“This is not right,” she said, and then to her mother: “You know this is not right. You do not do this to a daughter. You don’t know how hard it has been for me. I am entitled to something.”
“Perhaps,” Galina began, looking at Rostnikov. “We could get a small apartment. You, me, and the girls, Maryushka. I could get you a job at the bakery. We could …”
Miriana laughed. She wept and she laughed.
“You, me, and two little girls in a room? Me working in a bakery? Have you no ears, Mother? Have you no eyes? Can’t you see what is real?”
Rostnikov considered speaking but decided to let the scene play out.
“You are my daughter,” Galina said.
“No,” Miriana said. “I am a woman you gave birth to thirty-six years ago. And then we became strangers. My father must have been very smart. I must have gotten everything from him. I see nothing of me in you.”
“I see nothing of you in my grandchildren,” Galina said softly.
“Mother, I live in pain,” Miriana said. “Can you understand that? In pain?”
“We all live in pain,” Galina said, stepping toward her daughter. “We are blessed if we have someone to share the pain and the small good things.”
The younger woman fell into her mother’s arms. Galina wrapped her big hands around her daughter and let her cry. Rostnikov watched silently. And then Miriana stepped back.
“I need money,” she said, wiping her red eyes with the sleeve of her dress.
“I have a little,” Galina said. “In the apartment.”
Rostnikov took out his wallet. There was not much in it except for two bills, one of which he handed to the weeping woman.
“That is all,” he said. “There will be no more.”
“You don’t understand,” Miriana said, taking the bills. “I have nothing. What little looks I have are almost gone. I …”
Rostnikov stood silently. Ivan and Dmitri emerged from the small rest room.
“He did not throw up,” the old man announced. “Not yet.”
“Thank you, Ivan,” said Rostnikov, handing the old man his last remaining bill. “I am sorry about …”
“Something to tell Kolya and Anasta when we get home tonight. Nothing is broken.”
Dmitri reached out to put his arm around Miriana. She shrugged it off and headed for the door. He was a step behind her, moving slowly, in obvious pain.
At the door, Miriana turned, looked at her mother, and said, “I’m sorry, Mother.”
With that, the man and woman left the café. Galina took a few steps toward the door. Rostnikov put out a hand, not touching her but making clear that he thought it best if she stopped.
“My only child,” Galina said, turning to him.
“I know,” said Rostnikov. “Come. Let’s bring the cake home to the girls and Sarah. You really should try a piece.”
“I work in a bakery,” Galina reminded him. “I am surrounded by cake.”
“Take advantage of the pleasures of cake and children together and don’t worry about the sun. We have millions of years.”
“I wasn’t worried about the sun,” Galina said.
Inna Dalipovna sliced the sausage while her father drank his soup and read a report. Though the knife was sharp the sausage was very difficult to cut, especially using only her left hand. Her right wrist would bear almost no pressure. She had taped it tightly, which helped, but not enough.
“What is wrong with you?” Viktor said, looking over the top of his glasses at her.
“I think I sprained my wrist,” she said.
He put down the report and exhaled at the annoyance of having to deal with the problem. “How?” he asked:
“I fell on the street.” She went on painfully slicing.
“Tomorrow go to the clinic,” he said. “If it is broken, they can fix it. If not, they can tape it better.”
“Yes,” she said, biting her lower lip to keep from wincing with the pain of holding down the sausage.
“I have broken more bones than you have fingers,” he said. “Take a few pain pills. Go to the clinic in the morning.”
“Yes,” she said, feeling the tears in the corners of her eyes as she finished the final slice. She put the plate next to his bowl. He went back to his report, tearing a thick slice of bread and dipping it into what remained of his soup.
Inna sat and ate carefully, letting her right hand rest in her lap.
“No television tonight,” he said. “I have to work. I need silence.”
Inna nodded. She wanted to know what was being said about the man on the subway platform, but she could wait. She could read a little. She might even take one of the pills she was supposed to take three times a day. It might help the pain though it wasn’t for pain. It was to keep her sedate and calm. She did not want to be sedate and calm.
“The bread,” he said. “You didn’t slice it. How can we make sandwiches if … oh, yes. Your wrist. I’ll slice it. Hand me the knife.”
“I’ll get the bread knife,” she said, starting to rise.
“That one will do,” he said, holding out his hand.
She could not give it to him. He could not have it. It was her instrument, something like a religious icon, something he could not touch.
“Well, give me the knife,” he said with irritation she well recognized. His daughter was a lunatic. Inna was slow. Inna was a chain around his neck. Inna was a servant.
She swept her hand toward the knife and sent it spinning off the table toward the refrigerator.
“Inna,” her father said in exasperation.
“I am sorry,” she said, rising quickly. “I will clean it.”
She reached for the knife and took two steps to put it in the sink. Then she opened the drawer and pulled out the brown-handled serrated bread knife. She kept it sharp. She kept them all sharp but none as sharp as the one she had placed in the sink. It would need special work in the morning when her father had left. It might have nicks from its flight across the room, a smudge on the handle. She didn’t see anything immediately.
“Here,” she said, handing him the bread knife.
“Why don’t you go to bed early?” he asked. “After you clean up and do the dishes.”
Inna knew it was more than a suggestion.
“Yes,” she said.
“Take a pain pill and your regular pills and go to sleep. I will work in here.”
“Yes.”
“Eat something,” Viktor said, picking up a handful of red sausage slices with a fork and depositing them on her plate.
He watched her pick up a piece of sausage with her fingers and put it to her mouth, taking a small bite.
“Use your fork,” he said.
She nodded and picked up the fork. He went back to his report.
“I am reading a book,” she said.
“Good.”
“It is about the metro system,” she said.
“Good,” he repeated, giving her a small false smile followed by a look that made it clear he wanted to hear no more about the metro and sore wrists.
It was always like this. Sometimes her father talked about business, the government, about a plan he had made to save or earn money for his company. She was expected to nod and be attentive. She was not expected to understand.
There were many good things about her father. He had never struck her. He had never punished her. He had provided her with food and a home and enough clothing. He had never shouted at Inna or called her names. He had simply made it clear that she was a burden to be tolerated and not listened to, if he could avoid doing so.
And that was, as she remembered, how he had treated her mother. Inna was just the continuation of her mother. She wondered how he might react if she told him what she had done and planned to continue doing. Would he scream, hit her, pull her hair? It might well be worth telling him if she thought he might really do something other than make a phone call, have her taken away, and go back to reading his reports.
Inna waited till she was sure her father was finished with his dinner and then, using only her left hand, she slowly cleared the table while he drank coffee and made notes.