by Kalman Nadia
“Yeah, Mom, we’re really married, you can go to the corner and cry now,” Katya said.
Banished, she prepared for the onslaught of Alla. However, Alla and Arkady were busy talking to the other guests, all Russians, screeching and shouting about someone’s pool party. Stalina knew some of the other people’s faces, she’d seen them at Alla’s parties, or when Osip dragged her to see some former singer from the former country performing at the JCC.
It smelled of coffee. Someone had left the door to the men’s room open.
Stalina was not materialistic. She and Osip had had a very plain wedding. As long as the children were happy, what need had they of Jean-style champagne flutes, flowers, and music? Alla had ordered from the Russian deli, and the guests had clearly enjoyed the salat olivier and bagels: the plastic container had been scraped almost clean, the basket was empty but for half a yellow disk.
Alla finally approached, and said, “Poor girl, you don’t know anyone here but us.” Was Stalina imagining her slightly vindictive tone? It was true that she and Osya had avoided Stamford’s Russkaya companiya. They’d wanted American friends, straight-thinking, normal, easy people, only, the Americans hadn’t wanted them. “I can introduce you…” Alla said, with too much pity in her voice for Stalina to be able to accept.
And where were Katya and Roman’s friends? There was only one young man, blonde, in a camouflage jacket, passing a wine bottle back and forth with Roman. Everyone else was of her and Alla’s age, they were Alla’s friends, of course. It was not a fair wedding.
Someone plugged in a boom box, and when the first notes played, the guests shouted along, “Ai yai yai yai yai…”
Roman and Katya had vanished. The blonde young man was drinking alone. She pulled Alla’s fleshy silk back away from the singing circle. “Where are the children?”
Merriment left Alla’s face and it was all vertical lines. “Do you know, Stalinatchka, Roman has never offered me a single word of condolence for my sister? The young are so selfish, aren’t they? Not Leonid, of course, but we had a chance with him, we had him since birth.”
Stalina drove in circles until she came to a gazebo that sat on a patch of land opposite a suite of dentists’ offices. Inside were two figures, one flashing white in the darkening air. She parked her car in a traffic lane — who was around to stop her? The handkerchief had gone silent. Mosquitoes and fireflies hurtled in her path. At the same moment she knew that it was Katya, pulling on Roman’s arm, Katya saw her, shook her head, waved at her to leave. For some reason, which Stalina regretted even as she opened her car door, she obeyed.
Milla
She came home from work to find Malcolm doing laundry, a red bandana wrapped around his forehead. He’d ordered in Japanese food, her favorite, which they couldn’t really afford, but Milla was happy anyway: not everyone’s husband would do that. Izzy was asleep in their room, so deeply asleep Milla had to watch for a moment to make sure his stomach was moving. It was, of course. She had to stop being such a worrier.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” she said as they began to eat, “your parents going away?”
“Huh?” Malcolm was distracted, even for him. A grain of rice was stuck in the cleft on his chin.
“Just, your mom’s always saying she never takes vacations.”
“I told them we needed some time.”
Milla pinched the grain off of him. “That’s nice.”
“Not just time, time to talk.” He piled beef teriyaki on his plate, but instead of eating it, reached across the table and put his hand on her shoulder. She flinched for some reason. He said, “This has nothing to do with you. It’s my fault, okay?”
“What?” She grabbed a fistful of edamame.
“Look, it’s not fun enough.” He got up and started pacing. “I don’t mean it’s not fun enough. I mean maybe not life-affirming enough. Or —”
“Quiet. Don’t wake him.” She felt the individual grains of miso, like spores of a fungus, inside her mouth. The gold-edged mirrors reflected and refracted her stupid pink suit jacket.
“He’s fine. And I invite you to gigs, but you hardly ever come, and you don’t like parties. And it’s okay. It’s great that you want to stay home with Izz and watch TV and shop online and eat leftovers. Somewhere out there” — that was line from a movie, wasn’t it? Sung by a ragged mouse? “Somewhere out there, there’s a guy for you, who likes those things. But I like to go out into the world and just explore, go to new countries, surf, meet people, have real conversations, you know? And there are songs I need to write, and I can’t write them with —”
“You’ll wake him.”
