But now that there was no pressure to play, I began to actually crave it. As my fingers warmed up after such a long period of inactivity, I started playing all the time, frequently skipping lunches and classes. School was the only place I could practice, because Dad wouldn’t let me touch his keyboards. He’d set up a small home studio in the back of the house, but it was always locked. Inside, the walls were covered with posters. Bob Marley beamed from above the Roland synthesizers, next to Wynton Marsalis with his trumpet pressed to his heart in a shared secret. There was also a large cardboard image of an alien’s head with a pointy chin and enormous almond-shaped eyes. As soon as I decided on my song I asked Dad to use the room, but he waved me off. “Those are costly instruments for serious playing.” I’d heard this many times in the past, and, while frustrated, I wasn’t offended. Not even I could deny the seriousness of Dad’s instruments.
Maybe he’d have felt differently if I’d told him why I wanted to practice, but I didn’t want to take that chance. It was something I wanted to do completely on my own. Plus, if I bombed, I wanted my humiliation to remain a secret.
On the day of the recital, the usual crowd gathered inside the room outfitted as a theater.
I braved the stage with shaky legs. My heart hammered against the silence. But at the piano my doubts settled, calmed by the silky feel of the keys beneath my fingers. I was home.
It’s easy enough to forget hundreds of eyes probing you when your only worry is to keep your heavy Eastern European accent from making you sound like Count Dracula. I cringed on the inside every time I rolled my r’s and sang “hard” instead of “heart.”
I don’t remember finishing, only the applause. Pride burned my cheeks. Later, as students and teachers trickled out, I still didn’t trust my legs to carry me to my algebra class.
“That was a great performance,” an older man with a hearty smile said from the aisle next to me. His skin matched the dark chestnut of his suit. “I’m Mr. North, the school band leader.” We shook hands. “Are you a new transfer?”
“No. An ESL student.” I thought that explained everything, and expected him to nod politely and move on.
“Why aren’t you in the magnet program?”
“My English is not good.”
“Couldn’t tell from where I was sitting,” Mr. North said. He told me of the acceptance interviews for the next term, and that he expected to see me there.
I ran home after school to tell Mom. Coming up the stairs to our place, I could already hear her, and (lucky me) she sounded sober. Roxy was at the kitchen table, writing something on an envelope. Her lips and tongue pursed and curled, respectively, in concentration. Mom hovered over her shoulder, eyeing the slow progress of the pen. Her English was still so limited that she relied entirely on me and Roxy to communicate with anyone who wasn’t Rosa.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Power bill.” Mom’s voice was as grave as that of a doctor who had announced a life-threatening diagnosis to a patient. Suddenly she smacked Roxy over the top of her head. “Shto delaesh? Ny vsyo. Nesi novy konvert. (What are you doing? That’s it. Get a new envelope.)”
I read the address Roxy had scribbled in chunky print. “Apparently we live in Mos Angeles.”
“It’s one letter. I can fix it,” Roxy said, pressing her pen over the typo.
“The mailman will think we don’t know what we’re doing,” Mom said. “What if he throws it away?”
“Roxy’s right, Mom. No one will notice.”
Mom mumbled something dire about her luck and went to the counter, where she tied a bay leaf, a few twigs of dill and parsley, and some peppercorns in a cheesecloth pouch and dropped it into a pot of water bubbling on the stove. The aroma of boeuf à la russe promised a delicious dinner.
“Mom, I did something really great today.”
After I recounted my conversation with Mr. North, Mom wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and embraced me tightly.
“This teacher wants you to be in his special school?”
“Magnet school.”
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard in months.” She pressed me to her without asking why I hadn’t invited her to the concert, for which I was grateful.
Lowering the heat under the pot, Mom hurried out of the kitchen to get her telephone card. She dialed Aunt Siranoosh’s number in Kirovakan and shouted into the phone so loudly, her sister could’ve probably heard her voice across the ocean without the aid of modern technology.
