by Kalman Nadia
Osip took a bite of his fish. Stalina liked people to know which ingredients she’d used; otherwise, what was the point? For example, when she cooked something in lemon, you knew.
“The fish is too dry, Roman?” Stalina said.
Roman put a giant portion on his fork, and began saying, “Oh, no, it’s very —”
“No, you must to practice English!” Stalina said.
Roman took a gulp of wine. “Fish is banging.” He banged a fist on the table and the glasses hopped. Stalina gave Osip a look. Before Roman had arrived tonight, she’d told Osip how unsuitable he was: he’d never finished college, besides which he was mallo-culturni, little-cultured, his mother was a narcomanka and he probably was one, too, and on top of all that, Stalina was almost positive she’d once seen him put five Daffy Duck watches in his pants at Caldor. It was fine for him and Katya to go to movies together, or ride bicycles, but now that Katya had invited him for dinner, the elder Molochniks needed to present a united front against seriousness.
Katya was happy, so there was that. Shaving her head had made her happy, dropping out of high school had made her happy, drinking and drugs had made her happy, getting a tattoo with a picture of a singer who’d killed himself had made her happy, and now Roman. “Happiness,” Baba Rufa used to say, fluttering her arthritic fingers, daring it to alight on her purple veins, her bruised knuckles.
“I got for you dishtowel,” Roman said now, and pulled a neatly folded cloth from one of four front pockets on his fat man’s jeans. Stalina held it up. Printed on the front was a pink kitten crawling out of a cookie jar, like a demonstration of a dirty kitchen in a hygienic comradeship filmstrip.
Stalina took a breath. “You find it at Caldor, maybe? You find it or you buy it?”
Roman gulped some more wine.
“You found also at Caldor many watches? You are a lover of duck?” Stalina’s technique was terrible. She should have been friendlier, should have established date and time first.
“Mom,” Katya said, and rubbed the back of Roman’s neck. Roman shook her hand off. He asked in Russian whether Stalina was calling him a thief. He wanted to know, because he and his mother had been called many names, and he had names, too, for the Molochniks.
Katya said, “His mother just —” and Roman said, “What about my mother? You want to talk about mothers?” He started babbling that he knew Stalina was a liar, he’d seen some letter, she was a liar with Brezhnev. Stalina had been right; he was a drug addict.
Osip told Roman he was sorry about his mother, but it was no excuse. Osip himself had lost both his parents and — Roman walked out without having to be told.
Katya ran after Roman to the end of the driveway, in her socks, and wouldn’t talk to them when she returned.
In their bedroom, Stalina stood in her blouse and pantyhose and aimed her blame at him. “If we were in Boston, of course, she’d be so busy with —”
“Enough,” Osip said. “You think I’d move to Boston and what? Take money from your former lover’s wallet? You think I’m a boy toy for you?” He went outside and sat in his car. He thought about asking Lev whether he could stay with him for the night. It was already eleven thirty-seven, and he had to get up at six.
Stalina
Fortified by half an hour’s worth of a teen beach drama, Stalina stalked the house in search of Katya. She’d often, over the years, watched young people’s programs before confrontations with her daughters, to make them think: “Is there anything on Earth my mother does not know?”
She found her in the kitchen, under the sink, practicing what she’d been learning in her class for women who wished they were men. Stalina got a colander and began peeling potatoes. “Roman is too sketchy for you.”
Katya scooted out from under and sat up, her head cocked, her legs folded. She looked impossibly small in that position, a stunted child, but her mouth went crooked and mean when she said, “Excuse you?”
“How can you stay with him, after he behaved so coarsely?” Stalina said in chorus with the Soul.
That terrible voice: “We’ve started on the path upon which hundreds of millions of people have already followed, and upon which all of humanity is fated to tread.” Katya stood and ran from the room — crying? — but no, she returned with one of Osip’s Sharpie markers and, tearing off a paper towel, wrote on it: “We’re getting married. Me + Roman.” The potatoes rolled into the sink. “I must also congratulate our loyal ally, Romania, on its steadfast progress towards an economy that is truly economic.”
