by Zhanna Slor
We both let out an uncomfortable giggle. Despite our voices crashing into each other, we both seem to have heard what the other has said. “No. Not since you left actually. Why?” she asks, the question sinking in. Emily looks generally surprised. “Did something happen?”
“No, but we haven’t heard from her in a while. You know how my dad gets.”
Emily watches me with concern. “Is that why you’re here?”
I sigh, and it turns into another yawn. I’m officially too tired to make something up. “Sort of.”
“Shit,” she says. Then she lets out a short breath. “Well, actually that’s better than I thought. I assumed someone died.” She sees my face, then mumbles, “I mean, I hope Anna is okay, of course. But if she’s anything like us at nineteen... she could have gone anywhere.”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
Emily leans back and finally wipes up some of her spilled drink with a napkin. “You know, Masha, I think about you all the time.”
“I think about you too,” I concede. At the moment it even feels true. I’d forgotten—or chosen to forget—how much I used to like being with Emily. Something about her energy screams Love me, and really, you want to. She isn’t particularly gorgeous, with a sizable round German nose and giant, nearly bulging, eyes—but she is confident, her energy so upbeat it brings yours up too. I worry she’s about to start rehashing the past again when we’re interrupted by a Chinese girl pulling up a stool and sitting down next to us.
“Emily, I have to tell you something crazy!” she says.
“Hi, you’re back! How was your parents’ house?” Emily brightens. “This is my roommate, Wang,” she tells me. “Wang, this is my old friend, Masha.”
Wang’s eyes go wide. “Masha?” she looks at me, sticking out a hand. “I hear so much about you! I inherit your bed, too, yes?”
“Huānyíng guānglín!” I say, taking her hand and shaking it. Or, try to say, at least. I only managed to learn a few phrases in Cantonese before giving up. Okay, not really a few, just this one. Cantonese is really hard.
Wang grins and returns the greeting, even though I’ve probably butchered the phrase—directly translated, it means “I meet you with joy.” It also connotes the image of daylight streaming in through a door. It’s a way to say hello in China.
“Wow. Emily did not mention you know Chinese. You much impress.” Wang takes a long drink from her beer and looks at Emily, then me.
“Oh, I don’t know Chinese,” I explain, stifling another yawn. “It’s such an interesting language but way too hard for me.”
“This is funny, because Chinese part of what I want to tell Emily,” she says. She looks at Emily again, wide-eyed. “We almost get robbed!”
“What do you mean?” she asks, grabbing Wang’s hand. “Are you okay?”
Wang nods aggressively. “Okay, so there is ad on Craigslist? It ask for Chinese lessons in exchange for housecleaning, yes?” Wang says. “So, without knowing, my sister and me both responded? This girl, young girl, comes over, to see house, a week or two ago. Only, girl never called about lesson.” She takes a long drink of her beer. “But my sister, Ling, girl email back for lesson. When Ling go meet girl for lesson today, she come back home and all expensive things gone.”
“For real?” Emily asks, her mouth gaping open.
“That is so elaborate for Riverwest,” I say, stifling a yawn. Usually, people are held up at gunpoint, or wake up to a missing computer. A Craigslist scheme involves some intelligence behind it, perhaps even a team.
Emily finishes her beer and slams it down, wiping her mouth with a hand. “What the hell,” she says. “Good thing we literally have nothing of value in the house.” To me, she adds, proudly, “We don’t even have a TV.”
“Who does anymore? Especially around here.” I fail to stifle another yawn. Drinking vodka was probably a bad idea. I can hardly keep my eyes open now. “This is why I never understood why anyone would bother to rob people in Riverwest. Unless you consider kombucha a valuable item, no one has anything. And yet, it seems to happen constantly.”
“That’s not totally true,” Emily says. “A lot of people have really nice bikes. And remember when you were dating the guy with the projector? What was his name?”
“Antonio,” I say, cringing. “The filmmaker who never made even one film.”
