David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

By the time Dr. Kornblum called, an interminable week had passed. It was in the early afternoon and I was home alone. My mother would not be home for another hour, my father later still. When the phone rang I was already seated on the parquet floor in front of the television: I had a Hungarian salami sandwich on my lap as well as the plastic wrappers from a half dozen chocolate-covered prunes.

Kornblum told me I should call him Harvey. He was a doctor, he said, and he’d received my father’s flyer and wanted to meet him. In fact, he wanted to meet the whole family. How many of us were there — it didn’t matter. We were all invited to his house for Friday night dinner. I should tell my parents that he would not take no for an answer. Kornblum with a K. Blum as in rhymes with room. As in there’s plenty of room for everybody. Did I get all that? He gave me his phone number and told me to make sure my father gave him a call.

By the time my mother came home I was barely able to contain myself. I shared the good news and she overlooked the fact that I’d eaten the half dozen chocolate-covered prunes. I gave her the sheet of paper with Kornblum’s name and telephone number and she quickly started dialing. My aunt was certain she had heard of this Kornblum before. When Victor Guttman’s father slipped on the ice, wasn’t it a Kornblum that did the operation? That Kornblum was very nice. Also very rich. It could be the same one. My mother called others. Sophatchka was studying to pass her medical boards and was familiar with many doctors. Did she know Kornblum? Kornblum the family physician or Kornblum the orthopedic surgeon? Not that it made a difference, they were both very successful. If either one referred even a small fraction of his patients our troubles would be over.

After washing his hands and changing out of his work jeans, my father crossed the room toward the phone. Merely crossing the room, he assumed a professional demeanor. With utmost solemnity he dialed Kornblum’s number. My mother and I sat on the sofa and watched. She had already coached him on what to say. The goal was not to stray too far from the prepared script and to keep the phone call short and polite. God forbid he should say something wrong and upset Kornblum and then what would we do? My father dialed and all three of us waited as it rang. When someone answered, my father asked to speak with Dr. Kornblum. He waited again, apparently, for Kornblum to come to the phone. In the intervening silence my mother mouthed yet another reminder about how to behave. In response, my father turned his back on her and faced the wall. Moments passed before my father said that he was Roman Berman, massage therapist, and that he was returning Dr. Kornblum’s call. Then he said, “Yes, okay, Harvey.”

Before Stalin, my great-grandmother lit the candles and made an apple cake every Friday night. In my grandfather’s recollections of prewar Jewish Latvia, the candles and apple cakes feature prominently. When my mother was a girl, Stalin was already in charge, and although there was still apple cake, there were no more candles. By the time I was born, there were neither candles nor apple cake, though in my mother’s mind, apple cake still meant Jewish. With this in mind, she retrieved the apple cake recipe and went to the expensive supermarket for the ingredients. And that Friday afternoon, she pleaded illness and left work early, coming home to bake so that the apple cake would be fresh for the Kornblums.

My father also left work early and drove to my school to pick me up. When we arrived home the apartment was redolent with the scent of apple cake. My mother hustled my father and me into the shower together so as not to waste time. I hadn’t showered with my father in years and I didn’t know where to look. My father, however, seemed oblivious to both his and my nudity. He soaped me up, rinsed me off, and put me into a towel. I stood on the bath mat watching through the glazed shower door as he hurriedly soaped his bald head and washed under his armpits. When he stepped out he looked surprised to find me still standing there.

Kornblum’s turned out to be only a few streets away from my father’s office. The house was on the left side of the street, which meant I had delivered Kornblum’s flyer, but I didn’t remember it. My mother noted the size of the house. Maybe three thousand square feet with a big yard. Also, it was fully detached. This was two substantial steps beyond our means. Between our apartment and a fully detached house loomed the intermediate town house and the semidetached house. A fully detached house was the ultimate accomplishment. Nobody we knew had even moved up to town house, though recently there had been plans and speculations.

Three abreast, we went up Kornblum’s walk. My father was dressed in his blue Hungarian suit — veteran of international weightlifting competitions from Tallinn to Sochi. I had been put into a pair of gray trousers and a pressed white cotton shirt, with a silver Star of David on a silver chain not under but over the shirt. My mother wore a green wool dress that went nicely with her amber necklace, bracelet, and earrings. We were a sophisticated family — professional people with their straight-A-student son, future doctor or lawyer. With feigned confidence we strode up Kornblum’s nicely trimmed walk: three refugees and a warm apple cake.

My father rang the bell. We heard footsteps. Then a man in slacks and a yellow sweater opened the door. The sweater had a little green alligator emblem on it. This was Kornblum. He was smiling broadly. He put a hand on my father’s shoulder and told us who we must be. My father must be Roman, my mother must be Bella, and I must be little Mark. He ushered us into the house. We followed him through the foyer and into the living room, where a table had been set. Six people were already seated around the table; three of the people were smiling like Kornblum. One of the smiling people was a woman who bustled over to my mother. Kornblum said this was his wife, Rhonda. Rhonda told us how nice it was that we could make it and relieved my mother of the apple cake. She told my mother she shouldn’t have and took the apple cake into the kitchen.

Kornblum then introduced us to his good friends, the other two smiling people, Jerry Kogen and his wife, Shirley. Jerry and Shirley told us how wonderful it was to meet us. My mother said it was wonderful to meet them, too. My father nodded his head, smiled, and said thank you. He did this while glancing at the other three people at the table, the people who were not smiling like Kornblum, Rhonda, and their friends. A man, a woman, and a boy. Like us, they were overdressed.

As Rhonda returned from the kitchen, Kornblum started to introduce us to the other family. Genady and Freda and their son, Simon, from Kharkov, wasn’t that right? Genady said it was right. His English was a little better than my father’s, but he had more gold teeth. In English, my mother told them how nice it was to meet them. In English, Freda thanked my mother. We were seated opposite them, and Jerry announced that Freda was also a medical professional — in Russia she had been a dentist. He himself was an eye doctor. Going around the table, they had most of the body covered. Eyes, teeth, Harvey with the bones, and Roman taking care of the muscles. What did that leave? Kornblum laughed and said he could think of a thing or two. Jerry laughed and Rhonda laughed and told Kornblum that he was too much. Genady and Freda laughed more than they needed to and so did my parents — though maybe a little less. Then Rhonda said a prayer and lit the candles.

Over roast chicken Kornblum told my parents and Genady and Freda what an honor it was to have them at his house. He could only imagine what they had gone through. For years he and Rhonda had been involved with trying to help the Russian Jews. If it wasn’t too personal, he wanted to know how bad it really was. My mother said it was bad, that the anti-Semitism was very bad. Jerry said that Genady and Freda had been refuseniks, he wanted to know if we had also been refuseniks. My mother hesitated a moment and then admitted that we had not been refuseniks. She knew some refuseniks, and we were almost refuseniks, but we were not refuseniks. Everyone agreed that this was very good, and then Freda and Genady told their story of being refuseniks. Midway through the story, the part where they have been evicted from their apartment and have to share a room with three other families, Genady lifted up his shirt to show everyone the place where he had been stabbed by former coworkers. He had a large scar below his ribs. Walking down the street one night, he stumbled upon some drunken comrades from the factory. They called him a filthy Jew traitor and the foreman went after him with a knife.