Break time at Hoverton Industries…

Isabella Zlatanov idled her machine and went to the locker room. She grabbed the apple from her bag and headed for the break room, where she sat down at one of the picnic-style tables. She ate the piece of fruit and then put her head down on the table, using her folded arms as a pillow. She was always tired on Fridays. She needed to study on her break but she desperately wanted to close her eyes. Her eyes were heavy, and soon her breathing became heavy as well.

Then she drifted off to other times and places. A journey west…

Sofia, Bulgaria;

Belgrade, Serbia;

Budapest, Hungary;

Vienna, Austria;

Zurich, Switzerland;

New York, across the Atlantic;

Arklanden, across the great North American continent.

Her plane landed at the Arklanden International Airport and slowly taxied, like a box turtle in the desert, to their designated gate. When the ‘Fasten Seat Belts’ sign had been turned off, Isabella jumped to her feet, swaying back and forth, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she waited in the narrow aisle of the Boeing 777. She was anxious to get off the plane, anxious to leave the airport and the long journey behind her. She longed to breathe the night air of her new home and looked forward to making a fresh start for herself.

America, land of great opportunity!

Isabella traveled light. She had few personal belongings, other than money. After clearing Customs and Immigration back in New York she hit the Exchange, where she traded in her lev for dollars.

Now, making her way out of AIA, she hailed a cab, and standing there on the busy walk, she absorbed the sights and sounds of her new home. She drew a deep breath, allowing the aroma of the night air to permeate her soul. A light and warm mist fell from the heavens above. There was a trace of salt from the Pacific.

Her heart felt light and more at ease, more so than she could recall for an awfully long time. She thought of Bulgaria, surrounded by Romania, Greece, Turkey and what once had been Yugoslavia. She thought of the great seas that surrounded the region – the Black, the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Sea of Marmara. The smell of salt in the air brought back memories. A tear moistened her eye and slowly rolled down her cheek, where it came to rest upon her smiling upper lip.

She had chosen Arklanden because of its reputation as a multi-ethnic megalopolis with a huge Bulgarian and Eastern European population and because of the promise of jobs and a state-funded education, provided she established residence and attained citizenship.

Work was easy to find, but the jobs came with a price, especially for a fresh young woman just in from the old country. It didn’t help that she was tall, blond-haired and attractive, though she did not think of herself in that light and certainly would never have wanted to gain access to employment based merely on those attributes and not on the merits of her own intelligence and solid work ethic. Like most immigrants, she came to America with an expectation of working hard, living honestly and hopefully being able to provide better for her children someday.

One of her first jobs was stocking shelves and sweeping floors in the liquor store of Pieter Mariinsky. It was a small shop with coolers along two walls stocked with cold beer, wine, soda, juice, milk and cream. There were three or four aisles stocked with candy, chips, cookies and other sundries, like paper plates, napkins, and plasticware. In another aisle such toiletries as aspirin, toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwash and deodorant could be found. It was an old store with warped, rickety wooden floors and an ancient, old-fashioned cash register box on the checkout counter. Behind the counter were rows of shelves stocked with bottles of liquor. In the glass cabinet beneath the counter were various packs of cigarettes and cheap cigars.

Pieter Mariinsky and his wife Mady lived above the store. He had been looking for part-time help to work in the afternoons and lighten the load on his wife, who was seven months pregnant and busy preparing the baby’s room. When Isabella walked in and applied for the job, Mariinsky hired her on the spot, without consulting his wife. When Isabella first met the short, plump Mady, she thought the pregnant woman to be beautiful but bashful, but she soon sensed a cold reserve in the soon-to-be mother.

One night while closing the store, after Mady had gone upstairs to retire, Isabella was behind the checkout counter, dusting and re-stocking the liquor shelves. She began to wipe down the glass counter and clean off the day’s greasy fingerprints.

Mariinsky came up behind her and touched her. It didn’t feel right and the contact turned her blood cold. He pushed her forward, over towards the checkout counter. He reached around from behind her, grabbing her shoulders and breasts. He breathed heavily down her neck, whispering in the old language that he loved her, and swore he would take care of her if she let him into her heart.

