Mother Country Page 9

  But she felt her friends gripping onto each arm, as if anticipating a getaway. They led her to the crowded bar. “Hey, Kostya,” Georgina managed to yell over the grinding music, waving over the heads of gazelles three kilometers deep. “Three shots for a couple of schoolgirls.”

  “Shots?” Nadia said. “Are you ladies kidding me?”

  Lena shrugged. She looked tired already but was making every effort to brighten her face. She lived for her nights and weekends. At an expensive European-style salon where she worked, she stood on her feet for ten hours a day. She was the only Russian at a place owned by a transplant from Milan. The place drove her crazy. Children running about underfoot while she applied color, the colorist at the next station so chatty and annoying, it made her never want to set foot on Italian soil. The clients were demanding, never quite sure about what they wanted or whether they liked the result. The vacations tightly parsed out, sick days nonexistent. She worked six days a week, handed most of the salary over to her son, who never managed to get a single business idea off the ground but kept promising to repay her.

  “Just drink up,” she said when the shots arrived. “To happiness, to getting everything you want this year.” The three of them clinked and gulped down the cloudy contents of the shot glasses.

  Immediately, she felt her brain grow soft. A heaviness lifted. Now she was able to look around the club with her usual anthropologist’s curiosity, to smile at the silly young Russian girls in today’s Brooklyn. Did they have to show off their bodies so overtly? Did they have to overdo it with the makeup? They all looked alike to her, with their long ironed hair, their shimmer, perfume so strong they gave off the scent of hothouse flowers. She couldn’t find a single girl with nuance in this place; all that gold and boobs and high heels. And the men either completely the opposite, in their scraggly jeans and sneakers and sports shirts, or worse, slick and bronzed in pleated black pants and metallic shirts open way too low down their chests. Larissa, when she arrived, would be too sensible for them all.

  “To peace at home and in the world,” Lena said, and they gulped down another shot. The lights of the strobe shifted from green to hot pink, the club growing more crowded. Nadia took off her jacket. She was blazing hot in the cowl-neck sweater.

  “Now you’re talking,” she heard Georgina cry in approval. A group of young girls darted glances in their direction, then folded back in to one another.

  As her friends wove her through the bodies, Nadia thought the right kind of man for this particular goal would feel ill at ease in these surroundings, he might be a little apart from his cohort, visibly bored. He might have a full glass of something pooling a watery circle on the round table in front of him.

  “I know,” Georgina yelled, lost to a sea of elbows, hips, and sequins. “There are some seriously raunchy babas here and we’ve got to keep up, ladies.”

  “Another?” Lena asked them, which was not like her at all. She hated being hungover, hated applying color with a pulsating head to chatty clients. The smoke smelled sickeningly of orange peel. A man in an iridescent purple shirt was raking her over, cocking an eyebrow in her direction. He was at least forty, way too old for what she was planning. She grabbed the girls to escape the invisible net of his desire.

  “Come back,” he called after her. “I love blondes!”

  “See, Nadyush?” Lena said loudly into her ear. Right now it felt like she would never hear again. “Jewish men love a real Ukrainian woman. Not enough natural blondes in this country for them. You should think about it. I know there aren’t too many Jews where you come from, but let me tell you: Jewish men make the best husbands.”

  Georgina was at her other side. “Go up to someone. Anyone. Just smile. Introduce yourself.”

  “Be confident, but not too self-sufficient,” Lena advised.

  “Pretend you’re interested in their boring jobs.”

  “But don’t start out thinking they’re boring. Just find the right questions to make them sound interesting.”

  Georgina found a vial of perfume in her bag, and she spritzed their hair with it. “They’re boring, Lena, for fuck’s sake. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

  “It’s all in the attitude you take. And whose job is exciting in your opinion?”

