Red Ticket: Moscow Hill
"It was hard to ignore the naked woman standing ten feet away from us, though it was clear that she wanted us to."
Every weekend we serialize Red Ticket, Robin Whetstone’s memoir of her time in Moscow in the early ‘90s. Today, Robin gets a writing assignment but dreams of war. If you need to catch up, go back and read chapters 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6, 7, 8-9, 10-11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20.
Chapter 20: Moscow Hill
by Robin Whetstone
I shook the brass hand on the door with confidence this time, and headed upstairs for my first staff meeting at the Guardian. Two Americans stood in the middle of the main office, fiddling with something. I recognized the tall one as the person who’d shown me the kittens at my interview.
“Stu,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m a writer. This is Brad, the layout guy.” Brad nodded and turned a knob on the machine, which squawked and chirped.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a Geiger counter,” said Brad. “We bought it at Izmalovsky Park.”
“Does it work? Why’s it clicking like that?”
“It works,” said Brad.
A Russian man and woman walked into the room and sat down, followed by Jason Stanford. His black eye healed, he looked like a normal managing editor. “OK,” he said, “story ideas.”
“There is man who stings people with bees,” said Julia, the Russian translator.
“On purpose?” asked Jason.
Julia nodded. “It is called apiopothy. We use this instead of doctor.”
“Horrosho,” said Jason. “Stu can do it, you can translate.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a Geiger counter,” said Brad.
“Why’s it clicking like that?”
“It works,” said Brad.
“I heard about a guy who teaches coal-walking classes,” said Stu.
“OK. Try to set something up,” said Jason. He looked at me.
“My boyfriend told me about a school where people learn to have better sex,” I said.
“Ah,” said Jason.
“You’re still dating him?” said Stu.
“I know about this,” said Julia. “It is true.”
“Also,” I said, “My professor in Florida told me about something called the Sadistic Couplets. They’re like the Russian equivalent of dead baby jokes, but with Stalin.”
“Skip the sex school for now,” said Jason. “Do the Couplets. Also, I want you to review a new nightclub, Moscow Hill. It’s probably a mafia place, so be careful.”
“I have a gun,” I said.
“OK,” said Jason. He turned to Brad. “What about you?”
“Radioactive vegetables,” said Brad.
***
I asked Lyosha to accompany me to the nightclub Jason told me to review. “You want to go here why?” he asked, but he agreed to come with me.
“She is journalist,” he said to the man at the door. The man disappeared inside. When he came back outside a few minutes later, he patted Lyosha down and let us into an empty room. It was square, and cold. The walls were lined with tiles that reflected the pink rope lights strung here and there. The mirrored dancefloor was empty, no music was playing. There was no bartender. There were no customers at all. This was a club, all right, a club this branch of the Russian mafia had started for itself so it would have a place to hang out while laundering money.
A man in a suit came out of a curtained-off back area and smiled at us. He was the manager of the club, he said. He gestured for us to sit down at a table and went to get our drinks. While he was gone, the doorman appeared. “It is five dollars for floorshow,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We don’t want a floorshow.”
“Here,” said Lyosha, holding out a five.
“Spaceebo,” said the doorman. He put the bill in his pocket and went back outside.
A few minutes passed and then a woman came out from the curtained doorway and walked over to stand in front of the mirrored area. She was wearing a leather thong and studded collar, high heels, and nothing else. She nodded at us and stood there in silence under the rope lights, in front of our small table, staring off into the middle distance and waiting for the music to start. It was hard to ignore the naked woman standing ten feet away from us, though it was clear that she wanted us to. Everyone was relieved when the synthesizers of Taco’s Puttin’ on the Ritz farted through the speakers. The woman began an apologetic dance, like her heart wasn’t really in it.
The manager returned with two vodkas. I asked him questions about prices and menu items. I asked him what kind of people came here.
“All kinds of people,” he said. “People who like to enjoy life.”
“Oh. So anyone can come here any time?”
“Yes,” he said. “You and your friends may come here at any time.”
“Great,” I said. I looked at the woman, who had perked up some and was scooting around to Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
I asked the manager a few more questions and then he stood up to go. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said. “I would like to see the article you write.”
“Welp, I’m just going to talk about the menu, and the hours. I’m going to say that you are friendly.”
“That is the article I would like to read,” he said.
“And that is exactly the article you will read,” I said. I wasn’t planning to get shot over a nightclub review. I wanted to get shot writing about bigger things, like the war in Chechnya. Chechnya and Ossetia, Tajikistan and Ingushetia. The names of the places that were falling apart went round in my head like a schoolyard rhyme.
It was hard to ignore the naked woman standing ten feet away from us, though it was clear that she wanted us to. Everyone was relieved when the synthesizers of Taco’s Puttin’ on the Ritz farted through the speakers. The woman began an apologetic dance
For years, I’d been in love with the Stans. Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan were glimpses of our global future. The 21st century was going to be religious fundamentalists blowing each other up, not big state powers fighting over political ideologies. Crime families, businessmen, and terrorists would have as much influence over war and policy as presidents and parliaments once had. Like in Chechnya.
Chechnya wasn’t technically a Stan, but it was close. Everyone in Moscow knew that both the Russian mafia and the Russian military were selling arms to the Chechen Muslims they were sending Russian sons to kill. The newspapers were full of the stories of the generals who had been arrested doing this very thing. Refugees from Chechnya, radicalized by the fighting around them, fled to other Central Asian countries like Afghanistan, and the Middle East. It was only a matter of time before the empire’s unsecured nuclear and biological weapons were exported. While the West basked in the Cold War afterglow, the future wars we’d fight were starting here.
The Russians call Chechnya’s capital city Grozny, which means “Fearsome,” and Russians describe Chechens as merciless fighters, so I knew it would be dangerous. But other people had done it. A girl my own age was over there right now, taking pictures. I could go there, too, and write an article for the Guardian, or even the New York Times. I could be a foreign correspondent. I would never not have a story.
“Lyosha,” I said, “Do you know anyone who could help me get to Chechnya?”
Lyosha frowned. “Yes. But it were up from me, you would not go there.”
I didn’t say anything, and we finished our drinks in silence and left the club. Outside, we stood on the icy sidewalk. The night was clear and sharp. We were the only people on the street. I leaned in toward Lyosha. “Where should we go now?” I asked. “Rosie O’Grady’s?”
“We cannot go there,” said Lyosha. “It is closed.
“Why?”
“Someone was shot there last night.”
“What?” I said. We went there all the time. “Who?”
“A Russian man. I don’t know. Other men came in and shot him.”
“Oh my god,” I said. “Why?”
“A business deal,” said Lyosha. He stuck out his arm and after a while, someone pulled over.
***
I knew a guy whose work took him all over the former Soviet Union, but who spent his time in Moscow at the Irish House Bar and Supermarket. He knew people in Chechnya; had been there himself. I waited in the stairwell until I was sure Lyosha’s driver had pulled away, then I stepped back outside into the unlit courtyard.
To read the next chapter, click here.
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