Dogs With Bagels

by Maria Elena Sandovici

  She raised her eyebrows, waiting for Victor to respond. Did he not see the difference between this makeshift room, this joke of an apartment, and the beautiful villa they used to live in? Did he not feel the lumps in the mattress they slept on? Was he not disgusted by the thought that other people had slept on it before them, people they didn’t even know? People who might have been filthy or diseased, who probably had fucked, masturbated, sweated and peed on this bed, who maybe had died on it? Did he not miss their solid wood furniture, the sculpted mahogany bed with hand-embroidered crisp linens, where they, and only they, had made love so many times? Did he not miss the sun shining through the big oval leaves of their walnut tree, as they lay in their bed reading on Sunday mornings, drinking Turkish coffee out of real china, not clunky mugs from the dollar store? Did he not miss the aroma of that coffee, or the scent of lavender on their starched white sheets?

  He caressed her hand, and spoke tenderly, as if to a child.

  “This will be hard on us, Maria. We will have a few hard years. But things will get better, I promise. Our children will have much better lives here. They will be happy.”

  She felt a wave of rage. Wasn’t her life important too?

  Such thoughts made her feel ashamed of herself. All the people she knew put their children first. Romanians seemed to live for their children, to sacrifice everything for them. Why couldn’t she? If other mothers felt the same, none of them ever voiced it. And she could never bring herself to ask. She wasn’t close to anybody anyway.

  “Our children were happy before,” she said. “They were already happy. Lots of people were perfectly happy.”

  Why wasn’t he looking at her? Was he even paying attention?

  Her voice grew sharp.

  “I was happy. Why would my children not be happy in a place where I was happy, where lots of people were happy? Is it written on their foreheads that they can only be happy in America?”

  Victor stood up and walked to the window. They had a view of another similar exposed brick building. She hated their view.

  “What special children we have, Victor! They can only be happy in America!”

  Her own voice surprised her. Where did that sharp edge come from, or the sarcasm?

  Victor turned around and faced her, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze distant. He spoke in a calm controlled voice. She would soon learn that, to her despair, he rarely lost his tempter.

  “If you didn’t want to go, then why didn’t you fucking ever say so?”

  She was taken aback. He had never sworn at her.

  She felt like hiding under the blanket, but she knew she had to roll with the punches.

  “You knew I didn’t want to go. You knew it!”

  “Don’t wake the children.”

  She bit her lips. She felt bad for yelling.

  “It’s not my job to read your fucking mind, woman. When you want something, you should say it.”

  She stood up, to be closer to his height. She was not nearly tall enough.

  “Well, I’m saying it now,” she yelled. “I hate it! I hate this house, I hate this place, I hate this life! I hate it! Fine? I hate it!”

  His face twitched with impatience and irritation.

  She waited. It was his turn. He had to say something, anything. But he was quiet, and she could not stand it. She wanted to scratch him. She wanted to scratch him until she drew blood.

  “I hate you!” she screamed, throwing a pillow in his direction. Recalling the fight later, she’d be embarrassed by the childish gesture. He picked up the pillow with a sigh, and placed it on the mattress.

  “I have to go to work,” he said.

  After he left, without as much as another glance in her direction, she stayed up all night, shaking with anger, frustration, and shame. In the morning, when he came in, she pretended to be asleep. She did not rise until she heard him snoring beside her. She did not speak to him for two days, until she woke up one morning to the smell of warm cinnamon buns and coffee. He said he wanted them to have breakfast in bed, and told her about the amazing aroma coming from the bakery at dawn, as he was finishing his night shift. Sleep still in her eyes, she smiled. The smell of cinnamon and sugar filled the room as they started kissing. She could not stop giggling, as he teased her: “I think you’re a liar. You don’t seem to hate me much at all.” Yet in the middle of their lovemaking, she got distracted, thinking of how much the cinnamon buns and coffee must have cost.

  Later she heated the cold buns in the oven. Of course, the children ate most of them, and she was left with just a bite, just enough so she could crave more. The cold coffee was watery. She could not believe Americans paid money for this shit. She poured it down the drain, and washed the paper cups, placing them carefully next to the sink to dry.

  Later she had to go back into the bedroom to retrieve a pile of laundry. She hated laundry day. They didn’t even have their own machine! She had to push their dirty clothes in a little cart to a coin-operated laundromat a few blocks away. That day it snowed, and she dreaded stepping through the dirty slush, laundry and kids in tow. As she was contemplating the horror, she saw Victor sleeping, a blissful expression on his face. She stood there for a second watching him, her arms full of dirty clothes. On her way out she slammed the door as loud as she could, then cried out to her kids at the top of her lungs: “Alex! Lili! Coat on! We go laundry!”

  Another one of their early fights stands out in her mind. They had been invited to a barbecue at the house of a wealthy Romanian family, on Long Island. Some friends of Victor’s offered to give them a ride in their mini-van. Maria didn’t like any of these people, especially since Victor often used them as examples of how Romanian immigrants did well in America. She also was sick of hearing about how all these nice compatriots had helped them, how they continued to help. She was tired of charity, tired of being thankful for every worn out item others found it in their hearts to toss her way.