“He’s fine. I just gave him a little cough syrup.”
“You what?” She ran to the crib and shook Izzy awake. “Are you okay? Does your tummy hurt? Do you want your bottle?”
Izzy started to cry. Tears leaked from Milla’s copycat eyes.
Malcolm said, “It was just a few drops, man. My mom did it to me all the time when I was little.”
“He could be brain-damaged.” She started shaking.
“No way. Iz-man, what comes after one?”
He gulped. “Two.” He poked Milla in the eye with two fingers. She tested Izzy’s knowledge of their names, colors, objects. Malcolm eventually sat on the bed.
“Ready to get back to sleep, bud?” Milla said.
“No way.” Izzy kicked her in the stomach, and it was too much all of a sudden.
“You want your movie?” she was barely able to say. Izzy was in love with a Hebrew language video, featuring impossibly young, busty mothers and their compliant children. He nodded.
“Turn it on. Please,” she said to Malcolm, who’d wandered into the study after them. He knew the movie without asking. Those things were important in a marriage. The children spun around a blue and white parachute. Izzy sat on top of the back of the couch, which she usually didn’t allow. She held on to his legs. “Maybe we can make it more fun,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Malcolm said, as if he were discussing the prospects of an inferior band.
“But you’re my rock.” Why had she said that? It wasn’t true.
Malcolm said, “My parents are totally fine with having you stay for a while, so you don’t have to worry about that.” He crouched down in front of them, blocking the screen, and Izzy pushed at his shoulder.
“Can you move?” Milla said. Izzy climbed down and stepped on her thigh. “Ow.” She pulled him onto her lap. “Jean specifically wanted me to tell you to stay here as long as you want.”
“Move,” Izzy said, kicking Malcolm off balance.
Malcolm sat down hard on the floor, said “Owsers” with a small smile.
“You told them?” Milla said. The children made sandcastles in double time.
“Jean wanted me to tell you, she’s been showing Izzy’s photos to everyone in Cabo, and they’re really impressed. People think he must be four or five, he’s so big.”
“She’s not allowed.” Izzy pushed at her cheek.
“What?” Malcolm crouched closer.
“It’s unsafe to — she’s not allowed. Tell her.”
Malcolm raised a palm, “Let’s calm —”
“I want you to tell her.”
Malcolm shrugged. “All right.” She had some temporary power. What else might she ask of him?
“We’ll move out tomorrow.” Izzy squirmed from her lap and threw himself on the floor.
Malcolm leaned back on his heels. “That’s — soon.” The children clambered aboard a hot-air balloon.
“What, you thought I’d hang around? Stay in your mother’s maid’s room?”
He leaned back. “You don’t have to get so — ”
“We should hug. I think.” she said.
“Sure, I just didn’t hug you before because I felt so weird. Come on, family hug,” Malcolm said, and opened his arms and waited.
Osip
Osip had never driven a truck before, which had concerned the man at t
he rental company not at all. The man got paid either way so perhaps he didn’t care. But Osip would be driving home with his daughter and his grandson, and he noticed with annoyance that his hand shook on the gearshift.
When he was eighteen years old, Osip had fallen fourteen feet onto a parquet floor. He had not been drunk or hooliganning. He had merely been following his colonel’s order to put a new bulb in his Black Forest “war trophy” chandelier, and when he began swaying, had known not to reach out and grab the fragile glass. And for this, the floor sprang up at him?
Now, he felt a similar anger. For the sake of his so-called music, Malcolm would desert a girl like Milla Molochnik? Osip would hack Malcolm’s web site, delete all those songs through which they’d had to sit: “So hard to juggle / My political struggle.” What kind of struggle could it be when no one would ever be bothered to jail him?
He popped in a Galich tape. “Hussar’s Song” began, and he blasted the martial chorus, muted the ironical verses.
