Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel

by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

  He wasn’t quick on the uptake. Frida’s attempts to relate that she was the person for whom the sign was intended weren’t as effective as she might’ve hoped. Once Volk finally apprehended that the disheveled lady wasn’t distracting him from the task but was the task itself, he shook off the shackles of concentration that had been keeping him static and grew animated and twitchy. Apologies began to issue. He was sorry for motioning her away as she’d tried repeatedly to introduce herself; for his poor vision and laziness, as he’d been due to make a visit to the oculist for decades; for his cardboard sign, which was too small and in Cyrillic; for the airport personnel and security guards, who were giving her such awful stares. (Really? All of them?)

  Her heart intensified its drum as she charged at the automatic doors separating her from Odessa air, like Moses marching at a sea that didn’t split. Momentum brought her cheek up against the glass. Peeling herself off, she stepped back, dumbstruck. Volk whipped out a pocketknife. He inserted the blade into the crack between doors and flipped his wrist, creating a space that his fingers could squeeze through, and proceeded to very unautomatically pry apart the doors. He led her to a woman who was an amalgamation of so much color, fabric, mood, and texture that the eye refused to absorb her as one whole. Sveta leaned against the railing, puffing on a cigarette. She took the apologizing torch. She was profoundly sorry for not waiting inside, she hadn’t expected Frida to come out so quickly, usually they detained Americans for at least an hour. You must seem extra harmless, she said. She was sorry for the air so saturated with exhaust—no regulations in Ukraine—and the lack of wheelchair-access ramps. Not that we need them, knock on wood.

  A bottle of Coca-Cola awaited in the trunk of Volk’s burgundy Volvo. It was practically steaming. From a vest pocket, Volk retrieved a stack of Dixie cups. Sveta Russian-dolled out the cups on the sun-blazed hood of the car, pouring until the brim caught the froth. They toasted in the parking lot. It was a superb parking lot. There was no painted grid delineating individual spaces, and the cars were strewn about as if abandoned by a giant child called to tea. Frida squinted into the distance, gulping her strange drink. It was a syrup made from the fur of an old grizzly, cooked up in a cauldron on the outskirts of town by a lady who mixed cat food into everything she touched and blotted the sores on her ankles with cotton balls that got stuck under her fingernails only to fall into the cauldron that had to stand on the open flame for many a day and be constantly stirred, the last ingredient being a mysterious powder responsible for the torturous effect: With the first sip, Frida almost choked and quit drinking, but a moment later the papillae of her devastated tongue were pleading for another wash of nuance murder.

  An alley of lindens led away from the airport like a stitch closing a seam. Volk steered the automobile as if it were half spaceship, half wild bull (it was a stick shift), while Sveta bounced alongside, enumerating the cultural possibilities on offer. In the backseat Frida lay half asleep, clutching the empty bottle and belching in varying volumes and intensities, the loudest of which roused her for a fraction of a second, enough to catch that the Opera House was closed for the season and last week Odessa’s only Caravaggio had been stolen. This suited her fine. Ideally all must-see treasures would be stolen, monuments defaced, cultural sights shut down for the season or for renovations or for good. They were distractions from the essential. Where or what the essential was, Frida knew not, but it certainly wasn’t an opera house or a Caravaggio.

  They were dropped off on a corner that, if a complaint must be made, was a bit too central, open, unencumbered. A large, lively intersection. Discount shoe stores and a fruit stand, determined pedestrians, briefcase collisions, traffic ruckus. It could’ve been an intersection in any respectable metropolis. Nothing thwarted, secretive, particular. Lest it seem too benign, a three-legged mutt hobbled into the road just as a tram was rounding the corner. There was screeching, a yelp tapered off abruptly. They entered a courtyard that proved soundproof. The street turned off. A faucet turned on. Snores emanated from a shattered window.