  The light shifted to accommodate the tempo of a slower song. The gauzy pinks and maroons gave way to a stark, foggy white. It was finally possible to see. Young men were all bunched in guffawing groups with their shellacked chins, their collars raised up to their ears. A few feet in the air, a solitary dancer swayed indifferently inside a birdcage. It all looked about as far from Regina’s normal Irish-bar story as possible.

  But there was a man conducting a quiet conversation near the bar. He was no older than thirty, sporting neither chest rug nor luminescent shirt. His hair was longer than she would like for a man, a feathered layer of rock-star tresses. His stubble looked orchestrated with great intention, but there was something in his posture she liked and the way he held a wineglass, rather than a glass of vodka or cognac or some other stubby goblet clinking with ice cubes.

  “What about that one? The one with the mop on his head and protruding ears?” Georgina was referring to the man’s friend, an older man in his fifties. He stood on his heels as if to accommodate his orb of a stomach. That he was hairy everywhere was evident even in this light, from this distance. He was the type of man Georgina believed was good enough for her, the kind she should be grateful to land.

  “Okay. I’ll be right back,” she said, parking her shot glass on the nearby banquette.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Lena asked. To Nadia’s ear, she sounded incredulous. “Maybe it’s getting late.” She was blocking her path, clearly imagining that all that business with Nadia finding a man at the club was concocted to lend their night dramatic diversion. It wasn’t actually supposed to happen. “Maybe we should take you home.”

  “Ty shto? I’m just getting started.”

  “Good for you.” Georgina gave her a tiny push into the swell of her lower back. “We’ll be right here. Good luck with Cheburashka.”

  The way she said it was so dripping with doubt and haughtiness that there was no other choice but to go.

  * * *

  Georgina, Lena, and Nadia met almost six years ago in an English-language night class at a synagogue on Avenue F. It was apparent they were the only single women of a certain age in a room full of adrift recent immigrants with only a vague desire to learn English: pink young things just sprung free from their former Soviet republics, middle-aged babas who’d been recently laid off from cushy jobs that did not require the English language, and a handful of ambitious older ladies who said they wanted to communicate with their American-born grandchildren.

  She still remembered how they looked fresh off the plane, Georgina in itchy acrylic sweaters, her eyelids smeared with dark purple shadow, Lena in her rotation of corduroy skirts, wearing an experimental hairstyle to every class. And herself in the cheap, practical blouses she scoured at Rainbow, always late because of job interviews in every conceivable corner of New York City. She was the only one from their circle who was not from Russia or one of its big cities, Moscow or Peter, who was neither a Jew (Georgina) nor had been married to a Jew (Lena). But they embraced her anyway, inviting her for outings to the beach or theater, holiday dinners or a weekend trip to the hardware store. They took turns calling her when she was sick and brought over bouillon or took over in the kitchen, heating up salt in a pan to press to her congested face. They had keys to her apartment in case of emergency.

  Even if they spoke about her as a Ukrainka, it was in the affectionate tone of “Our Ukrainka” and back then she thought nothing of it. She knew they spent time alone together and discussed her. They had agreed to consider her the one to be pitied but how could she blame them? Unlike them, she was truly, authentically alone. If pity was threaded through their attention, she gladly accepted it.

  It was only last March that everything changed.
It was the tail end of the annual Women’s Day party in Georgina’s apartment, Nadia running in from a long day with Sasha. To leave work, where you feel diminished in your humanity, and join your equals was a great blessing. How wonderful it was to meet friends after a frustrating commute with stalled trains, sick passengers, and sardined cars. It was warm in there, the sound of female voices and bottles clinked against the mouths of glasses. She was taking off her cold, damp coat in the foyer, unzipping her high boots, when she heard, “I don’t think her daughter ever calls her. She gets all the news of Larissa from her mother. It’s actually a sad situation. She even sends her daughter refrigerated insulin, and not even a thank-you. Can you imagine not being in touch with your own daughter? I mean, we have no idea what happened, but you can’t help but think it was her fault.” Nadia felt her entire body go still, arms at her sides. Her heart was pounding with sick dread. To turn around and leave without drawing attention to herself felt impossible. But she felt glad she never told them how it happened, that she had kept private the memory fluttering inside her all these years.

