Under a Red Sky

  “We can’t have a wide-angle shot of the lawn chairs with a single chair sticking out of line,” Beard tells Tata. “The Artistic Content Committee will claim that we’re advocating dissent and capitalist individualism.”

  “Nonsense,” my father argues. “They’re too stupid to think that. Don’t be paranoid, Beard. In order for them to cite individualism, they need a brain capable of interpretive powers. You give these imbeciles way too much credit.” Tata taps his pipe into the ashtray. I can smell the fresh tobacco from his pouch before he lights up.

  “They’re not all stupid, Zimmy,” Beard retorts. “Some have brains, and I guarantee that every one of them is mean-spirited. That’s a lethal combination.”

  Tata doesn’t agree. “Why not throw their argument right back in their faces? We’ll tell them that it’s all in their filthy, small, Bolshevik minds. They’re seeing things in the film that simply aren’t there.” Tata smiles. “Art is subjective, after all.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a dangerous game to play, because they hold all the cards, Zimmy. They can put us out of business.”

  “You have no idea how much I detest these clowns,” Tata grumbles, his teeth clicking on the stem of his pipe.

  “Yes I do,” Beard says. “Your precious chair scene can stay in the film for now, just to keep you happy. We’ll take another look at it when we do the final cut. Okay?”

  Tata’s answer is an unintelligible string of Hungarian curses.

  Tata’s conversations with Beard often sound like heated arguments to me, but Mama says neither makes a move without the other. Even in his personal life Beard relies more on my father than on all of his wives combined. Beard is in between wives, but he’s in love with Renée, a Belgian puppeteer, who came to Romania for a children’s theater festival. I only met Renée once, when she showed me how the strings of a puppet work.

  “Refrain from getting married,” Tata advises Beard. “An official marriage certificate from the Communists will only complicate your life, and it will leave you in debt again after you divorce.”

  “You know I’m crazy about Renée,” Beard whines.

  “You are crazy. Why must you make it a habit to get married to every pretty woman you meet?” Tata asks. “Renée doesn’t even live here. Be happy that you can still get laid without first obtaining permission from the Party. Do me a favor, Beard: don’t get married again and don’t make babies. Buy some condoms from Victor. He just got a shipment in from France.”

  Beard sighs in response, but both of them know that Tata’s lecture is useless. When it comes to women, Beard can’t help himself. He is willing to marry every woman who’s ever caught his eye because he thinks all women are beautiful. “No wonder they’re all crazy about you,” Tata says.

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, Beard shows up early for one of his visits and waits for Tata in our room. I am thrilled because Beard is fun. He looks just like a picture Tata has shown me of Albert Einstein—the wild mane, minus the silver-white. Whenever Beard visits, he turns on the radio and tunes in to a classical concert. He loves music, and he once told me that, when he was a young boy, he wanted to become an orchestra conductor. As the music on our radio soars, Beard stands in the middle of our bedroom in his baggy pants and starts to conduct. His eyes are closed, and his face twitches in rhythm to the music.

  Sometimes his arms move slowly and gracefully, while at other times he is punching the air with his fists and his wild mane gets wet with droplets of sweat. As the music fades, Beard stops and plants a kiss on my cheek.

  “Did you miss me?” he asks. “Close your eyes and open your hands. Renée has sent you a present from Belgium.”

  My eyes are shut tightly. I’m secretly hoping that Renée has sent me a puppet, but the object that Beard places in my hands feels smooth, like a box.

  “Open your eyes,” Beard says. In my hands is a turquoise plastic box with two arched handles.

  “Want to see what’s inside?” Beard asks, snapping the catch open.

  It’s a toiletry kit filled with the most amazing things! There is a bar of lavender soap, hand lotion, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, a comb, a hairbrush, and even lip pomade.

  “Renée asked that I give you a big hug and kiss for her,” Beard says, taking me in his arms.

