Natasha and Other Stories

by David Bezmozgis

  —I’m a suburban homeowner, there’s a social contract. Pissing in the pool is fine but whipping out your dick and irrigating the shrubbery is bad news. It’s all about property value.

  I settled back on Rufus’s deck and waited for the pool guys to leave. I had no deliveries to make that morning and I had neglected to bring along the books I was supposed to return to him. I was there without the veneer of pretext. After escorting the pool guys back to their van Rufus joined me on the deck.

  —Where’s the girl?

  —With her mother.

  —I thought she hated her mother.

  —She does.

  —So what are you doing here? Go liberate her.

  —It’s forbidden.

  —You’re sixteen, everything is forbidden. The world expects you to disobey.

  —I’ve been accused of unnatural acts.

  —Society was founded on unnatural acts. Read the Bible. You start with Adam and Eve, after that if somebody doesn’t boink a sibling it’s end of story.

  —You mind if I use that argument with my mother?

  Rufus got up and looked out across his yard.

  —What do you think about a hot tub?

  —Instead of the pool?

  —With the pool. Do everything in mosaic tile. Give it a real Greek feel. Put up some Doric columns. Get a little fountain. Eat grapes. Play Socrates.

  He descended from the deck and walked to the corner of his yard and struck a pose that was either Socrates or the fountain. Our conversation was over.

  From Rufus’s I walked to my uncle’s building and lurked until an old man was buzzed in by another old man. Romeo climbed a trellis, so I took the stairs. Eleven flights later I was in the hallway, passing the smells of other apartments. With one or two exceptions all the doorposts had mezuzahs, just like the hallways above and below. Everyone conveniently assembled for UJA solicitors and neo-Nazis.

  I knocked and Zina opened the door. She was wearing the same blue housedress. She blocked the doorway so that it was hard to see beyond her into the apartment. At first she said nothing. I had prepared myself for the worst, but she seemed pleased to see me.

  —I wanted to apologize to you myself. I don’t blame you for what happened. It wasn’t your fault. She has turned grown men inside out and you’re just a boy. It was crazy to expect anything else. I know how weak men are. I am to blame. The life in Russia was like a disease to children. Natasha is a very sick girl.

  Behind Zina I noticed a movement. It was Natasha. I could see her over Zina’s shoulder. She stood at the far end of the apartment, leaning against the living room couch. When I caught her eyes they reflected nothing. They were no less remote than the first time I saw her at the airport. She continued looking in my direction, but I couldn’t discern if she was looking at me or the back of Zina’s head. Zina, sensing Natasha’s presence, turned to look at her daughter. When she looked back at me, her turning was a motion that included the closing of the door.

  —It will be best for everybody if you didn’t see Natasha anymore.

  Late that night, after a day spent missing Natasha, despairing over the black void that was the remainder of my summer and my life in general, Natasha knocked on my basement window. I woke up and cupped my hands against the glass to see out. By the sound of the knock I knew it was her. I looked out and saw her squatting like a Vietnamese peasant in front of the window. In the dark it was hard to see her face. Upstairs in the kitchen I opened the sliding glass door and went into the yard to join her. She was hugging her knees at the base of our pine tree; her suitcase, the same one I had seen at the airport, was lying on the grass beside her. When I got close enough I could see that she had been crying. I joined her on the grass. Already, after only one day apart and remembering the way she had looked at me over Zina’s shoulder, I didn’t feel as though I could touch her.

  —You listened to her lies. Why did you listen to her lies?

  —What was I supposed to do?

  —You could have knocked her down. You could have broken down the door.

  —And what then?

  —I don’t know. Something. Something else would have happened. But you left me alone with her.

  —You looked right at me. Why didn’t you say anything?

  —But I already told you everything. You saw how she tried to ruin my life and your life and how she was killing your uncle. You knew all of this but you didn’t do anything. You’re like your uncle. You want people to make decisions for you.