  On a tucked-away porch, in a low canvas chair, Pasha was hidden behind globular hirsute knees and a laptop. The image struck Frida as ridiculous, and she laughed. Pasha laughed, too, as if something inherent in their reunion, and not in him, was funny, which made Frida stop laughing and cross her arms. There was no outpouring of affection, no messy reunion scene here. For a reunion Pasha would’ve had to register a separation. His greeting, after his giggle, was brief and casual, as if Frida were a fixture in his life, rather like the floor lamp. Taking her niece in anew, Sveta said, Look how big she’s grown! Can you believe how the years passed? Though she’d never seen Frida before today, the lack of a reference point wasn’t about to keep her from marveling. If this was an attempt to elicit a proper response from Pasha, it didn’t work. He wasn’t even capable of tagging on to Sveta’s absurd sentiments. Yet with nobody to feel these things, she seemed to really feel them. She was truly overcome by Frida’s presumed transformation.

  Frida snuck off to the bathroom to investigate whether she hadn’t actually undergone one. Perhaps stepping onto native soil had activated, on a cellular level, some dormant capacity, unlocked hidden potential. Or maybe she’d just missed it the last time she looked: Airplane mirrors were too harsh to trust. Here she encountered the opposite problem. Two of the bulbs had burned out, and the amber remainder was moody but insufficient for an appraisal. What she found in the mirror were under-eye bags and an inflamed chin pimple, what she found behind it were pills, pills, and more pills, prescribed for Svetlana Muser and Svetlana Nasmertov. For the weak/sickly/always dying one, there wasn’t a single bottle.

  He was seated at the tiny kitchen table (a converted sewing table), twirling a matchbook in his fingers. Frida had to stop herself from running out of the house. Grown woman, she said to herself, and took a seat opposite. Gravitas, unkempt leonine facial hair, an aura of solemnity encompassing all past wars, pogroms, exiles, and oppressions, a mild odor of stagnation, a high forehead—oh, very high and very steep and just a bit wrinkled—an intimidating stare, silence. This man didn’t apologize. Of course, he had no cause for apology, but this hardly mattered, since under no circumstance would he have apologized. He didn’t deal in the petty intricacies of personal relationships. In comparison to the panoramic sphere Pasha was out wandering, Frida was pinned to the present moment.

  Do you like chocolate? asked Sveta, hovering over them.

  The question was a trick. There was a right answer and a wrong answer, but it wasn’t nearly as obvious as it would seem. If secret code, did it have to do with their being female? Frida stared at Sveta, fierce intensity, zero comprehension.

  The freezer was open, Sveta climbing inside. Her arms and head were gone, shoulders squeezing. Spit back out holding two cartons like frozen tonsils. Ice cream, she explained. You’re welcome to have.

  Oh, no, said Frida very categorically, but thank you. Heat tore her cheeks. I’m not really a dessert type of person.

  Sveta wished she could say the same for herself. Two happy bowls were plucked from the dish rack. She scooped vigorously with a soupspoon until one bowl contained a mountain of gooey rich chocolate, and into the other a half spoonful was gently tapped. The mountain was placed under Pasha’s nostrils, the anthill Sveta kept for herself, retreating with it into a corner.

  Pasha didn’t stir. Seconds passed slowly and laboriously. The mountain began to lose height. A puddle formed at the base, particularly around the soupspoon. In the meantime he attended an itch under his beard. Frida gulped, trying to keep back a shameful surge of saliva. Not a dessert type of person? A pure and utter lie! Did Pasha notice her frequent swallowing? Did he notice the ice-cream mountain awaiting him below?

  A poet, of course, noticed everything. In addition to five senses sharpened to perfection like test-ready No. 2s, he (in this case) had recourse to a mode of perception that made a mockery of any exam: the sixth poet sense. If the Russian people had to ag
ree on one thing, it would have to be on the existence of this sense—that they themselves lacked it but that someone rare and special possessed it. Into this chosen being they could place their trust. A fatidic capacity was implied, accurate future prediction regarded as the culmination of the cosmic poet powers. But from observing Pasha, Frida would’ve surmised that he noticed nothing at all, not the pooling ice cream, not the cockroach disappearing into the sugar bowl, not even his own fingers with deep vertical grooves on the nails.

  Pasha gave an openmouthed squeak and began to cough, all sorts of mysterious things loosening in his chest. The rings around his eyes went from pale green to lilac to bruise blue and back to pale green. The matchbook dropped to the table and disappeared. The soupspoon was brought to life. The corners of Pasha’s mouth were crammed with brown residue.

  Don’t look so disturbed, he said. I ate my vegetables thirty years ago.