  This is the best present I’ve ever received! I run to the bathroom and brush my teeth for the second time that day, this time with Belgian toothpaste that tastes like mint. Then I hide all of my most important possessions in my new toiletry box. My collection of stamps, my dog-eared French comic books, and my satin hair ribbons—all fit inside. I place the box on my nightstand and run back to give Beard another hug.

  When Tata arrives, Beard starts to cry about how much he misses Renée, and he concocts an elaborate scheme to escape to Belgium.

  “I don’t know why you aren’t deliriously happy.” Tata laughs at Beard. “Most men would kill for such a sweet deal. You can keep the embers of passion glowing between Renée’s visits, because, as the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. You don’t have to deal with the jealous husband since he’s in Belgium and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You don’t have to buy her presents, because she’s got more money than you. Plus, she’s got access to all the goods in the free world, so if you ever need anything all you have to do is ask. What more do you want? She’s mad about you, and she doesn’t want your baby.”

  Beard replies miserably, “I want to hold her every night for the rest of my life, preferably in Belgium.”

  “You’re as crazy as you look, Beard,” Tata says, dragging on his pipe. “Assuming you can get out of here alive, your romance will sour the minute you’re an unemployed ex–film director in the West. What the hell do you think you’re going to do for a living over there, make strings for Renée’s puppets?”

  “I’ll think of something, Zimmy. Stop making me feel hopeless.”

  “You’ll feel even more hopeless when Renée’s jealous husband blows your brains out and leaves your hair as the only evidence of your existence.” Tata laughs again.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of divorce, Zimmy?”

  “No. When I make a commitment, it’s for life.”

  “Like you’ve never had another woman since you got hitched, Zimmy.”

  “Hey, there’s a difference between a roll in the hay and marriage. Marriage is a huge decision, not to be made in haste or taken lightly.”

  “Oh yeah? How long did it take you to propose to Stefi, Zimmy?” Beard inquires, though it’s likely he already knows.

  “A month.”

  “That long?”

  “A month is a long time when you’re in love with the right woman.”

  “I know. I’ve been pining for Renée for three years!”

  “Man, you’ve got it bad,” Tata says, patting Beard on the back.

  Tata has to go out on an errand, and Beard falls asleep sprawled on my parents’ bed. I am so taken with his unruly hair that I start to braid it, careful not to wake him. When Beard finally opens his eyes, he has no idea where he is. I spy on him from behind the bookcase as he wobbles, disoriented, to the bathroom. I hear the water running as Beard washes up, then a loud burst of laughter. Beard emerges from the bathroom with his wild mane all twirled and woven into dozens of tight braids that I’ve fastened with colored laundry pins. He grabs my arms, grinning from ear to ear, and plants an itchy, bearded kiss on my cheek.

  “Never mind that Renée doesn’t want babies. I want babies, who’ll make my hair stand up just like you did.” Beard laughs, putting his black leather jacket on. He rushes out with the laundry pins still in his hair.

  DANCING

  MAMA’S HAIR has a mind of its own. In the morning with the light streaming in from the terrace, I catch her still asleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her thick, chestnut hair spread out like wings flying in all directions.

  Mama tries to tame her curls every time she looks in the mirror. “This is not a fitt
ing coiffure for a ballet dancer,” she mutters after running a comb full of brilliantine and water through her mane and then pulling it into a tight bun at the back of her neck. “That’s better,” she says, tucking in a loose strand.

  I love Mama’s curls, but she tells me she would much rather have straight, fine hair, like mine. “So much lovelier in every way,” she says as she surveys me from head to toe. “You are lucky to take after your father. I would have killed for a body like yours, a dancer’s body, perfectly proportioned, just like Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man.” Mama takes one of my father’s art books off the shelf and opens it to a drawing of a man with multiple outstretched arms and legs that make him look like an octopus.

  “I don’t look like that!” I say, horrified.