  In July of 2008, the U.S. embassy in Kiev was decorated with the celebratory markers of a holiday. Everyone was handed a flag upon arrival, which created a festive atmosphere in the waiting room. The symbolism of finalizing documents to leave Ukraine on American Independence Day was not lost on Nadia.

  “I know, I was thinking the exact same thing,” her daughter said, sitting beside her in the waiting room. Numbers flashed on the board and everyone checked the match to their tickets. She was amazed at the orderliness on display. No one was pushing in front of anyone else, but waiting, docile, in their seats until their number flashed on a screen. She overheard some of the interviews in the windows. They were in Ukrainian, not Russian, but simple enough that she could communicate. Her heart was an unpredictable thing, speeding up and slowing at will.

  “I was worried about the test results, that the diabetes might be a problem,” Nadia said, by way of passing the time. She took out the results of the medical exams. “But they look fine.”

  “It’s starting to feel real now. Maybe they would want my embroidery there,” Larissa said, dreamy. She was working on one as they waited, her needle expertly gliding through the holes of the waxed canvas. A scene was starting to emerge, the tufted heads of sheep, the silver fence glistening in the sun. She removed the American flag from the stick and was incorporating it into the scene. “I could even make pillows or duvet covers. It would be a way to make some money while I figure out what to do.”

  “I bet they would. Ukrainian folk arts are very desirable and rare.”

  “I could make the traditional ones, or the dresses with the diamond shapes for fertility. I bet American women would like that.”

  It was still odd to discuss fertility with her own daughter so she just murmured assent. The room was grand, intimidating. She had to go to the bathroom, but she was afraid. It all looked so fancy. When she finally pushed open the door, she found no woman collecting money in a plastic tray; it was apparently free of charge. A free public bathroom? In Ukraine? It was all so exotic, she was almost too shy to go.

  On her way back out, she spied water in actual glasses and they too were free of charge. She was told she was welcome to take some, but she brought one to her daughter, in case there was a cap of one glass of water per family. The entire operation was all so organized, so un-Ukrainian. A velvet rope contained a peaceful check-in line, no one was insulting anyone else. When they were asked to turn in any computers or phones, it was as a polite question, not a commanding bark. The tip of her tongue was fiery and weak with excitement and fear. The idea that had been fermenting in her head all these years was finally coming true. They were leaving.

  Their number was called and they approached the window. The woman behind the bars was young, barely older than Larissa. She greeted them in Ukrainian with the same inexplicable politeness exhibited by the other employees. They were to stretch out their hands for fingerprints, and that too was done with gentleness, the young woman’s cold fingers tapping hers and then Larissa’s against paper.

  “Are you from Kiev?” She was taking them through the bureaucratic steps with easy small talk.

  “Rubizhne. It’s in the east.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I’ve never been but I hear it’s a beautiful city. Peaceful, relaxing.”

  Fingerprints concluded, she said she would need their identification and some pictures from home to prove their identities. “And it says here on your form that you were sponsored by your sister?”

  “Yes, she is in Cleveland, but we will start off in New York.”

  “Not eager to be so close to your sister?”

  Nadia smiled. “Exactly. Anyway, I hear there are many Russian speakers in New York.”

  “But expensive too, no?”

  Not as much as here, she wanted to say. Where anything worth buying would have cost her a month’s rent, where this entire process of leaving the country was equivalent to almost a year’s paycheck. But she did not want to break the mesmerizing spell of politeness. Instead, she focused on the woman’s features, the face bottom-heavy and wide, like a slice of watermelon.

  For a minute, the watermelon face looked confused. She looked at their identifications, and the pictures they provided. The top one was of the two of them on vacation in Crimea, Larissa’s face hidden behind a safe, floppy hat. She consulted the pages of a bound manual.

  “I just have to check with my manager. I’ll be right back.”

