Stalina Read Online Free PDF Page A

would say, ‘Watch me, Stalina. This is the way it’s done.’ After peeling back the skin of the plum and revealing its brown and purple flesh, she would wet her lips. ‘Remember, don’t tense—let them relax, feel full. Your lips must be soft and determined at the same time.’ Lifting a plum from the bowl, she would bring it toward her lips and lean in a little over the cream. Her lips and the plum became one.”
    I explained how we would continue to eat in silence, bobbing the peeled plums, watching the morning sunlight bounce off our spoons onto the walls. Karlik and Meeyassa, my two cats who would be called Little One and Meat in English, swatted at the flickerings along the top of the refrigerator. One cat would swipe and hit the other. Timid Meat would jump down first and hiss back up at Little One and go under my chair, where I always put the bowl of unfinished cream.
    As I spoke, Frederica continued to look at my left palm. With a long, sharp fingernail she traced the lines in my hand. Her black nail polish was peeling. The sunlight was streaking in a slant through the front window, hitting her heavily made-up eyes. Flecks of mascara were clumped on her lashes, and her lips were painted deep purple, the same color as the plums. The lipstick had seeped into the age lines around her mouth like the canals that split off the Neva River at home.
    Frederica spoke as if a vision had come to her. “You are on a long journey.”
    This clairvoyance did not impress me. After all, I had not slept in twenty-four hours, my eyes were heavy, I had my valise packed full at my side, and even though I speak English with good confidence, my accent is quite thick. She could tell I was not very impressed, so she held both my palms in her hands and stared at them.
    “Are you comfortable hearing about past lives?” she asked.
    I said yes, not because I believe in life after death, but I still had forty minutes before my bus would leave, and I was curious.
    “You were in a desperate situation because of your religion.”
    “Once a Jew, always a Jew,” I said, laughing. “Let my people go? Inquisition? Would you like me to continue?”
    She was serious.
    “One of those. Your safety was compromised, and you were forced to take your four children away, which ended in great tragedy. There were deaths. Your husband was not of your religion, so he was safe. At the time, your relationship was one of much dependency. That all fell apart, and you never recovered.”
    For some reason I keep getting sent back as a Jew.
    “‘You, you, always a Jew,’ the angels yelled down at me from St. Isaac’s Cathedral before I left Russia,” I told her.
    “Angels, that’s good. They don’t hate Jews—they’re just doing someone else’s bidding.”
    “Could have fooled me,” I said under my breath.
    “Please may I see the other pictures?” she asked.
    I pulled out the pictures of my grandmother, our neighbors, my mother, father, and Trofim.
    At that moment an official car with a siren blaring and lights flashing pulled up out front. It was the police, and two officers got out and came into Frederica’s salon.
    “We have a warrant for the arrest of Anthony Hermona,” one of the officers announced.
    I froze. I did not want to be part of anything illegal during my first hours in America. Frederica said nothing, just indicated with her eyes and a tilt of her head to the curtain at the back of the room. The officers went through, and there was a scuffle in the back. A few moments later a young man with dark, oily hair and sweat stains at his armpits was led away in handcuffs. Frederica was silent until the police had driven away. I stared at a moving waterfall in a frame that was also a clock. It was three o’clock. I waited for Frederica to say something.
    “He’s my nephew. He sold cocaine to the wrong people. They’ll let him out in a week. I told the police he knew a lot. Now they’ll watch out for my store. Sorry for the