Something Unbelievable

by Maria Kuznetsova

  “That’s all right,” I say, and for some reason his genuinely distressed face over this non-issue when I am contemplating how cosmically I have failed makes me laugh. “She won’t care.”

  Standing at arrivals with Tally strapped to me, I’m anxious as hell about seeing my grandmother, because she’ll be able to tell that something is off. During our Sevastopol summers, she could always tell if I had snuck off in the middle of the night for a liaison, though she didn’t make a big deal about it. One time, when I returned to the cottage after spending all night hooking up on a sandy blanket with a lifeguard, I thought my grandmother was asleep. But as I crept toward my room, her sharp voice pierced the darkness. “You might want to shower first, darling,” she had said.

  We watch the rumpled travelers descend with their small bags, rushing into the arms of the people who love them. There’s a man in uniform, a tiny pink-haired woman hugging a surprisingly large dude with all her might, and a mother and her two children reuniting with a husband in a sweater that looks out of place in late August. And there she is, my dear grandmother, looking much frailer than she does over Skype, descending from the escalator like a spirit from the heavens, her silver braid still silky and falling past her shoulders, her pearls on, a grim little frown on her face, looking like she means business. My only blood besides my daughter, who is curled up against my chest in her carrier, a little dazed as she blinks up at the bright lights. The tears well up in my eyes, not just because it’s been two years since I’ve seen her, before I was pregnant and when she and my grandfather were both healthy and happily eating at the little kitchen table I miss with all my heart, before I had fucked everything up. She really is the one soul on Earth who knows me, who knew Mama and of course Papa, who was proud to see me come out of my dark, dark twenties, though I’m doing no better now than the younger, flightier girl I was back then.

  And in her face, I see Papa’s, and just a touch of my own, and yes, even my daughter’s, confirming that all of our genetic soup is as intermingled as I imagined. I rush toward her, forgetting, for a moment, that my daughter’s strapped to my body, not understanding that the joy and wonder on my grandmother’s face is reserved for her, this new miracle, not old-news me. She hunches slightly to get a good look at her.

  “She looks better in person, actually,” she says, stroking the top of her head, turning to the left and the right to inspect the girl. “One ear is a bit smashed in, have you noticed that? She was probably all jammed up, down there,” she adds, gesturing at my lady parts, and for the first time in a while, Yuri and I both laugh. Tally, meanwhile, is staring at Baba with an open mouth, a black O of incomprehension. She looks up at the bright lights of the airport, the people rushing about, hugging loved ones and dragging suitcases and whipping out tickets, all of them with someplace to go, reminding me that I haven’t left town since I played a runaway who was found belly-up in a lake in Chicago before I got knocked up.

  “You made it,” I say, giving my grandmother a big hug, smelling her thick perfume, and my eyes sting as the tears fall down my face.

  “You haven’t aged a day,” Yuri says as he embraces her, and when he emerges from her grasp, she takes a step back and inspects us with the same suspicion she gave poor Tally. I know my hair’s a mess, my last night’s makeup is smudged, there’s spit-up on my too-tight T-shirt, and my sandals are caked in playground muck. Baba is soaking all of this in, rearing her head back like I’ve stepped in dog shit.

  “The child looks good,” she says. “But what happened to her parents? Look at you—an old lady comes halfway across the world, and you don’t even bring her flowers?”

  PART IV

  Sunset

  Larissa

  My arm is linked with Yuri’s as we stroll to the theater. The poor boy parked two blocks away and repeatedly asked if I was comfortable walking, as if I were some kind of invalid. And while it has been more and more difficult for me to walk lately, I am determined to make the most of my final trip to America, to welcome the challenge. I have spent so many days sitting by the sea, lapping at the waves, reading under the sun, waiting for my soul to regenerate. Of course, I loved being on the shore with a good book, but I had delved back into Onegin and it all just seemed mannered and silly to me, Onegin was just an old dunce for trying to get Tatyana back after all that time; he would have been better off staying home. I had already begun to feel—to say the least—a bit restless.

