Mother Country

by Irina Reyn

  “Come here, little one,” Slavik said, and Larisska rolled out of her reluctant arms and into his like a docile puppy.

  * * *

  With the afternoon came warmth, the shedding of scarves and light jackets. They were exposed under the open sun, a sea of heads pointed toward a central marching thrust. The crowd was several rows thick and, if you were not a giant, it was impossible to see the proceedings.

  “Look at that T-14 Armata! Not bad at all,” Slavik cried. He and Boris pushed aside some bodies so they could glimpse a better view of the tank, its earth-colored Cubist body and saluting cannon. “I heard it can do twelve rounds a minute no problem.”

  “You can’t beat this fire control. It’s state-of-the-art,” Boris said. The two men were finally sharing a common interest, overlaying words about the tank’s machine gun, unmanned turret, electronically controlled engine.

  “Ura,” everyone screamed as it rolled past them.

  She was just on edge, Larissa explained. Waking up every day at four in the morning to the sound of artillery fire would make anyone nervous. Nadia had given her a few slivers of Grisha’s sheet and she was dabbing her eyes with them to avoid smudging her makeup.

  “Tell me more.”

  “Babushka loves Slavik, of course,” Larissa said so that her words were almost gulped down, lost to the vocal merriment.

  “Of course she does. This is the same woman who screamed for Putin to save them.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And you? How are you?” Nadia took her daughter’s hand. It hung heavy like a small dead animal. She squeezed it anyway. “All I thought about was your safety. Your health. There is nothing worse than being separated from your daughter during war.”

  “You left.”

  “So you will too. The lawyer tells me they are finally getting around to the 2008 applicants. It could be any day now. You could be flying out within a month.”

  “You left me,” Larissa repeated.

  “Twelve-speed automatic gearbox,” Slavik was telling Boris, their heads craned at the departed tank. “It’s pretty sweet.”

  Larissa gestured at Slavik. “He’s never coming. His dream is to move here.”

  Nadia tried to hide her deep pleasure at the news. “That’s probably for the best. I mean, look at him. Victory Day, your very own grandfather almost died fighting the Nazis, and all he can think about is his precious gun. He put flowers on Stalin’s grave. Is this the man you want to spend your life with?”

  Larissa’s mouth tightened. “I don’t see Borya being any better.”

  “He is, he is, you just don’t know him.”

  “I could say the same about Slavik.”

  But wait, this was not at all what she wanted to talk about, although it was worrying how the men were salivating over the tanks on a sacred holiday like this. But the military band was drawing closer, removing any possibility for further conversation. It wasn’t the perfect time for Dima, for the possibility of sweet, bespectacled Dima, the affable mechanic with a purchased Ocean Avenue apartment that had risen, he boasted, at least four times in value. He was only looking for a serious woman. “What I want for you is to think about a future. All this is the past.”

  In Nadia’s memory, Larissa’s eyes were the color of unblemished sky but in person, now, she saw they were even brighter than that. A crystal touched by the palest of blue.

  “Why don’t you move so we can see something for a change?” she heard.

  “Shut up, he has a rifle,” someone else said.

  The crowd seemed to contract before Nadia’s eyes, and she yanked Larissa backward through a parting to the sidewalk. A man was carrying a little girl in a Masha and the Bear hat, her tights speckled with some animated creature Nadia didn’t recognize. The girl was waving a flag that said KALASHNIKOV.

  She tried to pull her daughter as far away as she could but Larissa stood firm. “You left me. You had a choice and you left me alone here.”

  Nadia’s heart turned to ice. “I left so I could save you.”

  “You think that’s how it felt to me? But something good came out of it. I had to grow up a little without you. I only wish it didn’t have to be during a war.”

  Larissa folded her arms, her scarf dangling loosely about her bare shoulders. Nadia could barely rein in her heart but no words were rising to the surface. According to several of Regina’s American parenting tomes, a parent needs to acknowledge a child’s feelings, to validate them by listening rather than distracting or redirecting. A part of her knew this was right but her mouth was not obeying. It was simply not translating the complex fusion of her emotions.

