidorov?”

“Not quite.”

“An American?”

“Yup.”

Brooke groaned. “Now I have to wait nine days until we return to meet him.”

“How do you feel about the domestic package—a husband and kids in the suburbs?”

Brooke stared at the spider-like cracks in the ceiling. “It would be nice to have someone to snuggle with. But it may be too late for children.” She shifted her gaze back to Amanda. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Just wondering. It wouldn’t work for me. I can’t be tied down.”

“Some freedoms are overrated.” Brooke closed her eyes again. Her experience of freedom at the commune at Berkeley had been exhilarating while it lasted; she would never have traded the love she had found there. Except that, like most loves, it had its price.

A
MANDA’S VOICE BROKE
through Brooke’s sleep. “Wake up. You’re late for dinner.”

“No dinner. Thanks.” Brooke turned to face the wall, pulling the covers over her head.

“Listen, I spoke with the commercial attaché at the embassy. He suggests we leave even though there’s no State Department alert. He just wants to get rid of the headache we’re already causing him. I had to relay the message to everyone, but no way am I canceling tomorrow’s conference.” She paused. “You’re staying, right?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. Well, the commercial attaché has sent someone over. He’s downstairs. Hurry up.”

Amanda walked out. Brooke pushed herself off the bed and found her slippers. The lone electric bulb dangling from the ceiling wire illuminated the room in wan yellow light. In the mirror, her high cheeks looked bony over the hollows beneath them, her lips sleep-puffed. She rinsed her face, but there was
no time to reapply makeup. She brushed her hair into a ponytail, curling the ends on her fingers for a finishing touch.

Dinner at the hotel should be an informal affair. As Brooke pulled a pair of jeans and a sweater out of her suitcase, something kept flitting at her consciousness like a moth stubbornly hitting its powdery wings against a glass window.
The unread letter from Seattle.
The long-ago tangy whiff of sage came to her nostrils, a scent that always accompanied the memories of the months she had spent at the commune . . . and what happened later.

She hauled her carrier bag onto the bed and searched for the envelope. Growing frantic, she unzipped every pocket and slipped her hand into each. Nothing. She turned the bag over and shook it empty.

Realization blasted through her head. In her mind’s eye she could see the letter tossed on the customs officer’s desk. The corpulent assistant had gathered her belongings only from his table, while Brooke was distracted by the predatory officer and eager to flee the room. She had failed to double-check his paper-strewn desk.

Those men had her letter. They would have a laugh. She hoped they wouldn’t recognize her in the photograph. Brooke collapsed into a chair and sat there for long minutes, letting her anxiety come to rest. Perhaps losing the letter was meant to be. Some secrets should stay buried, until they disintegrated like a corpse in a grave.