Emily Rubin - Stalina

The subway rumbled back from the end of its line while the sunlight flickered a little through the tracks and Brighton Avenue was pulled away from me. The light flashed along the tops of babushkas’ heads. Women becoming blonds in the beauty salons closed their eyes as the train went past and the fading Cyrillic lettering on the walls disappeared. My eyes were pulsing to the speeding landscape as I went back into the beast and held tight, waiting to be put out at Port Authority and Forty-second Street.

Inside the terminal a man was playing a banjo under a poster of the Statue of Liberty. I would have to save my visit to that torch-wielding lady for another time. The strain of the metal strings vibrated off the steel girders and made the air sweeter. My hips swayed with the beat. I was happy.

“That’s right, mama, you move those big ol’ scrumptious hips. I’ll keep playin’ for ya,” the musician said with a big smile flashing a gold tooth.

He quickened his rhythm. I sashayed over to his money hat and threw in a dollar.

“You dance like an angel, mama! God is going to want you for his own, but right now I’m glad you’re here on earth in the blessed Port Authori-tay!”

“Moscow, Kennedy, Port Authori-tay!” I sang back to him as I made my way outside.

“A world traveler, oh my, my, my!” I heard him sing as I went through the doors.

I wanted a taste of the city once more before getting on the bus. The streets were torn up with huge, gaping holes. Men were working down below. I had seen them years before. Their yellow hard hats still bobbed up and down as buses and cars rumbled past. They looked like residents of a new sub-level city, added to accommodate the masses. I thought of Frederica the palm reader and wanted to see her to tell her how accurate her prediction of betrayal had been. I also thought it would be helpful to have her tell me something else about my future. But when I turned the corner, I saw that her storefront was gone. Only a big, gaping hole remained, empty and blackened like a tooth pulled from a giant’s lower jaw. The Christ Almighty Church was still standing, but its side wall was now exposed. There was an advertisement on the wall. The faded letters read:

The words were transparent like clouds disappearing into a mountainside. A church wall advertising a peep show? I would expect that in Russia, but here in New York, it was a welcome sight for me. It was almost like a poem, and it made me feel even more at home. A Cheap Way to Heaven was still there, but the sign above their door said “Fifty Cents a Minute.” I wondered what would happen if I raised the rates at the Liberty. The cost of linens had recently gone up.

On a fence where Frederica’s storefront had been, a sign read, “Site of Bank of America’s Midtown Branch.” Frederica’s crystal ball was nowhere to be seen. What a shame, this city changed almost as fast as the ruble.

The Liberty Motel in Berlin, Connecticut, was now my home. I’d be going home now. With my mother’s revenge complete, I was free to go. I’d be glad to leave this city. It was so dirty. No one here bent over to pick up their trash. The garbage stayed where it was dropped and became part of the scenery. Amalia’s son, Alexi, told me why this was so.

“It’s very American,” he explained one morning in the kitchen when I asked him why people threw their garbage out car windows.

Alexi at sixteen had embraced the American luxuries of boredom, disdain for adults, a passion for privacy, and everything disposable. But he would still do anything his mother asked, even steal, and with that he remained Russian.

“It’s someone’s job. They get paid to pick up after us,” he added, leaving for school with his shirttails hanging out.

The buses waiting to depart from the bowels of Port Authority were like fidgeting horses with their rears swaying in impatience to be fed. The front seat with the picture window next to the driver afforded the best view, and as I was first in line, this place of privilege was mine. The bus left the city out the back end of Port Authority. These back-streets were dark and deserted even with the last pieces of sunlight holding onto the sky between the buildings. The few people we passed on the street looked up at the bus as if they yearned to leave the city, too. The alleys felt like places where secrets are kept.

Stopped at a light before we entered the tunnel, my question about Frederica’s whereabouts was answered. A folding table with a crystal ball was set up in front of a building, and there she sat in the same white plastic chair, looking at the split ends in her freshly dyed blond hair. She was taking advantage of a little bit of sunlight bouncing off a window across the street in the brief moment that it was touching her. The bus pushed forward a few inches, cutting off Frederica’s light like a prison door slamming shut. She looked up at the bus, the thief of her light. In my bag I found the picture of my parents I had showed her more than two years ago and held it up to the window. Her eyes squinted to see me and the photograph. As the bus pulled away, recognition came to her face. She pointed to her eye as if she wanted me to see something. Then she pointed behind her back. I turned around, and in the seat directly behind me was an old woman, near in age to my mother, wearing a lemon yellow sweater and a lime green beret with a rhinestone pin that said “I Heart NY.” I looked back out at the nodding Frederica and then to the old woman whose big, broad smile was exaggerated by pink lipstick applied thickly and sloppily over the edges of her lips. Everything around her, even the deserted streets, suddenly felt carefree and filled with possibility. Frederica flashed me a crooked purple smile, and just as the bus entered the tunnel, she disappeared. The old woman yawned loudly, and I sat back and thanked New York for offering me such hope and humor.

As the bus moved in a northwesterly direction, an intoxicating vista unfolded. Blurring signposts, rail guards, and trees along the highway flashed by as the white lines disappeared underneath the bus and the burning sunset on the driver’s horizon gave way to an idea for a new room design. My eyes went dream hazy and I envisioned the “Highway to Heaven Room,” or room number three. This new room would take my customers’ fantasies to a spectacular place. A vibrating “mobile-a-bed” would transport them with top-down convertible style into a perpetually changing and mesmerizing sunset. The wheels of the car would be textured with fleece and the interior lined with satin. It would have a fur-covered steering wheel, and the back seat would be wide enough for a picnic. There would be vanity mirrors everywhere, and the radio would play whatever station you chose. Regulation seat belts, of course. The sunset machine, a multicolored rotating light, would be timed for the length of your stay. I have always found bus rides in America inspiring.

I like to relax in what was Mr. Suri’s favorite heart-shaped tub after a day of serving the needs of my customers. The Liberty Motel can be a wonderful, playful, euphoric place, but it also can be a place of fierce battles and casualties. In any case, every day is a long day, and I look forward to a relaxing, steamy bubble bath. Today while cleaning out the front desk I found a note I never sent to the parents of one of our casualties in the war of love.