by Irina Reyn
And Pyotor smiled in the relieved, slow manner of a child that didn’t fully understand that the adults were talking about him but he was sure it fell into the general category of praise.
* * *
The wreaths of the women floated across the water, some moving more erratically than others. Once in a while, one of the girls would be forced to wade in to correct the path of a wreath that wandered off into the tendrils of moss. Several sank, which supposedly meant their owner would never marry, and there would be a general drone of disappointment. Nadia lost track of Larissa’s wreath as soon as it settled onto the water, but she kept her eye on Larissa. Her daughter in her painstakingly embroidered dress. Her daughter who had not spoken to her normally in the two days since their trip to Kiev. It was like someone was slowly and painstakingly shredding her heart.
What was the Kupala ritual that meant that your daughter was lost to you? That your daughter was no more? Then she remembered. Of course! The bloodred poppy. The flower of death, of sorrow, the flower they embroidered in their lapels to commemorate the dead of World War II. Who knew that poppies were also for the living?
But now the wreaths were reaching their destinations. Sergei wandered into the water up to his knees and he plucked a wreath from the water. She could see him lifting it in the air. She held in her breath.
“Sergei and Larissa,” the girls were screaming. “Sergei and Larissa will marry.”
Pyotor murmured into her neck, “Well, didn’t I tell you?”
“Are you sure it was really hers?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Congratulations, Mama. When’s the wedding?” Her neighbor Tanya encompassed her and Pyotor on the slightly astringent question, as if to imply the question of which wedding would be first.
“Oh, go away with you,” she said. “No one is in any rush.”
She would never see any of these people again. Not Tanya, who once breast-fed Larissa for extra money but lost her husband in a welding accident soon afterward and had been flirting with Pyotor ever since, not Larissa’s friends, whose quirks and talents she knew as intimately as that of her own daughter, definitely not Pyotor. People were starting to pick up their blankets and what remained of their food and turn back up the hill to a flat patch of land where their cars were parked. There was a long row of exhausted good-byes. Ivan Kupala was not a government holiday; they all had to get back to work.
Tanya kissed her good-bye. “Do you by any chance have any salt I could borrow for dinner? I’ll bring it back as usual.”
“Of course,” she said, and thought briefly of Pyotor’s hidden salt reserves. “Maybe Pyotor can drop it by later.”
“That would be great. At least we didn’t see any evil spirits tonight, eh?” With a wave, Tanya joined the exodus.
When the first reeds of sunlight appeared on the horizon, the young and old waded into the water for the final purification swim until all that was visible from the surface were the silver tips of bobbing heads. The bonfires were out, the cleansing concluded. Just a few young people remained, passing between them a clear bottle of some brown liquor. That gap-toothed Sergei and Larissa were not among them, but Yulia Tymoshenko sprawled with her friends along the riverbank like a group of rusalkas, their necks gorgeously limp and stemlike in the porcelain light.
It took every effort to stop scanning the remains of the festivities for sight of Larissa, to pack herself up. What if her baby never came home? What if her blood sugar was still not under control and she suffered another seizure, a more dangerous seizure? Her baby needed her. Did the promise she made in the ambulance nullify the basic promise of motherhood? She knew that children struggled with setting boundaries with their parents, but what boundaries did a mother dare to set? If she went out to find Larissa, she would never leave here and her daughter would never leave here. And whom would that help? She needed to open her fist, let the precious object drop somewhere soft. And go.
Underfoot, there were empty glasses, charred wood, food wrappers, and the remains of trampled wreaths, once-beautiful flowers now stomped into the earth. She rolled all her belongings into her towel and folded them into the cart. Her daughter would not be waiting for her at home, that much she had to accept. Her daughter might even be angry with her for a few days.
But now Pyotor was beside her, one hand swiveled around her waist, saying, “A surprise, open it,” and holding out a perfect little replica of their high-rise building. He was staring at her in a meaningful way that gave every indication that when she pulled open the structure, probed deep inside its windowless hallways, she would find a plain gold ring that once adorned the finger of his long-dead wife.
