“Bellochka, I—I had no idea—”
“Wait, let me finish. They had already filled out the chorus, but there were small roles, small singing solos they still needed people for. I got a good night sleep. God, I looked beautiful that day. I wore all black. I was in a room with seven people staring at me from behind their casting table, one of them was the director, and I knew at once who he was: I could see his eyes light up when he looked at me, like he was in love. And it gave me confidence, the way he looked at me, I felt as if I already owned him, owned the room; it was exhilarating!” She laughed again, strangely. “So they asked me to come back again and again, and they asked me to sing ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ I had that song down cold. Still, you can’t imagine how nervous I was—but my voice didn’t fail me. I was perfect, better than I had ever been in front of the mirror or with my voice teacher, and I knew in that instant I had captured them, captured the director, all of them. They said it right on the spot: you have the role. ‘Which one am I—in the chorus?’ I asked. ‘No,’ the director said, ‘we want you to play Fantine.’”
“My God, Bella, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“It happened so quickly—I was in the city for only nine or ten months and in the acting world, it’s nothing, really. Nothing! It was practically overnight. I did the right thing, I told myself. How smart I was not to listen to Mom and Grandma and you! Here I am—cast in a major role on the biggest stage in the world, and what are they offering me: the world, really, not just prestige, not just my own money, but freedom, superb freedom! I felt such acute happiness!
“I didn’t want to call home right away—I wanted to absorb it first, keep it to myself for a bit, like a secret that only belonged to me. Rehearsals were supposed to start the following week. So I said to my roommate, let’s celebrate. You never, never, ever drink before you plan to sing! But I—I was Russian, wild, invincible! What did I care! So my roommate and I went to bars each night and met men. Every place I stepped into, the men came at me, one more handsome, more successful than the next. I felt like a Goddess. I’m a Broadway actress, I’d say with pride. I forgot the family, forgot even to boast—oh, how miserably I wanted to boast to Grandma. And I drank, dear God, how much I drank.
“Then suddenly my voice gave out—kaput, nothing. I woke up one morning the day before the Monday of rehearsals next to some dark-haired model. I don’t remember anything about him except for the tattoo on his navel of a tiny butterfly, and I remember wanting it to come to life, to flutter between us. I don’t remember the sex: nothing, all a blur.
“The whole day—that whole day I ran around frantically drinking tea with honey, and eating garlic. I thought I had the flu but it was just my voice and it became more hoarse. The day of rehearsals I arrived: I got up on that stage, opened my mouth but instead of a sound, a croak came out like an old staircase about to split in half. Here and there my old smooth voice would peek through but it was sporadic and broken by static. The director and producers were horrified. The other actors, especially the women, stood in silence, trying to hide their grins. They knew what this meant: it was their turn soon.
“I was a nobody. I had no clout, and they certainly weren’t going to wait for me. A few days maybe, but my voice was gone—it was totally gone! I thought I’d never sing again. I went to the doctor and he said I had damaged my larynx slightly, that it would heal eventually—in a few months. But I didn’t have a few months!
“Who knows what stunts I pulled in my drunken stupor. My roommate says it was at Lime, where they had this huge fantastic stage. I got up and danced and sang ‘I Will Survive’ so loudly that the whole audience went wild. But when I got off the stage, I couldn’t speak—it must have been then.
“How could I have been so stupid? And how could I tell our family the truth, that I ruined everything for myself? The director asked the understudy to replace me, and said if you ever recover come back to us. I never recovered, not emotionally at least.” She looked out the window at the trees swaying idly on our lawn. Nature didn’t care about our mangled destinies, our self-destructive feats … nature remained unperturbed, I thought.
“I’ve spent years trying to figure it out, Lenochka—why? Why, why? After that, I auditioned for a few movie roles, and was asked to show my breasts for a horror film. I thought to myself, why should I degrade myself like this when I know what I can have?
“The only thing I ever wanted in life—the Broadway stage—I destroyed. It was time to go home.”
“But I don’t understand,” I murmured, “how could you hold this in your palms and let it go? You must have realized it, you must have not really wanted it … were you afraid?”