Isabella struggled to turn around. She remained quiet at first because she realized that not only was she embarrassed for herself but also for Mady. She did not want Mady to be hurt by this incident. Physically, Mariinsky was not much bigger than Isabella, but he was stronger than her. He held her down by the back of her neck with his left hand and with his right hand he tried to pry her pants down below her hips. She felt him move his hand to tug on the zipper of her jeans and she gasped as it gave way. She fought to push herself up off the counter but he forced her back down.

Mariinsky struggled to tug her pants down below her hips. She reached down to hold her pants, but he swatted at her arms and pushed down upon the back of her neck. He pushed her face into the glass countertop and leaned his body weight into her. One of his hands left her body and she feared he was undoing his own zipper.

She flailed her arms about, cursing in a low guttural growl, like an animal fighting for its life against a much larger, stronger and fearsome predator.

“You treacherous beast,” she spat out like venom. If she could just reach his face she would scratch his eyes out.

Then Isabella hit the old cash register with her right hand. The pain was nothing as she mustered her strength to shove the register from the counter. It fell to the floor with a loud, heavy crash. The cash drawer sprang open, spilling the day’s income onto the old wooden floor. The sharp noise brought Mariinsky to a halt. She knew he was listening for signs as to whether or not Mady had heard it.

She sensed where Mariinsky’s right foot was – to the side and just behind her. She feared she wouldn’t have the leverage to do any harm, because most of her body weight was pinned against the counter. She had to try, so she stamped on his foot with the heel of her right shoe, driving her foot down with all her might.

He yelped and loosened his grip upon her. She squirmed and spun out from underneath him, flinging her right hand back towards his face as though it were a claw, but she only caught part of his cheek. She dug her nails in and scratched with all her might, but she missed his eyes and feared there wouldn’t be a second chance.

Mariinsky squealed and stepped back from Isabella. He reached for his face and felt the warm, wet trace of blood. The shock from the noise of the crashing register and the young girl’s desperate counterattack halted his rapacious assault. He stood there frozen in shock like a great bear dumbfounded by the honeybee stings upon his snout and bewildered as to why he chose to invade the hive in the first place.

Isabella backed away, quickly adjusting her pants. She grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from a shelf behind the counter. She waved the bottle at him as she stepped out from behind the counter.

Mariinsky did not move. “You teasing little bitch!” he swore. “You are fired! Get out of here and don’t ever come back!”

They looked down at the cash register and the green spill of money scattered across the worn, uneven planks of the wooden floor.

Mariinsky’s mood to make an amorous play on Isabella was gone. Now he was concerned about counting the day’s receipts and cleaning up before Mady discovered what had happened.

Isabella, still waving the bottle at Mariinsky, reached down without taking her eyes off him and grabbed up some of the twenties. She took just enough to compensate her for the week’s wages. She had money and she would not steal. This pig owed her for the week, and after she left, she never wanted to see him again.

Mariinsky began to protest, but he feared waking Mady. He started to move out from behind the counter.

Isabella raised the liquor bottle high above the glass counter. She could see the sweat prints from her palms where she had pushed against the glass, trying to free herself. He wouldn’t have to worry about explaining those smudges if she busted the bottle onto the glass countertop and broke it for him.

Pieter Mariinsky froze. He knew the crazy bitch would do it. If Mady had not heard the cash register fall to the floor, she would surely hear the noise of shattering glass. He started to raise his hands to show he was staying put.

Too late!

She slammed the bottle down onto the glass counter. The noise of shattering glass echoed through the small liquor store, and from upstairs they heard Mady call down.

“I am out of here,” Isabella growled. “You owe me more than this, but keep it, you son of a bitch.”

Mariinsky was defeated. He could hear Mady coming to the staircase. Soon he would have to give her an explanation.

Isabella backed away from the counter as Mady came down the stairs. Mady took one look at her and then looked at her husband Pieter. She could see the red streaks of blood like a claw mark across his face, but it was his eyes that told her the whole story, betraying his guilt. Mady looked at Isabella as the young girl slowly backed away towards the door. She saw sorrow in the girl’s eyes and it touched her heart. In that instant, Mady saw the truth of the situation.

