Stalina (11 page)

I wondered if the people at the rooming house mourned for my mother, if anyone was there when she died. I’d have liked to know how it was for her. I felt badly that I had not stayed until she died.

“Stalina, I’ve made some tea. Come sit,” Amalia said as she guided me to the kitchen with her arm around my shoulder.

“It’s too early to call St. Petersburg,” I said, looking at the cuckoo clock.

Eight hours’ difference. Seven thirty here, three thirty in the morning there. Time changes, but the distance stays the same.

“It will be morning soon. You’ll be able to call in a few hours,” Amalia said quietly. “I’ll sit with you.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind.”

“Stalina, I was sorry to have to tell you about your mother.”

“When I left, she was angry and sad and sick. I wanted her to come with me.”

“She wanted to die in her Leningrad,” Amalia reminded me.

“Yes, probably so. She never did like calling it St. Petersburg.”

“It was her choice. Will you go?”

“The nurses at the rooming house can make the arrangements. Do you think I need to identify her, or sign for her in person?” Suddenly I wasn’t sure.

“I wouldn’t know, but it has to happen soon. They aren’t going to keep her around.”

“I could barely get there in time for everything to happen as it is supposed to.”

“Speak to the nurses first, then we’ll see,” Amalia said. Pulling a small package out of her purse, she continued. “Let me show you my new glass figurine. It’s a terrier; it reminded me of your dog when we were growing up.”

“Pepe?”

“I couldn’t remember his name. Doesn’t this look like him?” she said as she pushed the glass figure across the kitchen table to show me. She collects glass miniatures that she displays on the windowsill in the kitchen. A unicorn, a turtle, an elephant, and a replica of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood from home.

“I loved that dog.”

“What happened to him?”

“My father had him put down. It was that little wretch Nadia’s fault.”

“I don’t remember the details, Stalina.”

If Amalia wanted to distract me from my sorrow, she was doing a good job. When Pepe was taken away, at first I was very sad, and then I was angry.

“Tell me about Pepe,” Amalia insisted.

I explained how after months of tears and temper tantrums, my parents allowed me to have a dog. As an only child, I longed for a companion. My friend Mina had a canary, and my parents thought a bird was a good idea for a pet. I told them the cage bothered me, and when I visited Mina, it was all I could do to keep myself from letting the poor bird go free.

Pepe came from the cages of a dog pound in Leningrad. All those dogs waiting and barking—I wanted them all. The moment he was let out of the cage, he stayed by my side. He was a full-grown terrier mix and seemed very relieved when I fastened the brand-new red leather collar around his curly brown neck. He loved to dig in our backyard and bury things in the crumbly black soil.

On a warm Sunday in August 1949, Mikhail and Andrei, the twin brothers with identical limps who lived next door, and Nadia and Lara, the two blond-haired sisters, twelve and nine years old, whose backyard faced ours, came over to play. The adults were playing cards and drinking tea in the shade. Nadia immediately began organizing and explaining the rules to the game that would alternately put one of us in the center of a circle reaching to catch a fist-sized beanbag tossed overhead. If you caught the beanbag, you got to choose someone to kiss behind the old cherry tree.

“We all stay seated,” Nadia explained. “That’s what makes it hard.”

Pepe was running around our circle wanting desperately to take part, but Nadia would not let him.

“Why don’t you tie that unruly mongrel up? He’s ruining everything,” she said, just like an adult.

“Don’t be such a big boss, Nadia. He will sit when I ask him to. Here boy, Pepe, Pepe,” I said. He was panting, looking longingly at Nadia’s left hand, which held the peach-sized beanbag with a tight, controlling fist.

“Pepe is spirited,” I told Nadia, trying to smooth over his bad behavior. He’d pull on his leash every time he’d see a pigeon on our walks, and he barked loudly at anyone in a uniform. My mother once had words with the traffic police when Pepe was in the car, and from then on, he became protective and upset whenever a uniform approached any of us. You can imagine in the Soviet Union, this made for a rather stressful existence.

In the backyard, on that afternoon, he was just having a good time, feeling like a puppy again, chasing around our circle, stretching out his front paws, ready to jump and pounce in any direction.

