by Zhanna Slor
“Dedushka, Happy Birthday!” I say, standing up again to give him a hug. “I feel so bad now that I didn’t call you.”
“Oh, thank you,” he says, surprised, but smiling again. As I hug him, my coat falls from my hands onto the floor. I bend over to pick it up. The slight draft knocks over the letter I had noticed onto the floor and flips it over, so that I see the return address. I remain on the floor an extra moment to look at it to make sure I’m not imagining things.
Nope, I’m not. It’s a letter. From Anna. With her current address. I shove the envelope into my pocket and put the letter back on the table as I stand up. Relief blooms in my chest, and I am calm for the first time since my dad dropped me off in Riverwest.
Somehow, I manage to get through ten more minutes of small talk with my grandparents before my dad is satisfied we’ve stayed long enough.
“Come back soon,” Dedushka says. He glances over at my grandma, who is chewing on what looks like a cold leg of chicken, her face covered in some kind of sauce. “Say goodbye, Mila.”
“I’ll meet you in the car,” my dad says, and skedaddles.
“Don’t forget us,” Babushka says. “College is important but so are your grandparents.”
“She lives in Israel,” Dedushka repeats. “Anna is the one who—”
“Ah. Yes, that’s right,” my grandma says nodding, still chewing on the chicken skin. “Masha lives in Israel, and never visits, that ungrateful girl.”
“I’m Masha,” I explain. “I’m here now.”
She looks at me as if she hadn’t noticed me there before. “Oh, okay.” She folds her hands together on her lap and looks to my grandpa. “Where does Masha live, Sasha? Italy?”
“Israel,” he answers gruffly, sitting down on an armchair beside the couch. All the energy he had seems to have deflated
“Babushka, I’m visiting right now!” I explain, trying to keep myself from getting annoyed. Then I take a deep breath. It’s not her fault, I remind myself. She’d always been easy to get annoyed with; my whole life she was judgmental and sort of mean, causing fights with anyone she could find to fight with, fights so intense that she no longer speaks with any of her living siblings or their kids. Usually I could laugh her judginess away. This, however, is no longer the case. Now that she is obviously sick, it’s more sad than funny or annoying.
“Right,” she says, nodding, staring into space. “Did you know my brother is trying to take my plot at the cemetery? My own brother!”
“Huh?” I say. “Can he even do that?”
“Enough, Mila. No one is taking your grave, for the hundredth time!” He shakes his head at me and apologizes for her. “I don’t know where she gets this idea.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s not her fault either,” I explain. But my grandpa doesn’t believe this; I can tell from the expression in his eyes, which is still a little angry. He wrings his tiny, hairy hands together and closes them around each other. Sweat pools in the front of his white wifebeater tank top. Behind him, the radiator starts hissing. He stares at me, brows furrowed, serious now.
“Masha, I have to ask you: your sister’s not in trouble, is she?”
“What have you heard?”
Dedushka looks towards the windows, which are covered in lace curtains and a layer of snow. They face a parking lot with several large Dumpsters in a row. An old woman is standing there waiting for a tiny white dog to relieve itself in the dead grass. “I gave her some money a few weeks ago, but since then I haven’t been able to reach her. What happened to her phone?”
“Oh…I think it broke.”
“Did she go on a trip? She wrote us a few letters.”
“I think so.”
“But she’s okay?”
“She is totally fine. She had a fight with Papa.” I really do believe now that she’s okay. And if she’s okay that means I can go home. I only wish I could take her with me. I can’t stop thinking about how much better off we’d be if we’d never received that letter from the American embassy approving our refugee status; if we’d gone straight to Israel, like we’d originally planned. Israel is where we belong, that’s as clear as day now. My parents chose America for financial purposes, and the cost of this was everything that had gone wrong. Money isn’t enough, not the lack of it nor the surplus, to replace what you lose when you uproot an entire generation of people from their home. Money alone cannot take the place of community, culture, physical closeness. In Israel, it would have all been different. This would have never happened to Anna there. She wouldn’t have needed it.
“I see,” Dedushka says. From below, my dad beeps his horn in the parking lot. I know it’s him because I can see his car from here. I stand to go, but my grandpa looks so miserable that I first have to give him another hug. He is even sweatier than he was earlier. My grandma, on the other hand, is covered now in two blankets and looks dry as a bone. I am filled with so much love for them it’s like a balloon that could pop if I stand there any longer. “Well, as long as she is okay.”
“See you soon, Dedushka,” I say, blinking back tears. I hadn’t realized till now how much I’d missed them being abroad all these years; how much I will miss them when I return. He doesn’t ask me why I’m in town, which I’m grateful for. It occurs to me that he might not care why. Then he squeezes me so tight I can’t breathe again.
“Oh, Mashinka, you and your sister are my life. Please come back more often. When are you flying home?”
I don’t know the answer to this. My dad only bought me a one-way ticket. Possibly this was a hint, but I choose to believe it’s because he doesn’t know how long this might take. “I’ll come say bye before I go, I promise.”