  • • •

  THE DOORBELL RANG. Standing on their doorstep wasn’t Sanya but Steve Martin, who seemed just about as confused by his presence there as was Frida. Tall and lean, he was more dashing on the whole than one might’ve imagined. His wispy white hair was parted on the side, and his large, bland face was made absurd, likable, and distinct by a nose—rarely did one feature carry so much weight. Frida saw him over Sveta’s bare shoulder. Sveta had changed into a handkerchief with straps. Her skin was a transparent blue like the sky over snowcapped mountains. Tiny hairs stood on end. Steve Martin saw Sveta’s bare shoulder and nothing beyond it. He addressed that shoulder with the question Are you Fridachka? The Russian words contorted his face, pulling it into a strictly Slavic direction.

  Who are you? said Sveta.

  Not Steve Martin but his Russian variation, Volodya, there on behalf of Avarchuk, the casino king. The explanation satisfied Sveta. Volodya was visibly disappointed when the bare shoulder retreated and was replaced by Fridachka, a staunch adherent of the many-layers policy. His beady eyes had no choice but to look into her beady eyes.

  Volodya got to the point, pulling two objects from his briefcase: a cell phone and a thick white envelope. He lifted the flap of the envelope and tilted it to display the contents: colorful bills that would’ve aroused suspicions of fraudulence in a game of Monopoly. Five thousand hryvnia, to be precise.

  That’s very kind, said Frida, but isn’t it a bit much?

  He glanced at her quizzically. It’s the amount agreed on. Whatever you don’t use, give back to your papa. He’ll deal with Avarchuk.

  My papa?

  Or me. But there’s not much in there when you get down to it. You’ll see. On Deribasovskaya there are decent shops. Shoes and hats, things like that. There’s the seven-kilometer market. Dresses, teakettles. You’ll need souvenirs for the folks. A boyfriend, eh? Before long you’ll be calling me. Volodya, you’ll say, I need more dough! No problemo. As much as you want. They’ll take care of the calculations. Your papa and Avarchuk. I’m just Avarchuk’s guy. My number’s programmed into the phone under Vasya. You call me when you’re running low or if you’re in a stitch. I mean a real stitch. Not if you need a restaurant recommendation or directions to a nightclub. Not for museum hours either—you look like you’ll be wanting some of those. Call only if you need more dough or are about to be murdered. Capisce?

  I won’t take it, said Frida, pushing away the goods. Tell Avarchuk to tell my papa that I don’t need anybody making arrangements for me. I’m sorry you had to waste your time.

  Volodya’s eyes crinkling. She expected him to try to convince her otherwise, but he just shrugged. As he turned away, a shadow of a smirk passing across his face. Frida wanted to believe that it was intended for her, something like bemused respect at her show of independence. He folded himself away into his white car and sped off. Frida returned to what now struck her as a gnome’s home. No one asked a thousand questions about the stranger or made as many remarks about how she’d handled the situation incorrectly. It was usually at this stage of Operation Freedom that she succumbed to a devastating sense of loneliness and remembered the utter indifference of the universe as to whether she lived or died, prospered or failed, which was enough to abort the operation and send her running back into the warm bosom of her family. Now, too, she considered retracting her head into her shoulders, hiding her tail between her legs, changing her return ticket, and ordering a cab back to the airport.

  I’ll be off to sleep, said Pasha. I’ve got an old man’s bedtime, to go with the old man’s body. His hand landed on Frida’s shoulder. The moment of truth was upon them. She twisted up her face, straining to channel her chaotic inner existence, her uncertainty, her fear, her lack of footing, which Pasha seemed at last on the brink of acknowledging and shedding light on. He gave two squeezes and said, For tomorrow. Any requests?

  The low ceiling was spore-speckled, brown. Water damage: a sinister force spanning nations. She shook her head.

  None at all?

  She had no requests at all. At last she’d attained such a state. Requests led to anguish, a correlation anybody would recognize. Best to do away with them altogether.

  But Pasha persisted. There’s absolutely nothing in particular you want to see?

  Was this a test? Was the requestless existence she considered an accomplishment actually a failure? To come up empty-handed seemed as unwise as not even making an educated guess on a multiple-choice exam. The dacha, she declared.

