Emily Rubin - Stalina

“Stalina, it’s not you. My body hurts from being so tired,” she said.

Hunger exposes the nerves. Mother bruised easily and was very sensitive to the slightest touch or any sound louder than a light switch. It wasn’t until I was older that she told me how they survived.

“We made bread by mixing face powder, sawdust, and tooth powder and fried it all in lipstick for flavor,” she explained with her eyes closed.

I was ten years old and asked, “What happened to the stars and crowns wallpaper in our hallways?”

“We stripped it all down and scraped off the glue to make gruel,” she continued. “I’d let a ball of it sit on my tongue for a long time.”

“How did you swallow it?”

“Imagination. I’d envision the most luscious piece of chocolate cake. I closed my eyes, and when I could smell the cake as if it had just been baked, I quickly swallowed.”

“Mmm, let’s have some chocolate cake,” I once suggested.

“Achh no, it makes me think of eating the wallpaper glue.”

My mother’s tastes ran to the plain and simple. Soda crackers, boiled chicken, and vodka.

I had been at the Liberty for more than two years, and Svetlana for almost six months. Each of us was at home here now, perhaps strange to say. The motel was very quiet this afternoon. I got Svetlana and brought her into the office. Mr. Suri liked to play with her.

Caw! Caw!

That crow was very protective of Svetlana. I’d never seen anything like that. She did not fly away when I picked up the cat.

Caw! Caw!

“Svetlana, you are a feisty kitty. Come here. Mr. Suri is back. Let’s get back to the office.”

As I scooped her up, I saw the remnants of Mr. Suri’s drawings in the dirt under the pine trees. He had drawn a map of Windsor Avenue with arrows pointing in several directions and circles around squares that seem to be the other motels. I wondered what sort of plan he was thinking of. The wind had stopped as it often did at this time of day. The trees here reminded me of Lake Ladoga near my family’s dacha in Karelia. Pine trees surrounded the water. There was always a bed of fallen needles three or four inches thick that we would walk through to get back to the house. A soft scent of pine followed us as we stirred up the ground in our bare feet. Sticky bits of sap would stick to our toes and heels. I would do a little jig to show off my needle-covered feet, and my parents would clap out the fast rhythms of the barnya , a folk dance that builds to an uncontrollable frenzy.

Here at the motel we used a very strong pine disinfectant called King Pine to clean the rooms. It hung heavily in the air and burned the eyes, but ultimately did the job of masking the smells of spilled liquor in the carpets and cigarettes in the drapery. My dream was to scent every room to match its fantasy scene. After all, I was an expert in the arena of aromas. The smell of rain and wet roses for “Gazebo in a Rainstorm” and cotton candy for “Roller Coaster Fun Park.” At our lab in Russia, the manufacturing of scents became a cover for the vats of arsenic and anthrax we had in storage for covert operations. Make the poison smell sweet, even if it was an odorless killer like anthrax. I could be arrested for revealing such secrets. Most of the people working in the lab did not know we were making anything poisonous. I knew what was there because the technicians had to come to me for the chemical compositions and the delicate balances needed to stabilize each vat of poison and to create its camouflage bouquet. We mastered over one hundred scents. In addition to the sweet smells of lingonberries and such, we found ways to make the scents of freshly printed newsprint and an electrical storm. Of them all, my favorite was that of freshly baked bread.

“Svetlana, I bet you’d like a room scented with catnip or tuna, wouldn’t you, little kitten?”

Mr. Suri came into the office; he looked agitated. There was something about him I found very attractive. It had been a long time since I had felt anything for a man, but he intrigued me. I wanted to know more about him. I liked watching Mr. Suri walk. He had long legs, and his slacks danced around them as he moved. He was graceful, and I thought that he must be a good dancer. I like that in a man.

“Mr. Suri, how was your day?” I asked, coming in from outside with Svetlana in my arms.

“In order to be approved for a new septic system, it seems I have to join the Kiwanis Club.”

“I am familiar with these kinds of things. It was typical in Russia.”

“I’m not a joiner,” he said. “I just want a decent place for the you-know-what to go.”

“Mr. Suri, we have a situation.” I attempted to tell him about the comatose customer.

“We will have a very bad situation if I can’t properly deal with people’s—”

“Yes, well we have a man unconscious in room two.”

“Oh great, now the police will come. That’s all we need.”

“His lady friend didn’t want any help.”

“He’s alive, I hope?”

“I haven’t seen him, but all she wanted was ice.”

“I could use a drink myself.”

I liked how honest he was. “I have vodka,” I told him.

“They want me to contribute five hundred dollars to become a member of the local chapter, and then they’ll give me the permit to hire another member to dig the leach field that we need to make a proper septic system.”

“Leeches?” I asked.

“I wonder how many of the Kiwanis Club brothers are motel customers,” he asked. “I’ll see at the next meeting I go to.”

“That could be very good for business. Five hundred dollars is a small investment,” I added.

He played with his mustache. “What about this gentleman in room two?” he asked.

“I added another hour to their stay.”

“They have until four forty-five?” he asked.

“Correct. I’ll go knock on the door to see how they are doing.”

“I don’t think you should get involved, Stalina.”

“His lady friend sounded upset. I don’t mind helping out.”

“It’s on your own time,” he said sternly.

He put his hand on top of mine. His touch embarrassed and distracted me, and I dropped Svetlana. She scrambled under the desk and was trying to wiggle through a hole in the wall.

“I hope that cat will earn her keep and catch some mice,” he said, suddenly placing the hand that touched mine into his slacks pocket, and he jingled some loose coins. I stared at the pocket. The bottle of vodka was in the cabinet under the desk in between a broken fax machine and several rolls of toilet paper. I fumbled around for the cat and at the same time picked up the vodka.

“What’s that cat’s name again? Vodka?”

“No, Svet-lana,” I pronounced her name slowly, “like Stalin’s daughter, but Vodka’s a good name for a cat. Why leeches?”

“Stalina, didn’t you have plumbing in Russia?”

“Leningrad is a very civilized city. There is central plumbing. Sort of.”

“And what about in the country?”

“Leeches had nothing to do with it,” I said indignantly.

“Some other time I’ll explain about leach fields. What about room two? Or excuse me, the ‘Roller Coaster Fun Park.’ Those rooms might be causing more trouble than we need.”

I loved his efficiency, but he worried too much. Little Svetlana would be a good mouse catcher, and the rooms would make him money.

“The kitten needs to go back to the linen room, and then I’ll see what’s going on in roller coaster land.”