“Pepe, sit! Sit! Good boy,” I told him.

He could not be contained that day. When Nadia finished explaining the rules, she too sat in the circle. Pepe ran to her side, still panting over the beanbag. She twisted her body toward Pepe, confident that she had the power to control him.

“Sit, you sweet mutt,” she said. “Now lie down, lie down.”

Sitting was all Pepe could handle, but Nadia began pushing his head down toward the grass.

“Lie down.” She pushed again. “Lie—”

Her forceful hands and controlling spirit brought out something ugly in Pepe. He snapped and lunged at her. It was a motion of protection, but his sharp side teeth caught the fleshy part of her soft, pale, fourteen-year-old jaw. I watched as the blood spurted through her shaking fingers.

Amalia had heard only rumors about this story. When I finished telling her about this last part, she stopped me.

“Stalina, the story I heard was that Nadia smacked Pepe because he was misbehaving, and that you tried to bite Nadia, but Pepe got to her before you did.”

“Rumors. I wonder what they would have done to me if I did bite Nadia. She certainly deserved whatever she got.”

Amalia added, “She never wanted to play with me.”

“She was jealous that you got to wear makeup,” I assured her.

“She thought I was a horror with this mark on my face. She couldn’t stand to look at me.”

“Spoiled brat.”

“Did the bite leave a scar?”

“Plastic surgery. There was only the slightest line along her jaw.”

“What about Pepe?”

“The rest of that day was like a bad dream.” I continued the story, and Amalia made more tea.

“Nadia rolled on the ground holding her face with her hands. The blood seeping through her fingers looked like worms slithering into the ground. The grass moved beneath my feet; my voice was gone. The adults ran in all directions like a bomb had gone off. I stood in the middle of the lawn, fixated on Nadia. The twins, Mikhail and Andrei, chased after their parents as they ran next door to call an ambulance. Pepe was cowering under the pine trees at the edge of our yard. I could see he was sorry and scared for what he had done.”

“The poor dog,” Amalia said as she poured the hot water over the tea.

“My father screamed at me, ‘Stay away, he’s gone mad!’”

I told Amalia how my father rolled a newspaper and grabbed one end like a club. My grandmother held Nadia’s bawling sister in her arms and started singing to calm her down as she brought her inside. The emergency medicals came and took Nadia away. I followed my father as he walked silently toward Pepe. The dog’s eyes were deep, dark pools of fear.

“I wanted to comfort Pepe, hold him in my arms and let him know I understood it was not his fault. The rage in my father’s arched back frightened me. I watched his biceps engage as he raised the paper like a thug with a nightstick. I still could not speak, but my brain screamed at my father’s unflinching raised hand. ‘Don’t hit him. He’ll never do it again, I promise!’

“When his arm came down, the newspaper made a hard crack against Pepe’s spine. The poor dog made no sound but crawled further under the pine trees. With his back swayed, he looked up at my father’s raised arm, waiting for it to fall again. It was my father who had gone mad. Rage and pain had overtaken him.”

“Powerless,” Amalia said as she stirred her milky tea, “as children we were powerless.”

“Helpless, I felt so helpless. My mother grabbed my father’s arm, and he looked at her strangely. I thought he might hit her, but he stopped.”

I remembered how the tightly rolled pages of
Pravda
loosened from his hand and rolled along the ground. Pepe crawled to the coolness and shade of the apple trees. My parents stood together, their heads lowered.

“Have a sip of tea,” Amalia said, pushing the cup and saucer closer to me.

I continued, “Hearing my grandmother and Lara laughing in the kitchen brought me out of my state of paralysis. They were slapping and kneading the bread Lana Lana had left in the cupboard to rise earlier in the day. I felt invisible. No one saw me going to Pepe. I stood over him; he growled and bared his teeth pathetically. My voice came back. ‘It’s all right, boy. I’m not going to hurt you.’ I spoke until his body relaxed. I touched his soft pink ears and caressed his furry chin. He liked being tickled there, and he closed his eyes with relief.”

“What happened after that?” Amalia asked.