“Yes, I’m sure — many such good qualities,” Stalina leaned against the sink, cold water seeping into her sleeve, and called, “Osya,” but he was upstairs on the web, too distant to hear.
“The weakening of any of the links in the world system of socialism directly affects all the socialist countries…” Brezhnev justified the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Katya scribbled, “Can Roman move in here?”
“Katyenok, think: Who you are? Who he is?”
“What? I don’t understand your English.”
So easily, Stalina had shut down the voice of her daughter’s happiness. She stuttered out, “You are good girl from good family.”
“Roman’s a Russian Jew and a Chaikin.” Katya picked up her wrench and tossed it from hand to hand.
“Tell her she was meant for finer things, a big beautiful wedding to an officer, with parasols and merry peasants, village dances, fountains of borscht and vodka,” the handkerchief said.
“You will meet someone better,” Stalina said. “Do you see any of the mothers here trying to svatat’ their daughters with Roman? Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Um, it means he’s not popular with the biddies?”
What was a biddy? Like a birdy? “It means he is thief and narcoman.”
“He happens to be straight-edge.”
Stalina didn’t know this word, either. Television had failed her. “Narcoman, straight-edge…I’ll tell you some words. Porok — za porog. Sin — get back from door.”
“Sin? I’m an adult.”
“What kind of adult, Katyenok? You live with mama and papa and have no job.” Katya narrowed her eyes, but this was no time to be afraid of her own daughter. “What, you want me to say, move him here, give him master bedroom for black-market dealings? The son of narcomanka — ” “And whose daughter am I?”
Tears trembled at the edges of Stalina’s eyes. She forbade them. “Kak? The daughter of intelligentsia. Even when we have no money, for food even for you, your father and I never steal.”
“Maybe you should have, right? My lack of carrot juice was my whole real problem, right? Very interesting to give me that letter in Russian when you knew I couldn’t read it. You got to confess, you got to feel like a good person, but you thought I’d never find out what you wrote.”
The handkerchief said. “Tell her you will go out to the fields and die of exposure if she says one more word.” Stalina could only stare at the wire basket by the window, which held only one onion, which was sprouting.
Katya said, “It doesn’t matter, because I did read it. Roman translated. Nice job, Mom, letting me think all along I was crazy, all along it was you and your whoring ass.”
The handkerchief said, “Tell her you never expected to hear such curses from your angelic, soft-spoken daughter.”
“I never expected to hear such curses from my angelic, soft-spoken daughter.”
“Soft-spoken? I was just scared to talk, my whole life —”
Osip, carrying his oatmeal bowl, pushed open the door. “Katyenok? Nu, what is this?” Wide-eyed, he patted her back.
Theandra
Theandra had been Southern when she met Jelani, she’d never listened to any non-mainstream music, taken any drugs, or had a colonic. Listening to him recount these early deprivations, she wished she could go off somewhere and sketch, but she’d have to wait until tomorrow, when the Strausses would finally leave.
Jelani came to one of his punch lin
es, “I said, ‘You dress like a les-bi-an.’” Theandra glared at Milla Strauss, who giggled with her hand to her mouth. Messing around with white couples was annoying from beginning to end. The women were so eager to eat her out, as if to say, “Isn’t this much nicer than when we were all lynching each other?”
After fifteen more minutes of giggling, she took Milla Strauss’ hand and led her to the bedroom. For a few minutes, she would be the expert. Little as she might know about acid jazz or accounting, she knew much more than this or that bi-weekly bi-curiosity about what would happen next.
This one kissed her as soon as they got into the bedroom, using her tongue and pushing back Theandra’s jacket, which wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. “Hey,” Theandra said. She’d made that jacket herself, and anyway, they were both supposed to get undressed, turn on some music, and massage each other until the boys were ready.
“Sorry,” Milla Strauss said, but didn’t stop. Probably con-gratulating herself on her jungle passion.