11
Give My Baby the Heart
New York, March 2016
On the morning of Larissa’s arrival, Nadia realized she had forgotten the mangoes. All the other preparations were complete. Boris would bring them home from the airport. Larissa’s room was all set up, the closet emptied, the walls decorated with her embroideries. Dinner’s main dishes would entail a hearty shchi with a floating fish head and stuffed cabbage leaves. Olga would be arriving on the 7:49 train to Penn Station. Everything was perfect except for the mangoes.
Even the weather offered no obstacle. It was an unmarred March sky, warm for the season, iridescent with suffused sunlight. Deep in the front courtyard, the pensioners were already spreading out their rainbow chairs and blankets for the day’s vigil. The garbage truck had come and gone. The last of the morning traffic was dissipating, chess players having taken their spots at the boards in the concrete square that called itself a park. Nadia felt a diffused panic that something could always go wrong.
The remaining days that had led up to this one were spent checking off a long list of unpleasant tasks. The most urgent one involved breaking the news to Regina that she had finally received The Letter. The one that said words she had fantasized about for almost eight years. Her baby could join her. Oh, that letter. She would always remember first laying eyes on it. She had held it with trembling fingers, run her fingers over the gold-embossed address, then ripped it open. When the words congealed with the help of a dictionary, she had sobbed as though turning inside out, her organs spilling out of her body. Even afterward, the fit would overtake her at unexpected times, a massive need to cry and laugh at once, a panicked heart at what this meant, a feeling that it couldn’t possibly be true. She was afraid she could not contain herself and had postponed saying anything to Regina.
When Regina came home in the evening last week and was busy shoving her gym bag into one of the cluttered cubbies, Nadia pulled her aside so Sasha couldn’t hear, placed a hand directly on the woman’s shoulder. Regina’s blue eyes narrowed with wary concern. Was there a problem with Sasha today? No. Did Nadia want a few extra days off? Not exactly. Her eyes were already filling, she could feel her lips losing muscle control.
“What’s wrong?” Regina said, worried. Did she need an advance on her salary? But even as Nadia started to speak, to explain that her daughter would finally be crossing the ocean and this would permanently alter her own schedule, she realized that she had waited too long. The message descended on Regina like a stone.
“What does this mean, Nadia?” Regina asked, a wild nest of panic in her eyes.
“I’m afraid I really should stop,” Nadia said, knowing she was handling this terribly, that she was handling everything terribly. “I will be busy getting my daughter settled. You barely need me anyway now that Sasha’s in kindergarten.”
“You mean not work here at all?”
Nadia nodded, her throat pebbled with something she could not swallow.
“No!” Sasha wailed, clearly listening from the other room. It was an explosive outburst, a primal I will not allow this. She was still dressed for school, her outfit accessorized by shimmering bracelets and strands of plastic beads. Her eyelashes were flecked with glitter.
Nadia smoothed the girl’s hair out of her face. Freckles had bloomed on it al
most overnight, sprinkling the nose and cheeks with tiny brown seeds. Tears were dangling off the ledge of her chin. What a gift it had been to experience a reincarnation of her daughter’s youth, to watch this girl flourish while Larisska’s ragged childhood had been glimpsed in snatched hours. She bent down. “But Sashenka, you don’t need me anymore. You’re a big girl who goes to big-girl school.”
“I’m not a big girl. I’m still a baby.” And Sasha’s words could have come out of her mother’s mouth as well, because Regina was stricken with a kind of bewildered expression, as if she didn’t know where to turn, who would be responsible for telling her what to do. She had a mislaid, unprotected look. Everyone needed a mother, it seemed. She drew them both close into her chest.
“Oh Nadia, I had no idea,” Regina despaired, her hands nervously twisting the hem of her cotton T-shirt. “Why don’t you tell me anything? A little warning would have helped.”