“Akchi, asem ches havata (You won’t believe what I have to tell you)!” Before long, half of Armenia and Russia had heard the news that I was invited to join a school for the most gifted kids in America. Mom was so happy, I didn’t have the heart to correct her.
I told Dad, too, thrilled to share with him that I might soon be following in his footsteps.
“What is a performing school?” he said. “You’re a Kopylenko. You already know how to perform.”
“It’s not like I’d be joining the Communist Party,” I said.
“Same shit. A handful of cretins decide what’s good for you, and then they own you for the rest of your life, telling you what kinds of songs to play. You don’t need someone else’s approval.”
He was right, of course. But for someone who hadn’t been approved of all that often, I chased the possibility like a dog after a soup bone.
MAMA LOLA
That summer my sister and I alternated between both households, even though I still protested whenever I had to spend time listening to Olga boast about the loads of cash she was making, or about her recently developed connections with Shashi Kapoor, the Indian movie mogul. Olga, obsessed with everything Indian, believed she’d spent her previous life as a male dancer at an Indian court and was meant to become a Bollywood movie star as soon as she returned to her homeland. Around this time she and Dad were contemplating a move to New Delhi, and I often wondered which of the three of us was the real teenager. When Mom found out, she called my father to inform him that he could move his ass to Madagascar for all she cared, but the kids were staying in the States with her.
During those days the hardest part for me was seeing how Mom and Dad began reinventing their individual selves, the ones they’d sacrificed for their noisy marriage. In the process of moving on, they were leaving me behind, and I was too proud to call after them.
A few weeks after the cemetery incident, I was going up the stairs leading to our apartment when my sister came barreling down.
“Roxy, what happened?”
She didn’t slow down, her flip-flops slapping on the concrete. “Rosa is going out and she’s gonna take us if we behave. Then Mom said we can go to McDonald’s for my birthday.” She was turning nine in a couple of days.
The front door was propped open with a rock. Mom’s voice came from the bathroom, muffled by the sound of a hair dryer working full blast. She was saying something about Rosa’s ex, and it had several “fuckers” attached to it.
Inside the kitchen, Rosa was wrapping something long and thin in a plastic grocery bag.
“Where are you guys going?” I asked.
“He not man. He goat, I tell you,” Mom shouted from the bathroom.
Rosa got another bag from under the sink and carefully placed the package into it, wrapping it again. “I know,” she shouted back. “He thought I no find out.”
Mom came in, her hair poufy, her makeup fresh.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
“Ayee, tu madre.” Rosa rushed the package to the sink, leaving a trail of crimson drops on the linoleum. “Is leaking.”
“Two-bag it,” Mom said. “Here.” She took out a plastic container from one of the cabinets and set it on the table. “Put here. So you not get blood in car.”
I joined the two women at the sink. They peeled off the squishy plastic from the package. I watched Rosa slowly unwrap the thing, and took a sharp step back when I saw what it was. “Ugh, it’s a tongue!”
> Mom glanced back at me with a laugh. “You act like you’ve never seen one before,” she said in Russian. She ran cold water over it.
Unfortunately I had seen one of these, and on more than one occasion; my mother had prepared the vile delicacy every Christmas for as long as I could remember. She garnished it with parsley and crispy onion rings, as if that could mask the fact that she was serving her guests a tongue.
“Yeah,” I said. “And it gets more disgusting each time.”
Rosa wrapped it again, this time in fresh bags. The look on her face suggested she agreed with me. “Is not for eating, mija, is for my psychic. She tole me is needs to be fresh. My ex’s woman has put a curse on mi familia. She gossip about me, say I sleep around. Last week Rachel from the hair salon tole me she no have openings. I know she was lying. And yesterday I lose fifty dollars from my purse. Gone. Bad luck follow me, and is all that puta’s doing.”
I looked at Mom, who just shrugged. I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation, especially after my cemetery trip a few weeks earlier. “How do you know it’s a curse?”