  But my week in America isn’t quite lifting my spirits either; it has been a strange one. I knew Natasha would be busy with her rehearsals, but she was not only busy but utterly distracted, barely even looking me in the eye, giving me far less attention than she offered during our Skype sessions, which did make me wonder once or twice why I even bothered going across the ocean for a face-to-face encounter. Though baby Talia! I must admit I’ve had a few fair moments with her, which is partly because I had been asked to watch her more often than I expected. In fact, the six-month-old child has been smiling and even laughing at my antics and generally giving me more attention than her distracted mother. Though her father, darling Yuri, had been as affectionate as always, just as he is at this moment.

  “A gorgeous day, isn’t it, Larissa Fyodorovna?” he says, gesturing at the ocean with the flowers in his other hand.

  “Indeed,” I say. “I will not have many more of them. When the play is over, you can bury me right on the beach.”

  He laughs and says, “But what about the after-party?”

  “I suppose we can scope it out first, see how good the drinks are….”

  Natasha and her vagabond Stas have been preparing at the theater since morning. Talia is at home with the manager of Natasha’s former bar for this special occasion. I am finding it hard to catch my breath, but I am happy to be out and about with a handsome man by my side.

  Brighton Beach hasn’t changed much since my husband and I visited my son in America just before his untimely death. The storefronts still boast their names in Russian. Occasional food wrappers and plastic bags float through the streets. The sand on the beach is dark and filled with branches and women who are too old to be showing so much of their sun-bronzed bodies. Women not much younger than me sit on their stoops, gossiping loudly. “I told my Marina one million times, Boris is no good for her, no good at all, but does she listen?” one of them says, and we pass them before we can hear a response, though I can well imagine it.

  The last time I was here, my son had taken me and Misha to sit by the water at a restaurant with a slatternly name like Tatyana or Ruslana, and we were served warm beers in tall glasses and a perfectly decent meal. Though I had to do most of the talking, as usual, I remember enjoying myself, feeling as if there was nothing else in the world I wanted, even if the sanguine middle-aged man I had birthed across from me seemed to lack for everything as he picked at his meal, mayonnaise from Salat Olivier stuck to the corners of his mouth, without a woman to reach over and wipe his face for him. He did not soar like a rocket, my Tolik—he did not even come close. A man whose sadness predated his birth, whose movements even in my womb were so infrequent that I was surprised and delighted every time I felt another flutter in my abdomen after a long respite, relieved he was still alive.

  My husband looked a bit melancholy as he gazed at the water, and I wondered if it was because he found the beach to be an inferior specimen, because he, too, pitied our poor boy and wondered how we could have raised such a lackluster being, or if he was just afraid of dying. I asked him about it later that night, as we settled into our son’s puny guest room. “Oh, Larissa,” he said. “You read too much into everything. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I was perfectly happy to be there. It must have been a bit of indigestion.” I did not believe him for a second, but I did not press on. I only went back one more time after that—for Natasha’s wedding—and I told my husband to stay home, citing his health, though to be honest it was b
ecause I did not want him to bring down my mood. Staying cheerful at my age was a hard enough business as it was.

  “Does it feel anything at all like home?” Yuri says as we pass a stand with an old man selling dried fish and sunflower seeds. Here, beer cannot be sold in the streets, a true travesty.

  I laugh. “Who knows what home feels like anymore?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he says. This time, he is not playing along and looks a bit lost himself. I can’t blame him, with his wife either tied up with the baby or at the theater, while he blunders on at the university. It has not been the easiest summer for him. Perhaps it is a blessing for him, for Natasha, for me, for all of us, that the summer is coming to a close, that the days have been getting shorter.

  “I bet you’re ready for the show,” I say, and he smiles.

  “Definitely,” he says. “I’m ready for Natasha to relax a bit. She’s been working so hard.”

  “So have you.”

  His eyes twinkle at my bit of mischief. He knows I love Natasha but that I am also aware of how hard he is working, that she is not the only one with responsibilities.

  “I’m so happy you were able to come. I know it means the world to Natasha,” he says.