Stalina called and Osip couldn’t resist saying, “Don’t worry about Malcolm. I take care of him.”
“‘Take care’: what, my dear friend, is that supposed to mean?”
“We will have a masculine conversation, that’s all.”
Stalina sighed, not in the manner of a maiden seeing her soldier off to war. “He has thirty years on you, and plenty of free time to work out besides.”
“And I have my time in the Russian army.”
“Oh, so the two of you will be inspecting speedometers together?”
“You understand nothing. This is between me and him, your female jokes are stupid in such situations.”
She was saying something about Malcolm’s parents being lawyers when Osip hung up. This was serious business.
Malcolm
Malcolm was unspeakably relieved to hear the elevator stop outside his door, to hear suitcases roll close, to hear his mother trying to jam the key into the lock. He sat on the couch, in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he told Milla, the same clothes he’d been sleeping in, too, a Multicult tee shirt, his bandanna, stained jeans, and when he’d gone to the record store to avoid Milla’s dad, a cute girl had fled the Funk section at his approach. Too tired to open the door, he listened to the key jam again, and to his mother: “Bobby? Did you ever talk to Carlos about the lock? Bobby?” and then his father got the door open.
His mother kissed him. His father said, “There’s a certain musk,” and fetched three glasses of water.
“It’s so empty. Isn’t it so empty?” his mother said, standing in the middle of the carpet in her stocking feet, holding the glass in both hands, like a child.
“Sit down, Jean,” his father said.
“How do you feel? Did she really leave just like that? When are we going to see Izzy again? I thought she’d fight for the marriage. I guess she doesn’t want to be married either, huh? What do you think?” She had double bags under her eyes.
“Sit down, Jean.”
“How was it?” Malcolm said. His voice sounded as though he’d just woken up. He took a sip of water.
Jean said, “The hotel: what a laugh. We switched rooms four times. When are we seeing Izzy again? Nothing’s final yet, is it?”
He knew he shouldn’t say it, but he’d spoken to no one for four days. “It was surprising, how fast — I thought we’d talk more.”
“Well, what do you expect? A woman scorned, she doesn’t want to talk, right, Bobby?” She’d used Malcolm’s words against him again, but he couldn’t feel angry and didn’t want to leave the room.
“I don’t know,” his father said to the ottoman.
“You don’t know?”
“Sit down, Jean.”
She sat on the edge of the piano bench. “Have you been pouring everything into your music? That’s why you split up, isn’t it, so you could be a rock star? Have you written loads of new songs?”
He had written only one, and it was probably crap. He confessed to it.
She sprang up. “Play it for us. Shouldn’t he play it for us?”
He was grateful to have a reason to stand. He was grateful not to be facing his father. He was grateful for the cold, clean keys. He was grateful, almost to the point of tears, that his mother had asked.
Milla
Milla awoke face-down on a rough, bleach-smelling pillow: Stamford. Izzy. Where? “Izzy!”
“Like a fishwife,” her mother said, entering her room with a tray. “He is sleeping very nicely in our room, like yesterday and the day before.”
Milla tore out of bed and down the hall. It appeared that her mother had been telling the truth.
Before Milla had managed to climb back beneath her blanket, Stalina barked, “Kasha,” and lifted a lid off a dish. The smell of old shoes steamed out at her. Her mother had forgotten — of course — that Milla was the daughter who hated kasha. Milla gave so little trouble, Milla had such an easy nature, Milla would forgive, Milla wouldn’t mind. If Stalina cared to know, which she clearly didn’t, Milla would have given anything for one of Malcolm’s omelets. She’d never eat another omelet.
“Don’t you have work?” she said. If her mother only left, she could call Malcolm again. She’d dreamed about another way he had mistreated her: he had never once considered her worthy of a conversation about literature. She’d heard him talk about Saul Bellow to his friends, but never to her. Well, he’d talk about Saul Bellow today, even if she had to wake him, which she would. (Yana had said, “Or, you could just write your feelings in a letter? You wouldn’t have to mail the letter, necessarily, even.” Milla had explained that an unsent letter wouldn’t get her an apology. Perhaps it had merely been a bad connection, but Milla had been surprised by the wimpy, appeasing tone of Yana’s advice.)