  Natasha picked at the grass. Tears welled up in her eyes. She let them fall. I got up and picked up her suitcase. It felt empty and weighed almost nothing. I made a move toward the house.

  —What are you doing?

  —Taking it inside.

  —I can’t go inside. I can’t stay here. I have to leave.

  —You have to leave tonight?

  —Do you want to come with me?

  —Where?

  —Florida. One of the businessmen who came to the dacha lives there. He is very rich. He promised that if I ever came to Florida he would give me a job. He’ll give you one too.

  —We have to decide this tonight?

  —Yes. I can’t stay here and I can’t go home. There is no more home. My mother has left your uncle. I can’t live with her and I can’t stay with him. I have nowhere to go.

  —What do you mean your mother left my uncle?

  —I forced them to decide.

  I put the suitcase back down.

  —She made him sleep on the couch again. I went out to the living room. At first he was asleep but when he woke up and understood what was happening he didn’t stop me. He knew whose mouth it was. And then she heard and came out of the bedroom. He needed me to do it that way or he would never have gotten away from her. I wasn’t going to let her ruin his life. I wasn’t going to let her win.

  Strangely, my first thought was about my grandmother. My next thought was that my uncle would kill himself.

  —He let her insult him, embarrass him, steal his money. But he wouldn’t leave her. He was a coward. So I gave him a coward’s reason to leave. It’s funny, other men would have felt the opposite way. They would have taken it as a reason to stay and spent the next two years fucking me.

  I helped Natasha back down into the basement and promised her that I would wake her before my parents got up. I gave her my bed and slept on the floor. When the alarm rang I dug out all the money I had and gave it to her. It amounted to a little more than a hundred dollars. I watched her drag her suitcase down our street, heading in the direction of the bus station and Florida.

  When my parents woke up the phones were already ringing. My uncle had arrived on my grandparents’ doorstep at seven in the morning. His marriage was over. This confirmed my grandmother’s suspicions. From the first she had felt something wasn’t right with Zina. That her daughter was the product of a shaygets should have been enough. Now my uncle was without an apartment and he was financially obligated for Zina and Natasha because of the sponsorship papers he had signed. As to why the separation had to be so drastic, why he couldn’t stay in the apartment until he found a new place, my uncle was vague. They could no longer live together. Nobody in my family asked about Natasha or even knew that she had left home. As far as the family was concerned, once my uncle severed his relationship with Zina, she and Natasha ceased to exist.

  For days afterward I stayed in my basement. I had no interest in going out, seeing my friends, making deliveries. I was compromised by everything I knew. I knew too much about my uncle. I knew things about him that a sixteen-year-old nephew should not have known. And when my mother invited him to our house for dinner—in an effort to bolster his spirits—I sat across the table from him and tried to suppress the feeling of an awkward bond. The bond two men have when they have been with the same woman. It wasn’t the sort of bond I wanted to share with my forty-four-year-old uncle, especially under the circumstances. But the feeling was more powerful than my desire no
t to feel it. It was too easy to picture him with her. Everything my uncle did during dinner—talking, eating, drinking—reminded me that he had been with Natasha. The mouth he spoke with, the hands he ate with, his physical self, were the same mouth, hands, self that had been with Natasha.

  Of those first few depressing days after Natasha left, the dinner with my uncle was the worst. During that dinner he avoided the subject of Zina and Natasha entirely. It was the only thing on everyone’s mind and so, characteristically, it was the only thing nobody mentioned. Instead my uncle gave a very long and detailed history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arafat, Rabin, Ben-Gurion, Balfour, Begin, Nasser, Sadat. I wondered what kept my uncle going. What life offered him. Why he didn’t kill himself. Watching him, listening to him talk, I realized that there was nothing I could do for him. I felt better.

