“That wouldn’t help.” Sveta laughed. “Nostalgia goes down better with vodka.”
Masha waited for Sveta to tell her what would help. She considered raising the question of “family reunification.” The term seemed absurdly grandiose and brought to mind exhausted soldiers in bloodstained fatigues rushing off the trains into the arms of their mothers, wives, and daughters. Masha yearned for a simpler kind of daily reunion: to cook a good breakfast for her girls in the morning, to bring Sveta tea with raspberry jam and a blanket when she studied, to braid Katya’s wispy hair and sprinkle it with bright barrettes. To be privy to all their moods, good and bad.
It would take Sveta another three years to become a citizen, and only then would she be eligible to apply for the reunification. By then Masha would be truly old and sick, a burden. And what if Sveta failed to reestablish her medical career? Brian didn’t seem to want Masha in the house any longer than necessary. He treated her with measured, ceremonial complaisance.
“Svetochka, remember how one winter when you were seven, you took off your boots outside when I wasn’t looking and jumped barefoot in icy puddles? You wanted to catch a cold so that we could stay home together and watch figure skating.”
Sveta smiled. She seemed relieved to change the topic.
“Instead you caught pneumonia, and we ended up at the hospital. Only one TV, in that horribly drafty common room, and of course we never watched it. Instead we read your favorite fairy tales and made up our own.”
“I remember.” Sveta picked up the syringe and rolled it between her fingers.
“You know, once, back in the early eighties, the gossip reached us at the Aviation Administration about a young engineer at the airport who had injected milk into his veins to trigger high fever. He wanted to stir up pity in the girl who had left him for another guy at the March eighth dance. He spent a week in bed, hoping she’d come back.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Anyway, that can’t be right, Mama.” Sveta sat up straighter. “A milk injection into the vein could cause an embolism or sepsis. Blood poisoning. It’s much more serious than spending a week in bed. He’d need antibiotics, intravenous fluids, possibly a transfusion or dialysis. Could be fatal. Are you sure that’s what your lovesick engineer did?”
Sveta was so smart and lively, talking like this, even more beautiful than before. “You don’t think Brian’s obsession with Russian things is bizarre?” Masha said.
The look in Sveta’s eyes was both harsh and amused, as if she’d been waiting for Masha to say something yet was disappointed that she finally had. Masha thought Sveta would go on about America, how everything was a business deal here, and how what Masha now felt was buyer’s remorse.
“If he collected stamps or first editions, that would be fine. But historical artifacts — that’s somehow strange. Why?” Sveta said, putting the bandages and the syringe back into the medic bag. “He’s a history teacher, for God’s sake. And he loves our history the most.”
Later that night Masha came up with the idea of singing a song called “Kruchina” at the party in honor of Sveta and Katya receiving their green cards.
* * *
The green card party was held two days before Masha’s scheduled flight back home. She and Sveta stayed up well past midnight the night before, making the dumplings and cutting up piles of ingredients for three different kinds of salads: Olivier, herring and potato, and cucumber. They got up at seven to make stuffed cabbage and a giant pot of borsch. Then Masha put the finishing touches on the eight-tiered cake Napoleon, Sveta’s favorite, and placed two bottles of champagne into the fridge to chill, worrying that just two wouldn’t be enough.
While Masha and Sveta cooked, Brian, who had been beaming like a birthday boy since morning, recruited Katya and Brittny for the cleaning detail. Katya refused at first, citing again the impending math decathlon. But when she saw Brittny grudgingly twist her T-shirt into a knot above her belly button, crank up the radio, and attack the carpet with a vacuum, Katya tied up her T-shirt, too, and dusted, shaking her tiny backside in time with the beat.
By five o’clock the table was set, the house decorated with red, white, and blue, and each member of the family was dressed as if for completely different occasions. Brian wore his work outfit — khaki pants and a navy corduroy shirt, clandestinely pressed by Sveta the night before. He had pomaded and combed back his hair. He looked trustworthy.
Sveta had plaited her hair into a thick braid and put on makeup for the first time since Masha’s arrival. She wore jeans, a sweater, and a black Russian shawl with bright traditional designs. The girls, too, wore jeans and turtleneck sweaters.
Masha discovered just how overdressed she was when she came upstairs from the basement, where they had set up her bed. She was in her staple party outfit — an old maroon velvet suit and a silk yellow blouse with a bow tie. Now, with her heavy makeup and a low bun of hennaed hair, she felt like a matron about to receive some Soviet medal she didn’t deserve.
By six o’clock Brian’s friends arrived with giant bags of chips, tubs of dip, trays of carrots, beer, wine, and a bucket of fried chicken, the smell of which quickly permeated the entire house.
Lizochka, Sveta’s housecleaning partner, brought two bottles of vodka. Her high-busted peasant girl’s body was stuffed into a floor-length green dress and accessorized with three strands of faux pearls and a gold Orthodox cross. The American guests blended into one androgynous crowd of khakis and sweaters. Masha forgot their names soon after the introductions.
The guests took to the Russian food first, asking Sveta questions and pointing into the bowls. Masha couldn’t pick out a single English word she knew. She was unhappy with the results of her cooking: with American ingredients, all the dishes came out either too bland or too salty or too sweet. She poured herself a glass of vodka while Sveta wasn’t looking. It was bad for her blood pressure.
Miladze, a Georgian-Russian singer whose one CD Brian proudly owned, wailed sad songs about lost love in his breaking falsetto. Brian sat next to Sveta, monitoring her every move and fingering the fringe of her Russian shawl. She pulled up his sleeve seconds before he was about to drag it through a glop of sour cream that was melting into the scarlet borsch, and went right on translating the questions about the Soviet Union and the Cold War some of Brian’s friends had for Masha. They peered at Masha as though searching for signs of something alien and tragic. She smiled politely and answered for a while, then took her vodka glass to the armchair by the window.
Soon, the guests tired of the Russian food and moved on to the fried chicken. From time to time the men stole glances at the muted American football game on TV. Masha noticed Brittny sneaking some vodka into her apple juice. Katya pecked at her food, then attempted a wiggly dance to Miladze, but after an eye roll from Brittny, she quit and went to sit on her mother’s lap.
The house was hotter than ever. Blood pumped in and out of Masha’s head. All the noise had congealed into a thick mass of linguistic DNA, and she couldn’t catch a word in either English or Russian. She sat isolated by incomprehension, a fish in a tank.
People were grouped in threes or fours now, their mouths in constant motion: chewing, swallowing, talking. The expressions were strained, thinking hard about what to say next. A few times Masha noticed a yawn, stifled hastily by a doughy hand. It was nothing like the parties they used to have in Russia, when everyone sang songs and fell asleep on the floor. What had they talked about back then? What had they laughed about? She couldn’t remember, but she was angry at these people. They’d come out of obligation, and now not only did they take up priceless time she could be spending with Sveta and Katya, they also got the wrong idea about Russian cuisine.