David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

— Now, Berman, he said, now maybe you understand what it is to be a Jew.

WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN I was high most of the time. That year my parents bought a new house at the edge of Toronto’s sprawl. A few miles north were cows; south the city. I spent most of my time in basements. The suburbs offered nothing and so I lived a subterranean life. At home, separated from my parents by door and stairs, I smoked hash, watched television, read, and masturbated. In other basements I smoked, watched television, and refined my style with girls.

In the spring, my uncle Fima, my grandmother’s youngest brother, married his second wife. She arrived from Moscow for two weeks to get acquainted with him and the rest of the family. Dusa, our dentist, had known the woman in Russia and recommended her. She was almost forty and my uncle was forty-four. The woman was the latest in a string of last chances. A previous last chance had led to his first marriage. That marriage, to a fellow Russian immigrant, had failed within six months. My uncle was a good man, a hard worker, and a polymath. He read books, newspapers, and travel brochures. He could speak with equal authority about the Crimean War and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Short months after arriving in Toronto he took a job giving tours of the city to visiting Russians. But he wasn’t rich and never would be. He was also honest to a fault and nervous with people. My grandmother’s greatest fear was that he would always be alone in the world.

Zina, the woman, had greasy brown hair cut in a mannish style. She was thin, her body almost without contour. The first time I saw her was when my uncle brought her to our house for dinner. She wore tight blue pants, high heels, and a yellow silk blouse which accentuated her conspicuously long nipples. The top buttons of her blouse were undone and a thin gold chain with a Star of David clung to her breastbone. When she kissed me in greeting she smelled of sweat and lilac.

Zina strode into our house as if she were on familiar territory, and her confidence had the effect of making my uncle act as though he were the stranger. He stumbled through the introductions and almost knocked over his chair. He faltered as he tried to explain how they had spent the day and Zina chided him and finished his sentences. When my mother served the raspberry torte, Zina fed my uncle from her fork. In Russia she was a “teacher of English” and she sprinkled her conversation with English words and phrases. The soup my mother served was “tasty,” our dining room “divine,” and my father “charming.” After dinner, in the living room, she placed her hand on my uncle’s knee. I was, as usual, high, and I became fixated on the hand. It rested on my uncle’s knee like a small pale animal. Sometimes it would arch or rise completely to make a point, always to settle back on the knee. Under her hand, my uncle’s knee barely moved.

After her two weeks in Canada, Zina returned to Moscow. Before she left, my mother and aunt took her shopping and bought her a new wardrobe. They believed that Zina would be good for my uncle. The last thing he needed was a timid wife. Maybe she was a little aggressive, but to make it in this country you couldn’t apologize at every step like him. My grandmother was anxious because Zina had a young daughter in Moscow, but she conceded that at this age to find a woman without a child probably meant there was something wrong with her. My uncle did not disagree. There were positives and negatives, he said.

The decision was made quickly and days after Zina’s departure my uncle wrote her a letter inviting her to return and become his wife. One month later, Zina was back in Toronto. This time, my entire family went to the airport to greet her. We stood at the gate and waited as a stream of Russian faces filtered by. Near the end of the stream, Zina appeared. She was wearing an outfit my mother had purchased for her. She carried a heavy suitcase. When she saw my uncle she dropped the suitcase and ran to him and kissed him on his cheeks and on his mouth. A thin blond girl, also carrying a suitcase, picked up Zina’s abandoned bag and dragged both suitcases through the gate. The girl had large blue eyes and her straight blond hair was cut into bangs. She strained toward us with the bags and stopped behind Zina. She waited patiently, her face without expression, for her mother to introduce her. Her name was Natasha. She was fourteen. My mother said, Meet your new cousin. Later, as we drove my grandparents home, my grandmother despaired that the girl’s father was obviously a shaygets.

One week after their arrival, everyone went down to North York City Hall for the civil ceremony. A retired judge administered the vows and we took photos in the atrium. There was no rabbi, no chuppah, no stomping of the glass. Afterward, we all went to our house for a barbecue. One after another people made toasts. My uncle and Zina sat at the head of the table like a real married couple. For a wedding gift they were given money to help them rent a larger apartment. My uncle’s one-bedroom would not do. This wasn’t Russia and the girl couldn’t continue to sleep in the living room. The one time my grandparents had gone to visit, Natasha emerged from the shower naked and, without so much as acknowledging their presence, went into the kitchen for an apple. While my grandparents tried to listen to my uncle and Zina talk about Zina’s plans to get her teaching certificate, Natasha stood in the kitchen and ate the apple.

At the barbecue, my mother seated Natasha between me and my cousin, Jana. It was our duty to make her feel welcome. She was new to the country, she had no friends, she spoke no English, she was now family. Jana, almost two years my senior, had no interest in a fourteen-year-old girl. Especially one who dressed like a Polish hooker, didn’t speak English, and wasn’t saying anything in Russian either. Midway through the barbecue, a car full of girls came for Jana and Natasha became my responsibility. My mother encouraged me to show her around the house.

Without enthusiasm I led Natasha around the house. Without enthusiasm she followed. For lack of anything else to say, I would enter a room and announce its name in Russian. We entered the kitchen and I said kitchen, my parents’ bedroom and I said bedroom, the living room, which I called the room where we watch television since I had no idea what it was called in Russian. Then I walked her down into the basement. Through the blinds we could see the backyard and the legs of our newly incarnated family. I said, That’s it, the whole house. Natasha looked around the room and then shut the blinds, rendering the already dim basement almost dark. She dropped down into one of the two velour beanbag chairs I had in front of the television. Chairs that I had been earnestly and consistently humping since the age of twelve.

— You have all of this to yourself?

— Yes.

— It must be nice.

— It is.

— What do you do here?

— Watch television, read.

— That’s it?

— That’s most of it.

— Do you bring girls here?

— Not really.

— Have you had sex down here?

— What?

— You don’t have to say if you don’t want to. I don’t really care. It doesn’t mean anything.

— You’re fourteen.

— So what? That doesn’t mean anything either. I’ve done it a hundred times. If you want, I’ll do it with you.

— We’re cousins.

— No we’re not.

— Your mother married my uncle.

— It’s too bad. He’s nice.

— He is.

— I feel sorry for him. She’ll ruin his life.

— It’s hard to imagine his life getting worse.