Emily Rubin - Stalina

Russians were easy to spot, even from a distance. The head shawls, the way they leaned back and forth when they spoke to each other. Babushkas listening to babushkas.

The man’s kite was finally flying, and the wind was making his hair flutter around his head. He was running backwards to keep the kite in the air. He was headed straight for the boulders of a breakwater. I didn’t think he could see where he was going.

“Excuse me, sir!” I yelled. “Watch out! You are going to hit the…”

Too late. He was down and the kite was in the surf. He was getting up. He brushed himself off. He looked embarrassed even though he did not know that anyone saw him take the fall. He probably never heard my warning. No witnesses, no embarrassment, only a kite floating on the ocean’s waves, and no need for me to impose myself on everyone I encountered. Move on, Stalina, you have more important business to attend to.

The boardwalk stretched up and down the beach, curved with the shape of the coastline. As I walked closer to the Ferris wheel, I could also see an amusement park rising up behind the boardwalk. One hot dog seller was open. All the other stands had metal gates pulled down. They advertised clams on the half shell, cotton candy, and popcorn. There was a roller coaster! I would have taken a ride in honor of my room design, but it appeared to be closed for the season. The clouds at the horizon were moving along with me. The Ferris wheel was in sight. There was a howling sound coming from somewhere in the amusement park. As I got closer to the source, I could hear that it was coming from a tower. A tower that was a ride that took people up and up to see everything around Brighton and out to sea. The wind was whipping inside of it, making a very mournful sound. There was an observation deck around the tower that slid up and down like a ring on a finger.

That deck moving up and down made me think how my mother would obsessively slide her wedding ring up and down her finger after my father was taken away. She had become very thin and would remove it to wash the dishes so as not lose it down the drain. Her fingers once were chubby and the ring was held tight by the soft bulge of flesh that used to form below her knuckle. The very day that Stalin died, Olga gave me a black ribbon for my hair.

“It’s for mourning because you are his namesake, Stalina,” Olga said as we stood in front of the mirror and she styled my hair with the ribbon.

After Olga left I took off the ribbon, and as my mother washed dishes, I strung her ring on the ribbon and tied it around her neck. That’s where she wore it from then on. There were people crying in the streets for days after Stalin died. My mother was very quiet, there were no tears, but when she washed the dishes, she let the water run over the rationed legal limit.

The tower continued its song of lament as I walked back to Brighton Beach Avenue. I passed a market that sold handmade brooms just like ones the street cleaners in Russia used to keep the avenues spotless. I had not seen one since I left.

“I’ll take one of these,” I said in Russian to the man standing in front of the store.

He wore a fedora covered in a shower cap, and he did not respond to me, so I picked up the broom. “What do you want a broom like that for?” he finally said.

“They do the job of two brooms at once,” I replied.

“That’s ridiculous. I just have them for the old ladies. They never stop sweeping; it’s not the broom that does the job of two.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Not that I don’t want to make a sale. I’ll sell you two for one, just because it’s starting to rain,” he said.

“I’d rather not carry them back on the bus to Connecticut.”

“Connecticut? Fancy, aren’t we?”

“It’s where I live. I am a tourist here.” I started to make my way down the block.

“Hey, Connecticut,” he called after me, “if you lived here, you’d be home by now. No broom for you? How will you keep your foyer clean?”

He laughed. I could still hear him laughing when I turned into another store.

M&I Grocers was one of the bigger markets located under the trestle of the subway. Walking through the doors I saw many of the things we missed back home in Russia. Guilty pleasures of smoked fish, farmer cheese, ice creams. Sausages. Things that were very expensive and difficult, even with money, to come by. Braided challah breads, squid salad, pickled tomatoes, and more.

I walked up the curved white metal stairs to a balcony and a beautiful café. At the counter the cakes for the day were all lined up. There was the meringue cake that the women on the street had spoken about, and a plum cake with walnuts and buttercream icing. Behind the counter, a tall blond-haired fellow in a white uniform asked me in Russian what I wanted.

“Pavashta, cake and coffee with cream,” I said and pointed to the plum cake.

“Caf or decaf?” he asked me in English.

“Excuse me?”

“Regular or decaffeinated coffee,” he clarified.

“Without caffeine?” I asked.

“Oh, Americans like it that way.”

“Maybe I should have a tea instead,” I added.

“Your coffee is already poured,” he said.

He scowled as I took my cake and coffee and sat at a table. There were mirrors on all the walls and pictures of the owners smiling with Russian dancers and singers. I saw myself in one of the mirrored walls next to a photograph of Vladimir Rashnisky, a crooner who died of alcoholism in 1982. My hair was in great disarray from the wind on the boardwalk. There was Misha Baryshnikov, still so handsome. I saw him perform at the Kirov. His passionate death scene made us all weep. It was a sad day for the ballet when he defected. He must have a very good life here, but there must be things he misses from home, otherwise why would he visit this place.

The building where Nadia’s parents live on Neptune Avenue has a cement path lined with short, spiky, almost dead bushes leading up to two glass doors. It is known as a high-rise. We have something similar in Russia, except they are made entirely of cement, and there is rarely a living plant anywhere to be seen.

“Apartment 15D, D as in do svidaniya ,” Nadia told me before I left.

“Shall I call them when I get there?” I asked

“I’ll call them before. Don’t worry, they will be expecting you,” she said.

I wanted Carmela, my new assistant, to run the motel while I was gone. But Nadia insisted on being there with one of her boys to show him how it all worked. The Liberty Motel was still the busiest of all the short-stays on the strip. In my opinion, I had helped to create a good atmosphere at the motel, and our customers liked it enough to return over and over.

“If you have any questions, Carmela will help you. She is learning the business quickly,” I assured Nadia.

Carmela was from Nicaragua. She walked up to the motel one day looking for work. I hired her on the spot. Impressed by her assertive nature, I trusted her right away. On her first day, Carmela reorganized the linen room so she could have a desk and a chair to sit at while waiting to clean the rooms. She studied English and wrote letters to her family back home. Svetlana quickly became very attached to her, sitting on a shelf above the desk, watching her every move. The cat followed her from room to room when she cleaned. They had become a very charming team. Carmela also endeared herself to the crow, Zarzamora, by offering her treats of apples and hot dogs. She would let Svetlana out whenever ZZ called for her from under the pine trees.