“Maybe. Maybe I was a broken vessel and a broken vessel needs to heal first. Because the truth was that I didn’t believe I deserved it—this wonder, this success, this miracle only God could have put into my very palms, and you know, I have lots of quarrels with God, but still … if there was a God, why would He let me self-destruct? I want you to understand something: you are not me! I know it was partly fear, and I know you suffer from it too, but don’t for one second confuse us: you changed your name, you went to New York, you brought Eddie home to Mom and Grandma—you’re far more courageous than I could ever be. I married Igor, enough said.”
“But why don’t you leave him? Divorce him, Bella!”
“Leave him? No—I can’t! How can I raise Sirofima as a single mom? No, that’s not my lot in life. Let the American women be feminists; let them be brave. I’m of the old country; I know that now. The tradition of living out your misery is deeply entrenched in me.”
“I know he follows you. He has people follow you. He controls the money, your bank account, your credit card, your every move … Bella, please, I know you know this. He’s paranoid and controlling, a quiet snickering tyrant is what he is! You can’t even have a fucking affair,” I cried out feverishly. But Bella only laughed, her ringing operatic voice devoid of any bitterness or sarcasm.
“You, Lenochka, are always seeking doorways, escape routes, holes through which sunlight might burst through and melt your chains. But not me—I know my prison! This is the prison I’ve chosen for myself, that I’ve watched being built around me. Don’t for one second mistake me for some unconscious fool—I know who I am. And maybe there were openings but I never pried them open. I stayed. He’s my gatekeeper; he’s also the rock that keeps me tethered to the ground—”
“You mean chained?”
“No, don’t, don’t do that! He keeps me sane. He reminds me that I should keep my expectations reasonable, modest.”
“Like a good little Communist—reasonable, modest … oh, Bellochka!”
“Because if I let myself dream for one moment—I would die.”
“It’s not too late, Bellochka,” I whimpered. “You can go back to New York. You look young and beautiful and you sing, you sing even better now. It’s never too late.”
“No, it is,” she said resolutely, pushing back the tears that sprang involuntarily into the corners of her eyes. “After all, being here is in a way what I need. I need them: Mom, Dad, Grandma.” Her eyes appeared in the evening light to resemble two turquoise stones that had grown more transparent with age.
“I was afraid. I’m still afraid! This—this”—she pointed at the parquet floor—“is the only life I can accept in peace. But this is not your life—this is no life for you!”
“What am I supposed to do—go back to him? Beg his forgiveness? I don’t want him anymore.”
“Do you love him still?”
“Of course, can’t you see?”
“Everyone can see,” she said, “but you know how I feel about men! We, strong Kabelmacher women, we can live without them. But we can’t live without our passions and I know you want to paint, that you have been painting.”
“So?”
“Listen to me, Lena—go back—quit the program. Go back for your art. Stop taking money from Dad. Do it on your own, without any crutc
hes, without anyone, without Eddie. Don’t get lost in other people’s opinions, or in things that offend you. If there’s one thing that Yakov’s right about—we’re always getting offended. You have to take it, be strong. Look at me, Lena, take a good look at me: is this what you want for yourself? Mother sees through me, you know, she sees how much I suffer. And she’s always suspected something.”
“Who doesn’t Mom suspect, who doesn’t she see through?”
“So she sees through you; she’ll understand.”
“And what about Grandma?”
“Grandma will be in hysterics but I’ll be here to comfort her like you did when I left.”
“We had to put the pieces together—you were her golden pony—her pride and joy.”
“And you’re not?”
“Not in the same way,” I said.
“Maybe that’s why you feel freer …”
“Maybe,” I whispered, tears cascading down my cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry for what happened to you. So sorry you have to live with him … in this prison.”
She stared out the window without wincing, without any display of pain or regret. Then she turned toward me, smiled gently as if I were an awkward child, and ran her fingers through my tangled hair. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could take back those days of revelry. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what my life might have been if I had had the courage back then to claim what belonged to me—because that stage belonged to me, Lenochka, because I knew how to live on it, and make it come alive.”
“It still does, Bellochka, it still comes alive—even in Yakov’s restaurant—those people have never seen anything like you!”
“I know it’s ridiculous,” she said, “me on Yakov’s neon pink stage. I’m the Belle of Moscow Nights, Lenochka, laughable, me with my aspirations and yet it’s brought me back to life.” She looked out the window at the trees bending from the rising wind and said, “But I have no regrets—I have Sirofima now and all roads lead to her, her future. I’m done for.”
