Stalina: A Novel Part 20

Thiip!

Mr. Suri sent me pictures of his laundromat in Tucson, Arizona. He wrote on the back, "Stalina, we have named our business 'Liberty Laundry' in honor of the motel, our favorite tourist site, and it also reminds me of you."

Prost! A toast to you, Mr. Suri, and your heart-shaped tub which I have filled with bubbles of a lavender scent for its therapeutic qualities of relaxation and contemplation. I think of you often.

Thiip!

Still I have not made it for a visit to the real Lady Liberty. She has been closed to the public for the time being. The brochures I have read say that it is a thrilling view from statue's crown. There have been some hard times on these sh.o.r.es, and many restrictions have been enforced. What a shame, and it is all just after I became a citizen.

Nostrovya! Lady Liberty! To the day when you are free again to have visitors touch your robes and appreciate your toes.

Thiip!

They say she is very shapely underneath all the drapery. Her measurements are thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-six-feet, of course. She's a voluptuous, big-boned gal, very Russian. An immigrant just like myself. From France she hails, not Russia, but the French always loved the Russians and vice versa, so I can imagine that Mr. Sculptor Bartholdi had one or two Russian models to base his lady on. The officials say it was his mother he used, but I tend to think with such a figure underneath her skirts, it was one of his many lovers. Like many artists, he had a reputation for being a ladies' man.

I raise an arm to Lady Liberty and her shapely figure. You would look wonderful, dear lady, in one of my imported Russian bras. I'm sure I would have had one to fit your shapely size had they not all been stolen from me.

Thiip!

I heard from Amalia. That thief! It's sad we are no longer friends; there's so much between us-good and bad-that can never go away. Her mother pa.s.sed away. I knew how difficult it would be, so I did what I could to help her understand what was coming. She thanked me for the push to go home so she could say a proper good-bye. The Magik Cleaning Agency has folded without her special business sense, and she has become very successful in Petersburg. She was one of the first to start a business to introduce American men to Russian women. Now the cla.s.sifieds in the St. Petersburg Times are filled with ads for such enterprises.

Amalia calls her business Veeshni Kazenoor, or Cherries Casino. The office is upstairs on Nevsky near the Kazan Cathedral. It's just her and a computer and a waiting room with red satin walls. Olga sent me this entry from the computer log written by one of her "lonely" women.

Something is missing in my life, and I know if I could only meet the right man I would be fulfilled, complete. I am divorced and have a young son. I am a doctor and know that I could be caring and healing to you as well. Please choose me as I know I will satisfy your needs and be a proper and faithful wife. My English is close to perfect. I would like to learn more from you. Choose me please. I wait holding my breath to hear from you.

Ina D.

Knock! Knock!

"Yes?"

"Stalina, it's Carmela. Shosta and Kovich want to come in and sit by your bath."

The bubbles fascinate those two. I am no longer angry with them for the death of the crow-they are cats, after all-but Svetlana is still the better mouse killer.

"Let them in, Carmela."

I hear two cars leaving the driveway as the door opens, and the cats race in to be the first at tub side.

"Carmela, are things busy tonight?"

The top of Carmela's head and her s.h.i.+ny black hair glisten from the outside light. Her eyes are cast down, even though she knows the tub filled with bubbles conceals all. She has beautiful long eyelashes.

"Yes, three rooms are filled, and two people just finished. You relax. Have you got everything you need?"

"Thank you, I have what I need. The door sticks a bit at the top left corner. I must trim the edges before too long."

"I'll help you with that tomorrow."

"Come sit, Comrade Carmela. Have a bit of vodka with me. I am celebrating."

"Since you are now a U.S. citizen, must I call you Citizen, or do you still prefer Comrade, Stalina?"

"Why not Citizen Comrade? I am celebrating my ten years here at the Liberty Motel!"

"A quick toast, then. I have to go clean the rooms and mind the desk. Remember, we have a business to run."

