Hotel Moscow (7 page)

The chamber pot under the bed was full, and the napkin covering it failed to hold back the pungent smell. For fear of Zoya, Natasha used the chamber pot during the hours her mother was away. Svetlana carried it to the communal toilet, but when she tried to empty it, she found the bowl clogged with excrement. Nostrils burning, she picked up the bucket ready for such eventualities, filled it with water from the small sink, and poured it into the toilet bowl. Using a plunger, she repeated the process, alternately holding her breath and breathing through her mouth. Who had not only caused this problem, but then added to its sorry state? More than once, Svetlana had suggested to the other tenants that together they could buy detergents and disinfect the place. But the bickering had rendered futile all attempts at scheduling cleaning duties.

“Mama!” She opened the stall door to her daughter’s shriek. Natasha fell into her arms, bawling. “Zoya—” Through her hiccups, the girl was unable to speak. Svetlana sprinted back to the kitchen. Behind her, the click of Zoya’s door was followed by the clank of a heavy bolt.

Her pots on the stove were finally boiling, the bubbles sputtering. The three small potatoes danced. No. There were four, and one was not a potato. Something small and dark bounced up and floated to the surface. Svetlana scooped it up, and a yelp of disgust erupted from her throat. A dead mouse. She flung it on the floor. Was anything beyond the Baba Yaga? It dawned on Svetlana why she had almost broken a tooth last week on a piece of wood in her soup.

She ran to Zoya’s door and banged. “You move out. Go see if you can find two rooms anywhere,” she shrieked. Her scream turned into a sob of frustration. Nausea twisted her stomach at the thought that she’d have to wash the precious potatoes.

She couldn’t stop crying even as Natasha hugged her. She cried also for Lyalya, for the price the intelligent young woman was willing to pay to get out of this dump, for the role model Lyalya presented to the impressionable Natasha.

Svetlana’s sadness did not lift after she had rinsed the mouse hair off the potatoes and boiled them again, or later as she sat in her room across the tiny table from Natasha, watching her eat the salvaged meal she couldn’t afford to throw away, and still later when she checked her daughter’s homework. She rewarded Natasha with Brooke’s crayons and vicariously shared her child’s awe of the candy, but the sadness wrapped her with tight fists.

Finally, she gave Natasha a sponge bath, pulled down the small mattress she kept leaning against the wall during the day, spread the sheet and blanket over it, and tucked Natasha in. Sitting at the corner of the cot and feeling the soft, dry cheek against her own, Svetlana sang Natasha’s favorite German lullaby.

Guten Abend, gut’ Nacht,

Mit Röslein bedacht,

Mit Näglein besteckt,

Schlupf unter die Deck.

The song over, Svetlana said to the sleeping girl. “I’m going to the bathroom. Be right back.”

She locked her door behind her and knocked on Lyalya’s mother’s door. A few minutes later, she yelped in pain as her neighbor-doctor reset her jaw. “It’s not broken. You’re lucky,” the woman said, and placed an ice cube inside Svetlana’s mouth. “Salt rinse will help, too.”

Back in her room, Svetlana locked her door for the night, turned off the lights, and crawled under the covers. The old man who lived with his wife and her sister in the room to Svetlana’s left prepared for bed with his triple ritual of a cough, a fart, and the trumpet-like blowing of his nose. She stared at the old-fashioned ceiling, four meters high. Shadows from the single tall, arched window cast odd shapes across it. Blue light from a passing car stuttered on the broken moldings on the opposite wall, momentarily projecting illumination on the sleeping Natasha.

Her tongue massaging the inside of her jaw, Svetlana placed her arms under her head and listened to the music produced by the violinist on her other side. Soon, neighbors’ angry shouts would cut it short, but this music was the one bit of noise Svetlana never minded. She sighed and closed her eyes, allowing her body to sink into the softness of the featherbed, her only luxurious possession, her wedding gift from her mother. How different
her life would have been had she, after graduation fourteen years ago, been allowed to become a translator. But because she had been gang raped, the tribunal of the Communist school judged her to be of loose morals, and she was disqualified from working for the foreign ministry. Instead, she was sent to the factory to be reeducated in proletariat values. It had been only last year, when the cooperative was privatized, that her education finally gave her an advantage. But language school had never taught her the secrets of commerce—and certainly not of capitalism.

