Yelena Akhtiorskaya - Panic in a Suitcase

Didn’t that hurt? Frida asked as they found the only free table in the lounge area, under the flat-screen broadcasting a soccer match, the soccer match, some undoubtedly pivotal soccer match on which all eyes were glued. At the surrounding tables, steamed and scrubbed-down Slavs were feasting. Their presence reassured. Frida wanted to thank them for their predictability, but they didn’t even acknowledge her existence. They weren’t being insulting; it was just that in her place they saw a continuation of atmosphere.

Give me a break, said Marina. The boy had no clue what he was doing.

Marina grabbed the passing busboy holding a stack of dirty dishes up to his chin. He nodded gravely, or maybe just dutifully, to her extensive and improvised list of fruits and vegetables to be squeezed into juices and hurried to the kitchen, situated centrally at the core of the lounge area, itself at the center of the banya, with the various saunas, steam rooms, and massage nooks built along the lounge’s perimeter. The staff that went into and came out of the kitchen included everyone from the bowed cleaning ladies who spoke not a single known language to the presumed new banya owner, with a deep subterranean tan brought about by vigorous, overstimulated blood flow, as he clearly spent his days making full use of his own amenities. The kitchen was more brightly lit than the lounge, which in turn was brighter than the dim saunas, creating a light-filtering effect, and the kitchen doors were kept thrown open (hard to say why they were not simply open), so the surrounding air appeared to glow. Marina and Frida, unsure whether it was acceptable to stare into the kitchen, alternately snuck glances, as it was impossible not to look, first because the peculiar layout forced your eyes there and second because a long time had elapsed since Marina had ordered and they were beginning to suspect that the busboy had forgotten to relay their request to whoever was in charge of the juicing. It was odd: One moment the kitchen was full of people urgently chopping a single carrot, the next moment the chopped carrot lay on the cutting board with no one to attend to it, and that moment lasted a long time, until the carrot seemed to go limp with indifference, whereas before it had given a distinctly alert impression. The effect of the layout was that the people sitting in the lounge were made uncomfortable (in a not entirely unpleasant way) by basically being forced into overseeing the goings-on of the kitchen, an otherwise private space, but the discomfort actually stemmed from the kitchen’s overseeing them. They were in the kitchen, and the people in the kitchen were outside the kitchen. And where, incidentally, was their juice?

It’s right over there, said Marina. It’s just standing there, all squeezed out, and nobody’s bringing it to us.

I hear it loses antioxidants quickly, said Frida. Her head inched back as she stole a glimpse and confirmed.

I’m going to get it, Marina said, and stood, expecting to be stopped. But Frida bit her cheek, and her mother was impelled to action. This she did very slowly, swaying as if slightly drunk. Mere seconds before reaching the kitchen, she was intercepted by a man with blue tattoos across his saggy arms and stooped shoulders and a few on his chest and back, who’d been watching the game so intensely it was a surprise he noticed anything outside the frame. He put one hand tentatively on the outside of Marina’s elbow. Marina flashed her American smile and pointed to the juice standing in plain sight on the kitchen counter several feet away. The man’s gaze did not follow her finger. He nodded and looked deep into Marina’s eyes, said something, and then they separated. The man, whose tattoos were faded and vacant like old stains, sat down and returned to staring at the TV, whereas Marina walked quickly back to the table.

It’s coming, she said, plopping into her chair with relief. The waiting resumed. No longer the least bit uncomfortable, they fixed the kitchen with a death stare, until hearing a singsong Here-you-go and turning to find a robe-clad woman, just as relaxed, pore-opened, and glowing as they were, with a tray. She set down a large glass of juice the shade of a young boy’s freckles and a large plate of shrimp of roughly the same color. If Marina had been intending to raise hell about the wait, this plate of shrimp confused her into silence. The waitress left, and behind her stood another woman. Frida didn’t notice the switch and said, We didn’t order the shrimp. The woman nodded absently at Frida, then put her hand on Marina’s shoulder and said, Marina!

Oh, said Marina, Milka!

They embraced warmly and naturally, with genuine affection, as if they were old friends. But Frida had never met this woman. Or had she? Milka wasn’t exactly a one of a kind; the world wasn’t suffering from a dearth. In every train car sat at least one Milka, not realizing just how loudly she was talking on her cell phone as the tabloid she’d been leafing through slid down her stocking-slippery thigh and plopped onto the icky subway floor. The nail salons of Brooklyn were glutted with Milkas. How did those Italian boutiques with abominably overpriced and nonsensical skirt-pants and sweater-jumpers stay open? Thanks to the Milkas. Whose husband had just left her for a not-even-younger woman? Milka’s! Who had sued the living daylights out of her ex-husband, ending up with a house on a coveted tree-lined street of Manhattan Beach and two cars in the garage, neither of which she knew how to drive? That, too, would be Milka. So Frida may very well have met Milka before, not once and not a dozen times, and if you took into account how many stories she’d heard about her, Milka was practically family.

Milka wasn’t at the banya alone. A woman like that didn’t leave the house without an entourage. Today it was just the girls — Irena and Riana, who were outside in the smoking area. Milka had just jumped inside to grab the waitress — they’d been there since noon and had worked up an appetite. Those shrimp do look good, said Milka as Frida popped one into her mouth. Frida nodded, the shrimp’s tail sticking out, and bit into the stringy flesh. They weren’t very good, but when the oil coated her lips, it made her feel wholesome, nourished. Not for long. Soon she realized the shrimp stink was following her. Nothing had the capacity to make her as claustrophobic as a stink. Some people differentiated odors, recognizing scents, aromas, fragrances, and for others it was all a stink, be it overcooked, on-its-way-out shellfish or cherry blossoms in bloom.

It trailed her outside. In the realm of banyas, an outdoor smoking area with enough space for at least four chaise longues was the gold standard. Here it was, the life. Marina already had a cigarette between her lips, her fingers lifted in a tense V shape, ready to clamp down and tug the cigarette from her jaw. Those fingers knew it would be a struggle.

Irena and Riana had taken the two decent chaises and were laid out ideally for purposes of comparison. But there was not much to it: Irena was a snow pea and Riana was a dame of operatic proportions, and yet they were halves of a single being. In theory Frida had zero tolerance for these bazaar-type ladies, whereas Marina, though not overjoyed about it, maintained these relationships and it stood to reason benefited from them somehow. But here Marina yawned and clawed at the chain-link fence so as not to pass out, whereas Frida was mesmerized, leaning in and listening to their discussion, an elaborate analysis of the most horrific car wreck imaginable, which had supposedly occurred a few days ago on Ocean Parkway between Avenues N and H, with a pileup of cars and numerous fatalities. Frida hadn’t heard about it, probably because she never watched the news and talked to almost nobody. Riana, who had a lordly air, had witnessed the katastrofa, and you could tell by the way her left eyelid twitched as she described the strewn bodies and purple brains that it really had an effect on her, even though she was making a respectable attempt to be objective and detached in her narration.