“That night Pepe was locked in the basement and was not allowed to sleep in my room. After everyone was asleep, I took my pillow and sat by the basement door. I could hear Pepe’s panting, and I told him, ‘We’ll go to the beach tomorrow for a run. You’ll swim in the river, and we’ll walk together, like always.’ I fell asleep at the door. When I woke in the morning, I was in my bed. In the kitchen my father was reading the paper, and my mother was making yogurt. The door to the basement was open, and Pepe was gone. I asked about his whereabouts.

“My mother said, ‘A farmer took him to chase the rats out of his barn. He’ll be happier there.’

“I was met with silence when I asked if I could go visit him. Later that evening I found his collar in my mother’s dresser when she sent me to fetch her sweater. I left the collar where I found it. The next day I went to look at it again, but it was gone. Neither my mother nor father ever said anything about Pepe again. Soon after that my father was also gone.”

“Well, now that we’ve heard that nice cheery story, Stalina, what about your mother?” Amalia’s sarcasm was amusing even during this difficult time.

“Cremation,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ll arrange to have her cremated. The rooming house must have a place they store ashes until relatives can pick them up.”

“Ashes A to Z.”

“Ashes to zashes. Interesting sort of library.”

*  *  *

I waited until it was six in the morning to call the rooming house. The same nurse I gave the bras to before leaving was on duty. She would make the arrangements for the cremation, and she informed me that they could only hold on to the ashes for a month. I told the nurse I would send her two hundred American dollars and that my friend Olga would retrieve the ashes and collect the picture of my father and the locket of Lenin my mother always wore.

Amalia went to the sink and splashed some water on her face before making a pot of coffee. My tea, made minutes before, had gone cold.

She sat next to me and reached for my hands. Her hands were still wet, and the cold made the hairs on my arms stand up. Lifting my hands in the air, she said, “Come on, Stalina, let’s dance for your mother.”

She sang.

Happiness for all,

On this earthly ball!

Happiness for us,

Before we take that final bus!

We sang together.

Bus!

Bus!

Bus!

We danced around the kitchen and banged pots and pans, making a racket. Amalia’s son, Alexi, came up from the basement and gave us a disapproving look as he opened the refrigerator and took out a container of milk and some leftover chicken. He had become very handsome in the last two years. He was sixteen and had let his dark brown hair grow to his shoulders and parted it in the middle. Around his neck he wore a thin piece of leather as a choker with a small skull in the center over his bulging Adam’s apple.

“Stalina’s mother has passed away,” Amalia told him.

He took a bite and said, “Sorry to hear that. It sounded like you were celebrating.”

He went back downstairs with a chicken leg in his mouth, the carton of milk, and a box of gingersnap cookies under his arm. I could hear music with a loud bass beat coming from his underground lair.

“Alexi stays up all night and loves to snack in the morning on leftovers. His father was exactly the same,” Amalia said as she sat down and put her head in her hands.

Her husband, Yossef, was a construction worker who died when he fell from the roof of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. He had been part of a crew that was repairing the copper gutters. Alexi was only two years old then. Yossef’s death was considered his own fault because the police found a half bottle of vodka under the seat of his car. Amalia and Alexi were isolated and scorned because Yossef’s actions were considered a crime against the state. Amalia made a public appeal to clear her husband’s name. She told the authorities it was her bottle of vodka and that he only drank beer because it helped to steady his hand. If it had been beer, he would have been a hero, but giving a bad name to vodka was a no-no. The authorities believed Amalia’s story, but they were still unhappy with the mess Yossef’s splattered body left on the plaza outside the cathedral. A couple who were sitting on a bench kissing when the accident occurred filed for trauma assistance and were given two months’ pay and an apartment in the country to go to on weekends. Amalia received nothing. She left Leningrad angry and sad. That was 1980.

The cuckoo clock struck half past six; the sun was just starting to come up. It was otherwise very quiet in the kitchen. Amalia’s cats, Shosta and Kovich, wandered in for their morning meal. Amalia dried her tears with the palms of her hands and kissed my forehead before going off to bed.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You look tired, Stalina. Why don’t you go to bed, too,” she said as she held my face between her hands.