“My God Bella, you’re only thirty-one—you’re so young!”
“As I said, done for. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s a memory the way Russia is a memory—there are no time machines, no way to reach back and change the facts—what’s done is done, as they say. But you, Lenochka, you have no children, no husband, nothing to hold you back. Carpe Diem! Derzhis! There’s something in you, something fearless and real and different from all of us: all you need to do is hold on and ride your Zhar-ptitsa.” My Zhar-ptitsa, my Bella, myself, we were all of us, firebirds with magic in our feathers and flames in our souls.
Old watercolors and acrylics were hidden under my bed and I took them out after Bella left the room, and set three empty canvases side by side, as if something were unfolding in front of me, a saga dissected in three parts. I filled empty cans with water, extracted battered sable brushes and an old crenulated palette, used a scissor to poke holes in the green and blue and yellow acrylic tubes, whose original openings had dried shut from lack of use, and began to work.
Paintings #4, #5, #6
I’m on the train platform in Kiev holding my father’s hand. Metal beams arch over our heads like prison bars across the sky and a giant clock carved in steel glares from a slab of concrete, mimicking the bleak white sun. Trains screech and huff like humans carrying bricks upon their heads and we stare into their puffing mouths, spewing fumes into the sky. The sky lives here, inside the station, among the passengers below, and rain and lightning and snow, all grimaces of nature, pass through here on a sour day. It is a sour day today; we’ve come to tell my other grandmother, Grandmother Liza I call her, that we’re leaving for America. My father’s face is roped in guilt, his cheeks are limp, as though they’re hanging from his brows. He takes me out for walks, for movies, runs from his mother’s bleeding eyes. She’s said her piece, she’s wept for us, she’ll never come with us. I will die here, my son, this is my soil, Grandmother Liza smiles, a gray smile on a plump soft face with wrinkles hanging from her neck, death whispering in her ear. She brings out the sour cream and farmer’s cheese, fresh and aromatic, just whipped and sieved, squeezed from a local cow. Eat, she tells me, eat! You’re too skinny—they don’t feed you anything in Moscow. I put a spoon against my gums and lick the fat with my long tongue. I close my eyes and feel this rich, smooth, sour-sweet mass glide inside my mouth like frozen snow and gently thaw. The taste remains, engraved in memory, a single moment stretched into a longing that will follow me into my other, my English-speaking life.
Stay here, Grandmother says, why can’t you all stay here, what’s wrong with Russia, what’s the rush? She places black tea under our noses and the aroma fills our mouths with nostalgia as though we’re already in a foreign land. My father doesn’t budge: we’re going for a better life, but he doesn’t define what that is. There’s horror here, he tells her with defiance, we’re suffocating, we’re going for the children, for a freer life. He’s reciting my mother’s words, my mother’s feelings. She is speaking for him, through him. Grandmother Liza stares in disbelief. I don’t see it, she says, I don’t see what you mean. That’s because you’ve never known anything but this provincial town, you’ve never wanted anything but this … this—he points at the sour cream. You don’t know, my father stumbles, what’s happened to the children, to Lenochka, his voice gaining conviction. I feel invisible under their adult fury and plug my ears with my invisible hands. I see my father’s mouth moving, lips trembling, eyes becoming moist. I know the story he’s retelling—the year that I was five—the first “incident” to light the fire of leaving, the first trigger to father’s indecisiveness, his inner tension: how do I balance Lenochka against my own interests, against my own life? He cannot mention the Camp for Intellectuals—too fantastical, too horrific—the real reason he’s agreed and we’ve applied.
Nothing burns the way humiliation burns—a tumor growing in you, on you.