Emily frowns. “Yeah. That guy,” she says. “I wonder where he is now.”
“Last I heard he moved to LA and works on the set of some sitcom.”
“He was a dick, but that projector was awesome,” Emily reminisces. “Remember all those movie nights we used to have?”
“Yeah. Those were fun.” I don’t know why, the vodka maybe, but despite how aggressively I’ve been fighting it off, I’m suddenly nostalgic and sad. “It’s too bad he had to go and date June while we were all living together,” I say, shaking my head. “God, open relationships are stupid.”
Emily’s face goes slack with surprise. Then she looks down and starts tearing apart her wet napkin into little pieces, and I get even sadder. I realize I haven’t said June’s name aloud in…well, years. Not only have I not said her name, but I’ve also tried my very best not to think about my former roommate, the reason I’d left town in the first place. People tell you that you can’t escape your memories, but it’s not true, you can. You decide to close the door, and the door stays closed. You merely have to be vigilant, like with any exercise routine.
“Yeah. That was not a healthy pair,” Emily starts, slowly. “Not that you were a better one. Or what’s-his-name, the one before Antonio, the tattooed guy?”
I cringe, a jolt of guilt flooding me as I remember what happened earlier in the day. “Liam.”
“Yeah, he was kind of a loser too, no offense. I hope your taste in men has improved over in Israel.”
I feign a chuckle. “Everyone kind of has their shit together there. Most of my friends have kids already. Must be those years in the army or something.”
“I cannot even imagine having kids, good God,” she says. “Maybe in ten years. Or never, I don’t know. I deal with them enough at work.”
An awkward silence ensues, and I know I am supposed to ask her about her work, but I already heard she’s a kindergarten teacher and I’m too tired to make small talk about it. What is there to say? We are no longer in each other’s lives. Catching up is rather pointless. In another circumstance, I would want to know everything about her new life, but in this reality, we are practically strangers now. I try to head out again, but Emily stops me by reaching out for my hand.
“Masha...” Emily starts.
Before she can finish the sentence, I turn to Wang, who has been quietly sitting there with her hands in her lap. I feel kind of bad she got stuck in the middle of our long-overdue reunion, but it’s all I can do to keep my stomach contents down. I’d cracked the door open, and I now I have to shut it again.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask her, to get Emily off my back. “Did you go to the police?”
I admit, too, that I am a little intrigued by this scam. It certainly doesn’t lack in creativity.
“We did. I just come from police. They made sketch already because this not first time Chinese family complain. Want to see?” she asks, then whips out a folded-up piece of paper from her backpack. I lean over and look at the photocopied drawing. The girl is dark-haired, with big bright eyes and two face piercings and a dimple in her chin. She has a tiny row of earrings and a bandana around her hair. Despite all that, her eyes are kind, soft. They don’t quite match the outfit. There’s something familiar about them that makes my heart jump into high alarm.
I take the paper out of Wang’s hands and look at it more closely. The slender nose, the smattering of freckles. I know that face.
It looks remarkably like the photo I’ve been showing around all day.
MASHA
________________
CH
APTER THIRTEEN
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Emily is saying when I finally start breathing normally again. She and Wang are both staring at me.
“Do you know her?” Wang asks, all the jest gone from her voice. “She stole precious things. Family heirlooms, not only money.”
I swallow, then make eye contact with Wang, clearing my face of whatever it’s doing. “No, no, I don’t know her. I felt faint for a second,” I explain. I stand up again and put my coat on. “I think it’s the jetlag. I couldn’t sleep on the plane. And I haven’t eaten. I’m sorry guys; I really don’t feel well, I better go.”
“Masha,” Emily says, starting to follow me out the door. I keep walking, but she pulls my arm back, and I nearly fall into one of the outdoor patio tables I’m so faint.
“Crap,” I say, rubbing my knee. I look out onto Bremen St., dimly lit, empty and dark now, snow still dropping like sheets. “Crap, crap, crap.”
