I’d been stupid enough to think the flow of my life was just as easily curtailed. I’d left New York and the theater and traveled downstream to Chicago. I’d settled on the bank, perhaps not completely happy, but content to spend the rest of my days out of the whorls and ebbing of a tide that had threatened to pull me under. Then Alek had come and offered me a place in his theater, and I’d accepted it.
These last few months had been the happiest of my life. And then, as if nature had a way of reminding humanity that they were nothing more than flotsam, the current had stirred again bringing Nikolai Kosloff back not only into my life… but into my babushka’s home.
“Clara?”
Looking up, I saw Judy was holding out a teacup for me. The floral-handled filigree holders were intricately woven and made of silver. The glass that sat inside was etched with famous landmarks of Russia. The one I was being offered had my hand trembling as I took it. I couldn’t help but wonder about fate when I was drinking tea out of a glass that bore the image of the Marilinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg. Was it cruel or humorous? An assurance that all would be well and I’d dance again, or a foreboding sign that this treasured cup from the motherland was as close as I’d ever come to a stage again.
“Shall I go?” Judy asked after making sure my grandmother had a glass of tea and was sipping it slowly.
It would be wonderful to say yes, thank her for her service, and watch her walk out the door. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
“No, please stay,” I said with a sigh. “I know you didn’t sign up for this, and I assure you neither my grandmother nor I will blame you one bit if after you hear what I need to say, you decide not to return. In fact, that would probably be best.”
“Are you involved in something illegal?” Judy asked.
“No, nothing like that… at least not directly,” I said wondering how many degrees of separation were needed to remain untouched by another’s crimes.
Judy poured a third glass of tea and settled onto a chair next to my grandmother. “Then how about we cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I told an abbreviated, cleaned-up version of the story I’d told Alek a few nights ago. As I spoke, my babushka began to reach out and stroke my arm, or my hair, gentle touches as if to either reassure me I was all right or assure herself I was still with her and not back in the hell where I’d once resided.
“I thought it was turning around, that it was all over. Even though it was four years ago these last few months have been the first time I truly believed we were starting fresh, that we had a new beginning that really might go somewhere,” I said, finishing up the tale. “I am dancing again and—”
“I’ve been accepted into the drug trial,” my grandmother cut in. When I gasped and looked up, she was giving me the best smile she could at the moment, her silver curls bobbing as she nodded a bit too vigorously as if determined to convince me all was well in her world. “So, the only question is what are we going to do to make damn sure that bastard never sets foot into your life again.”
“Can’t you call the police. Get a restraining order or something?” Judy asked.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” I said, shaking my head. “Those are all things law-abiding citizens care about. Things that make it easier to lay one’s head down to sleep at night. The world of the bratva… the mafia… isn’t like that. They live by one set of rules, and they are the ones making them.” I paused, snippets of conversations I’d overheard while I’d been with Nikolai played in my head, and I shuddered. “And they are the ones enforcing them.”
Setting my glass down on the tray before I dropped it, I stood and wrapped my arms around my torso as I began to pace around the room.
“There has to be something you can do. No one deserves to live in fear. This is America for God’s sake, not…”
“Russia?” my babushka offered when Judy abruptly stopped talking. When the caregiver nodded, looking a bit chagrinned, she continued, “There have been evil men among us from the beginning of time. It doesn’t matter where they live or what they call their nasty little clubs. It doesn’t matter if they wear uniforms with insignia that sets fear in people’s hearts or walk around in thousand-dollar bespoke suits. Strip them naked as the day they came screaming into this world and they are still evil.”