How many of us on that day—thirty, twenty, fifty—laid out like sardines on silver cots during our mandatory nap, pretending to be asleep? But I and Alla Feldman, or was it Feldshtein, Ferber, Fishbein, I can’t remember which, another Jew like me, and four other rabble-rousers are giggling, tickling one another’s toes, making farting noises with our lips upon our arms, riling the others from their supposed slumber. And suddenly the room is full of mirth, sardines have turned into sprites, and forearms, thighs, and elbows serve as instruments in a symphony of farts. No one hears the heavy breath behind the door, her thickset arms and barrel legs tensing in an awkward stillness, gulping time; no one feels her scorching eyes surveying, seizing who to punish. She has hair like viscous tar wrapped round her head and she wears white—a nurse’s sacred garb, caretaker of our bodies, our stomachs, our health. Though the teachers theoretically wield more power, we fear only Her. Kabelmacher, you and Feldman get up! Get up! She appears out of nowhere, black pupils glinting, lips curving upward as though from some internal hilarity of hatred. You are punished, she yells. What are we punished for? I have the courage, the chutzpah, the hrabrost to ask. For disturbing all the other children from their naps, she screams. But I—One more sound out of you, Kabelmacher—she waves her mammoth palm close to my cheek to blot out my outrage, my spirit. You and Feldman in the closet, now, she roars—a roar inside my spine. Only the dark and hunger will cure you of your obstinacy, your arrogance, your affected manners. She speaks in doublespeak, in adult-speak, and pulls us by our shirt sleeves, our necks, our hair. You stay here, she commands, throwing us in the closet of mattresses and cots, until you understand who you are—peons, pawns, peshki!
Inside the closet, foul-smelling mattresses are folded and stacked on wooden shelves. Only silver cots protrude from corners, from the dark. Before the door slams shut, I catch the other children squinting, eyeing us in a guilty—or is it a giddy—silence, running for their cookies, tea, and milk. How long, I want to ask, are we to bear your nonsense, you fat, foul-mouthed Baba Yaga. But my throat is parched a
nd Alla’s sobbing, laying her head upon my arm. And though Alla’s taller, stronger, three months older, I, I keep my head up high—no dragon will make me cry.
The mattresses are cumbersome and stained, yellowing from piss. Food rises to my throat but I push it back, I put my tough face forward. My legs untangle and I swing open the closet door, I look beseechingly at the two teachers fussing with the dishes, but neither looks my way. You’re punishing us for nothing, nothing, at last I scream. We were all, all of us making mischief. Thick brown fingers grip my collar, and at once she’s upon me, in my ear: your punishment has not been terminated. Vomit shoots out of my mouth—I cannot hold it back! The undigested porridge spurts from my nose, my throat, acid trickles down my neck and shirt, seeping into my underwear, my shoes, my stockings. You filthy Yid, the monster yells, flinging her filthy hands before my eyes. You made the mess, now you clean it up! The puddle of my vomit spawns tiny rivers that cross the threshold of the closet’s door and stream under the cots and mattresses arrayed along the floor. The odor overtakes the air, and children screech in bliss and in disgust. The monster brings gray rags and two buckets of soapy water and sets them under our kneeling forms. Alla wrings my vomit from putrid rags, coughing from nausea, from weeping. And after we have finished, Alla crouches in a corner, away from me, because I’m wet and reek of acid, clumps of porridge still cling to my skin.
The children laugh, yet all I hear is a cacophony of nervous shrills and broken echoes, and in a blur I see them in their shubas running out, out, out into the freedom of the yard, shouting into the cloudless winter day. The monster now appears, grotesquely grinning, having grown larger in the interim of time. She commands Alla to rise: you are being released. And I catch shame spread on Alla’s face, the shame of wanting to abandon me, to be like them, to be of them. You go, the monster tells her, Kabelmacher still has work to do!
The door slams shut. I am now alone, alone and hungry. I see shapes from corners forming, silver eyes flickering, watching me—predators gathering for a human feast. And suddenly I see entire walls collapse into black rivers that spawn black silk that thicken into fur: they’re panthers now with cobalt diamond eyes—scraping walls, floors, slashing mattresses, etching blood-vines along my skin, and still I am alive. I’m breathing. I spot a panther perched upon the upper shelf, but as I stare, it changes, its physiognomy transmogrifies into a human face. The lines draw human features but instead of skin it sprouts black-green seaweed and claws appear instead of hands and feet, and snakes instead of limbs, a monster whose breath can kill—Babushka, dorogaya, Zinadiya, where are you, why have you forsaken me? The clock is ticking, ushering more monsters in, until my mind fills to the brim; I pull my legs in closer to my torso and feel them coming, in large wet spots around my eyes, my ill-begotten tears of cowardice and petrifaction, burning up my skin.
The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield Page 37