Emily puts her hands on my shoulders, her forehead creased with concern, or anger, or both. Instantly, my reflexes want to elbow my way out of the situation, as I’d learned in Krav Maga. I have to fight against this urge. Emily isn’t attacking me; there’s no reason for my heart rate to be as sky high as it is. The inventors of Krav Maga were 1930s Russian Jews, sick and tired of seeing their people get killed in anti-Semitic attacks, not anxious girls who would rather avoid confrontations with former best friends. Slowly, I pick up and remove her hands, then step backward.
“Yes, Emily?” I ask. It’s not clear what she wants from me, why she came outside. Doesn’t she understand that I’m tired? That I’ve already done more in a day than I ever thought was possible? When I woke up this morning—yesterday technically—I had a pair of muscular, sweaty arms holding me tight, and a pretty comfortable life. Now, I feel as if I’m falling down the abyss, with nothing at all to hold onto on my way down.
Emily inhales sharply. “That’s Anna, isn’t it?” she asks.
“No!” This question takes me by surprise. I thought maybe she wanted to talk about why I lied about the drawing or why we aren’t friends anymore, but I should have known better. She was reading me, like she used to before. Like I am some misbehaving kid in her class.
Or maybe she’d seen the resemblance as clearly as I did.
“Masha. Come on. It is,” she says. “I won’t say anything to Wang, but...”
“Emily, it could be anyone. All those train-hoppers look the same.”
“Train-hoppers? I thought she was just hanging around all those anarchists. She’s doing that now?” Emily asks, eyebrows raised. Then she crosses her arms over her chest, rubbing them for heat. The snow has stopped, but it’s now freezing out, the wind turning from a slight discomfort into a bone-chilling cold—Wisconsin at its best.
“I don’t know for sure. I just heard things,” I shrug, also crossing my arms over my chest, shivering. A few years in the desert and you can completely disregard winter, apparently. How had I lived through so many decades of this cold and then forgotten to pack a real coat? To warm myself, I start hopping on one foot and then the other. I don’t even care how stupid it looks.
“This isn’t on you, Masha,” Emily is saying. “You weren’t here. How could you know?”
Of course it’s not my fault, I think, before a second thought follows: unless maybe it is? “It’s not her.” I reach into my bag and take out the cigarettes I’d hidden there. This one, I light myself. Maybe this was the real reason I’d purchased them at the airport, and I’ve been in denial all day. In case I needed one, not only to barter for information. “It was good to see you, Emily.”
I step around her and start walking as fast as I can throw the snow.
But Emily is nearly as stubborn as I am, and she isn’t letting me get away so quickly. She keeps up with me as I speed-walk all the way down Bremen Street.
“Masha,” she says. “Just stop for a second.”
“I can’t stop, Emily. It’s freezing. And I need to get some sleep. I’m a zombie right now. My brain isn’t working.” Truthfully, it is working overtime, but I don’t want her to know that. Wondering what’s worse—that Anna is possibly a liar and a thief, or that I am also lying. Lying is supposed to be a thing of the past, like all the drugs and sleeping around I’d done during that brief time of flailing around in the abyss of adulthood. Lying is the old Masha. One day in Milwaukee is already turning me into a bad Jew. A bad person.
I will have a lot to make up for next Yom Kippur.
“If that’s Anna—I mean, isn’t that why you’re here? To find her?” Emily asks, catching up again. “You can message the email from the Craigslist ad.”
“If that’s Anna—which it’s not—I would have already thought of that, Emily,” I explain. I walk even faster now, my breath hovering in the air like smoke. I can’t help but miss Israel again, my cozy little apartment, half-hidden behind a Washingtonian tree and a giant Israeli flag, surrounded by neighbors I know and feel like friends. And David. I haven’t been gone twenty-four hours, and his absence is almost like a severed arm. I know if he had been able to come with me, not only would I have already found Anna by now, I would be happier too. I have no way to contact him, either, being that he is off in some random country, doing God knows what, and as usual, I have to wait for him to call me, then drop whatever it is I am doing. He could be in America for all I know. He could even be here, and I would have no direct way of finding that out until I ran into him in the street.
