Once Upon A Time

By Inga Gabadze

The present book is a fiction novel. The central character of the book is a young, accomplished human rights defense professional, Milena Bulic. She walks us through her everyday life--her work and the time spent with her next-door neighbor, an overpowering and controlling woman named Sandy. Sandy is a very well-rounded woman, but she is living a double life. She is a mystery to all her friends who have love-and-hate relationships with her.

Despite her dark secrets, Milena still likes her, spends meaningful evenings with her, and has spiteful exchanges with her. Sandy becomes the second mother figure for her.

The present book is a fiction, novel. The central character of the book is a young accomplished human rights defense professional, Milena Bulic. She walks us through her everyday life: her work and the time spent with her next door neighbor, overpowering and controlling woman Sandy. Sandy is a very well rounded woman but she is living a double life. She is a mystery to all her friends who have love and hate relationship with her.

Despite her dark secrets, Milena still likes her, spends meaningful evenings with her, and has spiteful exchanges with her. Sandy becomes the second mother figure for her.

Sandy controls everybody's life around her. She decides who they can date and who they cannot.

Though Sandy does not approve it, Milena goes to law school. There she meets professor Savanelli who gets her in trouble. In the end it is Sany who comes to her rescues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889828556

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Title

Copyright

About the Author

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Once Upon A Time

Inga Gabadze

Copyright © 2024 Inga Gabadze

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-854-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-855-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Summer was hot, unbearably hot. Still, there were a lot of people in the streets of Manhattan. People sat underneath the water fountains having their lunch. I was out on my break for an hour. I bought a sandwich at Gossip Coffee and sat on the stool in front of the window. I watched people walking up and down the street. Suddenly a man in a white shirt sat next to me and said, It is like watching a large flat-screen TV, is not it?

I smiled and told him, Yes, especially when reading running titles above the Fox News studio.

I was finishing up eating my sandwich when Lauren Smith, my boss, called me and asked me to buy a pack of printing papers on my way to office. I worked for an international nonprofit called Human Rights First, which performed research in the post-Soviet countries. I said goodbye to my neighbor at Gossip Coffee and went to Staples. I picked up the papers and stood in a long line. Finally my turn came, and I rushed to the office. Lauren was waiting for me. She said we were going to have a press conference next Tuesday. I got very anxious; my research about Moldavian violations in predetention facilities was not finished yet.

I worked till 8:00 p.m. that day and came home very tired. I took a shower, put on my loungewear, and turned on the TV to watch the news. I needed to call Zoya Rusu, our research associate in Moldavia, to talk about the violation cases. I went to the kitchen. I was hungry. There were only eggs and sausages in my refrigerator. I fried two eggs and ate it with half a slice of bread.

Finally it was 1:00 a.m. in New York when it was 9:00 a.m. in Moldavia. I called Zoya and asked her how the research was going on. She said we had six cases and needed one more case to publish the report. I told her that I called all the newspaper editors in Chisinau but could not find the last case of Daniel Ceban, a civil movement member who was killed during the first three hours of questioning.

I told Zoya to go to the public library and look for the civil movement Drujba, or the friendship, in the catalogues. Zoya said she would finish writing about the sixth case and go to the library afterward.

The next day, she called me in the office and sounded happy. She said she found in the police-published newspaper, The Siren, which had stopped publishing two years before. I was relieved. We had five more days to put the report together. Part of the report was written by our international lawyers. They emphasized the need for compliance with international Human Rights Law.

We were finishing our Moldavian report when the newly elected president Alexandru Ceban wrote to us. It said:

Dear Human Rights First Administration,

I am deeply obliged to you for investigating the violation cases in Moldavia. I promise I will take all necessary measures to reform the legal system in the country.

Please talk to the ombudsman about all necessary steps we need to comply with the International Law.

Very truly yours,

Alexandru Ceban

Lauren was pleased. Good job, Moldavia! she shouted.

Meanwhile, Leila Afridi from Afghanistan sent me an email about two girls on their way to school beaten to death by Afghan men to spread the scare. Men in Afghanistan were against girls getting education. Leila said there were many similar cases, and it was time to take on them.

It was 8:00 p.m. I was finishing up my work. I was exhausted. Came home to my five-floor walk-up studio. I found my next-door neighbor Sandy was home. She always had her door open and asked me to keep my door open too when I was home.

Sandy Cheng was a seventy-year-old, tall, very good-looking woman with light brown highlights looking like fifty. I loved hanging out with her. She did not have any children and often mentioned she just did not bring children to this world. She was from Hong Kong and still kept her British passport. Time after time, she traveled to the UK together with her adopted daughter, Ana Novak, who often visited Sandy together with her two-year-old son.

Sandy was retired, but nobody knew what she did for a living. She told me she used to work as a talent manager in Hollywood. She had three homes: one in Brooklyn, one in Beacon, and a house in Saratoga Springs.

Two years before, when I first met Sandy, it was the late '90s. She was wearing a shiny overcoat and a scarf. She invited me to her home and introduced herself to me. By the way, she said she was going to the United Nations Plaza buffet in midtown the next day and invited me to the event.