  “Of course not.” Mama laughs. “Leonardo is just showing the best proportions for a person, and you’ve got them. See, your head is one eighth the length of your body.” She demonstrates, taking a tape measure and counting the centimeters from the top of my head to my chin. “Perfect,” she murmurs. “Not only the proportions, but look at your dancer’s feet! Point your toes, Eva.”

  I point my toes and look up. My mother is delighted. “This curvature of your feet is called your cou-de-pieds. Now let’s see how high you can lift your legs.” Mama lets me use our bureau for balance. She lifts my leg all the way up to my ear. “Tell me when it begins to hurt,” she says.

  “Ouch.”

  “That’s great! Can you imagine what you could do with a little proper ballet training? Not everyone has such a natural advantage. I had to compensate for my short legs and height, and I sweated for the slightest improvement.” Mama is under five feet tall but looks much taller.

  MY FIRST MEMORY of walking properly, as Mama calls it, is when she places a book on the crown of my head and tells me to walk across the room with my head held high and my spine straight, without dropping the book. I walk in slow motion, minding each and every step, until I reach the other end of the room. The book wobbles when I gaze at her sideways for her approval. “Good,” she says, “but don’t look at me. That’s how you’ll lose your balance. You must look straight in front of you and never take your eyes off where you are going. Always walk as if this book were still on top of your head, and keep your neck long and your shoulders down. It should feel as if your head is suspended from an invisible hook in the sky, but your feet must be planted on the ground.”

  That’s the expression that Grandpa Yosef and Grandma Iulia use when they’re talking about Mama. “Stefi’s feet are planted on the ground,” they say proudly, but my mother points out that she’s gotten to where she is today by dreaming of whatever she wants and by having enough discipline and persistence to work hard to get it.

  Mama’s face lights up whenever she talks about dancing, but I’ve never seen her dance except in photographs. Unlike Tata’s war photographs, where he looks like a prisoner, Mama’s photos taken during that same period in Bucharest show her wearing exotic costumes. Her lips are outlined to make them look bigger, the arches of her thick eyebrows are drawn with dark pencil, and her high cheekbones are accentuated with rouge. Her body is animated as she dances; her neck is long and her torso spirals up.

  “By the time the war was in full swing, my parents had no choice but to give in and accept my dancing.” Mama smiles at the recollection. “I was the only one in the family who was still getting paid for working. The rest of them were all doing forced labor for the Nazis. My evening dance recitals meant there was food for everyone at our table.”

  I’m curious about her dancing, and I wish I could have seen her on the stage. “How come you don’t dance anymore?” I ask her.

  Mama ignores my question. “I always decided on the topic and the content of my performances. I choreographed, staged, and promoted an entire one-woman show. All of my performances sold out, but unfortunately, the show had to close after two months because of the blackouts and air raids.”

  “Did you ever dance through an air raid?”

  “Of course not. We had to run into the shelter as soon as the alarm sounded, but despite that, I did a lot of dancing during the war.”

  “I don’t understand why Grandma and Grandpa didn’t want you to be a ballerina, if you did so well.”

  “Your grandmother tried to drum it into my head that girls from good families in Bucharest did not take to the stage. Only whores and desperate women became actresses, Mother told me, and being a dancer was just one step removed from being one of those women in her eyes.”

  “You didn’t care?”

  “I cared. There are times when you just have to be deaf to what others say and do whatever makes you happy. I loved dancing too much to give it up.”

  “If dancing makes you so happy, how come you don’t dance anymore?” I ask again.

  Mama’s face has an edge of hardness as she answers. “I had to make some tough choices, but it all worked out fine.”

  “What worked out fine?”

  “Life. In life you often have to make choices that don’t feel good. Soon after I married your father I had an offer to go to Moscow and study at the Bolshoi Ballet, but I turned it down.”

  “You were going to be a ballerina with the Bolshoi?” Even I have heard that the Bolshoi is the best ballet company anywhere.

  “If I had gone to Moscow, I would have had to be separated from your father for two years, maybe more. That was not an option.”