This is pretty unlikely though. What business would Israel have in Milwaukee? Milwaukee certainly wants nothing to do with them. Everyone here thinks of the country as a political pawn, not a place full of interesting and diverse people of all sorts of religious and political leanings. It’s easy to dismiss something when it doesn’t have a face.
“God, when did you get into such good shape?” Emily asks, panting. “I could barely get you to go on a hike with me when we were in school.”
“Running helps with my anxiety,” I explain.
“Yeah, I have yoga for that,” she says, following me as I turn right down Center Street. Its name sure is accurate. Everywhere I go I always end up on this street to get there. “Isn’t that funny? We used to smoke weed and write those silly poems when we got anxious. Well, honestly, I still smoke a lot of weed. But I stopped with all the other stuff.”
“I barely even drink now,” I agree. “That drink you bought me was the first one I’ve had in weeks. Months maybe. I think I’m drunk.”
“Really? You? But you love drinking,” she says, shock apparent all over her face which is pink and stiff from cold. “We used to call you the shot Nazi.”
“You know, it’s just occurring to me how inappropriate that nickname was,” I point out.
Emily pauses, thinks about that. “Yeah I guess you’re right. I only meant that… I don’t know. We’re so...adult now.”
I stop, turning to face her, the snow crashing into my hair and then melting. “I don’t feel so much like an adult today, Emily,” I admit. “Or most days. I feel like someone pretending to know what they’re doing.”
Emily frowns. “That’s basically what an adult is, Masha,” she says, shaking her head. “You think anyone knows what the hell they’re doing?” Then, out of nowhere, she reaches out and hugs me, and I let her. No one ever touches me in Israel, other than David. Now I’m getting hugs all over the place. I must really look like the mess I feel.
Emily lets go, and I feel her head turning. “This is where you were going?”
I follow her gaze to the second level of a large white duplex with a green patio on its side, filled with mismatched chairs, empty wine bottles holding melted candles, and a large glass tube that is likely a bong. Below, an empty storefront that is in the process of becoming an art gallery, the fourth or fifth one in Riverwest. “Yeah, this is me. For tonight anyway.” I head toward Rose’s front door, which is not in front but on the side of the house under
some more green awning. Snow is swirling again all around it, making it look like a snow globe.
“Is that a good idea?” Emily asks.
“No, probably not,” I say. “But I don’t have a lot of options. And I’m already here, and it’s really damn cold in this country.” I get the keys out of my coat pocket and find the gold one meant for this door. “Bye, Emily. It was great to see you.”
Emily stands there, watching me, hesitating. “Masha. I have to get something off my chest.”
I exhale deeply, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It was wrong of me—of us—to blame you for what happened.”
I stare at her, blinking. It’s not what I was expecting to come out of her mouth. But she’d hit the nail on the head and I’m not about to dispute it. “Okay?” I try to sound indifferent, but my voice betrays how I really feel, which is grateful. This one sentence starts to melt the ice that has formed around my chest when it comes to my past life, my former friends, Riverwest. Maybe one action alone doesn’t define a person after all. Maybe people are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
Emily sticks her hands deep into her pockets, her face red all the way down to her neck. “Call me if you need anything. I mean it.” She starts walking away before I can respond, and for the first time since I left, I find myself truly missing my former best friend. I even consider taking her up on her offer to call her, when this is all over.
I turn and let myself into Rose’s apartment. I head straight into her room, which looks like it hasn’t changed at all since I last saw it, only been rearranged. There are hand-woven quilts and tie-dye shirts and those ridiculous posters with one word taking up the whole page. Incense piled into dust, celebrity magazines on the floor, clothes scattered about in an antique trunk and over Rose’s bed. I take a pile of sweaters and move them into the chest, lying down over the tie-dye bedspread in a daze, when my foot hits something hard.