“People talking. But how I really know is I found lumps of hair and broken teet under my bed,” she said, pointing at her incisors.
That I understood. It is an ancient belief in many cultures that hair, teeth, and nails hold extraordinary mystical powers, and if handled by a malicious person they can aid in bringing harm to their owner. Back in Russia, rivals disguised as friends once left a clump of hair with nail clippings and teeth in the back of our shoe closet. It sounds like harmless superstition, but the malice is all too real when you’re the one whose fingers discover the stuff. And whether you believe in black magic or not, there’s always somebody out there who does.
* * *
When we drove up to Mama Lola’s house, my palms were sweating. Between my mother’s coffee readings and Olga’s plans to rid Hollywood of its money, I’d had enough magic to last me a few reincarnation cycles. But the opportunity to take a peek into the life of an American who openly practiced witchcraft was something I couldn’t miss. I wanted to see the difference between Olga, Dad, and this Mama Lola, who, according to Rosa, performed miracles on a regular basis.
Full of nervous energy, Rosa practically ran from the car to the front door, where a petite woman with burgundy lipstick and flawless olive skin waited. They disappeared inside. Mom and I followed, but Roxy and Maria had to stay in the car; the psychic had instructed that no small children should be present.
There was something admittedly regal about Mama Lola. At about five feet tall, she managed to appear bigger and somehow more intimidating than any tall person I knew. In her frilly black dress and delicate shawl, she carried herself with the grace of a flamenco dancer.
The two women exchanged a few phrases in Spanish, and Mama Lola tossed a sideways glance in my mother’s direction. She lowered her head in greeting, then beckoned us down the hallway. A pair of thick curtains hung at its end, their velvety folds concealing the rest of the house.
“Please,” Mama Lola said, pulling them aside and gesturing into the living room. Her voice was pure silk trimmed with a Spanish accent.
I caught my breath. Beautiful things filled the room. Enormous paintings of nudes adorned the walls, their gilded frames shimmering in the tiny spotlights arranged over them. Intricate figurines danced as if alive on top of pristine glass shelves.
Upon closer examination, though, something rather obvious dawned on me.
The things around us spoke of a wealthy collector, not a psychic. I saw no symbols of protection or balance, nothing to identify a practitioner. In my father’s house, religious icons lined shelves built especially for that purpose, crosses hung above doorways, and special herbs burned every evening, making the house smell like a basket of dried flowers. He was an Orthodox Christian by upbringing, but influences of dvoeverie were evident in his use of charms, talismans, burning oils, and incense to combat the residue of clients’ negative emotions. Except for Baba Varya’s, he didn’t read books on magic to learn the ways a practitioner should defend himself. He simply asked his three spirit guides: Avadata, Kevoidana, and Azhidana. Shortly after he and Olga made up their minds about opening a business in L.A., Dad had performed three preliminary sessions to find his spiritual guides. Avadata had come first. But it took some time before the other two appeared; Kevoidana the philosopher, and Azhidana, who possessed the most knowledge of their realm.
“What time do you have where you are?” Dad asked during one session.
“The concept of time does not exist here.”
“By what means do you communicate with us?”
“Through your mind.”
“How do I protect myself from evil?”
“Faith and purity of thought.”
“Anything more substantial?”
“Ancient symbols of protection and black clothes deflect harmful energies and entities. Yet again, if your thought is corrupted, you are doomed.”
I remember Olga muttering, “What a lively bunch,” and Dad gesturing at her to shut it. His main complaint during the years they conducted their psychic business was that she never paid the spirits proper respect.
As Mama Lola spoke to Rosa, I tried to get Mom’s attention. She was watching the other two with a thoughtful expression. Beneath a mask of amiability, I detected from her a rising current of distrust.
Mom and I remained silent as Mama Lola accepted from Rosa the tongue along with a wad of cash. Her lips moved as she counted the money. Once satisfied, she tucked it into her belt. “I will be right back.”
