— 7 —
The Wedding
Sunday, April 30, was sunny and clear. The drip, drip, drip of thawing icicles was forgotten, but the wind was icy and a lingering hint of winter hovered in the air. Marina rose early in the morning to find that her aunt had been up nearly all night putting the finishing touches on her wedding dress, a short white gown with a tiny green pattern, like miniature blades of grass.
At ten o’clock Alik arrived, rather pale. “You look so pretty today!” he exclaimed at the sight of his bride. He urged Aunt Valya to come to the registry office, but she, in high spirits, declined; she had a wedding feast to prepare. And so, accompanied only by their witnesses—Lyalya Petrusevich, who lived across the hall, and her current boyfriend, Valentin—the pair set off in a taxi.
At ZAGS they were received by the same old man who had handled their request to be married. Seated behind a large desk he greeted them gravely, with fatherly familiarity. The only ceremony was the signing of his registry book. Afterward he shook both of them by the hand. “It won’t be easy,” he told them. “Anything can happen in life, but it’s better if you support one another. You’re young, you’re high-spirited, but in marriage you must give in a little and make allowances for each other’s characters.” Then, in a lighter mood, he added: “Next year, if there’s a baby, come back and register it. A baby, by all means. But a divorce, no! I don’t want you back here for that!”
He turned with a solicitous air to Alik. “Do you really love this woman? Do you want to marry her? It’s for the rest of your life, you know.”
Alik emitted a nervous “Yes,” and with a bit of a flourish, the old man placed the marriage stamp in Alik’s passport. Then he admonished the bride: “Be a good wife to him, now. No looking at the other boys!” With that he affixed the stamp to her passport.
They departed in a lighthearted mood, and as they went out the door, Marina peered over Alik’s shoulder to inspect his marriage stamp. She noticed, with vague surprise, that his date of birth was 1939. Out on the street, with no one in earshot, she turned to him. “Why did you lie? You are only twenty-one. Why did you tell me you were twenty-four?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t take me seriously,” Alik said. “You made fun of Sasha. You said he was only twenty and you’d never marry such a baby.”
It was true she had wanted someone older. But the pang of learning that her bridegroom had lied to her and that he was, after all, only two years older than she, was buried in the excitement of her wedding day. “You are a baby,” she said to him. And she let the subject drop.
There were peals of laughter from the wedding party as they reached the Svisloch River. The bride and groom stood hand in hand on the bridge staring down at the water below. Alik picked a few narcissi from Marina’s bouquet and dropped the petals, one by one, into the sun-streaked river.
By the time they returned to the Prusakovs’, the early guests had arrived. Many brought gifts for the newlyweds. But before the celebration could begin in earnest, there was a job to be done; the bride and her belongings had to be moved to her new home. So Lyalya and Valentin gathered up Marina’s clothing, along with pillows and the homemade feather mattress which was Valya’s wedding gift to the couple, and bundled the whole lot, with the bride and groom, into a taxicab.
Marina blushed as they pulled up in front of Alik’s building. The mattress and pillows, to say nothing of her entire wardrobe, tumbled out of the cab, proclaiming to all the world that this was to be her wedding night. She was embarrassed, too, as Lyalya and Valentin placed flowers all around the bed in Alik’s apartment and, with a final loving pat, laid her nightgown on the pillow. At this, even Alik flushed. Then he joined the others in laughter. “Never mind,” he said. “When you get married, I’ll fix you!”
Back at the Prusakovs’, they quickly found that Valya and her sisters-in-law had outdone themselves. The dining table was piled high with a great variety of Russian zakuski, or hors d’oeuvres: red and black caviar, pâté, crab salad, and salami in a sauce of pepper and wine. There were stuffed Bulgarian peppers and shimmering fish in aspic. There was fruit, of course. And towering over all was the wedding cake. It had many layers, pink and yellow buttercream roses, and an inscription to the bride and groom: “To Alik and Marina—A Happy Life.” It had been made at the bidding of Aunt Lyuba in the kitchen of the Belorussian Council of Ministers where she worked.
As for the celebrants, they included Marina’s three aunts and their families—Valya and Ilya, of course; Lyuba and Vasily Axyonov; Musya and Vanya Berlov and their four children—and several of the Prusakovs’ neighbors. Marina had invited several colleagues from the pharmacy, but they all found an excuse not to come, apparently because the groom was a foreigner. Two friends of Alik’s were on hand: Erich Titovyets, whom Marina had already met, and curly-headed Pavel Golovachev, whom she was meeting for the first time.
The guests soon were seated before the table. Vanya Berlov struggled to his feet. “Valya,” he admonished his sister-in-law. “Have you forgotten how to cook? Things are usually tasty at your house but suddenly, today, they’re bitter.” The other guests took up the chorus, “Gorko, gorko” (“Bitter, bitter”), in keeping with the Russian custom that the wedding wine is bitter until sweetened by the kisses of bride and groom.
Marina reddened with embarrassment. At length, after much shrinking on her part and much shouting by the others, she relented. She and Alik stood in full view of the company, and he kissed her firmly on the lips. Only then did the guests resume their feasting. But every few minutes the raillery was renewed. Someone would shout: “Gorko!” The chorus would grow louder, the bride and groom kissed, and the guests once again fell to feasting.
Before long, drinking gave way to dancing. Uncle Ilya, as always on such occasions, danced with all the ladies and gaily kissed every one. The bride, by contrast, was an enigma even to herself. She succumbed to some nameless confusion while dancing with Ilya and left him standing on the dance floor. “My God!” he groaned. “My own niece, and she won’t even dance with me!”
Marina played a trick on Alik. Because she wanted to flirt with the men at her wedding, she told him it was the Russian custom for the bride to dance with everyone. It was her last chance, after all. One by one the men politely asked Alik for permission. He very affably smiled and nodded his assent. Marina danced with all of them, while Alik spent most of his wedding party standing by himself in a corner.
Feeling pity for her new nephew, the kind-hearted Valya took him in hand and taught him how to waltz. The wedding guests then raised a chorus for Alik to dance with his bride. With his cheeks pink and his eyes glowing, he did a few turns with Marina as if he had been waltzing all his life.
When the guests asked him to sing an American song, Alik obliged with a Russian song instead, the popular “Moscow Evenings,” of which he had memorized every verse. Then he and his friends Erich and Pavel sang a trio, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Finally he sang his favorite, an Armenian drinking song with Russian words: