Emily Rubin - Stalina

“Here, let me help you, Mr. C,” I said again, trying to take the urn from him.

“Don’t touch it, Stalina,” Radya screamed. “Arkady, what is it? What is this? Get it off of me.”

“Help my wife while I get rid of this,” he said, holding the urn over his head.

“Not the urn, Arkady, I just bought it!” Radya screamed again.

“Oh shut up, woman!” he shouted back at her.

Arkady headed for the balcony off the living room. Radya was chasing after him. My mother’s ashes were swirling in the chaos. Out on the balcony Arkady overturned the urn and flung the contents to the wind. I watched as my mother’s ashes sailed away from the balcony and out toward the ocean. Radya joined Arkady on the balcony and grabbed the urn from him. As they scrambled, I took a longer look at the photograph on the side table. It was of Arkady with Stalin and Ezhov.

“Don’t throw it down there—you’ll kill someone.”

“Didn’t you look inside this thing when you bought it, woman?”

“It was dark in the shop. I thought it was empty.”

“Where did you get it? Take it back and get another,” he said, handing her the urn. “This one was used—by someone’s dead grandmother, apparently.”

“The man at the flea market told me it was one of a kind,” she said.

“The short guy with the crucifix tattooed on his neck. What’s his name, Jesus?” he asked.

“Arkady, his name is Rafael, but everyone calls him Shorty. The flea market reminds me of the ones at home,” she added.

“They’re all con artists, Radya; of course they want you to think there is no other like it,” he said as he turned to come back inside.

My mother had clearly exacted her revenge. Any disruption to their perfect little life would have pleased her.

“Thank you both for your hospitality. I really must be going. Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

I had taken the photograph from the table and was hiding it behind my back. I wanted it to add to my collection and to remember this day. The Chernovskys might miss it, but I did not care.

“Nadia wanted us to take you to the boardwalk,” Radya said.

“That’s perfectly fine. I can go myself,” I said. “I should be getting back to Connecticut soon.”

“Stalina, why did you come to Brooklyn?” Arkady asked.

“My mother sent me to take vengeance for my father’s disappearance and ugly demise.”

Arkady laughed. “He wore the wrong hat; he could not stay among us.”

“Arkady, how could you?” Radya said as she fidgeted with a doily from one of the tables.

Now I knew the truth.

“I’m just kidding, Stalina. No one will ever know why your father was sent away.”

“Actually, I came because I heard there were good bookstores on Brighton Avenue with Russian newspapers and books. I was homesick for them.”

They both stared at each other silently, and then Arkady got his voice. “The best shop is called St. Petersburg,” Arkady said.

“I like the one next to M&I,” Radya said.

“M&I, that’s where I had the coffee that burned my throat,” I said.

“They always keep their coffee too hot,” Arkady said.

“But they make the most delicious meringue cake with chocolate and walnuts,” Radya added.

“I actually heard someone talking about it on the street,” I said.

I had to get away from them. There’s something foul about informers, and Radya and Arkady had started to reek. They made me ill. “I’ll stop there on my way to the bookstore. I better get going,” I added.

“Stalina, I forgot to ask you with all the confusion—how is your mother?”

“Radya, would you let the poor girl go,” Arkady said as he grabbed another handful of sunflower seeds.

I looked at the urn. Both of them looked at me looking at the urn.

“Nadia didn’t tell you?” I said. “My mother passed away in Petersburg not long ago.”

“Where is…” Radya tried to ask.

“I had her cremated.”

“And her ashes?” Arkady asked.

“Scattered in the Baltic Sea,” I said.

“Radya, maybe this urn you bought was filled with someone’s ashes. I feel sick,” Arkady said.

“Oh Arkady, stop fussing. Whatever it was is gone. Stalina, your mother will be happy in the sea; she was a beautiful swimmer. I am sorry for your loss,” Radya said.

“Thank you, I appreciate your hospitality,” I said. I felt my palm sweating as it clutched the photograph. I grabbed my bag and held it behind my back as I slipped the frame into a side pocket.

Arkady’s mouth was already filled with sunflower seeds when I went to shake his hand. He nodded and said nothing. The door closed behind me with a whoosh of air from the vacuum created in the windowless corridor.

I spoke to my mother on the way down in the elevator. “Thank you, Mother, for the amusing show. Your ashes went out to sea over the rooftops of Brooklyn. Now you cover half the globe. It’s better that we sent you out to sea; otherwise you’d be trapped in that apartment with the Chernovskys. The urn, your ashes—what a mess you made all over their fancy-schmancy furniture. It was all very amusing.”

I could see my mother nodding her head in agreement. Whenever she acknowledged something, she would close her eyes as if to trap it in her soul. My mother liked to hold on to things. Hate, ribbons, Stalin, and her wedding ring. Being a mother was the only thing she could not hold on to. Hers was a cold distance she never learned to control. After the siege, she was simply waiting, for a strong cup of tea, for Stalin’s henchmen to take my father, for me to leave, and for death. She was always far away. I pulled the photograph out of my bag and looked at it once more, feeling slightly woozy from the whole encounter, or maybe it was just because the elevator wobbled on its way down to the lobby.

Outside on Neptune Avenue, the wind greeted me like a wall. I leaned into it and walked as if climbing the Altai Mountains. I grabbed my collar and pulled my coat closed. Breathing in the salted, slanted air put a big sting in my lungs that reminded me of home.

St. Petersburg, the name of the bookstore, was scrawled in red neon script above the door like a ribbon of candy. It was a market of videos, magazines, music, and books. A feast from home for an immigrant tourist like myself. There were hundreds of romance and science fiction novels. Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Chekhov were carefully placed for good measure on the narrow, crowded shelves in between the smooth, hard plastic covers. So many, many books. The splashy covers and rough parchment pages were a trip home for my hands and eyes. The Cyrillic letters were like fireworks dancing in front of me. I grabbed a book off the shelf. The cover had an astronaut in the foreground and a blond female alien floating in space behind him. I opened the book to page one and read.

Lt. Yuri Griskovksy tied his bootlaces and thought about the general’s wife flirting with him at the state dinner the night before. Fanya was her name, and she was a lot younger than her husband. She had beautiful blue eyes and a petite, athletic figure. He wondered if the flirtation was the reason he was chosen for the extremely dangerous mission, Asteroid Zero. He discovered a handkerchief in his left boot infused with her gardenia perfume. He placed it inside the vest pocket of his flight uniform so that he could take it with him into space.

Romance and space travel—how Russian of you, dear author. I’d buy the sequel also, Alien Children of the Asteroid’s Moon . Procreation in space—this should make for fascinating reading. In the store’s video section they had Krokodil , our famous puppet cartoon. Krokodil Takes a Trip by Train . I’d bring it as a gift to Nadia for letting me have the day off. Good-bye, Brighton Beach. Next time I’d have the meringue with chocolate and walnuts.