Perhaps some sewing machines could be repaired and more fabric bought. Whatever she could learn this week from Dr. Rozanova, and especially from the Americans, might give Natasha a brighter future. Surely there must be better dreams for a young Russian than becoming a call girl like Lyalya.

D
R. ROZANOVA HADN’T
been to Hotel Moscow since back in the 1970s when she had come to speak at a Young Socialist Women’s conference. She had been delighted that morning at the airport when Amanda invited her to visit at the hotel, but timed herself to arrive after dinner in order not to seem greedy for an expensive hotel meal. It was now nine o’clock, and she felt her way up the stairs of Hotel Moscow and banged on the glass door.

A guard unlocked it. “Your internal passport,” he said gruffly. His colleague stood a few feet away, staring at a wall with vacant eyes.

Whatever changes the country trudged through, rudeness was the one thing Olga could count on as a constant. “Soviet days are over; I don’t need to identify myself to get into a hotel lobby.” She shifted her weight. At the end of the long day, her legs ached. “I’m here to see the Americans.”

“
Nichevo.
Whatever.” The guard didn’t move.

He expected a bribe, she knew. Like all employed Russians, guards kept their low-paying jobs for the off-the-books perks. “This is thievery of the first degree,” Olga said, her tone belligerent. When he didn’t respond, she unclasped the safety pin that attached her wallet to the lining of her purse. “No apple is free of worms,” she mumbled. Cringing, she peeled off some rubles.

“Dollars,” he demanded.

“How will I get dollars?” Her suit jacket felt too tight, even though she had bought it only twenty months earlier in celebration of the fall of the Soviet empire. “And you’re to accompany me down to the dining hall. For all I know, the guards at the inside gate will stop me again.”

Entering the dining hall located in the basement, she scanned the high-set ceiling and the tall windows that started six feet above ground. Their brocade curtains were tied with silk ropes. Even the expensive oak paneling had kept its polish in spite of the plummeting membership of Socialist organizations since
perestroika.
The policy of economic and governmental reform instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s had eliminated organizations’ budgets for extravagant banquets.

The Americans had indeed finished dinner. The dirty dishes were being removed from the bleached, embroidered tablecloth, and strong fragrant coffee with white sugar—a special treat—was being served. After profuse words of welcome and hugs, Olga sat down and lit a Dukat.

A man with straight brown hair and rimless glasses sat at the end of the table. When making introductions, Amanda had mentioned that he had been sent by the American Embassy. Like an anthropologist studying a foreign tribe, Olga exam
ined the first American man she had ever glimpsed in real life. With his set, square jaw not yet softened by loose skin, and with the self-possessiveness of a movie star, he looked as handsome and healthy as the men in the few Western magazines that had sneaked past censorship. Those men were so unlike Russian men, who aged at forty and died from alcoholism by age fifty-seven. Luckily, not her Viktor.

Olga listened in increasing horror as the women told the American man about the attack at the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory. Shocked and pained, Olga broke into their conversation. “I’m so sorry. I am embarrassed that twice today you’ve seen the hideous side of Russia.”

“Neither one was your fault,” Amanda said.

“But we’re all accountable. The rampant crime has become our collective shame. It is disgraceful to expose to the world what our new freedom has unleashed: a feeding frenzy of corruption and violence.” She sucked on her cigarette and blew a puff of smoke. “We were a society of good morals and high values. The moment we were let loose, we turned into vultures—or even worse, cannibals.”

A lovely American woman ambled into the dining room, apparently late for dinner. She scanned the table for an empty seat and took the one next to Olga. The young woman’s casual outfit, so unfeminine, surprised Olga. Pants were out of the question even for peasants, and only young women in Russia wore jeans, mostly prostitutes who could afford their high price. The woman’s brown hair, highlighted with golden streaks, was pulled back in a ponytail without even the benefit of an ornate clip. No respectable Russian woman, especially a representative of her
industry or country, would appear in public not wearing her finest clothes and showing off her jewelry. How else would everyone know that she could afford it? Olga watched the woman smile hellos to her friends around the table, exposing a beautiful set of teeth. All the Americans had healthy, white, straight teeth, so unlike the Russians. Yet no one had a front tooth adorned with gold as she did.