“Hold up here.” Theandra backed away, checked the jacket, which seemed fine, and put it on the hanger. “There’s plenty of time for that. See —”
Milla Strauss drew Theandra’s lips inside her own. “Wait,” Theandra mouthed, pulling Milla’s acrylic accountant sweater from her shoulders. “Just. Hold. Up.”
A few minutes passed. As a child, Theandra had watched afternoon movies with her grandmother, and now she saw, not what was happening, but how those movies might have hinted at it: oil pouring from a glass tumbler, a champagne bottle uncorking.
At first, she didn’t recognize Jelani’s voice. “Looks like they’ve started without us,” he said, sounding not quite as pleased as one might expect. “All right, then, man, who you want first?”
“Uh…” Malcolm Strauss stammered at this unexpected etiquette dilemma. “They’re both looking good to me right now, I guess.”
Milla Strauss dropped her head back onto the bed. Theandra went back to what she had been doing.
“See, what we have here,” Jelani said quickly, “Sometimes, it’s more like a freaky peep-show type of situation.”
The men leaned against the wall. The men cracked some jokes. Milla Strauss held Theandra’s hands in hers and kissed down the nape of her neck.
Milla
Neither of Malcolm’s parents could operate their DVD projector, so Malcolm usually had to get the film started, and then stayed behind to watch it with them in the study. Tonight, Izzy was calm, so Milla had been able to bring him in to watch, too.
The brick-colored walls made the room seem even smaller. On the small marble table that partially blocked their view sat a framed photograph from Milla and Malcolm’s wedding, in which Milla, looking particularly lumpy-cheeked, was embracing or accosting Malcolm from behind.
Jean paused Jezebel at the ballroom scene and pointed the remote control at Malcolm. “Are you like Pres?”
“I don’t know,” Malcolm said, flipping forward another page in his old biology textbook. (He was considering applying to a Ph.D. program.) Milla leaned against his arm. Malcolm would never publicly humiliate her like Pres had Julie. No, if Milla wore something slutty, like Julie’s dress, he would be proud.
“Don’t you think he’s an asshole?” Jean said.
“Language,” Bobby said from the high-backed chair he’d placed within a nose of the screen, waving his hand in the direction of Izzy, who sat in Jean’s small, upright lap, clutching at her beige skirt.
“Oh, he has no clue,” she said, rocking her pointy knees back and forth.
“Freeze,” Izzy said. He had learned it from watching television with Milla’s father.
“You’re so demanding.” Jean stilled her knees and re-started the movie, only to stop it a minute later, to tell them about her new client, a Broadway actor suing for paternity rights, who refused to believe Jean was a grandmother. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Bobby said she still looked like a coed. Jean waved her free hand, as she did whenever anyone complimented her.
Izzy said, “Abc, abc, abc.”
“Does he know the alphabet yet?” Jean said.
“He said ‘asbestos’,” said Bobby, who was working on an asbestos case.
Malcolm smiled. See how happy he was now: all he’d wanted was to try new things, things that were fun for her, too. It was all right that Milla thought about Theandra once in a while, wasn’t it? Yes.
Jean paused the film again. “I would have slapped him harder.”
Malcolm said, “Stop wasting my time.”
Katya
Roman and Katya took the bus downtown, past all the stores that had sprung up around the Swiss bank, through streets filled with apartment buildings rising like totems between aluminum-sided houses. She’d told her mother she was leaving, but she hadn’t told her father, because he was refusing to speak to her. “I’m glad I’m getting out of there,” she said, and took Roman’s hand. He smiled slightly, no dimples, but still, a smile.
Yana chose that moment to call and ask whether she was sure about “the whole marriage caboodle.” Katya had to take one step away from Roman so he wouldn’t hear, which, of course, made him suspicious. Yana yammered on about how she herself, who was three important years older than Katya, had been very nervous when she’d gotten married, and her marriage had been to someone she’d known for years, and she’d been right to be nervous. “I’ve known Roman for years,” Katya wanted to say, but she didn’t want him to hear his name. Thankfully, the connection broke.
