Work Text:
Moscow, USSR
28 January 1932
The rattling tram No. 4 disgorges me into the Moscow night. Glancing at the bright electric umbrella of the Vakhtangov Theatre’s marquee, I hurry down Maly Nikolopeskovsky Lane. This winter is unusually warm, and I negotiate the muddy, uneven pavement with grace somewhat less than swan-like.
Speaking of waterfowl—Sappho, my Greek friend from the Comintern, had a spare ticket for Swan Lake, and we spent the evening at the Bolshoi. Now I’m on my way home. Her Boris must be at work still—the Latvians backed out of signing the non-aggression pact with Russia at the last moment.
Latvia was the last my family saw of the Russian Empire. I barely remember us sailing out of Libau on the Czar in August 1913. Ending up in the Bronx, disabused of the notion of streets paved with gold, my father became a socialist and then joined the Communist Party.
I’m not a card-carrying member, but my art is dedicated to the communist ideals. I spent three years in Mexico, and last June, after a short stay in the Bronx, I went to Soviet Russia, leaving the imperialism of the electric chair behind.
The old, bourgeois America is dying—Hoover can’t stop the coming revolution. The new hope for mankind is here, under the Red Flag.
My boots tap against the cobblestones of the Dog Square as I pass by the broken fountain, beloved by hooligans who stick cigarettes in the mouths of its lion heads. But there are no gangsters in Moscow!
I’m almost home—I’ve a room in one of the wings of an old town house on the north side. My roommate is on a trip to Leningrad, and I have our two-bedroom apartment all to myself.
I let myself in and tiptoe along the dark corridor to my door. The old house is asleep. Fumbling with the keys, I—
My door flings open. I let out a yelp, but someone—a man—swings his fist into my solar plexus. I double up, eyes bulging, until they knock my hat off my head and drag me in. The next thing I know I’m in a headlock, a meaty hand smothering my mouth, someone’s rancid breath washing over my face.
‘Quiet! Quiet, bitch!’
A nasty, cruel voice. Its owner, a tall, hard-faced man in his mid-twenties, approaches me, a straight razor in his hand. He brings the blade so close I see the tiniest spots of rust.
‘Keep fuckin’ quiet now or you’re dead, get it?’
I answer with a sob. The second man holding me lets go of my mouth.
‘Hand over the dollars—quick!’
‘Do it, zhidovka!’
Did the thin, pale youth clutching my arm just call me a Yid woman? Tears of rage well up in my eyes.
‘Why—why are you doing this? I’m your friend—’ I stammer out.
‘Yeah, right. You’re our girlfriend!’ the man behind me laughs. ‘Give up the dollars, or we’re gonna sit your bare arse on the Primus!’
Mechanically, I walk up to the wardrobe and take the tin box off it.
Five hundred dollars. Enough to buy a new Ford in New York. Despite my protests, my former roommate Caia, a thrill-seeking millionairess from Baltimore who went to Moscow to study modern dance, foisted this money on me for a large painting of three sturdily built barefoot women repairing railroad tracks. She took it with her to Paris when she left.
The men’s eyes light up.
‘Fuck, it was easy,’ the leader sneers.‘Now we’re gonna take care of this Amerikanochka! Look at her, all dolled up! Take off your coat, my Klavka’s gonna love it!’
I’m stunned as they take my coat off me.
‘Off with that dress, too!’
How about you fucking go to hell!
‘Fuck off!’ I snarl. ‘Ah!’
The leader punches me in the face. I taste blood—I’m going to get a fat lip, but that’s the least of my troubles. A hand is clapped over my mouth again and they start to drag my best blue dress off me!
I writhe, elbowing and kneeing the cursing men, kicking out, hearing the fabric rip, until the big man stuns me, crashing his fist onto the top of my head.
‘Look what you did! You fuckin’ bitch…’
I’m on my belly on the old sofa. They took the dress off me, and the third guy shakes it in front of my face. Its back is torn up well and good—no Moscow moll would look twice oh it.
‘Oh you Jew bitch, you’re gonna get fucked!’
I’m pushed face down into the dusty fabric. They hold me fast as they relieve me of my boots, my stockings, my slip, my underthings—until I am as naked as the day I was born.
My head is yanked up, and the razor makes another appearance.
‘Don’t you dare to scream, whore! Get her on her back!’
It’ll be over soon. The first man drops his pants and gets on top of me.
Here comes the hurt. I close my eyes as the man rapes me, unhurriedly and steadily, until he climaxes in a flurry of rapid thrusts, washing my insides with his evil seed.
The big man takes his place. I wince at the new kind of pain.
‘Come on, fuck back, whore! Don’t just lie there like a log!’
He starts pinching my flanks, my buttocks, until I begin to buck my hips.
‘Oh yeah, that’s better! You bitches are all the same... Once you get a cock in you... You’re all the same!’
He finishes soon.
Then the third one—I feel nothing but dull pain and nausea.
They leave me naked, shivering in the cold room as they slink into the corridor. I stare at the exquisite terracotta figurine of an Indian woman I brought from Mexico.
I get up, wrap myself in a poncho from Oaxaca and stumble outside without feeling the cold. The rear sides of the tall houses lining Bolshaya Molchanovka Street stare at me, only a couple of windows are lit.
I scream.