  For the party that day she put on a red silk dress, her favorite dress in fact, sewn by her seamstress in Romania. She was too dressed up for a barbecue, but she didn’t care. Victor seemed pleased with her appearance. He proudly put his arm around her shoulders, as they huddled with their children on the back seat of the mini-van. Maria and Victor had insisted on letting their hosts and their children take up the more comfortable seats. She was miffed when they accepted without further protest. Normally, at home, people would have politely turned down each other’s offer, and gotten gridlocked in a lively argument, each insisting the other ones take the better seats.

  Lili was sitting on Maria’s dress, wrinkling it, and the sole of her little shoe was rubbing up against Maria’s taupe suede pump. It was ironic that after almost a year in America she still wore the same undersized shoes that hurt her feet. But it seemed frivolous to splurge on shoes, when they could barely pay the rent! She’d seen lovely shoes, in the windows of expensive stores in Manhattan, but she had forced herself to look away. Of course, there were cheap ones out there too. In America the selection of merchandise was broad enough to accommodate every taste and budget. But Maria had yet to discover shoes destined for people with exquisite taste but minimal budgets. It would take years for her to learn how to hunt for such bargains. In the meantime she put up with sore feet.

  The Long Island neighborhood of clapboard houses was stifling and depressing to her. The houses, all the same, spacious, brand new, and expensive, looked boring. Conformist. Like the uniform she’d worn in high school in Romania. Ugly and made of plastic. If doing well meant living in a neighborhood where all the houses were the same, everybody drove a bloody mini-van, and you could practically see into your neighbor’s living room, well then she’d probably want to drown herself in the small oval pool that invariably decorated each tiny back yard. She couldn’t believe Victor bought into all this. Where was his taste, his love for art and self-expression? Wasn’t this just the kind of soulless conformity he had rebelled against?

  She arrived at th
e party with her dress wrinkled, and her toe-pinching, torturous shoes dirty. She told herself it didn’t really matter. For all she cared, she could wear a garbage bag for these people. Their opinion meant nothing to her. And they disliked her anyway.

  Her persona as an arrogant stand-offish woman had followed her to New York. Her aloofness, as usual, masked her shyness. But it also masked her unhappiness, and the fact that she did not share these people’s conviction that life in America was better. They similarly did not share her nostalgia for the old country. If they had ever been homesick like her, they had gotten over it years ago.

  The only person Maria could relate to was an old woman who was equally unhappy to be here, but had come for her daughters, who needed help with their children. Like Maria, Mrs. Stoica spoke no English. Maria tried to pick up a few phrases here and there, which she insisted on using on her children, but Mrs. Stoica felt too old to learn. Maria wished she had a similar excuse. Learning English was torturous for her. She kept the TV on while cooking and cleaning. She wrote down new words every day. But other than to her children, she did not dare speak to anybody. Victor insisted that her lack of practice held her back. She had to push herself, he said. But Maria was sick of pushing herself.

  Mr. Grecu, the host of the party, was grilling mici, sausage links, and pork cutlets, for his many guests. An upstanding member of the community, he had been in America for twenty years, and had been an invaluable source of help to many new arrivals, including Victor. It was Mr. Grecu, who, through connections, and, from a distance, had facilitated the Pop family’s flight from Romania and their political asylum in the United States. It was also he who helped Victor find that dreadful job as a night watchman. Maria hated him with a passion.

  He motioned them over, cheerfully waving a sausage link, which he offered to Alex. He engaged Victor in an animated discussion, while Maria sulked a little too obviously. She hated having to endure such boredom for the enjoyment of her family, and for the sake of free grilled meat.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Grecu felt the need to address her.

  “So, Maria, Victor tells me you still don’t have a job.”

  She blushed. She was ashamed of not working, but there seemed to be no way to find a job without speaking English. Surely no employer would want her nine-year-old daughter tagging along as an interpreter.

  “My English, you know…” she said shyly, and felt utterly and profoundly stupid.

  “Yes, yes, many of us had that problem at the beginning. It will get better. And you don’t always need English to get a job. You know, I talked to my friend Ion, the one who owns that bakery, Amandina. He said you could help his wife, decorating cakes. You don’t need English for that.”

  Although she had longed for a similar job, Maria felt insulted. She could not explain why.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not interested in that kind of work.”

  At that point, a lot of people’s attention turned to her. She had spoken louder than intended. She blushed. These people considered her arrogant enough, without her giving them extra evidence.

  Mr. Grecu laughed. He was a chubby man with rosy cheeks and a potbelly. A bon vivant, Victor called him. Had she met him back in Romania, under different circumstances, she would have probably liked him.

  “And, what, pray tell, would you like to be doing? What kind of job are you looking for?”

  She felt people’s expectant eyes upon her.

  “I’m a librarian,” she said.

  Mr. Grecu was copiously amused, and so were the others. The host’s wife, a cheerful matron, with the same stout build as her husband, came to her rescue.

  “Come child,” she said, taking Maria’s hand. “Let’s get you fed. Don’t mind him.”

  As she was being led towards a table full of salads and grilled meats, Maria looked back to see her husband apologize to Mr. Grecu for her behavior.