  Why don’t you sleep on it, said Pasha. It’s been a long day. Sveta put fresh sheets and a towel on the armchair. Make yourself comfortable, at least as comfortable as possible on that thing. Try experimenting with positions—I’m told there’s one in which you don’t even feel the metal bar.

  • • •

  JARRED AWAKE BY A RINGING phone, Frida sprang upright and rattled off, Mama, don’t worry, everything’s fine. On the other end, a man’s voice shouted in Ukrainian for a steady thirty seconds. People said it was a melodic language, and they were right.

  Are you trying to sell me something? Frida asked.

  The line went dead.

  In her hand was the cell phone she’d so nobly refused to accept. On top of her suitcase lay the envelope full of cash.

  Sleeping beauty, said Pasha when she stumbled into the kitchen. Too groggy to say for sure, but she detected sarcasm. It hadn’t exactly been a spectacular night of rest. Regardless of jet lag or a foldout sofa through which snaked a metal bar so limber it managed to jab everywhere at once, trying to repose in the room that housed Pasha’s collections was no easy feat. At least the icons—countless pairs of eyes embedded in misshapen-as-if-spilling heads, thick globs of boneless babies—could be turned off with the lights, but it was in the dark that the pendulum clocks struck out, not entirely in unison, and proceeded to spend the night in a bravura competition. Toward dawn, in a thrill of ingenuity, Frida had tied her uncle’s shoes by their laces to the pendulums, finding not long thereafter that the courtyard served as breeding grounds for livestock.

  A man dressed as a pirate sat beside Pasha, directing at her an unctuous grin under an indulgent mustache with upward-tapering tips. The rapacious gleam in his eyes was studied but effective. A white ruffled shirt stretched taut over a barrel chest. He had everything short of an eye patch. And the hat was rather a sombrero. He introduced himself as the foremost painter of Odessa—the most controversial, the least liked, the most talented and underappreciated, the least reimbursed and validated, the most prolific and modern, and had he already mentioned underappreciated? An understatement! Try ostracized and shunned, admittedly not as much as Pavel Robertovich. Your uncle, said the pirate before Frida had finished pouring cold coffee into a mug, is the greatest poet not just in Odessa and not in all of Ukraine but in all of Russia, which is why people hate him. They want him to rot in the ground.

  Pasha laughed—spare, dismissive, but a laugh nonetheless. He’d acquired human color overnight and seemed, on the whole, less world-historically solemn.

  The coffee wasn’t
doing a proper job of reviving, perhaps because it was impossible to believe in the power of Ukrainian coffee. If the coffee worked, it would’ve been a far different country. The only effect was a leaden tongue.

  Where’s Sveta? she asked.

  You’re not the only sleeping beauty around here, said Pasha. Thanks for the reminder. He rose and began to fuss. For somebody who moved so sluggishly, an incredible clatter was generated. Everything banged against everything else. Anything capable of clanging didn’t hesitate to do so. That Sveta didn’t run in, wondering about the earthquake, was testament to the potency of her slumber. Half an hour later, Pasha was finished. For all the noise, effort, mess, there was surprisingly little yield: a fresh brew of coffee (the batch from which Frida had just taken went down the drain) and a soggy egg mass. These were delicately placed on a silver tray with an undoubtedly rich history and majestically carried off to the master bedroom.

  What a mensch, said the pirate. How many men do you know who spoil their wives like that? Women in this country are lucky not to spend half their lives with a black eye. Do you know when was the last time I made breakfast for my wife? I’m really asking, because I don’t. I’m not even entirely sure what number wife I’m on, or if she eats. And this is a literary man we’re talking about, the greatest poet—not just in Odessa, mind you, but in all of the former SSSR!

  The pirate didn’t stop. While he spoke and gesticulated and let the ends of his mustache stab the air, he glanced intermittently into the corridor to see if Pasha was returning. He needed to be saved from his own performance. At some point Pasha had been gone too long. The pirate destroyed the cracker monument he’d been erecting and fell silent.

  Of course, if Pasha expended even a tenth of the effort he does with Sveta to the outside world, the pirate said quietly, who knows, he might not be in this predicament.

  Is it dire? asked Frida.

  Yes and no—it depends on what he wants.