Nina was a computer programmer too, but unlike everybody else she’d also been a computer programmer in her “previous life.” What was worse, she didn’t know much about poetry or music, and she didn’t have any exciting talents or hobbies.
“My wife is a vegetable lover,” Nina’s husband said, introducing her to Pavlik’s circle.
Nina didn’t like Pavlik’s guests. The men were untidy and unattractive. They piled up their paper plates with cold cuts, smoked too much, and laughed with their mouths full. They repeated the same things over and over, and it seemed to Nina that there was always a piece of ham or salami hanging from their mouths while they talked.
The women, on the other hand, with the exception of one or two, were attractive but in a wrong, unpleasant way. They were thin and sophisticated, with straight hair and strong hands with long powerful fingers, toughened by playing either the piano or the guitar. They had soulful eyes, sad from all the poetry they read, and wore expressions of eternal fatigue. They had everything that Nina lacked.
Nina usually sat through the whole evening in the corner of Pavlik’s stiff sofa, away from the other guests, who sat on the floor by the cold fireplace, and away from her husband. The sounds of their laughter, their singing, and their reading floated around the room but didn’t seem to reach her. The food and wine on a rickety folding table by the window were more accessible from the sofa. Nina made frequent trips to that table, where cold cuts lay on paper plates, loaves of bread stood on cutting boards, and pickles swam in glass jars with a fork invariably stuck into one of them. There were usually a few unopened bottles of vodka, and a five-liter box of Burgundy or Chablis. The wine often dripped from the plastic spigot right onto the beige carpet, making intricate patterns, so that by the end of the party Pavlik’s modest carpet looked like a fancy Turkish rug.
When they first started going to Pavlik’s parties, Nina sat by the fireplace with the others. She loved to sit across from her husband and watch his face while he played. His neck was bent down, the bangs of his dark hair fallen over his half-closed eyes. From time to time he glanced at her, and then his eyes flickered through the forest of his hair like two tiny lightning bugs. At those moments Nina felt he was playing for her, and then the music touched her, making her skin prickle and her throat hurt.
With time, Nina noticed that she wasn’t the only one staring at her husband while he played. Nina saw how the faces of other women lit up just like hers under his fleeting gaze. Each of them must have felt that he was playing for her. Sometimes Nina thought those women had more right to be looked at by her husband. Sometimes those women threw quick looks at Nina, and then Nina felt that she was changing in size; she was growing, bloating up, turning into an enormous exhibit: a dull, untalented woman wearing the wrong clothes and the wrong makeup. She thought that all of them must have wondered why this interesting, talented man had married her.
Her sister didn’t wonder. “You were his ticket to America,” she often reminded Nina, having first said it on Nina’s arrival in New York. “Can you disprove that?”
Nina couldn’t.
It was true that Nina’s husband had always wanted to emigrate but couldn’t obtain a visa. He didn’t have close relatives in the United States. It was true that, having married Nina, he had gotten his visa. And it was true that Nina hadn’t wanted to emigrate but yielded to her husband’s wishes. But it wasn’t true that he had married Nina just for that, and it wasn’t true that he didn’t love her. Nina’s sister didn’t know what Nina knew. She didn’t know that when Nina was in the hospital after appendix surgery, her husband wouldn’t leave her room even for a minute. She begged him to go and have some coffee or to take a breath of fresh air, but he refused. He held Nina’s hand and squeezed it every time she moaned. Nina’s sister didn’t know how sometimes he would hug Nina from behind, bury his face in her hair, and whisper, “There is nothing like it. Nothing in the world.” She could feel his sharp nose and his hot breath on the nape of her neck, and her eyes would grow moist. And Nina’s sister didn’t know that he often said the same words when they were making love.
It was a relief to come home after the party and find herself in bed, next to her husband, with a book. Nina had covered the nightstand with cookbooks bought at a fifty-percent discount at Barnes & Noble. She read lying on her back, using her stomach to prop up her book. The thick, glossy pages rustled against Nina’s satin nightgowns (fifty-percent off at Victoria’s Secret). She loved the rustling sound as much as she loved the prickly sensation in her feet when they touched her husband’s hairy legs from time to time. She also loved the euphoric feeling roused in her by lustrous photographs of okra and tomato stew in rustic clay bowls, grilled zucchini parcels on ceramic trays, and baskets of fresh vegetables against a background of meadows or olive groves. Her favorite book, Italian Cuisine: The Taste of the Sun, included step-by-step photographs of the cooking process. In the photos, smooth light-skinned female hands with evenly trimmed fingernails performed all the magical actions on the vegetables. They looked like Nina’s hands, and Nina fantasized that they were hers. It was she, Nina, who made those perfect curled carrot slices. It was she who pushed the hard, stubborn stuffing into the bell peppers, or rinsed grit off lettuce leaves, or chopped broccoli florets, scattering tiny green crumbs all over the table. Nina’s lips moved, forming the rich, passionate words of the cooking instructions: “Brush with olive oil,” “bring to a boil and simmer gently,” “serve hot,” “scoop out the pulp,” “chop,” “slice,” “crush,” “squash.” When eventually she put the book away, cuddled against her husband’s back, and closed her eyes, her lips continued moving for some time.
NINA’S HUSBAND left her during the middle of September, when the vegetable stores on 86th Street were full of tomatoes and zucchinis. There was an abundance of them in Nina’s refrigerator when her sister opened it.
“The fifth week is the worst. The first four weeks it hasn’t sunk in yet. You feel the shock, but you don’t feel the pain. It’s like you’re numb. But the fifth week…. Brace yourself for the fifth week.” Nina’s sister crouched in front of the refrigerator, unloading the food she had brought. She came to console Nina with four large bags from a Russian food store.
Nina felt tired. She sat at the table, staring at her sister’s broad back. Nina thought that if you tried to hit it with a hammer it would produce a loud ringing sound, as if her sister’s back were made of hardwood. The refrigerator shelves filled quickly: bright cartons of currant juice—“Currant juice saved my life; I basically lived on it when Volodya left me”—cream cheese, farmer’s cheese, soft cheese, Swiss cheese, bread—“Always keep bread in the refrigerator, it preserves much better this way”—pickles, a jar of cherry compote.
“Nina!” her sister suddenly shrieked. “What is this?” She pulled out a vegetable basket. Inside was a pile of mushy tomatoes with a white beard of mold where the skin split, oozing dark juice; zucchini covered with brown splotches; dark, slimy bunches of collard greens. “You’ve got the whole vegetable graveyard in here.” Her sister emptied the basket into the garbage can, where the vegetables made a squashing sound.