  “It was nothing,” I tell him. “What else do I have to do? Rework my will?”

  “That is only necessary if you plan on leaving more for us,” he says.

  “I will leave you everything, little fools.”

  “Stop the nonsense,” he says, patting me on the back. “You will outlive us all.”

  What a kind, well-mannered boy—one with a sense of humor, at that. A loving husband and father. And yes, one whose sense of duty and politeness is not unlike my Misha’s, but yet, who appeals to me utterly. A man who does not seem prone to bouts of abyss-gazing, though that may very well come later.

  We are fast approaching the theater, which is spray-painted a tacky gold-and-red color meant to look regal. The marquee boasts the title SUNSET, which it takes me a moment to realize is the name of dear Natasha’s play, unknown to me until now. When we enter the auditorium, I begin to feel nervous, though I have utter faith in my granddaughter. I must say the place is much larger than I expected, based on the previous hellholes I had crawled into to watch my sweet girl perform, places with beer-stained seats, cracked toilets, and moldy ceilings. There are velvet curtains and dim lights on either side, and the place is quite cozy, the seats warm and inviting.

  There must be at least three hundred seats in the place, but only two dozen of them are filled, at most. I check my watch and see that we are quite early, that the crowd still has fifteen minutes before the curtain opens, but when I look behind me, I don’t see anyone coming. Yuri is concerned about the lack of crowd too—for weeks Natasha has been promoting the show on the Internet—but it feels taboo to mention it.

  “It’s not an utter hellhole, after all,” I tell Yuri, and he gives me a small laugh.

  “Definitely not,” he says. “A nice place,” he adds pointlessly, also looking over his shoulder for imagined guests.

  There are only a few minutes left and only a handful of people have trickled in since we arrived, a few of them waving at Yuri, which means they are simply friends who have taken pity on my poor granddaughter, not discerning theatergoers. What is poor Natasha thinking backstage? Is she also feeling a pit in her stomach as the emptiness of the room dawns on her? I hope she is too focused on getting into character, getting her show on the road at last, to notice. Or perhaps when she comes onstage, the lights will be too bright for her to even see the lackluster crowd.

  At last, the lights dim slightly, signaling that there are only minutes before the show begins. Then I hear a clanging of high heels and Yuri and I both turn around to see three extremely dolled-up young women in high black boots and black dresses, and enough makeup that they themselves should be onstage. Behind them, I see at least a half dozen other young women and men who are dressed in a similarly garish manner, and I understand that these are Natasha’s former theater colleagues. Well, I think her Baby Borsches are better than empty chairs, and I hope she thinks the same.

  Yuri gives them a faint wave. “The whole gang is here,” he mutters, but he does not look entirely displeased. And then he squeezes my hand. Before I have time to say anything else, the curtain falls and I realize the show is going to start on time. Natasha has refused to tell me much more about the play than she did when she first invited me to see it; all I know is that it’s personal to her, and that she hopes I like it.

  When the curtain opens, I don’t believe what I’m seeing. Natasha stands onstage with a long braid in her hair and books under her arms. She looks right at the audience, and in the faintest Russian accent, she begins to speak.

  “Leave Kiev?” she says, to no one in particular. “Tell me, how can I leave Kiev? Kiev is the only city I have ever known. The Nazis, at least they are a known evil, but who knows what will happen in the mountains….”

  I gasp and put a hand to my mouth. Can it be true? Natasha appears to be playing a young version of me. Yuri squeezes my hand and says, “I hope you like it,” confirming my suspicions. But I’m not so certain I do like it. My granddaughter looks comical up there, like a child playing with her mother’s makeup, and I can’t help feeling like I’m being mocked.

  Then the lights flicker and she runs in circles to strange music and when they return, she is transformed into my grandmother. She wears the white boa and the frilly hat and coat and though she did not have time to put on more makeup, she looks all dolled up now, indeed different from the girl she had played moments ago. It is something unbelievable—truly! How could the girl not tell me? How could she hide it from me all summer long—how dare she put my story onstage for strangers to scoff at?