  “Look, why don’t I show you something?” Nadia said at last.

  She scrolled down her phone to a picture of Dima. It wasn’t his best shot, especially around the mouth and eyes; in fact it gave him the appearance of a squirrel. “Handsome, no?”

  “Who’s that?” Larissa was trying to get a look in the bright sunlight. Nadia was hoping that she was not disappointed, that she understood that this was what passed for apology. It was the best she could do.

  “That’s Dima. He’s your future. Look at what I did for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Slavik and Boris were walking toward them, their arms wrapped around each other. Slavik was moving his hips like some kind of Norse god. Nadia was growing impatient. Enough was enough. Larisska had barely thrown a glance at the screen. Instead, she seemed mesmerized by Slavik in his white polo shirt speckled with tiny anchors, the navy collar of his shirt raised to the ears.

  “Come,” he said, taking Larissa by the hand. How it hurt Nadia’s heart to see the way he yanked her toward him and how she teetered for a moment on those unnatural, ridiculous heels.

  “Wait,” she said. “Don’t drag her away like that.” She felt capable of slapping him, punching him, or worse. Shooting him. She could picture the target so clearly, the surprise on his face. But she and Boris had no choice but to keep them in the field of vision, to push through the obstacle course of the parade. From time to time, Slavik swiveled and reminded them to get their cameras ready.

  Helicopters were flying overhead, the music was deafening. Kronstadt Sea Cadet Corps was announced on a loudspeaker that seemed to be attached to Nadia’s head. “Over here,” Boris said. He was holding on to her arm too tightly, and she sensed he was as uncomfortable here as she, and that his bonding with Slavik had all been an act for her benefit. She squeezed him back, a grateful grasp of the flesh. But it was imperative to not lose sight of her daughter and the entrepreneur.

  “Wait, Slavik, let her go. I said, let her go!” There was still time for her to say it. But what was it she was going to say?

  They were emptied out of one horde only to be plunged into a circle of people standing around an elevated platform. She could see more Kalashnikov flags glimmering white.

  “Slavik, don’t touch my daughter.” She had managed to snatch a piece of Larissa’s striped dress in her hand and then it slipped away. No, that wasn’t it, exactly. She made a lunge for it again and this time held on to the fabric. Slavik was looking up at her, amused.

  “Your mama wants to go, let’s give her the first shot,” she heard him say. He murmured some words to muscled men in tight T-shirts. She and Larisska were being shoved toward the stage, ahead of an unhappy line. “Why are they getting to go ahead of us? We’ve been waiting for half an hour.”

  A rifle was handed to her. It was heavy and smooth and it fit perfectly in her hands. A male arm was hoisting her onto a platform in front of a white background that said KALASHNIKOV. Someone handed her daughter a rifle too. From this vantage point, she could finally see some of the parade. Rows of soldiers in perfect formation, red sashes draped across their chests, holding flags representing the fighters from all the Soviet republics: BELORUSSIAN FRONT, she made out. UKRAINIAN FRONT.

  An impatient voice behind the camera brought her back to attention. “A lot of people waiting
. Let’s go, let’s go. Beautiful mama and daughter. Pose sexy-style, like James Bond girls.”

  The crowd was too thick with anonymous male heads, none of them paying her any attention. She and Larissa posed back to back, one hand on the barrel, the other on the trigger. The photographer was saying to her, “Hey, mamasha! It wouldn’t kill you to smile.”

  9

  The Center of the Forest

  Brooklyn, October 2015

  They could ask only girls, but that would discriminate against an entire gender. Regina didn’t want the boys to feel left out. So it was decided that even though they could not really afford it, the entire class would have to be invited.