And her own heart was contracting too because as much as she hated the hour-long commute from her Brooklyn to this Brooklyn, the hot days in the too small, unbearably overcrowded playground where at least a handful of kids were declining into screeching meltdown, the long stretches of tedium, she felt as ensconced in this particular home as she ever felt in this country. Even as she told them their lives were about to change, she absorbed all the details she would never see again. The brown, peeling cabinets in the kitchen, the hole in the screen made by a hungry squirrel who made off with a wedge of baguette. The blackout curtains she sewed together, the stickers affixed to the wall of the animals and their initial letters, the plastic drawers that held Sasha’s clothes, and how she would refold them each time she came, the little socks, the many adorable pink dresses, the taffeta of the princess outfits. Sasha’s nail clippings in the garbage because the girl would allow only Nadia to clip her toenails. On the wall hung a Winnie the Pooh frame she bought on Neptune Avenue, with Sasha at her different ages, the soft pudge of her flesh melting to lean angles. “What’ll we do without you?”
“It’s not like I live in another state. I live right here in Brooklyn.” But they all knew that her Brooklyn was another state, another universe, and only the portal of labor brought the two worlds together. Once there was no pretext of work, she would vanish from their lives like a plume of smoke.
They made a compromise. She would continue, and bring Larissa if necessary, until they found a replacement they liked. “Yes, yes,” she agreed.
But that was behind her now and she had been waiting for this one day. The refrigerator was piled with the appropriate aspirational and celebratory foods, the second room was neatly turned out, the cot unfolded and made up with fresh sheets that emitted citrus. A fresh bouquet of sunflowers stood erect in a tall glass vase. But an unnamed hole remained in the center of all these arrangements, terror she didn’t understand.
She stabbed at the name Boris on her cell phone.
Boris picked up right away. “Well, good morning, Snegurochka. What, are you worried I won’t be there on time?” His voice was hoarse, newly used for the day.
“Actually, yes. I’m just making sure you didn’t forget.”
Boris exhaled a theatrical breath of victimhood. “How could I forget? You’ve been reminding me of only one thing for weeks now. Are you going to keep reminding me of our wedding day?”
“You’ll probably be late to that too.” She told him repeatedly she did not want a wedding. But Boris, who proposed to her on New Year’s Eve, insisted there were too many colleagues to whom he owed an invitation. Plus word of it would make his wife jealous. He would wait until Larissa arrived, but afterward, they were having a wedding and that was that.
“I told you I would be there. Why do you keep checking up on me? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”
“And one other thing. I want to be alone in the terminal. Will you wait for us in the car?”
Was she a teenager ashamed of her parent? Was he a chauffeur? If so, he would bill her at the end of the month. His services were very expensive.
“Borya! Stop this joking around.”
“Nu, okay. Relax. Have it your way, as usual. It’s cheaper not to park.”
“You’ll be here, right?”
Boris dispensed with humor. She imagined him putting his hand across his heart in a show of earnest sincerity. “Of course I will. I promised, didn’t I?’
She hung up. Three hours until she had to leave. She threw a shawl around her shoulders and left the building.
“Good morning, Nadia Andreevna,” the pensioners called out as she walked past them. There were half a dozen of them arranged in a semicircle, in their voluminous housecoats, their feet tucked into plastic slippers. They were, as usual, guarding the entrance to the building, monitoring who was coming and going, who was entertaining dangerous or inappropriate visitors. She was the only shiksa they liked, they said. “A rare day off for you, I see.”
“My daughter’s coming today.”
“For good or a visit?”
“For good. To live.”
“Ooh la la. Well, that is exciting. Mazel tov.”
“It is,” she said, smiling uneasily. “It is a great day.”
A lady in a coat dotted with turquoise pelicans said, “Well, congratulations, we had to go through this with my niece last year. Your headache now begins. The Social Security cards, the green card, the health insurance. And you’d think the children are grateful? Ha. They’re in a bad mood because they miss their friends and their dogs and their jobs and hate it here and hate you. You can’t please them. Americans are too slow and fat, the bread doesn’t taste right, the buildings lack that classic European elegance they’re used to. All you think about is them coming. But what happens after?”