  “Leave Kiev?” this old-woman Natasha asks again, her voice heavy with disbelief. “I almost left Kiev during the Revolution. This is different, I suppose….”

  I am angry, I am ecstatic, I am captivated. Who could believe it? The family boards the train, where there is hardly any talk at all, just rattling and whooshing and younger Natasha talking to her parents and sister. But only when the train arrives do I realize that the Orlov family has been cut out of the picture, there is no second set of parents and no brothers, which seems to miss completely the point of my story. I know it can be difficult to embody many personages during a one-woman show, but without the Orlovs, my story of the mountains means nothing, or that is what I have believed up to this point. I suppose I should not blame the girl for cutting back on them for the sake of simplicity. It is difficult to make room for all the people in our lives. But most of the stories I have painstakingly told without knowing their purpose have been thrown out the window. Yuri keeps looking at Natasha and then back at me, watching my expression.

  “It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’m fine.” He begins to relax slightly, though I am still bewildered.

  We have already begun to settle into our mountain apartment, and Grandmother Natasha flails her boa around and complains while scrawny me tells her it will all be fine. The parents leave for work, me and Grandmother Natasha are alone, and we bond over stories about the glory days of Imperial Russia, and she even teaches me a bit of French. My stage self’s relationship with her grandmother is far warmer than I could have ever hoped for. And then, in comes Licky—or, rather, a stuffed version of my dear family bobcat, who just sits there, accepting his fate. That is where Polina comes in and has her shining moment. And as Natasha twirls around, impersonating my gorgeous, ailing sister, I am no longer mad at her, and I get caught up in her spell—truly, she looks just like her, and it makes my heart curdle. I feel faint. I want to embrace her. I want her to run off. I want to tell her how sorry I am. I never want to see her again. Natasha lingers on the role of my sister for far too long, in my opinion. Who needs to see Polina’s transformation from a beautiful girl to a
cynical, stony woman? What a sweet relief when she turns into me again!

  Though I was nervous for the girl at first, noting some uncertainty, some chaos in her movements, she begins to hit her stride after the cold winter, when she clutches at her stomach and moans for food, worrying over my sister’s condition with more love and understanding than I was ever able to give my own blood. I do not even know how long I have been holding Yuri’s hand. Did I reach out to him for comfort, or did he anticipate that I needed some and reach over to me instead, the poor boy?

  You know the rest—a touch of starvation, a crescendo of cold nights, long days at the factory for my father, the poor kitty boiled in a stew by my stern mother, another overlong monologue by my gorgeous sister, who seems to never want to get offstage, my father dies, and then Grandmother and I are at the market, where we happen to hear that the war is over, it’s time to go home, which is not exactly how it happened, but then, there she is, holding my hand, preparing to fall to her death. “My train,” Grandmother Natasha says, looking off into a dim, unknowable future. “My train. That’s my train. My train is coming for me at last.” And then I close my eyes, because I do not want to relive my own grandmother’s death, but after a moment I open them, because I sense that nothing’s happening.

  My grandmother is staring up at the ceiling, at an imagined sky, where the lights behind her turn pink and purple to imply that the sun is setting. “Will you look at that?” she says, to all of us. Then the stage goes black as we hear the rumbling of a train, followed by a crash and a scream. My grandmother is dead. The curtain falls. The play is over. I can feel my heart beating in my throat.

  She gets a standing ovation from the few dozen people who have turned up, and Yuri and I rise to join them. The business was a bit messier than her other shows, less polished than her long-ago Karenina knock-off, but who could blame her, having done this all on her own, as a new mother at that? Her performance was a bit rough around the edges—yes, she stuttered a few times, forgot her lines a time or two—but it had more soul than all of the work I had ever seen her do put together, though I may be biased, of course. I clap as loud as the youth in the audience, and my face flushes with pride. Natasha returns to the stage, glowing as the audience stands. I hope the girl feels the good work she has done, I truly do. I hope she is not discouraged by the half-empty seats.