Stalina Read Online Free PDF

disturbance.”
    She gave her nephew to the police! I realized that America is more like Russia than I imagined, only there the police would never have stopped at the door. The clock now said five after three.
    “My bus is leaving for Hartford soon. I must be going,” I explained as I stood to leave.
    “There were betrayals among these people,” she said, giving me back the pictures.
    “Betrayals? It was common,” I responded.
    “You were not the one betrayed. But you will be. Five dollars, please,” she said.
    “There is a Russian saying that goes, ‘Being the daughter of the betrayed is like having alcoholic parents. You may end up becoming a bartender.’ Why five dollars? The sign says three.”
    “You are too stuck in your past, and that was the old sign.”
    “I have to get on a bus to Hartford—that’s the future.”
    I handed her five dollars. Amalia had sent me a stack of five-dollar bills so I would not have to change money right away. The rubles I took from Russia were stuffed inside the hollow centers of my porcelain cats protected by the brassieres. Months later I would wish it had been the cats protecting the brassieres.
    Frederica scrutinized the five-dollar bill in the sunlight. As I left, she pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and placed my money inside her brassiere. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater that showed off her sagging but plentiful breasts. She stood in stockinged feet on the plastic fake grass mat in front of her store. Through her black opaque stockings I could see her toes were painted red and she had a bunion on her left foot. She drew loudly on her cigarette and exhaled even louder. A sign of an addict, I could tell. I walked to the corner and went inside the Port Authority. The bus was waiting at gate fifteen.
    The bus driver said, “Let me put your bag under here,” indicating somewhere deep in the belly of the bus.
    “No, thank you,” I replied.
    “Sup to you,” he said.
    English was still often baffling to me. I wondered what “sup” meant, but I did not dare ask as the bus driver was busy with the next passengers.
    The seats were soft, the bus dark, and the diesel fumes once again made me feel cozy and relaxed. As the bus rumbled out of the depot into the narrow streets, I could barely see any sky between the tall buildings. We went into a tunnel, and in the darkness I fell into the exhaustion of my journey and slept. In my dreams, I was still in Russia.
    *  *  *
     
    I was deep in a Russian forest and could hear, but could not see, someone chopping down a tree. I was nervous for the person chopping, as if the tree was going to fall on them. Eventually after much effort, the woodsman felled the tree. I could see through the clearing that it was my grandfather. He was holding up his right hand, showing a mangled index finger. In his youth it was common for young men to chop off their trigger fingers or shoot wax into their leg veins to make them varicose to escape serving in the czar’s army. My grandfather’s finger was mangled in real life, but I never knew how it happened. A flash went off in the dream—a spy wearing a black hood photographed my grandfather burying the top joint of his finger.
    *  *  *
     
    I woke, startled. My mouth had dropped open, and my tongue was parched. I looked at the watch of the man sitting next to me and saw that it was almost six o’clock. I had slept for a long time, and in order to see where I was, I read the signs on the stores as the bus sped by.
    Arturo’s Haircuts—Best in Hartford—Only $5
    The bus stopped at a traffic light. My legs were numb from the weight of my bag.
    “Prroh, prroh, prroh…” the man next to me started to splutter. He was dreaming and sounded like a motorboat engine struggling to start. I held tightly onto my bag.
    “Prrr…prognosis!” came out loud and clear. His breath smelled of sour milk. He startled himself awake, sat up, and stared directly at me.
    “You were having a