  On the drive back she was fuming. She could not say anything in front of the people driving them. But as soon as they got out and the mini-van sped off, she turned to Victor, and shoved him, hard.

  “Why didn’t you stand up for me? Why did you apologize?”

  Victor gave her one of his standard ‘not in front of the children’ looks. He turned away and walked towards the building, holding his son and daughter’s hands. Maria walked behind them, feeling left out, like a stranger stalking them.

  “Why didn’t you defend me?” she yelled in the lobby, following them into the elevator.

  Instead of answering, Victor calmly pressed their floor number. She banged her fist on the “Open Door” sign.

  “Why didn’t you stand up for me?”

  “Why didn’t you take the job?”

  This time Maria punched the “Open Door” sign so hard it hurt.

  “I’m a grown woman. I’m not a child. I don’t need you to apologize for me. Don’t you dare apologize for me! I have a right to my opinion. I’m a fuckin’ grown-up.”

  Victor removed her fist from the button. The elevator finally took off.

  “Then start fucking acting like one.”

  She was so ashamed. For days afterwards she felt worthless. A bad wife, a bad mother, a person who refused to work, was a burden on her family, and then complained about it, and even cursed in front of the children.

  There was no cinnamon bun reconciliation after this fight. Victor continued to talk to her, but was cold and distant. Ashamed of her behavior, she was polite, but she tried to stay out of his way.

  She walked the kids to school each day. Then, to keep out of the house, she went grocery shopping, something she would usually do on afternoons and weekends, with Lili’s help, whose English was quite good. Two years before their departure from Romania, Victor had hired a private tutor to give the children English lessons. Maria had considered it ridiculous, but had not shared with Victor her concern that the children were too young to learn. It turned out that she had been wrong. Her children were doing ok in the new country, though school proved difficult at times. There were many differences in the way subjects were taught, even something straightforward such as math. Handicapped by her ignorance of the language, she could not be much help. It was Victor who sat patiently at the table with Lili and Alex, trying to figure out whatever it was they didn’t understand.

  Pushing her empty cart around, Maria wondered if her family even needed her at all. At least she cooked and cleaned as best she could. Sometimes she thought of herself as a machine that provided food, sex, and clean laundry. She imagined her family being better off with a robot, rather than a flesh and blood woman. A robot would work quietly, and they could switch it off and store it away when its work was done.

  Of course, her work was never done. She knew the house was never clean enough for Victor’s taste. Back home she would have fired the housekeeper if she’d done as poorly. But she did not like cleaning, and with two children running around, there was always too much to do.

  As a cook, at least, she was improving. She had first started experiencing with food under her mother’s guidance, in preparation for moving to America. She had wanted to master a few of Victor’s favorite recipes. Even in her blind naïveté and her ignorance about what lay ahead, she had suspected that in America they might be unable to afford help, at lest at the beginning. Plus, what if American cooks did not know how to prepare Victor’s favorite dishes?

  10

  Dinner Date

  The main reason I accepted Greg’s invitation is that I’m starving. Flămândă.

  With only five dollars in my checking account (three of which will be eaten up by my bank’s evil minimum balance fee), I subsist on a diet of coffee and bagels.

  Bagels are the city’s solution to world hunger. I’ve loved them since I was a little girl. Mami would buy them as a special treat, and hand them to us whole, like donuts, expecting us to just bite in. Mami has her own word for bagels, a funny Romanian word: covrig.

  There’s a deli close to Bella that serves to
asted bagels with cream cheese for just a dollar. That tends to be my dinner. For breakfast I buy a 75 cent cup of coffee as well. I ask for plenty of skim milk. It keeps me fuller that way. And it has calcium.

  I’m bored of bagels. Plictisită. I feel like I’m carrying a rock in my stomach. And I hate to think what all those carbs are doing to my body.

  I get ready for the date at work, in the back room. I’m wearing a light blue dress Mami bought me on sale at Daffy’s. I like it, but it’s more appropriate for a picnic than dinner. I threw it on in a rush this morning, before racing to Bella and still getting here late. If I could go home after work, like a normal person, I would pick a different outfit. But I live like a refugee these days, totally clandestina. I try to be home as little as possible. Sleep and shower, it’s all I ever do there any more.

  Unable to change my dress, I freshen up my makeup, and splash on my parfum secret. It’s liberating to go on a date feeling no butterflies in my stomach. I’ll actually enjoy my meal. None of that silly pushing food around too nervous to chew, scared that steak juice might dribble on my chin, that taking a big bite might make me look unfeminine, or that the cherry tomato I’m about to stab with my fork will launch itself across the room.

  There are advantages to going out with someone I’m not into. Besides, didn’t Momo say it’s good to date someone who likes me more than I like him? Didn’t she say it’s best not to be crazy about a man, but instead to learn to appreciate him for being nice and being good company? I usually find such suggestions depressing. What’s the point of being with someone you’re not crazy about? What’s the thrill in that? But quite possibly I’m maturing, because I’m finally willing to give it a try, finally ready to accept there are no fairy tales. Maybe Momo is right, and if you lower your expectations, there are good guys out there, guys who deserve a chance.