There could be no lies from Mariinsky suggesting that she had tried to seduce or rob him. Isabella backed into the locked front door of the little liquor store. She reached behind her for the door handle, fumbled to unlock it and watched as Mady lowered her head in sad acceptance and turned back around to the staircase. She knew then that this was not the first time that Mariinsky had preyed upon his young female help.

Isabella wanted to remember the hurt look on Mady’s face. She wanted to carry that pain with her as a reminder to never settle for anything less than a man with an honor code. She wondered what she had done wrong at Mariinsky’s Market. She had worked hard for the humble money he had paid her. She had been punctual and fastidious in her efforts to serve her employer and earn her wages. Had she dressed too provocatively for him? Had she done anything to lead him on? She thought not and told herself that the assault was not her fault. She had not asked for it. Mariinsky was warped and that was that. And so she ran off down the street looking to hail a cab and put the night behind her.

Isabella’s dreams were always about running. From what and to where never seemed to matter. Always though, when she was running, her legs were like lead and would not move fast enough to carry her away from the perceived danger nor the dreaded memories of her childhood.

Isabella awoke to the sound of the bell announcing the end of the break period. She felt groggy as she stood up from the lunchroom table. She wiped her face and went to grab the banana from the bag in her locker. Then she headed back out into the plant towards her machine. The afternoon was fading into night and the factory grew darker in the absence of natural light. The foggy mist of smoke and oil lingered like a poisonous cloud, and she could not wait to get home for the night and wash her hair.

She started up her machine and ran a couple parts through the press. She checked the parts at the gauging station. Satisfied that the tooling was still in tolerance, she cycled her machine for production. She kept an eye on her press as she reached for the banana and began to peel it. The peel was yellow with just the slightest trace of the small brown dots of age that signaled the banana was soft and ripe. She always ate as healthy as possible, choosing to put good food into her stomach rather than bad. She didn’t frequent the vending machines like the other women in the shop. She had learned of the value of good nutrition at an early age from working the land with her family.

She took another bite of the banana, savoring its delicious texture, and watched her machine as it cycled through its process.

Three more hours to go and then it will be the weekend...

She paid little attention to the other workers who were still slowly returning from break and firing up their presses.

Several stamping machines away, Albert Bogdiner’s machine was down and he called Jay Fisch, from Maintenance, over to take a look.

Fisch asked, “What’s wrong?”

Bogdiner chewed a toothpick as he spoke. “Nuthin’. I thought you might like a cold beer.”

“You got your ice cooler behind the machine?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, I’ll have one,” said Fisch. “Keep an eye out for me.”

“No problem. That’s what coffee mugs are for.”

“You gotta be careful drinking your beer openly out of coffee mug, Bogdiner. TJ don’t care if he smells it on your breath, but he sure as hell don’t want to see it in the shop.”

“Hey, take a look at that over there.” He pointed over to the young blonde eating the banana. “Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“Oh yeah. I could go for some of that.”

“That’s what I’m saying…”

“So, come on,” Fisch persisted. “What’s up with the machine?”

“I told ya, nuthin’. I walked by TJ’s office earlier and saw some pink slips on his desk. I’m thinking if we slow down production a bit we might save some foreigner’s job.”

“Man, we gotta git this machine going or TJ will have my ass,” said Fisch. He kept glancing over at the blonde who was now finishing her banana.

“Now, I’m thinking that slower production might git that girl a couple more days of work and that she might show a couple heroes like us a little appreciation…”

“She knows how to eat a banana. Wonder what else she can do?”

“I’d like to find out, Fisch, before the end of the shift, ya know, jist in case she ain’t around next week.”

“It’d be a shame to let a sweet piece of ass like that git away…”

“Hell, ya help me with this machine and we might be able to keep her around a bit longer.”

“I’m in, but first I’m gonna pound another one of your beers,” said Fisch, stealing one last look at Isabella.

“Knock yourself out,” said Bogdiner, chewing on a toothpick.