The question struck Nadia in the gut. It hit in the center of that vague terror she couldn’t touch.
“Have a nice day of gossip, ladies. Stay warm.” She turned the corner, away from their laughter. At the Russian supermarket, the mangoes were clumped in a refrigerated bin at the back, their skins green and uninviting. Their bodies were unyielding as stones. She would have to take the train to NetCost, she had barely enough time to do that.
On Kings Highway, the long row of Russian stores stretched before her, ones she usually avoided for their judgmental saleswomen who hinted she could lose a few pounds. The last time she walked this stretch of the street she was pushing Grisha’s wheelchair, and she didn’t expect the grief that overtook her as soon as she stepped onto the familiar sidewalk. There was the pharmacy where she picked up his insulin, the bookstore where he bought the latest Akunin mystery. She could picture the back of his head as they walked, the shape of it, the tufts of gray encircling a bald field at its center. The cane he held in one hand, swirling it in circles as if a baton. Then also, the pus that dripped out of his eyes, the red bruises that ran up his arms, the smell of urine that had seeped into the mattress.
“You’re not looking too shabby this morning, Nadia Andreevna,” he might say, no matter what condition she found him in. “Shall we proceed immediately to get our marriage license or shall we milk the anticipation by waiting until after lunch?”
Grisha, you are too much. Her response was so close to the surface, she was almost mouthing it. But she looked down for his response and his ghost was gone.
NetCost was not crowded on a weekday, a handful of people were milling around the produce. A voluptuous woman in a tiger-print blouse was manning the closest register, which meant she was idly flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine, a phone attached to her ear. The entire scene calmed her somehow, hid her from view.
“Dobroye utro,” the woman said as she passed, without looking up from her magazine. It was an unusual note of kindness that Nadia took for a positive omen.
“Good morning,” she replied.
Over the store’s intercom, Vera Brezhneva was singing her latest pop hit, this one with a pop electronic beat. The lyrics seemed to be about long-distance romance, When I’m away from you
, and the world becomes too small for me. Was she happy to be separated from her beloved? Did she prefer a relationship of phone calls? The singer’s feelings on the subject were impossible to discern. I return home, to love and spring and my entire life. Larissa would have to explain her affection for Vera Brezhneva, argue its cultural importance point by point.
She pulled out a cart and directed it toward the produce. The voices of two women her age were saturating the store. Both were under the misconception that they were in their early twenties, one in jeans ripped at the knees, the other in a ribbed turtleneck dress that expanded past the intentions of its sizing. “So I’m trying this new diet,” she was saying. “It’s so easy. I’m not eating after six or before ten in the morning. But within those hours, I can eat what I want except sweets. Maybe a zephyr here and there, they are so low in fat. Don’t we larger-boned ladies need to have some pleasures too? But what am I supposed to do about the white-dress fiasco?”
The friend looked horrified. “The bride is making you wear white? What kind of sadism is that? You should tell her where to shove those suggestions. Brides these days are so bossy. It’s all about them, as if you should be dropping hundreds so they can have the perfect day they envision. It’s just one day, am I right?”
“You tell her, will you?”
They parted ways at the citrus, the ladies inspecting peaches, and Nadia discovered the small mango section, the fruit not much more appetizing than they were at the local supermarket, their skins pocked with the same dots, a ring of black around the stem. But at this late point, they would do just fine.
“Well, look who it is.” Aneta was standing right in front of her, leaning against the handle of a wheelchair. Inside it, an old lady’s lap was tucked under a brown plaid blanket. Aneta was using the basket behind the wheelchair as a shopping cart, piling apples and bananas behind the woman’s back. The months have imprinted no kindnesses on Aneta’s face. It was still too crackled by sun, her mouth set as straight as a ruler, hair slightly more graying around the places pulled tightest by her bun.