Yelena Akhtiorskaya - Panic in a Suitcase

Frida’s face contorted as she ventured to ask, How come he never came here ?

He did, twice — you know that!

It wasn’t easy to stir cement. No, she said, what I mean is — why didn’t he come for real?

Oh, that . It wasn’t even something we considered, not in any serious way.

Now who’s changing their tune? Baba Esther didn’t want her son nearby?

You can’t want something from the grave. Pasha did get his visa once upon a time, but there was no longer anyone to nag and yell. The visa went to waste.

And — that’s it? That’s all there is to it?

There was this, there was that, and the other.

The other?

Sveta.

Frida blinked. How do you mean?

Marina answered helplessly, He wasn’t about to leave without her.

Why couldn’t they come together? said Frida, in that exuberant way of people with sudden strokes of genius. Her mother’s gaze was withering. Oh, said Frida slowly, he was still with—

Lay off, Frida! How many times?

Frida raised her palms, signaling that she had no difficulty laying off, in fact she didn’t much care one way or the other, was just making conversation. In heated moments eyes also needed a breather, and in such cramped surroundings this was accomplished by staring with great longing at the foggy windowpane. On the windowsill, lined in cattle-car fashion, were all of Frida’s stuffed toys, eye buttons missing, ears torn, fur flat and faded. Here’s an idea, said Frida much to her own surprise, how about I just go?

The option struck her mother as highly comical.

Am I missing the joke? said Frida.

Well, it’s a little preposterous, you must admit. After all these years, the one to go back is you . You barely have any connection to the place.

And here I thought it’s where I was from!

Seeing the look of pained defiance on her daughter’s face, Marina bit her lip but proved unable to stop herself. Do you even remember anything? she said.

I’ll make more memories now, said Frida.

You better get a move on it, then.

Are you trying to scare me?

I don’t have energy to do anything of the kind. All I’m saying is, Don’t make me regret telling you about this. Your father will say all this foolishness is my fault and he’ll be right. Besides, you can’t go. You have school.

Classes start the week after.

Marina glanced at her watch. Oh, my God. We had to be there half an hour ago at the latest. Levik, she yelled, up!

They were off to Irina Tabak’s fiftieth-birthday extravaganza at the overpriced Mediterranean restaurant on the bay, or was that next week? Tonight was the Brukhmans’ anniversary at an opera restaurant in midtown, only first they had to stop by Lera’s to drop off a present for her son whose party they’d missed last week because of Vova’s backyard fete. They could forget about that! Mascara crumbs were permanently sprinkled under Marina’s large, tired eyes. She woke up with a fancy earring tangled in her spray-hardened hair and the necklace Levik had gotten her turned around, the pendant stuck to her perimenopausally damp back. She had more dresses than T-shirts, more gowns than slacks, more absurd open-toed heels and only one pair of brown loafers, the rubber soles superglued. The funny thing was that Marina was enjoying none of it — backyard fetes were tiring, nightclub parties pathetic, no one dancing or letting loose like in the old days, endless dinners at whole-fish-on-a-plate restaurants were taxing on the digestion, and the conversations didn’t help the chunks of eel — always so much eel — go down. Momentum kept the gears spinning. Everything had to be celebrated: their birthdays, their parents’ birthdays, their grown-up children’s birthdays, and now their grandchildren’s birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, departures and arrivals, holidays both Russian and American, both Jewish and American. This took care of most weekends, but if one rolled around occasionless, it would be spared such a dire fate by anyone with an aboveground pool or leftovers.

• • •

LEVIK WAS NO LONGER in any mood for a party. He stared straight ahead into the infinity of segmented boredom that was Ocean Parkway. When the light turned yellow, he didn’t sail past but slammed down on the brakes, solely to spite Marina.

You weren’t in the mood long before you overheard a thing, she said, so don’t you even try.

Whether he’d been in the mood before was irrelevant. He’d certainly been more in the mood, but to address this point would be to fall for an ingeniously, if too commonly, laid trap. His jaw clenched so tight his ear canals ached, as he persistently drove and stopped, drove and stopped, while the cars in the other lanes drove and drove and drove.

Marina felt as if she would catch fire at any second. What was I supposed to do? Not show her the message?

Bingo!

She bit her lip. Having moved two blocks in ten minutes, she was growing attached to the people on the benches, the young couples, the geezers, and if given a sack of pebbles, she knew just which heads to fling them at first.

He’s her cousin! Anyway, you’re taking it far too seriously.

Tell me one thing, said Levik, just one. What did you think her reaction would be? What did you want to happen? Did you expect her to just let it go? Were you even thinking? And how—

You know how she is. By next week it’ll be ancient history.

A Hasidic family crossed the street in front of them, four men in tall white socks and sleek black coats, followed by two women of venerable bosom, then three girls pushing baby carriages, bony legs scissoring, and finally a wild tail of children, which, like all tails, relayed the secret message of the beast. The light turned green.

I am in no mood, said Levik.

Why are we in the car, then? You had to wait until Avenue N to tell me?

Only at Avenue H did Levik deign to speak. With utter serenity he explained that he was dropping her off at the restaurant. She could get a ride back with the Plyazhskys, and if they wanted to leave before she was ready to wrap up, Vitalik surely wouldn’t mind giving her a lift. She shouldn’t worry; he wouldn’t be waiting up.

Once again with the Vitalik! Would it never end? Miron, just for example, was far more touchy-feely, yet never a word about him.

Miron’s that way with all the girls. Vitalik just with you.

Oh, please. Are you kidding? What are we talking about here? I’m an old lady! Marina flipped down the mirror and began contorting her neck, able to appraise herself only from the oddest of angles. Look, she said, wrinkles, brown spots, splotches… But I do have nice lips.

In no mood, repeated Levik.

Where are we going, then? For a little ride?

I’m dropping you off at the restaurant.

Not a chance. If I were you, I’d turn the car around right this second. Your job here is done, my dear.

Levik appeared to suffer a small seizure, then regained control. They kept driving in the direction of the skyscrapers and lights. The highway opened out underneath them, smoothing away the last hour of staccato torture. Soon they were rubbing shoulders with the Hudson, so behaved and placid on the surface, obviously full of its own thoughts in the depths. The great thing about the skyline was that you could say it was beautiful in ideal visibility, everything so strict, intimidating, and contrasted, and you could say it was just as beautiful in fog, such as lay over the city right then, with the Chrysler Building creating eerie patterns of smudged light. If Marina were for some reason forbidden to comment on the view from that one spot on the highway, below the overpass, about four minutes at sixty-seven miles per hour from the Brooklyn Bridge, she almost certainly would’ve either had to leave the city or go insane. Even now, when they rode past, Marina muttered in amazement. And Levik, by reflex, glanced to the left at the glowing island of Manhattan.