David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

Fearing just this sort of thing, my father had held on to his job at the chocolate bar factory. It was driving him crazy, but what was the alternative? To move from this factory job to another was pointless, and reapplying for welfare was out of the question. It had taken my parents two years to get on their feet and they were not prepared to face the implications of regression. So my father resolved to work five days at the factory and go to the office on weekends. As soon as he felt secure enough at the office he would abandon the factory and focus all of his attention on the business. The discussion was ongoing. To quit or not to quit. But as the original patients started to disappear, my father began to despair of ever being able to get out of the factory. None of this information, none of these discussions, were concealed from me. It seemed as though my parents had no secrets. I was nine, and there were many things I did not tell them, but there was nothing they would not openly discuss in front of me, often even soliciting my opinion. They were strangers in the country, and they recognized that the place was less strange to me, even though I was only a boy.

With the business grinding down to a state of terminal inertia, my father took the advice of some friends and went to seek the help of a certain rabbi. Others had gone to him before: Felix when he needed a job, Oleg for a good deal on a used car, and Robik and Eda for someone to cosign a loan. The rabbi was supposed to be particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Russian Jews. To improve his chances, my father brought me along.

To make me presentable to the rabbi, my mother ironed a pair of pants and put me into a clean golf shirt. My father and I wore yarmulkes and walked hand in hand to the synagogue not far from his office. It was rare for me to have this sort of time with my father, as he was usually either working or agonizing about not working. As we walked, I filled the silence with the affairs of the third grade and my plans to make the Selects team in the summer soccer league. It was a warm Sunday in June. To most of the people on the street — men on their lawns, women with shopping bags, pensioners floating by in their Buicks — we must have made a fine image. Father and Son. Sunday stroll.

Seated across the table from the rabbi, my father wrestled language and dignity to express need. I sat quietly beside him, looking appropriately forlorn. I was sufficiently aware of our predicament to feel the various permutations of shame: shame for my father, shame for my shame, and even shame for the rabbi, who seemed to be a decent guy. He was younger than my father, and as if to compensate for his youth, he affected a posture of liturgical gravity.

My father told the rabbi about his qualifications. He told him about the years of training Olympic athletes to hoist almost inconceivable amounts of weight. He told him about working as a masseur in the best sanatoriums along the Baltic Sea. He told him about the months of study, his certificate from the Board of Directors of Masseurs, the chocolate bar factory, the one-room office, and the hard, hard work he was willing to do. He also told him about Hebrew school and what a good student I was. He encouraged the rabbi to speak to me to see how well I’d learned the language. Slightly uncomfortable, the rabbi engaged me in a conversation in rudimentary Hebrew.

— Do you like school?

— Yes, I like school.

— Do you like Canada?

— Yes, I like Canada.

My father, who could not follow the conversation, interrupted and told the rabbi that I could also sing Hebrew songs. The rabbi didn’t seem particularly interested, but my father encouraged me out of my chair.

In the middle of the rabbi’s office I stood and sang “Jerusalem of Gold.” Halfway through the song I noticed the rabbi’s attention flagging and I responded by trying to bring the song to a premature conclusion. The rabbi, visibly relieved, started to bring his hands together to create the first clap only to be reassured by my father that I was capable of singing more. To prove his point, my father poked me in the back, and I picked up the song where I’d happily abandoned it. The rabbi leaned forward, seemingly much more interested in my performance the second time around. When I was finally done, the rabbi gave me a five-dollar bill. For my father, he promised to spread the word about the business to his congregants. He also offered a word of advice: advertise.

Fifteen minutes after going in, we were back out on the street, hand in hand, and on our way home. For our trouble we had five dollars and the business card of a man who would print my father’s flyers at cost.

The following week my father, mother, and I gathered around the kitchen table to compose the ideal advertisement for Roman’s Therapeutic Massage. I was given the pen and assigned the responsibility of translating and transcribing my parents’ concept for the flyer. My father wanted a strong emphasis placed on his experience with Olympic athletes, as it would provide prestige and imply familiarity with the human anatomy at the highest level. My mother, on the other hand, believed that his strongest selling point was his status as a Soviet refugee. The most important appeal, she said, was to guilt and empathy. That would get them in the door. Once they were in the door, then my father could impress them with his skill. In the end they agreed on a combination of the two. For my part, I contributed a list of familiar advertising superlatives.

Best New Therapeutic Massage Office!

Roman Berman, Soviet Olympic coach and refugee from Communist regime, provides Quality Therapeutic Massage Service!

Many years of experience in Special European techniques!

For all joint and muscle pain. Car accidents, work accidents, pregnancy, and general good physical conditioning.

Registered Massage Therapist. Office in convenient location and also visits to your house.

Satisfaction Guaranteed!

After the box of flyers arrived, my father and I loaded it into the trunk of the Pontiac and targeted the houses near the office. I took one side of the street, and my father took the other. To counteract my embarrassment, I made it a race: I would be the first to finish. I ran from house to house stuffing the flyers into mailboxes or handing them to people without making eye contact. Every now and again I would look across the street to gauge my father’s progress. He was in no hurry. He wandered from house to house, going up the walkways, never stepping on the lawns. Whereas I tried to avoid people, my father lingered, passing deliberately in front of windows. Heeding my mother’s instructions, he tried to be particularly conspicuous in front of homes with mezuzahs on the doorposts, hoping to catch sight of someone, to engage them in conversation. Most people weren’t interested — except for one man who wanted to know how his own son could get a job delivering flyers.

With the flyers all gone, a new phase of waiting began. Now with every ring of the phone there was the potential for salvation. The phone existed like a new thing. From the moment we came home we were acutely conscious of it. It was either with us or against us. My father talked to it. As a sign of solidarity, I talked to it as well. When it was silent, my father would plead with it, curse it, threaten it. But when it rang, he would leap. He would come flying from the dinner table, the couch, the toilet. The phone would ring and he would leap. My mother would leap after him — her ear millimeters away from his exposed ear, listening, as if my father’s head was itself the telephone. She listened as friends called, other friends called, my aunt called and called. Everybody called to see whether anybody had called.