  Worries Regina voiced to Nadia in the days leading up to the party: should they send a breezy email or mail cards with a picture of Sasha with a giant quill: Zdravsvuyte! Best-selling author Sasha McLain invites you to the “Russian Tales Around the Campfire” party at Magic Destinations on Atlantic Avenue. Or should they perhaps reverse course and stick to the “invite the same amount of guests as the age of the birthday girl” practice, which meant just five girls? Should they encourage parents to mingle or make drop-offs? Would the kids know Sasha well enough to come so early in the school year? Regina’s anguish was so raw that Nadia’s heart went out to the poor thing.

  “Don’t worry so much,” she advised Regina. “Just stick with something simple. The kids need so little.”

  Regina would quickly agree, “You’re right, of course,” but then invariably return to her original worries. Of course she wanted simple in theory, but Nadia didn’t comprehend what was at stake. These parties were judged on every level. By the school, and by Sasha and the memories she would harbor for the rest of her life. They would also be dissected by the mothers who held decision-making power on important school-policy matters that would impact their lives for the next eight years. The bar was already set high by the few other birthday parties held in the first two months of school: an Alice in Wonderland party, the 1950s bobby socks party, the party on the actual Nickelodeon set. Those parties were imprinted in Regina’s mind, parsed for individual details she could tweak for her own.

  Nadia gave up voicing opinions after a while. What could she feel but tenderness for a woman who treated a child’s birthday party with this much gravitas? Regina had recently chopped her long hair into a bob with cropped bangs, which gave her the appearance of an oversized child, and Nadia was always tempted to smooth the bangs away from her forehead with a long-nailed finger.

  “While Sasha’s watching the movie, let’s get to work on the gift bags, okay?” Regina said.

  “Sure,” she gamely agreed.

  Gift bags? She’d never heard of such a thing. But here she was at a table laden with red paper bags, shoving tiny Russian-language books, color crayons, beaded bracelets, sidewalk chalk, and marshmallows the size of teeth inside them. One would think the party was for an important dignitary or poet.

  Each gift bag was to be attached to a stick, which seemed like a bad idea to hand over to kids, especially the boys. “Camping,” Regina explained. “Don’t forget that’s the setting. But it’s more than that. The theme will be ‘Russian Fairy Tales Around the Campfire,’ which means the kids will collaborate on a giant story, then we get those copied and bound. It will have a cute Russian flair. And we send it to each child as a thank-you card. Original, no?”

  Nadia knew novels had themes, movies had themes. She didn’t know birthday parties for children had them. “Sounds interesting. And perfect since you’re a writer.”

  “Exactly. And Sasha loves to make up stories. You’ve seen how she does it.”

  Was that actually true? To Nadia’s eye, Sasha’s favorite activities of late were extorting chocolates from weak adults or patiently beading miniature necklaces for her dolls. “She has such an imagination,” she said, which fell into the realm of truth.

  They worked side by side stuffing tiny plastics into bags and Nadia wondered if Larissa and Slavik were still together. She had been afraid to broach the topic of him over Skype. Their truce felt still too recent to risk straining.

  “Nadia, would you mind? I’ll need all the hands … how do you say … help during the party. Would you mind arranging so you could be there?” Regina approached the request with her usual timidity.

  Normally she would mind. To switch her hours would be an enormous ordeal. No one wanted Saturdays and the new babushka assigned to Nadia was famous among the VIP attendants for her vitriol. No one could finesse her or quash her fears of being robbed except for Nadia. But this was Regina asking for help, and she needed Nadia.

  “Of course Nadia will be there,” Sasha said. She ambled over from the program she was watching, with pink winged horses flapping around rainbows, and eyed the progress on the gift bags. Her body was thinning out, stretching like soft clay. Her face was losing its spongy airiness, skin draping over her bones like a skyscraper in progress. She was getting to be of an age where local oldsters on the street were gallantly calling her “beautiful” and “young lady.” It felt all too soon to Nadia, too sudden.

  “We’ll make s’mores, right, Mama?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “S’mores. This doesn’t sound too Russian-themed.” Nadia had no idea what this was, except it was Sasha’s most pressing desire and what could be more infectious than a child’s anticipation of treats?