  “Why didn’t Tata go with you?”

  Mama’s unexpected cackle is infectious. I start to laugh with her, even though I don’t know what’s so funny. “Your father would not be dragged back to Russia if it were the last place on earth. Not even for me!”

  “Why not?”

  “Eva, do you realize how often you ask why?”

  “Why?” I repeat, and crack up.

  “Because your father was a prisoner in Russia for four years, that’s why. He couldn’t bear to go back there, and I couldn’t bear to live without him in Moscow. The truth is, he probably couldn’t bear two years without me either, but he would never admit it.”

  “Why?” I ask, cracking up again.

  Mama ignores my laughter. “Your father told me I should go to Moscow, but I knew he didn’t mean it. He made it very clear that he didn’t want to impede my career. But he also told me that if I chose not to go, he never wanted to hear about it again, regardless of what happened between us. The choice was mine. Once I made my decision, I had to live with it and never bring up the subject again. That was the deal.”

  “Are you sorry, Mama?”

  “Of course not, you silly goose,” Mama says, hugging me. “I wouldn’t have had you, and I would have been miserable without your dad.”

  “It’s not my fault that you don’t dance anymore!”

  My mother puts her hands on my shoulders as if she were about to shake me, but instead she is very still and looks straight into my eyes. “Everything I did, I did for myself. A dancer’s career is short. Most dancers are finished by the time they’re thirty-five. When I teach, I touch many, many lives, and when I choreograph, I get to see my dreams come alive onstage.”

  “Yes, but don’t you miss dancing, Mama?”

  “I miss it all the time.” She sighs. “But I regret nothing.”

  I KNOW that the money my mother earns is important by the way she gives it to Grandma Iulia on payday. Grandma Iulia takes the folded bills and puts them into her checkered apron pocket. “Thank you, Stefi,” she says to Mama, her thin lips getting a little tight at the corners, before she retreats into the kitchen. The kitchen door swings lightly behind her, but it stays open long enough for the aroma of whatever is cooking in there to waft into the foyer. Mama lingers for a moment, looking at the swinging door. One day the phone rings just as Mama gives Grandma Iulia the money. I grab the receiver before she has a chance to answer it.

  “May I speak to Stefania Mihail?” a man’s voice asks politely.

  I hand my mother the
phone. She speaks directly into the mouthpiece. “This is Comrade Stefania Mihail. To whom am I speaking?” Mama’s voice sounds so official, I hardly recognize it, even though I am looking straight at her face.

  Later I ask her why she is using a strange name, and she says, “It’s my professional name. That’s what people call me at work, Stefania Mihail.”

  “But, Mama, I’ve never heard you use Mihail before. How did you ever come up with that name?”

  “It was my first husband’s name. The one I was married to before I met your father.”

  “You were married before Tata? What happened to your first husband?”

  “He died,” Mama answers as if that explains everything.

  “Why?” I ask, but I really mean How?

  “People do, you know.”

  “Do what?” I ask blankly.

  “People die. Look, I really don’t want to discuss this. I’m very happy to be married to your father.”

  “Did Mr. Mihail die during the war?” I ask, ignoring her words.

  Mama bristles at the mention of her first husband’s name as if he were here in the room with us. “Yes,” she says, and adds quickly, “Mr. Mihail died during the war.”

  “That explains it!” I’m relieved.

  “Explains what?”

  “How he died,” I answer, but Mama just shrugs.

  MY MOTHER’S comings and goings are as mysterious as her past. No one ever asks her where she is going and when she will return. No one in the family ever mentions that she was married before, though they must know. One day Tata comes home early, and immediately after supper he puts on a jacket and tie.

  “Where are you off to?” I ask.

  “I’m going to your mother’s ballet recital,” he says, searching the room for his tobacco pouch.

  “Mama is dancing?” I am mystified.

  “Of course not. Her students are performing your mother’s choreographed piece.”