Mr. Suri faded into the background as he prepared to make his exit. He took his jacket off the hook and then grabbed an uneaten apple and one of the Statue of Liberty postcards from the front desk. He held the suitcase of money between his legs as he put his jacket on. I don’t know how much they gave him, but I hope it was enough at least to replace his failing automobile. We held hands for a moment before he walked out the door.
“I’ll write, Stalina.”
“I have much to thank you for, Mr. Suri.”
“I’ll miss you, Stalina.”
As he walked away, I watched his elegant long legs carry him across the gravel. There was a steady rhythm to his gait, but with a slightly defeated tempo. When he pulled out of the driveway, his Delta ’88 coughed and gagged. The drowning gurgle of the car reminded me of how my mother sounded when I left her in Petersburg. They say Arizona is a good place for such human ailments. Mr. Suri and his car disappeared down the hill.
“Is your mother in Brighton Beach like the rest, Stalina?” Nadia asked in Russian as she took the bra out of the box.
“No, actually, she’s dead in Petersburg.”
“I’m so sorry. This brassiere is not my size. Maybe it will fit you. It’s very pretty, but too small.”
“Not my size either. It’s very small, like Amalia. I’ll take it back to her,” I said, laughing.
Nadia laughed too. Her dark suits were restless. She gave an order in English.
“Bacco, take Stalina home so she can get her things.”
Chapter Nineteen: Leaving Again
My confrontation with Amalia was not pretty.
“I thought you hated Nadia; that’s why I never told you I saw her,” she said when I exposed her betrayal.
“Didn’t you think our paths would cross at some point?” I asked.
“Well, did the surprise of seeing her soften your anger?” Amalia responded. Her logic became more and more twisted.
“I did not hate her; I was sad about my dog.
“For the better?”
“The motel is mine to run,” I said.
“She always hated me because of this mark on my face.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She was just jealous of your makeup.”
Amalia was twisting a long strand of her hair and passing it through her mouth. She’s done that since she was a little girl.
“I can’t believe you stole my bras and sold one to her,” I said.
“I did not take your brassieres,” she claimed.
“I sold only one, and it wasn’t to Nadia,” I retorted.
As we continued to argue, Alexi came into the kitchen.
“Alexi, not now please. Stalina and I are having a discussion,” Amalia said.
“What’s up, ladies? Trouble on the home front?” he said arrogantly and opened the refrigerator.
“Alexi, get your snack and leave,” his mother said.
“Are you two fighting about those stupid bras?” he said.
Amalia slapped him on the side of the head.
“Leave him alone,” I said. “Let him speak.”
“Hey, yeah, Mom, stop it. You told me it was OK to take those bras.”
Amalia took an empty pot off the stove and threw it across the kitchen. It struck the side of a wooden chair and chipped off a piece of blue paint. The pot rattled as it spun around before coming to rest on the pink and green linoleum floor. Shosta and Kovich, who had been watching us from the top of the refrigerator, leapt and slid across the kitchen table. We stood motionless as the cats fled the chaos of the kitchen to the safety of the living room and cowered in the four inches between the couch and the wall.
Alexi broke the silence. “She said you brought those bras for us to sell.”
“How could you lie to him like that, Amalia? You made your son an accomplice?” I said. “I should call the police.”
“What about your citizenship test, Stalina? You don’t want anything messy to interfere with becoming an American.”
My citizenship hearing was soon. I wanted to be an American. Amalia hated me for this. She was like my mother and held tightly to her nostalgia for “Mother Russia.” I was furious, but I still felt sorry for all she had been through.
This line from one of my father’s poems came to mind. I understood and could almost forgive my complicated friend, Amalia. In any case, I needed a place of my own; as roommates our time had come to a close.
“And those porcelain cats of yours…” She stopped and spit into the sink.
“What about them?”
“Don’t worry, I would never touch those ugly babies of bourgeois indulgence.”
“Bourgeois? What about all your glass miniatures?” I said.
“You can see through glass; there is nothing hidden. It is open and honest, like a peasant. Porcelain is for pigs,” she replied. “You are such a traitor.”
“The porcelain is beautiful and lifelike, and those brassieres were my last month’s salary from the lab.”
Alexi had started to back out of the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Stalina. She told me you brought those bras to help us pay the bills.”
Soon he would have to start shaving. His mustache had started to grow. It was just a scraggly line of hairs along his upper lip. It looked as if someone had cut off a bit of frayed rug fringe and stuck it up there.
“I don’t blame you, Alexi.”
Amalia sat down.
“I am moving out,” I told Amalia after Alexi had left and I heard the door to the basement slam shut.
“Where will you go, Princess America?”
“I’ll live at the motel.”
“Ungrateful capitalist!”
“Better to be a thief?” I asked.
“Those are Soviet bras; they belong to us all. By the way, I spoke with Olga this afternoon. She said to call her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You did not give me a chance; you were so upset about your silly bras.”
“Those are my bras. The money is mine.”
“Get out of my house.”
I opened my pink wallet and pulled out three twenty-dollar bills.
“Here, take some Andrew Jacksons, seventh president of the United States, my adoptive country.”
“He killed a man in a duel for saying something nasty about his wife.”
“You studied for the exam?”