Olga noted that the American man fixed his gaze on this new arrival. However, the manner in which he looked at the young woman was open and friendly, unlike the lewd way in which Russian men examined females, their eyes raking women’s bodies, their lecherous thoughts written on their smirking faces.

“I’m Brooke Fielding.” The girl extended a hand to Olga.

Olga shook the extended hand, then held it longer. “How old are you?”

Brooke’s eyebrows rose, and she burst out laughing. “Russians are so direct.”

“You’re too young to be a businesswoman.”

“I am thirty-eight.” Brooke didn’t ask for Olga’s age in return. “We met at the airport this morning. You may not remember because my face was hidden by a camera. I took photographs.”

Olga couldn’t help compare Brooke’s youthful thirty-eight against her own aged forty-eight. America was so generous with her women, while Russia was parsimoniousness with hers.

A waiter brought a pot of strong fragrant coffee. Brooke signaled to him that she needed a cup. He ignored her. Mustering her most commanding tone, Olga spoke to him in Russian, but he snubbed her too.

After two more failed attempts to get attention, Brooke got up and walked to the door leading to the kitchen. Three waiters congregated outside it, smoking. When Brooke returned with a clean cup, Olga watched the men eyeing the slim, lithe figure.

Olga poured her coffee. “Sorry for not getting you the cup myself, but they are unionized.” When she saw the American’s confused expression she added, “They’re prohibited from giving it to someone who is not a paying guest.”

“I know all about unions,” Brooke replied, but Olga doubted she really did. One had to live in Russia to experience its unions’ impact on every minute human interaction. The job description of each occupation was so detailed that no employee could be faulted for sticking to cumbersome procedures, while in fact it guaranteed lack of courtesy. The regulation meant to control theft of hotel property now prevented her from getting a cup.

The conversation around the table turned to democracy and what could be expected in the new Russia.

“We have a very educated population with more women engineers and physicians than any other country,” Olga said, seizing the opportunity to reclaim a sliver of her beloved Russia’s pride. “Once we have the right tools, a real leap forward will surely follow.”

Brooke nodded. “The rug has been pulled out from under this country with no preparation,” she said. “The legal system collapsed with nothing to replace it. And the goals of the new economy have been defined, but not the means by which to reach them.”

Olga noticed that Brooke’s short, manicured nails sported
clear polish instead of the expected shade of red or magenta a Russian woman—especially a successful one—would apply. “Not enough reason to collapse into chaos,” she said, and squashed her cigarette in a saucer.

“It will take strong leadership—and time—to draft a working legal system,” Brooke said, “and then to establish effective enforcement of it.”

“What about God’s law and human law? What about respecting others’ rights? What kind of new society are we building here? Yeltsin’s new machinations have brought only distrust in his leadership. He’s inciting a civil war!” Olga’s indignation rose as she picked up her coffee cup, splashing some coffee. “I’m all for progress—especially when it includes making room for our women’s development. New horizons have opened to our nation, and women will march toward them.”

Brooke touched her sleeve. “That’s why we’re here. To help them in business.”

Business.
The new English word had a sweet taste. Olga rolled it on her tongue. Other new foreign words she marveled at, recently adopted into Russian, were
entrepreneur
and
marketing.
She asked Brooke, “What exactly is ‘business’?”

Brooke looked at her for a long moment as if assessing whether Olga was serious or just ignorant. “Business is creating a product or service that people need or can use. Then you develop the infrastructure to market and distribute it, and make a profit at the end of the sale.”

“What do you do?” Olga asked the young, unassuming woman who knew so much. “Are you a professor?”

“I’m an investment manager at a private firm that manages people’s money.”

“A whole company just to manage people’s money? Must be very rich clients.”

Brooke smiled, and Olga registered that the Americans smiled even when there was no reason to. Russians were born with a scowl on their faces.