  The following morning I ended my self-imposed seclusion and took the familiar walk to Rufus’s. Weeks remained in my summer. There were books to read and whatever else the summer still had to offer. During my seclusion I had avoided all phone calls. Rufus had left typically cryptic messages, as did some of my other friends. Something in their voices intimated that there was excitement in our world. Activity was taking place without me. Conversations, discoveries, all sorts of important new things. Because of Natasha, I had removed myself from the common equation, and I was ready to return and accept my place within the social order.

  Approaching Rufus’s house, I wasn’t surprised to see the pool company’s van as well as a large truck brimming with dirt. Guys with wheelbarrows were carting dirt out from Rufus’s yard and shoveling it into the truck. Teams of six landscapers shouldered ten-foot-long Doric columns in the opposite direction. The strains of Bizet’s Carmen wafted from the backyard. The neighborhood had never seen anything like it.

  In the backyard, I spotted most of my friends. Guys that had never held down a real job, guys like me who spent their days in basements reading, smoking, and engaging in self-abuse. They were fanned out across Rufus’s yard, straining, digging, smoothing, lifting, side by side with the landscapers and pool installers. They looked very happy. Intimately involved. And already they had succeeded in transforming Rufus’s yard. A massive hole, many feet deep, dominated the property. An orange plastic fence had been erected around the hole’s circumference to keep the workmen and stoners from accidentally falling in.

  Up on the deck, seated with one of the pool guys I had seen on my last visit, was Rufus. A blueprint was laid out on the table and both of them were hunched over it as though it were a battle plan. I mounted the steps to the deck and stood behind Rufus and waited for him to acknowledge me. Over his shoulder I could see the detail of the blueprint. There were columns, cypress trees, a fountain, and Rufus’s hot tub. Rufus looked up as I bent closer to get a better look. For the briefest instant his face assumed an expression I had never seen before. At that moment I didn’t understand what it meant, but I later recognized it as pity.

  —Berman, what’s the matter, you don’t return calls anymore?

  He rose and had me follow him down into the yard. I felt the onset of dread. Something about Rufus’s posture alerted me to tragedy. It was then that I also realized that none of my friends had said anything to me. The yard was busy, but not so busy that none of them would have seen me. I had, after all, seen them. The sum of these impressions began to register. I knew that whatever it was, it was very bad and that I was trapped and helpless to avoid the damage. I sensed all of this as I descended from the deck and heard the screen door open. Using her hip, Natasha slid the door closed. She was carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and multicolored plastic glasses. Rufus watched me for a reaction and then took me gently by the shoulder and out to the front of the house.

  —Berman, this is why I asked you to call. I wanted to tell you on the phone, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing I could leave on an answering machine.

  Another team of landscapers passed us with a Doric column. I felt a compulsion to stick out my foot and trip them. To start a brawl, draw blood, break bones.

  —She doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry about this, Berman. It’s just the way it is.

  I made way for the Doric column.

  —How much do those things weigh?

  —Not as much as you’d think. They’re masonry and plaster, not marble. If they were marble I’d need slaves.

  —I thought she was going to Florida.

  —Come on, Berman, she’s a fucking kid. How is she supposed to get to Florida? She barely speaks English. Either she’s here or she’s on the street.

  —Right.

  —She thinks you betrayed her. She’s very principled. Anyway, she’ll be safe here.

  —That’s one way to look at it.

  —I hope you’re not mad. It’s not personal.

  —I still have some of your books and maybe few grams of weed.

  —That’s cool. Don’t sweat it. Consider them yours.

  —What a great deal for me.

  —That’s a shitty attitude, Berman. You’re smarter than that.

  —I’m a fucking genius.

  —Take care of yourself, Berman.