The next day, I told Lauren I needed to leave work a little early and went home to change my clothes. It was snowing heavily still; there were a lot of people walking in the streets of Brighton Beach. I put on my green jersey dress and high-heel boots. Then I headed to Manhattan again.

I handed out my invitation to the buffet butler and entered the hall. I saw Sandy with her friends waiting for me. We went into the dining room and sat at the table. Sandy introduced her friends to me: Salvatore and Jack. They told me they used to live in the same building as Sandy on the fourth floor. Now we live in a two-bedroom house in Queens Boulevard.

I noted everybody was saying hello to Sandy. They waved their hands at her, asking how she was doing. After dinner, Sandy asked me to go out with her to the hall to smoke. She had a case of tobacco papers in a silver case and a small bag of tobaccos. She rolled over two of them and took out of her purse a lighter. She handed one tobacco to me, and we smoked. All so sudden, Salvatore came up to us and told us, Sandy, what are you doing? She is a baby, she should not smoke. I said it was okay. I smoked sometimes.

After the function, Sandy told me her girlfriend, Margarett Sheffield, called and invited us over at her brother's Upper East Side apartment. I thought it was late; I needed to get up early in the morning, but I could not say no. We took a cab to the Eighty-First Street and Second Avenue. It was a quiet evening, not many people in the streets. Sandy paid for the cab, and we went upstairs. A tall handsome man opened the door and we entered. Sandy introduced me to Margarett Sheffield, her brother Eithan Sheffield, and his wife Clara, to his son David, daughter Elisa, and the son-in-law Eden Abramowski. They had a three-year-old daughter, Sally, running back and forth in the room.

Sandy looked around and asked, Where is Ben? David said he was in his room writing about the stock market. He worked for a large Wall Street company. We went to Ben's room. He looked at us, greeted us, and went back to the screen. He was a very handsome young man in his thirties, but he had a squeaky voice that undermined his appearance. He looked a little indifferent. He said his stocks were down again. He was writing a report for the next day.

We came back to the dining room, and Eitan poured red wine into our glasses and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Montenegro, a small village, Tivat.

Oh, very interesting, it used to be a part of Yugoslavia, is not it? Eden dropped a question.

Yes, it is, I answered.

What brings you to New York? Eitan got back to me.

I said, My work, I work for a nonprofit that investigates and documents human rights violations all over the world.

Montenegro, what an interesting country, Eden continued. He said he was a professor at the University of Utah where he taught socialism. I said I was surprised that they teach socialism here in the United States while nobody does it anymore in former Yugoslavian countries. Eden said he always had full attendance and many students showed interest in it. He said the socialist system was the best, suitable for former Soviet countries and Central Asia. The system was integrated, and these countries depended on one another's markets, while the end of the Soviet era brought a lot of misfortune to these countries.

Yes and no, I answered. Former Yugoslavian and Soviet countries did suffer after the end of Socialism in these countries. It took almost ten years to get back on feet, but in the end, we have a democratically elected president through voting once in every four years. During the reign of the communist regime, there was only one ruling party and the presidents were appointed by the governments.

That is true, Eden said. But did not Gorbachov introduce pluralism (taking into consideration multiple opinions) and glasnost (achieving consensus through arguments)?

He did, I replied, but communist party would not give up its power without civil movements. Today we have multiple parties in former Yugoslavian and post-Soviet countries. Elections are relatively transparent, and people are free to vote for the party of their choice.

But the system was established, you enjoyed free education and healthcare, Sandy said.

Education and healthcare were free indeed, I answered, but the system was heavily corrupted. Money could buy you anything, including education and career. Even schoolteachers were corrupted. They sold grades. It was almost impossible to enter a college without bribery, or you needed to score the highest grades at the entering exams. For example, to enter my school, Montenegro State University, which is in Podgorica, you needed to pay equivalent of thirty thousand dollars.

Median salaries were equivalent from 40 to 70 US dollars, I continued, while the cost of surgeries varied from the equivalent 400 to 1,000 US dollars. People had to borrow money from relatives, neighbors, or friends and pay it off for years. People who worked for government used to steal money and get away with it. You could buy a position for a large amount of money. Even judges and prosecutors' offices were corrupted. You could get away with any crime if you paid. We are still fighting the inheritance of the former Soviet world. Government workers enjoyed free vouchers to go on a vacation to local resorts and even travel worldwide for free. There was no benefits system. Poor were destined to spend their lives in poverty and rich lived in mansions. You could not own a second home or second car, but you could live a lavish life if you were fortunate to work for a governmental agency. And what about businesses? There was no private company, everything was nationalized. A man who smuggled life-saving medications from Europe was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Eden listened to me carefully and concluded, "But what do some European countries that vote for socialism want is higher taxes, higher benefits for the poor, free education, and free heal care. They are not giving up democracy. They strive to establish democratic socialism. And as for businesses they are not going to take