"You are a feisty one, Carmela. Come sit for a moment; we'll hear when someone comes up the drive. Take another cup from the bathroom. Close the door."

Shosta and Kovich are circling the tub, sniffing the lavender bubbles that have escaped over the sides.

"Cht, cht, cht. Come here, comrade kitties, I'll blow some bubbles for you."

The bubbles scooped in my hands are soft as silk. They tickle my palm the way Trofim used to when we would sit at our favorite tea shop near the Moika Bridge. He'd make a circle with his finger in my hand and then move it up to my lips to test which was softer, the lips or the palm. When my lips were dry, he would kiss them. When my palm was dry, he would ma.s.sage my hand until it sweated just a bit. The lavender bubbles do just the same. Shosta and Kovich know the game; they wait for me to blow the bubbles in their direction.

"Here's some bubbles...ffft! For you, Shosta! Ffft! For you, Kovich! Come, Carmela, pull up a chair."

"Stalina, how many toasts have you made tonight?"

"Bubbles floating on the air like my head from the vodka."

"I'll join you."

"To each of these rogues in my gallery of photographs, and now to you, the best partner a bubble-soaked Russian could ever have! Nostrovya!"

Thiip! Thiip!

"Shosta and Kovich don't care which country you call your own, as long as they have their bubbles," Carmela said.

"To Shosta and Kovich, the expatriated cats, and their undying devotion to eating, sleeping, and bubble play. If only they would speak, so we could truly converse. It's the same problem Alice had," I responded expansively.

"I am sorry, Stalina, I don't know any Alice."

"Yes you do, from the book."

"The one about the mirror?"

"The looking gla.s.s, yes. Alice thought if a purr meant yes and a mew meant no, then at least we could have a conversation with them."

"I always thought a purr meant 'I am content,' and a mew meant 'I need.'"

"That's the spirit, Carmela."

Thiip! Thiip!

"You have taught me how to enjoy your country's drink, Stalina."

As Carmela tipped her head back to take down the vodka, I noticed a jagged scar behind her right ear that I had never seen before.

"Carmela, what do you dream of?" I asked her.

She thought for a moment as she pulled her hair back behind her ear and covered the scar. She seemed self-conscious that I had seen it.

She said, "Juan Mendoza, I dream about him often. I left him at the bar of the Hotel Nacional in Managua. His letters stopped coming soon after I arrived here."

"Sandinista?"

"Schoolteacher."

"Dangerous."

"Apparently to someone."

"Alive?"

"I do not know. From what I could tell, it was safer for both of us not to have contact."

"You will hear about him one day."

"Oww! Shosta, you little..." Carmela cried out.

Shosta, the cat with the single white stripe down its face, had been watching the empty plastic cup that Carmela was spinning on her finger as she told me about Juan Mendoza. The cat could not help herself and jumped on her lap, batted the cup, and scratched her wrist in the process. The disruption brought me a shock of sobriety. My head spun as I sat up.

"Wash your hand, Carmela."

"I have some alcohol in the office."

"We have alcohol right here. Mendeleev's original."

"You finish your bath, Stalina. I need to go back to the desk anyway. It's only a scratch."

The two cats sit side by side cleaning their paws, oblivious to the disruption. "Leave the cats here, Carmela. I'll take them back to the linen room when I finish."

"Very well, Stalina."

As she opens the door, the cats turn to see the outside. The wind has picked up, and on the gust that came through the door, the comforting smell of pine trees-like in Russia-comes into the room. Carmela closes the door with some trouble against the wind. d.a.m.n sticking door, the whole room shakes when it closes.