  “Is everything fine?” Nadia asked, gathering the photographs back into her wallet.

  “I’m sure it is. I just have to speak to my boss.”

  Larissa’s brow was glistening, the tendrils of her hair spackled to her face. She looked so tiny in that moment, so like the six-year-old who would not let go of her hand on the first day or second or third day of school, so like the twelve-year-old who showed her bloody panties and asked if it was the normal color, the right color. Who asked her how long this womanhood thing would last. She couldn’t help but kiss her on the top of her head, and Larissa snuggled into her side, smelling of herb shampoo. Mother and daughter as one creature, one being. When the joy struck her, it just exploded with spontaneous, exhilarating spark.

  The young employee returned with her boss, a man with a protruding stomach and a toothpick on one side of his mouth. He stood silent, the young woman taking it as a cue that it was her responsibility to talk.

  “My boss here is wondering if your daughter is in fact twenty-one. Is the birthday on this identification correct?”

  Nadia felt a blast of ice course through her entire body, from throat to the very extremities of her toes. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “So she is twenty-one right now?”

  “As of last week only. But we’ve been on the waiting list as a family unit since she was nine years old.”

  There was an exchange of whispers, the man with the belly stabbing a manual page with his index finger. Larissa was gripping her wrist, a tight squeeze of a claw. Sentences floated back at them—“aged out” “as soon as you get there, you fill out the application” “reunion list” “as a parent who is sponsoring her, it might take no time at all.” The words were spoken apologetically, but Nadia was too agitated to appreciate the exceptional rarity of empathy.

  Larissa’s grip on her arm tightened. She was saying something like “I guess we can’t go. Calm down, Mama.”

  “But this doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t they take into consideration the age at the time of application?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not how it works,” the woman said, nervously checking in with her boss. He nodded, his look of frustration and annoyance the first familiarly Ukrainian gesture of the whole embassy experience.

  Nadia’s head was filling with the kind of sound that drowned out everything in its path, a trapped thing ramming against walls, searching for a way out. It was unfair, she continued. Her daughter was nine years old
when they applied. How was it her fault the process took eleven years? Why should they be punished for the ridiculously slow bureaucracy?

  “Do you want to go ahead and put in the application just for you?” the woman asked her. Her boss, satisfied the conflict had been resolved, moved to the next window, staring over the shoulder of a young man taking fingerprints from a lucky family with two small children.

  She felt Larissa pulling her away, the suction of them still united. An entire lifetime rolled before her eyes, album after album. Their future in Ukraine. Her mind felt capable of seeing months, years into the future. The paltry checks, the struggle to find Larissa’s medication, how to heat the apartment. And then she conjured something else, a stubborn desire, an illogical pull from within.

  “I will go,” she decided. “As soon as I get there, I will put you on the list. You’ll follow.”

  Her daughter’s face snapped in her direction. Her eyes were wide, panicked. “You would go without me?” She was so horrified, so dripping with shock and disbelief. Nadia could not bear to look. At the next window, the family was eavesdropping, the smug parents who fulfilled a basic duty of never leaving their children behind. They were probably not the only ones; the acoustics amplified every word.

  “It’s the only way, Larisska. If I don’t go, neither of us leaves.”

  “So neither of us leaves,” Larissa said.

  “I want us to leave. We need to leave. Don’t you think I’m doing this for you?” she said firmly, but with a pang.

  “You’re always doing things for me. But did you ever think to ask if I wanted these things in the first place?”

  The transformation in her daughter was playing out everywhere, the eyes, mouth, the delicate rims of her eyebrows. Don’t look at her, Nadia told herself. Look forward. But she could not help it. Her daughter’s eyes went hard right in front of her, as if a gate had fallen. The softness, the need, the warmth of those blue eyes was dimmed. Finally, the hand was removed from her wrist. “I don’t believe it. You are really doing this,” she said. “It’s like I can’t trust you anymore. You promised…”