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
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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 around. “I can’t deal with this. Can we go somewhere else?”