Orest Stelmach - The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

It was a room built for splendor and joy but even the paneled walls were crying. The musical selection didn’t help, some sort of Russian opera with constant wailing from a heavyweight soprano bent on global depression. It was the sort of selection my Ukrainian mother would have made. There was something genetic in Eastern European blood that made its people wallow in mourning. Why limit your sadness to that which came naturally when you could make yourself truly miserable and reduce your own life expectancy?

Perhaps that was an unfair assessment and Maria Romanova’s selection of music was a virtue. If mourning was the prerequisite to emotional healing, perhaps the pursuit of maximum distress was a shortcut to a return to normalcy. Whatever the truth, there was no doubt that Iskra’s mother had loved her daughter. The same could be said for her father, George, I thought, remembering his despair at the murder scene. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the musical selection was a mutual one.

Maria served us tea and croissants. I poured some milk into my tea and added a packet of natural sugar substitute. When I lifted my cup, a plume of steam twisted into the air. As I gazed at my host through the cloud of moisture, she looked like a ghost who’d been summoned at a séance.

“Is George at home?” I said.

I used his first name on purpose to suggest we’d become friends. That wasn’t too much of an exaggeration. In her husband’s mind, the Russian whore from the decrepit States was his mate for life.

Maria ignored my question as though I hadn’t said a word. Instead, she lifted a croissant from the basket with a pair of tongs and dropped it onto her plate. The odd thing was that she dropped it from a foot above its target, and smiled like a child when it landed unscathed.

“George?” Maria said, without looking at me. “He has his morning routine. The gymnasium and then the sauna. Always the sauna. He’s one of those Russians that still thinks dehydrating yourself will make you live longer.”

“If that’s the only way he’s dehydrating himself, then it’s not the worst thing.”

She looked at me as though I’d spoken Japanese. All traces of emotion vanished from her face. It was as though she’d pushed her own personal panic button and her brain had erased her short-term memory. The vacuous look returned to her eyes.

“Who are you again, dear?” she said.

Her question rattled me. I’d just arrived ten minutes ago. She’d been prepared for my arrival and had recognized my name right away.

“I’m Simeon Simeonovich’s friend,” I said.

Nothing.

“I’m Simmy’s friend. I’m the investigator he hired.” I stopped short of saying what I was investigating, for fear she might have forgotten her daughter had been murdered.

A spark ignited in her eyes. “Simmy,” she said. A thin smile crossed her narrow lips. It was such a weak attempt, she had such difficulty sustaining an expression of joy, I wondered when she’d last smiled even before Iskra’s murder. She gazed past me toward a random place in space. “There was a time when he thought I was quite special. To think, I could have been Mrs. Simeon Simeonovich.”

I seized the opportunity for conversation. “Where did the two of you meet?”

“At university. I was getting my master’s degree in physics. Simmy was a doctoral candidate which basically made him an assistant professor. None of the tenured professors wanted to deal with graduate students after class. They delegated it to their favorite doctoral students. We hit it off right away.”

I couldn’t help but think of my deceased husband. He’d delegated all his grunt work to his favorite doctoral students, too. A grungy-looking boy and the stunning female protégé with the auburn hair. My sole encounter with her would persecute me until the day I died.

“Why do you think you hit it off?” I said, my curiosity getting the better of me. Maria frowned, and I immediately hit an apologetic note. “If you don’t mind my asking. He’s so mysterious, you know?”

“Really?” Maria looked me over the way a woman did when she imagined her former lover with another now. “How interesting, because I didn’t think he was much of a mystery when I knew him. He was ambitious and he was capable of being ruthless, but he was a little boy at heart.”

“How so?”

“His mother died when he was young. He was the kind of man who needed a strong woman in his life. The kind of man who was always looking for the approval of a strong woman. Has he changed much, or is he still the way I describe?”

“I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that.”

“But you would like to become qualified, wouldn’t you, Nadia?”

I felt myself blushing and came within a split second of blurting out that what I really wanted to do was solve her daughter’s murder.

“I understand you work with the Salvation Army?” I said.

“Since back in Russia. We were the primary care system for the homeless and the people infected with HIV. They’re treated like a leper class in Russia.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Working with the homeless and the HIV-infected?”

“No. Russia.”

Maria considered the question for a moment, looking every bit lucid and present. “Do I miss the Russian people? Absolutely. They are no different than the Dutch or the Americans, or anyone else. People are people. They want love, security and freedom. Their government lies to them—Putler took control of all three federal televisions stations less than a year after he took power—so they don’t understand the world they live in. The Chekhists—the men and women who believe a secret police force should have unlimited powers—they control the entire country. And the people yield to them, out of loyalty and fear. It’s a vicious cycle and they cannot break it, but the average Russian person is passionate, loyal and good.”

“I believe that,” I said, sincerely. “Speaking of Russian people… what can you tell me about Nashi ?”

“Thugs,” Maria said, with extreme prejudice.

“Why do you say that? I thought they were like a youth group with patriotic overtones.”

“Who told you this nonsense? Is that what American believe?”

“Americans have never heard of Nashi . George told me Iskra had been a member. He made it sound like a normal extracurricular school activity.”

“Sure, if you consider hooliganism a normal extracurricular school activity.”

“Really?”

“Don’t listen to anything my husband tells you. He’s a Chekhist, too. How do you think we ended up with a home like this? He thinks Putler walks on water. He’s such a fool. And the funniest thing of all is that he’s not even a full-blooded Russian.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Maria laughed. “He’s a mutt. Part Russian, Moldovan, Belarusian, and Ukrainian. There’s even a touch of Azeri in his past, but don’t tell him that.”

I couldn’t help but smile before getting back on track. “But hooliganism? That doesn’t sound like Iskra, based on what I’ve been able to learn about her.”

“It wasn’t. Nashi was created by the Kremlin to be the opposite of a freedom fighting organization with grass roots. Any politician dares to question the party line, Nashi follows him. Harasses him. Makes him look like a villain in public, on the internet. And if any community or university dares to organize a rally for democracy or any other worthy cause the State doesn’t like…”

I raised my eyebrows.

“ Nashi has an elite street fighting unit.”

“Sanctioned by the Kremlin?” I said.

“They smash heads, especially talking heads.” Maria frowned at me. “As though there’s something going on in Russia that isn’t sanctioned by the Kremlin?”