As soon as she left, Mom turned to Rosa. “How much you give her?”
“Five hundred. Usually she charge thousands.”
“Rosa. I think she mostovly lie to you.”
“But she will help me.” Rosa sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“I hope,” Mom said.
We waited. Rosa couldn’t stop pacing, growing more anxious by the minute. We had pretty much accused her psychic of fraud. That didn’t stop her from hoping, though. She wanted a miracle.
An hour later I was fidgeting, too, but just then Mama Lola reappeared with the tongue, now wrapped in colorful cloth.
“It is done,” she said, handing it to Rosa and bowing slightly. “Now you must do as I had explained earlier.”
In the car Rosa revealed the most important part of the curse-lifting ritual. “The tongue is soaked with that putana’s curses,” she said. “Now all we must to do is bury it under the train, and everything she wish on me will go back to her.”
“We?” I said.
* * *
We drove through the industrial parts of the city for hours to locate a section of the railroad where we could bury the tongue without getting arrested.
The abandoned train station we finally found was a graveyard littered with rusted cars and engines. Lofty elm trees whispered in the breeze, creating the only movement above metal carcasses. The ground was crisscrossed with tracks.
We parked at the end of a gravel path, the clouds of dust kicked up by our tires staining the late-afternoon sunlight and flooding through the open window of the car.
“This is crazy,” I said in Russian. “Mom, why do we have to do this? Can’t you tell her it’s not going to work?”
“No. And don’t you dare, either. She’s my friend. Besides, we don’t know for sure. If she believes enough, it might.”
To Mom, magic absolutely existed, just not all on its own. It had to come from within as much as from without. She believed that every person had a bit of magic inside them—some had the ability to apply it; for others it stayed dormant forever. Mom didn’t arrive at this point of view all on her own, but adopted it from a clairvoyant friend from Tadzhikistan who used to visit us in Moscow every summer. Her name was Paywand, meaning “connection.” A fitting choice: one day, her parents found Paywand playing by the river, conversing with an imaginary friend who turned out to be her grandfather’
s ghost. The spirit advised them to buy a certain neighbor’s plot of land. Paywand’s father—landless, moneyless, but superstitious—bought it with help from equally superstitious friends and relatives. Within several years the land blossomed into a pomegranate farm with the sweetest and juiciest fruits in town, and the poor man became a well-respected merchant.
I first met Paywand when I was six. Her almond-shaped eyes looked like they’d been traced with care by a painter’s brush. But it was her hair that fascinated me. She wore it in a multitude of intricate braids down to her knees, as was the Tadzhik custom. During her first visit, as everyone sat around discussing worldwide supernatural occurrences, Paywand braided my own hair in that fashion. For two weeks I pranced around the school in my sweet hairdo. The eventual unbraiding was a two-hour ordeal.
Paywand could walk into any dwelling and sense a supernatural presence. Countless times she was called to haunted sites to discern the type of entity residing inside. Yet she recognized mysticism and spirituality not only with a clairvoyant’s sensitivity to spirits or a seer’s awareness of the future but also in Rembrandt’s brushstrokes and Dostoyevsky’s madness.
“Are you some kind of a magician?” I asked her once.
“No,” she replied. “I’m a flashlight, like everyone else, like you. The only difference is that I’m on and you’re not.”
“So if I turn on the switch, I can be a magician, too?”
“There is no doubt in my mind that you can shine!”
One of the reasons Mom didn’t confront Mama Lola with her suspicions was probably because she hoped that even if Mama Lola had faked it, Rosa might’ve believed in the spell so much that it would work on faith alone.
“We must support her by releasing our own positive energies,” Mom said.
Roxy and Maria were playing poker in the backseat next to me. My sister looked up and grinned. “I’m releasing my energy right now, Mama.”
“Yolky-palki (For crying out loud),” I said, covering my nose. “You’re disgusting.”
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