I move to my grandma and give her another hug, too. A piece of food that is stuck to her cheek falls to the side of my sweater, and I quickly flick it off. “You tell my son Pavel I’m not dead yet and he better visit me soon. He’s forgotten about me, his own mother!”
“He was just here, what are you talking about!” Dedushka yells.
“I’m a useless old lady now,” Babushka laments. “Oy, you better hope you don’t live this long, my granddaughter. Sixty, seventy, okay. But eighty? Put yourself out of your misery first.”
“Mila, for God’s sake!” my grandpa screams, getting angry again.
“It’s not her fault,” I explain again, patting my grandpa’s shoulder. Because of the work I do in Israel, tutoring and helping new immigrants translate official documents, I’ve spent a lot of time around elderly Russians, and they seem to take dementia extra hard. It’s probably because no one lived that long in Soviet Ukraine, so they never had a chance to witness what happens to people when they reach such an advanced age. Instead of being sad, they get angry, like the other person is merely trying to annoy them. “She’s sick, Dedushka.”
He continues to shake his head in bewilderment. “He was just here,” he repeats, almost as if to himself.
“I know,” I tell him, patting his shiny bald forehead like I used to do when I was little.
Once I’m outside again, my stomach aches with so many conflicting emotions I almost feel like I could throw up. I’ve only been gone a few years; in some ways, nothing has changed at all. But in others, it’s like an entire lifetime has passed. My grandparents have always been old, in my mind. In some ways my grandma is right. Seventy is old. Eighty-three and eighty-five? Practically ancient. You can die from a cold. And that’s if we even know their real ages. What if I never see them again?
How could I ever repay them for what they did for us? Can anyone really ever repay anyone?
I get into the car, squeezing the envelope in my fist. It’s like a little bright star emanating from my pocket. Then I turn to Papa.
I try to take in the image of him, smoking a cigarette with his shoulders slumped, drinking his third espresso in a row. My father who is most certainly only going to get older, too, the longer I am away. I am already thinking
about how I will remember this moment, how the trip will settle into my brain and feel less and less real the more days pass in Israel with David. And the more days pass, the more I will remember what I already spent so much time learning before and forgot: it’s hard for me to be apart from my family—but it’s harder to be with them. Not everyone is meant to share space. I prefer to love them all from afar. Because we are so different, it’s the only way I can be myself.
I also want to forgive them. I’ve spent the last five years trying to ignore the shadow of guilt I feel every time I have a good conversation with David’s parents instead of my own. I was so mad at them for being unable to accept me that sometimes I couldn’t see straight. It felt like I could only see myself in opposition to them. This was, in part, why I’d left, and why I’d enjoyed Judaism, too. Sure, it has rules, but for the most part its followers can do as they please and believe in God as much as they choose. In contemporary Hebrew, Ba’al T’shuva describes a Jew from a secular background who becomes observant. T’shuva also means to atone for one’s wrongdoings. So in a way, becoming religious in Israel is a process of also atoning for your past. In the month before Yom Kippur, rabbis preach T’shuva, or atonement, between people and personal relationships; on Yom Kippur, we seek reconciliation between us and God. If I’m being honest, I’d always skipped straight to the latter.
I’m seeing now that was a mistake. The two are eternally linked.
Without turning to face him, I tell my father, “You should have told me about Zoya.”
He places his mug down into the cupholder with a thud. He doesn’t appear to feel sorry; but I know it’s not my responsibility to make him feel so. I can only control my own reactions, not his. “Why, so you can look at me how Anastasia looks at me now?” he asks. “What good would that have done?”
He’s right. I can barely look at him. But it’s not for the reasons he imagines. It’s because he’s a liar. It’s because he’s unable to look in a mirror and see himself. Everyone makes mistakes; even rabbis admit to them. It’s how you choose to make up for these slipups that shows who you are. “Is Mama still in New Jersey?” I ask.
“I think so,” he says. “Why?”
“Good,” I say. “I need to tell her where to find Anna.”
MARCH 2008
ANNA
________________
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I’m getting off the train at the corner of Neptune Ave. and Ocean, like I do every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, when who do I see standing there at the bottom of the steps?
My mother, of all people.
I nearly fall down when I spot her distinct brown-and-cream fur coat. She surprises me by rushing forward and hugging me tight. That hug, or maybe the smell of her freshly washed hair, or maybe all of it—New York City, dust creased into my jeans, the uncertainty of tomorrow—sends a jolt of guilt through my whole body. And here I thought I’d left all that guilt behind in Wisconsin, along with the rest of my family.
“Privet, Anastasia,” she says into my hair. The hot water is out at our Williamsburg apartment, and I haven’t washed it in days, so I pity her nose, and feel slightly embarrassed too. Then that is replaced by a jittery nervousness. It’s almost like seeing a stranger; at the same time, it’s like looking into a mirror.
“Hi, Mom,” I finally manage to choke out. I dig my dirty nails into my palm while she stands back and watches me like she is seeing a ghost. I can’t look at her, so I turn my eyes towards a deli with giant pink sausages hanging in the windows, over various chunks of white cheese, pickled radishes, pickled onions, bright yellow signs advertising caviar and fish. My stomach starts grumbling. This is my main problem with working in Brighton Beach—or Brooklyn in general—everywhere I go I just want to eat. But only a rich person can live that way, not a barista.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, finally. I look towards the café down the block, where I am due for a shift in less than fifteen minutes.