“There are specializations for each business aspect,” Brooke said. “I advise clients how to invest their funds or manage their assets. Often, I coach them when we examine businesses in which they consider investing, and sometimes I counsel the management of a venture in which my clients have on-going interests.” She paused. “Am I boring you?”

“Go on, please. It’s very interesting.”

“Well, my work gives me a broad view of things, from business plans and the evaluation of financial projections for best-and worst-case scenarios, to analysis of marketing programs and the examination of distribution options.”

“Fascinating. I’ve never read anything about it. I should find a book about capitalism.”

“I can mail you some in English when I get back.”

“Of course in English. We would have nothing in Russian.” State enterprises, the only ones Olga was familiar with, abhorred the word
profit
as the ultimate symbol of corrupt capitalism. The black market, in which so many of her fellow Russians engaged, was beyond contempt. Yet, her wheeler-dealer compatriots must know a lot more about business than she did. “Will you teach it all tomorrow at Amanda’s conference?”

“We’ll cover only the entrepreneurial versions of the basics—small-scale research, pricing, advertising, accounting, customer service. In my workshop tomorrow I’ll explain the selling process and how to focus on the consumer’s needs—”

Olga cut her off. “You are contradicting yourself. If a business’s goal is profit, by definition it is selfish, focused on its own interest, not the good of the public, or as you say, ‘the consumer.’”

“These terms are not mutually exclusive.” Brooke’s tone was soft. “A business that cares about customer satisfaction, that is attuned to changes in mood or consumption, that takes care of problems when they arise stands to profit more in the long run.”

The long run. Who had the luxury of a “long run” when no one knew what to expect at the end of the day? “Do American children learn all this in school?”

Brooke shook her head. “Not directly, but even young children are encouraged to open a lemonade stand.”

“What’s that?”

“A kid fills a pitcher with sliced lemon, sugar, and water; gets a stack of disposable cups, and places a table outside the house. She posts a sign, asking passersby to buy a glass of her lemonade for a few cents. The child learns to approach people and to try to sell.”

“And that’s how American children earn a living?”

Brooke broke off a piece of bread left on the table. “They only get their first lesson of supply and demand. Maybe no one buys the drink because she has priced it too high. Or there’s not enough foot traffic on that street. The child learns that she needs to be creative to attract customers.”

“Maybe no one is thirsty.”

“That’s also a lesson in assessing consumers’ needs. Children who sell lemonade learn that it’s best to set up their operations during the hot days of summer.”

“So up and down the boulevards of Manhattan there are lemonade stands with children fighting each other to sell their drinks?”

Brooke laughed. “Lemonade stands are usually found in the suburbs, and each child does it for just a few days. Even if the kid makes no money, the only cost is a pitcher of lemonade.”

“What kind of a lesson is that?”

“A lesson in business thinking.” Brooke paused. “In seventh grade, I signed up for an investment class. Each student received a theoretical sum of money. We researched companies’ stock offerings, we studied their products and operations, and then we invested in the companies we chose. We followed each company’s progress or decline, sold some stocks and bought others, and by the end of the project some of us made a profit, others lost. On paper, of course, but it was fascinating.”

“
Capitalism
was always a dirty word here. Can it really corrupt the soul?”

“How? My soul is not corrupted, I hope. In fact, my mother is an accountant. As a teenager, I helped in the office, did some clients’ bookkeeping to earn my allowance. I grew up thinking figures and creative accounting.”

“‘Creative accounting.’ Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

Brooke laughed. “You’d think so, right? It’s using tax loopholes, deferring profits, burying income under legitimate expenses, investing employees’ pension funds.”

For a while, neither spoke as Olga mulled over the new concepts. There was so much to learn. “I’m glad you can see past the inexperience of the director of the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory and help her,” she finally said.

“Svetlana. I felt her hope.”

“Hope can’t be a business concept. It can’t be measured.”

“It’s intangible, but hope is an important ingredient in making things happen. It’s the fuel that feeds motivation.”

“There are many cooperatives like the Gorbachevskaya Street Factory. They all must learn to manage their ventures.”

“Given what we’ve seen today, our consulting is hardly enough. What you’re facing here is not only a matter of ‘managing a venture.’”