I don’t like change. It’s only a trip, I know, but something about it makes my heart beat faster and my stomach turn. Of course, it doesn’t help that minutes ago I had possibly the biggest argument with my parents I’ve ever had. That the more I think about my future—two and a half more years of college, followed by working at some office nine-to-five, then marrying a Russian Jew my family would approve of and having kids—the more I feel like jumping off the Locust Street Bridge.
So maybe this will explain why I did what I did next, because this is the mindset I am in when I find another message from Zoya. The second message from her is on Facebook and sounds more urgent. I read it three times in a row to make sure I understand correctly. But even after the third time through, plus an internet browser’s translation, I’m still not so sure that I do.
“Dear Anastasia Pavlova,” it says. “I didn’t want to tell you this way, but I have no choice now. I am your sister on your dad’s side. I would really like to speak with you, if you are able. Please write back as soon as possible.”
Because I read Zoya’s second message in an entirely different mood than her first, I do not ignore it this time. I do not delete it. Had I been anyone else, I would never have done what I was about to do, and nothing that transpired would have ever happened. My life would be normal—at least as normal as it could ever be for someone who does not want a normal life.
But I can only be myself; the girl who once asked so many questions my teachers had to limit me to three a day. The girl who, at age eight, begged the Russian hairdresser to cut off all her hair to see what it would look like (it looked very, very bad). The girl who turned into a woman who eventually learned it was easier not to ask questions.
Maybe that girl never died; she only went away into hiding. Until now. Like Howard Zinn has said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
Of course I was going to answer her.
And so, without thinking any more about it, I write, “Do you speak English?”
FEBRUARY 2008
MASHA
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Outside on Bremen Street, I swivel around, my fists up, ready to use one of the many Krav Maga defensive moves I’d learned in Israel over the years, but then I see whose hand is on my shoulder and stop cold.
“Oh my God,” I say, dropping my hands. “Emily.”
My old best friend squeezes me with all her might, then releases her grip and looks me up and down. “Masha! I can’t believe it’s you. I thought I was seeing things.” She looks at my hand and frowns. “Are you smoking again?”
I shake my head. I hadn’t even realized I was holding Rose’s cigarette. “This isn’t mine.”
Emily continues to watch me, then glances back at the door. She gestures behind her. “Want to go inside and talk? It’s freezing. Is that a leather coat you’re wearing? What are you doing out here?”
“Actually, I can’t, I really have to…”
“Nonsense, woman,” she says, taking Rose’s cigarette, stealing a drag, then throwing it on the ground. “I’m sure you have five minutes for an old friend, right?” Then before I can protest, she is pushing me inside and buying me a drink. The bar is even more crowded now; bodies are stacked right on top of each other like sardines bathing in patchouli. A three-piece band is on stage; a stand-up bass, a gypsy guitar, and a banjo, all sticking out from the heads of plaid shirts and frayed jeans.
It’s a strange sensation, sitting down at a table with a drink; I don’t really go to bars much in Israel. A beer can cost eight dollars, twelve if you’re in Tel Aviv. Plus, David is out of town so much that when he’s home he doesn’t really like to leave the house. I could go without him, but I only have a handful of friends, mostly David’s family members, who are all young, busy parents.
“First question: Have you ever heard of the Internet? You know, Riverwest does have it,” Emily says. “Even if everyone chooses not to accept that it’s the twenty-first century.” She slams her beer on the wobbly table, making it spill all over, then takes off her down coat to reveal a blue-and-red plaid flannel shirt. For the first time since I arrived in Milwaukee, I am amused. At least some things never change. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Emily wearing anything but flannel. She’s from Kentucky and grew up training horses. The way Emily used to mention their names, it took me months to understand she was talking about animals and not siblings. She’d moved to Wisconsin the first year of high school, where we’d met in an English class and bonded over a mutual adoration for Franny and Zooey, then quickly become inseparable. As soon as we turned eighteen, we found a place together in Riverwest because it was so cheap. We didn’t know that it would eventually drive us apart. That sometimes, saving some money isn’t worth the cost.
“Hey, it keeps that DVD rental place in business,” I joke.
Emily frowns. “Masha.”
I shrug. “There’s internet in Israel, too,” I say. I look around in discomfort, and notice there are several people here with iPhones, looking down at bright screens in the middle of tables surrounded by friends. It really is a plague, I think. “It’s not very good, but it works.”
“I guess I thought you were mad at me or something,” Emily says, so quietly I can barely hear her. Her long, stiff hair falls out of her hat like a pile of loose cords, much like her short-lived dreadlocks did the summer before college, when we went backpacking through Europe together, inseparable. Getting lost in Prague and eating gelato in Venice, somehow never getting tired of each other. Who knew that one event could derail our entire history together so easily?
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“I don’t know,” Emily says, shaking her head. “For how I handled things back then, I guess.”
I take a long sip of my drink. I can feel myself getting dizzy again, and look down to steady myself, when I notice I am holding onto the table so tightly my fingers are white. I drop them to my side. “Emily, let’s just not.”
“I just… I feel bad about how everything went down,” Emily says.
“It’s okay,” I say. The band starts playing what I believe to be an Elliott Smith cover—or maybe they’re only trying to sound like him—and half the crowd is listening while the other half is trying to scream over the noise. Which means I, too, have to raise my voice.
“No, it’s not,” Emily says. “I know it’s why we’re not friends anymore.”
“We’re not friends anymore because I live on another continent,” I explain. I finish the vodka soda she bought me and stand up from the chair, Rose’s bed calling out to me. I put a hand over my mouth, stifling a yawn. “Emily, I really have to go. I’m so tired.”
Emily grabs my hand and doesn’t let me go. “You can’t avoid it forever, you know.”
I take my hand back and turn to leave, feeling myself start to get angry. “It’s still a free country. Or did that change while I was gone?” I tell her. A new song comes on, a cover of The Decemberists’ “The Chimbley Sweep.” Emily seems to soften, as do I—we are both remembering, or perhaps trying not to remember, listening to this album over and over one warm summer day between semesters. Back when things were still so simple. Back when I used to think that friendships were easier to maintain than family relationships. Now I think they’re both pretty hard, but it’s way easier when you have a common interest, like Judaism. Even before I’d believed any of it, the bond was palpable right away. It’s what eventually sold me; the connection, the camaraderie. So you have to put aside logic and even science once in a while; it’s not like either of those things were ever my strong suit. I’d always preferred abstract ideas over math, poetry over physics.