  “But they’re only for children,” Sasha reprimanded them. “Not for grown-ups. This is a children’s party and grown-ups should keep to themselves. There will be none for you.”

  “Sasha, that’s not a nice thing to say!” Regina said. Then she explained, “If the kids had to eat an actual Russian dessert, there would probably be a mass rebellion on our hands.”

  Nadia liked Russian desserts, especially the layered cakes with meringue on top. She also liked the sweet ricotta balls covered in chocolate. But she had long lost the sense of the original conflict. Girls or boys? Theme or no theme? Sasha was safe and happy and loved. Why was this not enough here?

  * * *

  On Atlantic Avenue, they unloaded wooden sticks, candy, fruit, jugs of lemonade onto the windswept sidewalk. A striking black woman with long straight hair and thin legs in minuscule lace-fringed shorts greeted them outside the storefront and held the door open as they made multiple trips with the plastic bags. The interior was nothing more than a bare white cube with a door. Regina had complained that the place was almost prohibitively, expensive. Kids were carefully added and culled because of the confines of this space.

  “This is it?” she couldn’t help asking. In these cases, when you didn’t want to be understood, speaking a foreign language was a godsend. “I expected something fancier.”

  “You’ll see,” Regina said sideways. “It’s going to be amazing. She used to work lighting on Broadway shows.”

  The woman flicked a switch near the entrance and an image of a dense forest was projected on all four walls. They heard the ambient sounds of distant water flowing and the incessant chirp of crickets and the crunch of leaves underfoot. Light could be adjusted from day to night, the woman explained, the sounds changing accordingly. To illustrate the whole scope of possibilities, the woman kept on clicking through purple palaces and underwater seascapes and jungles and outer space, before settling back into the forest, the birds. A deer ran across the walls, hind legs shaking.

  “Does this remind you of Russia?” The owner posed some version of this question to Regina.

  “Oh yeah, totally. It’s like the dacha where I spent summers with my grandparents. It was such a magical place.” It was the first time Nadia heard Regina talk about her Russian childhood. The woman was either fascinated by this information or politely asking follow-up questions. What was a dacha like? Was she fluent in Russian then? What did she remember about the Soviet Union?

  “Pretty neat, don’t you think, Nadia?” Regina beamed when the lady went to test the lighting in the projection. “The place just opened. Ou
rs will be the first party here.”

  It was all rather unsettling, Regina’s Russian nostalgia, the white cube, the forest, the sky projected on the ceiling. As a child, she had spent entire days wandering a real forest whose edges brushed against the back of her apartment building. The memory should have been a happy one, but now it scraped at her.

  Sasha was pointing to the bag of marshmallows, perhaps wondering how they were to be charred, to be transformed into the so-called s’mores. They set about unpacking the treats, setting up the play stations according to Regina’s intentions. The night option was still and lovely, the ceiling purple with stars. In daytime mode, the birds were deafening, the volume of them exploding between Nadia’s eardrums.

  * * *

  In reality, she didn’t remember any birds. To her, the Rubizhne woods during mushroom season was blessed silence. There was only the swish of the wicker basket against the curve of your skirt. The smell of earth and wet soil, and of course, the mushrooms themselves, meaty and pungent. The reverberations of triumphant voices as a group of them wound about the speckled necks of birch trees.

  The game was always the same and it was divine in its simplicity. Whoever gathered the most opiata won. The only caveat to these rules was if you found the elusive white mushroom, you won even if you walked away with the pair of them—as they tended to grow in pairs—and nothing else in your basket. She’d stumbled upon the white mushrooms only a handful of times in her life but their charred, sautéed taste was always at the tip of her tongue. It was almost an entire meal, the sheer circumference of the cap larger than both of her hands.

  In foraging expeditions, no one worked together. It was crucial that each of them relied on their own wits, that they remained solitary and fanned out. To find the clump of opiata required concentration and a sharp eye around the roots of trees. After school, Nadia whittled several perfect sticks with a paring knife, shaped to draw foliage apart.