Under the water I slip. Submerged, face up, eyes open. The bubbles have spread. The surface looks solid like ice the color of a stream in winter. A soft blue green. I can hold my breath under water for a long time. I learned from my mother, who had great lung capacity from years of water ballet team. Looking up through the water and bubbles it's like seeing Petersburg through a window on a snowy day. In winter when it snowed the city would be a bit warmer, and steam would rise from the streets. The city with its frozen waterways welcomed the floating, drifting snow. The steam off the street was breaths between hardened pedestrians ducking into metro stops, tea stalls, and museums for relief. On days like these I would wander to my favorite place in Petersburg, the Museum of the Arctic. In the former Church of St. Nicholas, right around the corner from Dostoyevsky's house. St. Nicholas! Santa Claus! In the Arctic! Oh, Russians are clever. As you enter the museum, suspended overhead is the plane that Soviet pilot and hero Valery Chkalov flew from Moscow to America via the North Pole. Standing below the plane was like being a scientist at a remote site waiting for the arrival of monthly supplies. Sometimes here at the Liberty I feel like a fact-finder dumped in a faraway land, researching the human condition as it relates to the need for companions.h.i.+p. My research has become these "Rooms for the Imaginative." Someday I will make a scientific study based on the popularity and longevity of the short-stay phenomenon. Why not? Once a scientist always a scientist.

The Museum of the Arctic has in its collection the head of a woolly mammoth. The first time I touched his ancient, hairy brow, I felt pity for him and his earthly demise. Lost in the cold, frozen to death, despite his long, warm coat. After paying my respects to the mammoth, I would go upstairs to visit the sculptures of indigenous peoples. These people were the ones, it seems, who invented the original "d.i.l.d.o." Not from green rubber, but out of bone and walrus tusks, they made some goodly sized facsimiles. I wonder how the school groups discuss the relevance of such objects in the native cultures. I could start my own museum at the Liberty Motel.

I was often the only person visiting the museum on these days. The quiet and solitude gave me time to imagine the faraway places I wanted to know and a life outside of Russia. Not something I talked to many people about. As I would make my way upstairs, the museum minder-an old woman who recognized me from my frequent visits and knew I loved the museum almost as much as she did-would turn off the lights on the other floors to conserve the electricity. With the lights still off, she would guide me back downstairs with a flashlight and bring me to a favorite diorama. The old lady would flick the switch below a gla.s.s display window. Slowly the lights would start to s.h.i.+mmer and glow, and the miniature scene of a lone Arctic research station and its single bare bulb in the window burning in the long winter night would be just a shadow under the moving colors and iridescent s.h.i.+mmering haze. I would stand and stare, and the old woman would watch with me and laugh a little as she whispered, "Aurora borealis, aurora borealis." And I would say, "Da, prevyet, aurora borealis." After a minute or so, I would close my eyes and make everything go to black. The silence of the museum would surround me, and I would feel like I was suspended in a warm cloud, much the same as I am here in the heart-shaped tub with the faint smell of lavender surrounding me. She, the museum minder, wore lavender perfume.

Whhoosh, hahhh!

Out from under the water, my breath restored, memory intact and fingers wrinkled like the mammoth's brow. The Liberty Motel is my museum! My rooms are a singular collection, the history of fantasies of pleasure, all preserved and frozen in time. The guests bring life to the exhibits, and I am honored to be the minder.

To my dear family and friends, who will inhabit me forever, I bring you along with me, for it is you that keep the swing in my ever-s.h.i.+fting hips and inspire me to provide a place for happiness, recovery, and when needed, a dose of revenge.

Thiip!

I'll finish up here and count the dollars we brought in and look to see who signed the register tonight. Mark Twain, Alfred Smith, Leo Tolstoy, Harry and Joanie to be sure.

Thiip!

Good night.

THE END.

About the Author.

Photo by Billy Tompkins.

Emily Rubin's fiction has been published in the Red Rock Review, Confrontations, and HAPPY, and she is a past nominee for the Pushcart Prize. In 2005, she began producing Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose, a reading series that takes place in laundromats around the United States. She divides her time between New York City and Columbia County, New York, with her husband, Leslie, and their dog, Sebastian.

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