As they carried their bags past a calligraphied sign, “Augustine Manor: Semper,” Roman explained in a whisper that somehow, using “hustler’s tricks,” his friend Chino had gotten a subsidized apartment there, and offered to share. Katya hadn’t known they would be living with anyone.
Chino was a blonde guy who looked as if he should have been coaching a sailing team, but instead was watching a cartoon squirrel spray machine-gun fire through a forest.
“We can pull out couch to sleep here,” Roman said, pushing their bags against the wall. “Queen-sized bed.”
It was shaky, so Katya borrowed Roman’s screwdriver and set to work. “I need you to watch, make sure I’m doing this right,” she said, but Roman looked mostly at the television. Chino told Roman that he’d met with an army recruiter, that he was going to be a civil affairs officer in Germany, because he was smooth and German girls were crazy.
Asking Roman whether he felt okay would set him off, and of course he was okay, look at him. She kissed him (“Where’s mine?” Chino said.) and left to meet Milla in the mall.
Milla cried the entire time about their father not letting her go to Katya’s wedding. “I’ll buy you a dress, at least,” she kept saying, and trying to steer her towards Saks. Katya found something okay, and cheap, at The Limited. As Katya put her on the train, Milla tried to explain something about marriage to her, that if Roman wanted to — she should —
When Katya returned to the room, Roman was alone, sitting on the floor, a glass of beer in his hand, his eyes half-closed. She told herself again that, if there was ever an occasion to relax straight-edge rules, it was the death of a parent. It was just a beer. She put her arms around him, and he let her. He was getting better.
The air smelled burnt. She tried not to ask, got through almost an entire talk show about parenting an overweight adult child. “Does Chino smoke up?”
“Who?”
How dumb, to bring up something trivial like that. So what if Chino did? It didn’t mean Roman would. “It’s just really sad,” she said, “your mother…” Brigitte, her friend from carpentry class, had said she should try to get Roman to talk.
“For Chaikins, yes. Who’ll be the family blyad’?”
“What’s that word —”
He waved the question away. “You’re not the lord of this house.”
A few minutes later, he sniffed the air, and leaped to his feet, and tried to run out of the apartment, crying when she blocked the door. “
Why did you bring the bomb, why? You know I can’t hit a girl.”
He only calmed down when she promised to leave, and he wouldn’t let her take her keys. She sat against the outside of the door. Little kids came from a nearby apartment and tried to sell her candy.
Stalina
Osip couldn’t tell Stalina what to do, and she didn’t have to tell him where she was going. He was sulking in front of a raid on a prostitution ring on television, and didn’t turn around to say goodbye or notice she was wearing her spangled blazer.
The handkerchief talked of yet another betrayal, how long would her lord continue to tolerate, and so on. She drove to the address an all-too-pleased Alla Chaikin had given her. Alla Chaikin had blurted out that she was so relieved Roman was leaving her house, “becoming independent, I mean, and marrying such a nice, intelligentnaya girl,” that she and Arkady would pay for the entire wedding themselves. Stalina had made only token protests, uncomfortable as that was, because Osip would have noticed if she’d paid.
She pulled up to a Lutheran church. “You are welcome,” two sweatshirted ladies inside the front door said, and sent her to the basement. If Katya and Roman were not inside, then it could mean that they were still waiting in line at the courthouse (a rabbi was too much tsuris, Alla had said), or it could mean they had changed their minds.
Stalina opened the door and saw the children immediately, because there were only about thirty people in the hall. Katya was wearing a terrible fringed cowlady dress and clinging to Roman’s arm. “She has staked her all on this Queen of Spades,” the handkerchief said.
She hugged Katya, who made a crack about her father’s silent treatment, and forced a hug from Roman, whose unwashed neck she could smell. They were married, that was it. She was going to make the best of it, as soon as she’d made sure.