Stalina sat on the edge of her bed. “I have twenty minutes. You will tell me all your feelings of rejection and loss. Is normal.” Her mother gave her the sticky, hot dish, and a brisk nod.
Milla said nothing.
“Now, nineteen minutes.”
“Are you a psycho?” Milla said, knowing how nasty and adolescent her voice sounded, not that it had sounded that way when she’d actually been an adolescent, oh no, how could it have, between work and school, her grim youth portioned out in hunched shoulders and paper cuts.
Her mother put her hands on her hips and smiled an understanding smile. “It is like making pee, this sharing, yes?”
Milla said, “This is the most hurtful, the most stupid idea —”
“Ah-ah.” Her mother shook her finger, but did not seem at all offended. “Eggs do not teach the hen, we will do this until you feel super-better.”
“Super-better, what the —” not even Yana had been able to curse in front of their mother — “fuckety fuck fuck!” She threw the burning dish across the room: a summer storm of kasha, swift and fierce. When she looked back at her mother, Milla knew she wore an expression almost feral. She yanked off her wedding ring. It fell with a plink. She looked for other things to throw. The alarm clock: she’d never need it again, she’d never go back to work, she’d been driven mad. Her mother jumped out its way.
“Millatchka, you’ll wake the child, be careful,” her mother said, reaching out a hand to her, but not stepping forward. Out of fear?
“Be careful? Are you fucking kidding me?” she said. This called for her to make some momentous statement, but, she didn’t know whether she had been too careful or its opposite in marrying Malcolm. She threw her bedroom slippers at Stalina. They hit her knees. They were soft, they couldn’t have hurt much, but her mother backed out the door.
Jean
There were few people Jean Strauss loved more than her lovely Greek secretary Helice. Just like that saying about how women should be lambs in — where? — she couldn’t remember — and tigers in the bedroom, Helice was a lamb inside Jean’s office and a tiger in the reception area. She screened everyone, even Bobby.
Which was why Jean was shocked to see Stalina running through her
office door on her chunky legs.
“Oh — hi!” Jean said. “What are you doing here? Did you take the awful train?” She tried to peer past her for Helice.
“For a mad dog, seven versts is not out of way,” Stalina said, slamming the door shut.
“Huh.” Jean picked up a book to show she was busy, but unfortunately, the book was the biography of Betty Grable she’d been reading at lunch. She covered Betty’s legs with her palm.
“Are you proud?” Stalina said. Her fist was clenched, surely she wasn’t about to — but no, there was something in it, a tissue or something.
“I beg your pardon?”
Stalina leaned into her, so that they were practically nose-to-nose, Bugs Bunny and, who was that ugly man with the big nose? Him, that was who Stalina resembled. “How’s Milla? And Izzy?” Jean said.
“Mee-la! You should say her name Mee-la! All these years I never correct!”
Jean backed up — fine, yes, showing weakness — and braced herself on her desk. “Look, they got married very young. When a couple has a baby, their relationship changes. I can’t tell you how many —”
“I give you young, fresh, beautiful girl, bloom in innocence.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure they were sleeping together before the wedding,” Jean said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m no prude —”
“Now is like old baba. What your son the big prince do to my Milla?” Stalina opened her fist and took out a beautifully detailed lace handkerchief, with which she wiped her eyes. Was it from Provence? Jean wanted to ask.
Stalina said, “You’re bitch,” pronouncing the word like beach. It was laughable. The door slammed: who was this woman, a teenager?
Jean sank into her desk chair, which was new and stiff, and did not give. Should she have chosen the calfskin upholstery? (It had seemed cruel at the time; she’d remembered that she and Malcolm never ate veal.) She punched the arm. Where had Helice been?