  I lingered in front of Rufus’s house after he left and watched the wheelbarrows come and go. I waited for the workmen to bring in the last of the Doric columns and then walked home. In another country, under another code, it would have been my duty to return to Rufus’s with a gun. But in the suburbs, at the end of my sixteenth summer, this was not an option. Instead, I resorted to a form of civilized murder. By the time I reached my house everyone in Rufus’s yard was dead. Rufus, Natasha, my stoner friends. I would never see them again. By the time I got home I had already crafted a new identity. I would switch schools, change my wardrobe, move to another city. Later I would avenge myself with beautiful women, learn martial arts, and cultivate exotic experiences. I saw my future clearly. I had it all planned out. And yet, standing in our backyard, drawn by a strange impulse, I crouched and peered through the window into my basement. I had never seen it from this perspective. I saw what Natasha must have seen every time she came to the house. In the full light of summer, I looked into darkness. It was the end of my subterranean life.

  CHOYNSKI

  THE PALLIATIVE-CARE DOCTOR, a young Jewish guy in glasses, prodded around my grandmother’s stomach and explained that the swelling wasn’t only a result of fluid. Some of it was disease. Disease had now infiltrated her kidneys and pancreas. He said that it was a very horrible disease, this disease, but everybody in the room—except my grandmother—already knew approximately how horrible it was. My grandmother said tank you to the doctor and also said the word hoff several times. Her English was virtually nonexistent and I didn’t think the doctor’s Yiddish was good enough to understand that the word she kept repeating meant hope.

  Outside, in the hall, the doctor explained that it was useless for me to wait around. It could be a month or it could be less, but there was no sense in my canceling my plane ticket. I thanked him and then returned to the living room to watch the second period of the hockey game. In the other room I could hear my mother and aunt lying to my grandmother about what the doctor had said.

  The same summer that we were given the diagnosis I had gone to the induction ceremony at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York. This is where I was told to check in with Charley Davis, who was recovering from a stroke but still lived independently in his house in San Francisco. Not that anybody knew very much, but if there was anyone who knew anything about Joe Choynski that person would be Charley Davis.

  Joe Choynski was being inducted in the old-timers’ category that day. Chrysanthemum Joe, Little Joe, the Professor, the California Terror: he was known as the greatest heavyweight never to win a title by the handful of people who still remembered that he’d ever been around. He was America’s first great fighting Jew. He quoted Shakespeare in his correspondence. He was a friend to Negroes. Coolies on the San Francisco docks t
aught him to toughen his fists in pickle vats, which was why he never so much as chipped a bone—bare-knuckle or gloved. Legend had it that he also invented the left hook.

  From Los Angeles, I called to find out that my grandmother hadn’t had a proper stool in three days and that the enema produced only an insignificant pellet which took her an hour to pass. Afterward, in her exhaustion, she wasn’t able to leave the bedroom until morning. Her dentist called to say that her dentures—which I had dutifully dropped off before leaving town—could not be repaired but needed to be replaced, and my aunt agreed to pay whatever it cost since neither she nor anyone else was prepared to tell my grandmother that she wouldn’t be needing new dentures.

  My aunt asked exactly where this God is, especially since my grandfather prays twice a day in synagogue. And my grandmother said that God will help, that the shark cartilage will help, that the naturopathic professor will help, that it just takes more time before the good cells start fighting the bad cells inside there.

  Charley Davis lived in South San Francisco not far from 3Com Park. Back when 3Com Park was Candlestick Park, Charley Davis covered the Giants and the fights for the San Francisco Chronicle. His house was half a mile from the highway and set high on a street of identical houses. Charley let me in and asked me to follow him into the living room. He was wearing blue pajamas under a faded brown robe. He dragged his left leg and his left arm hung as rigid as a penguin’s flipper. His house was covered in old fight posters and pictures of guys I recognized and would have traded lives with even though they were already dead. As Charley inched into his armchair and organized his limbs, I concentrated on a framed shot of the Johnson-Jeffries fight.

  When he was settled, I sat down on the couch across from him and told him that I was stuck with my Choynski research. I pronounced the name the way he had taught me over the phone: Cohen-ski. He asked me if I figured I could identify Choynski in one of the pictures at the Johnson-Jeffries fight. Choynski had worked Jeffries’s corner for that Great White Hope fight in Reno. After I passed that test we went through our collective Choynski information.