Mom turns to follow my glance, searching for the café, but being obstructed by too many Russian booths and stores in her way; unlike me, these places furrow her brow instead of making her smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I work down the block,” I say. “But I am guessing you know that already.”
“Yes, one of your roommates told me you work around here. His name was August, I think. Is he your boyfriend?”
“Oh my God, no, Mom,” I tell him, my eyes bulged out in horror. “He’s like my brother.”
“Hmm,” is all she says.
“Did Masha tell you where to go? I finally checked my UWM email at the library and saw a few emails from her.” She doesn’t answer but I can’t help but frown a little. “I still don’t understand why she was looking for me.”
“Because we’re family,” Mama explains. “That’s what we do. We find each other.”
My stomach grumbles again, this time loudly. Because my mom is a mom she cannot ignore this and takes out some cash to buy me something from the table closest to us, which is selling piroshkies, a croissant-like pastry baked with farmer’s cheese inside. The sign is advertising three for a dollar. I scarf one down instantly, then, seeing my mom’s face, hold on to the other two in my hand.
“Thanks,” I say, my mouth full.
Mom begins accepting change from the old woman at the table, doing the entire exchange in accented English as if she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s like them. I finish chewing and start walking, putting the other piroshki in a pocket on my bag meant for water bottles. Reluctantly, my mom follows me down the street, which is plastered in Russian businesses as far as the eye can see. We pass by bookstands filled with Cyrillic spines, tables with mounds and mounds of matryoshkas; we have at least three of them in their basement in Wisconsin, in a cupboard with many of the exact types of things being sold here on the street: shiny, plastic children’s books, delicately painted china. Orange, polka-dotted metal pans. Tables filled with kitschy Soviet relics; cigarette cases and lighters with the hammer and sickle on them.
“God, this is depressing,” Mom says in English.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “This is so cool.”
My mom shakes her head. Her face is paler than usual, her freckles practically gone. She looks as if she’s left someone’s funeral. “It’s like nothing has changed in twenty years,” she says. “Like they all just came here and continued along as if this is the Soviet Union.”
“They want to hold on to their culture,” I say. “What’s so wrong with that?”
“Because, they’re not in the Soviet Union,” my mom says. “Why even come to New York at all?”
“I think it’s cool,” I say. Whenever I’m in Brighton Beach I can’t help but feel like we’re with our people. There were so many like us who had come from the same place and now stood in the same place again—so many who’d made the same transition. For a moment I forget that I derailed my parents’ marriage, left college, stole things, hurt my sister, and took a fifteen-hour train to New York City. That everything I own is sitting in a room no bigger than a closet. That I can’t decide if it’s freeing or incredibly depressing and maybe even stupid. No, that’s not true. It’s amazing. It’s the poorest but also the happiest I’ve ever been.
I haven’t done a single drug since I came here, because I no longer have to self-medicate myself into feeling alive, I just feel alive by living.
“Did you see all those old ladies selling fruit that’s almost rotten? They’re basically beggars,” my mom complains. I don’t even feel bothered by this; we clearly do not see home in the same way. The things that make her feel alive are not the same things that do so for me. “They could’ve stayed in the Soviet Union and been beggars there.”
“I don’t think they’re like beggars, Mom. Come on. They’re selling something. It’s like any other store here.”
“And who do you think buys rotten fruit?” Abruptly, Mom stops again and looks aro
und. “I can’t deal with this. Can we go somewhere else?”
I stop sorting through a pile of DVDs with Russian titles on them. Brat and Brat 2. Night Watch and Day Watch, an apocalyptic vampire series I have seen numerous times already, and follow her east towards the boardwalk, even though I have to be at work soon. I don’t feel like I have much of a choice.
“Does your dad know where you are?” Mom finally asks me.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Does he know where you are?”
The sidewalks are glistening, the trees dripping. It’s cold, even under my sweater and leather coat. Not quite winter anymore, but not quite spring either. “Why don’t you come back to New Jersey with me?” She turns to me, putting a hand on my shoulder, brows pointed with concern. “Sveta has plenty of space. You can share your cousin Olga’s room.”
“Why don’t you go back to Milwaukee?” I ask, annoyed. She knows perfectly well that I can’t stand my cousin Olga or New Jersey.
“Anastasia.”
“What?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. The leather of my coat swishes and pulls. “Are you going to stay there forever? Have you moved in with them? What about work?”
“Not forever, no.” She pauses, looks down at her manicured hands. “Until...”
“Until what? Dad goes back in time and doesn’t sleep with his accountant?” I ask.
My mom looks like I’ve slapped her, and now I feel bad. It’s not her fault. Why am I taking it out on her? Probably it’s just guilt. I’d been expecting to be discovered at some point, but I thought it would most likely be Masha who found me, or maybe even my dad. Not my mom. I had no idea my mom wanted to see me after everything I put her through. Well, after everything that my dad put her through and that I maybe helped bring to light. “Sorry,” I say softly.