Yelena Akhtiorskaya - Panic in a Suitcase

Renata paused, her gaze caught by someone behind Frida. She lowered her lashes, melted into a demure smile. Frida was left alone, sitting in a warm seat over someone’s half-chewed shashlik and lipstick-rimmed wineglass, trapped in a hot, airless rage. Why would Renata just assume that Frida hadn’t dabbled in her uncle’s canon? And how come her parents never told her that Pasha wrote a book about their family? Why hadn’t they given the book to her or asked if she was interested in taking a look at his others? Did they consider her devoid of curiosity? Admittedly, she’d never inquired. When a poem was mentioned or news came of another collection to be published, Frida was seized by an urge to plug her ears and vacate the room. She preferred to be kept in a state of ignorance. Her body resisted the information. In fact, she knew exactly where Pasha’s books were: slumped against each other on the top shelf in the corridor of their apartment. At any time, with any passing whim, she could’ve taken one down. Instead she’d been collecting excuses and justifications in order to support the theory that she was being willfully excluded from his readership. She had it all — the hurt feelings, the accusations — but there was no one to tell it to. Pasha certainly didn’t care whether his American niece had taken the time to read a single one of his collections. His blatant indifference made any theory of willful exclusion laughable. She could’ve read the poems but hadn’t. The willfulness was entirely on her end. Her surface apathy hid a deeper ambivalence, eschewal, restraint. Dig through those layers and reach a bedrock animosity. Frida felt only more confirmed in that stance. Why make an effort when there was no chance of its being reciprocated? But was she really looking for reciprocation from Pasha? No, she wanted it from her family. The rules that were writ in stone for her didn’t apply to Pasha — he didn’t reside within a block radius of the family headquarters, didn’t consult on every minor decision, didn’t put in the mandatory quality time, either of bonding or household labor, wasn’t a doctor, wasn’t even a Jew! And yet he got away with it. Not only that, he reigned supreme. They consulted him. He’d won. Was this fair? How could Frida not be resentful? Although the fact of the matter was that those rules from which he was not exempt must’ve once applied — he’d just had the resolve to struggle against them. I should read the poems, thought Frida.

Efim was still twirling the saltshaker.

This is only the beginning, he said sadly. It’s a steady degradation from here on in. Most of these guys won’t be sober again until they return home three weeks from now. Then they’ll start chronicling in extensive detail their experiences on LiveJournal, finding they all remember things a bit differently. They’ll launch internet battles, terrorize with comments, go on unfriending sprees.

You don’t sound like a poet, said Frida.

I’m a computer programmer, he said.

She refrained from asking the obvious question, soon answered when a bullfighting aficionado slapped Efim on the back and said, Hello, good man, I’m glad to see some things never change — your wife is still the life of the party.

I’m surprised Pasha’s not going to this Bulgarian carnival, Frida said to change the subject, as that comment had visibly diminished Efim’s spirits.

It’s Georgian, and what do you mean he’s not going?

We leave Monday, said tipsy Sveta, trying charmingly to pull together and not sound tipsy in the least. Did Pasha not tell you? He must’ve forgotten to mention it.

What about the wedding?

As it stands as of the present moment, we fly in the morning after the wedding, but not to worry, I’m about to fix that. It’s all my fault. Pasha’s lousy with dates. I should’ve known not to trust him with tickets.

But — said Frida.

No, said Sveta.

Then maybe while you’re away, I’ll stay at the dacha.

The dacha’s gone, said Pasha, evidently tuned in to the conversation. It’s gone. Finis. Poof. Please pass that along.

PASHA HADN’T BEEN INVITED to participate in the Odessa Conference of Literature. Not only did they not ask him to give a reading, instead scraping the bottom of the barrel for the few local poets not yet too far gone along the path of drunken incoherence or drunken vulgarity and incoherence or, the most terrible of all, of sober attempts at meaningful and/or innovative poetry, but they — the organizers, whom Pasha didn’t mention, perhaps deeming it too obvious, were those very bottom-of-the-barrel poets themselves — didn’t even invite him to take part in any of the marginal events, the festival fluff, which was how Pasha knew, though of course he would’ve known regardless, that he was being subjected to purposeful banishment. To put it simply: blacklisted.

From the acute pang and magnitude of hurt accompanying his exclusion, it would seem that this hadn’t happened last year. Because Pasha didn’t hold grudges, the wounds inflicted on him were always unforeseen. Scar tissue never formed. And he’d used the year to convince himself that it’d been a genuine blunder on some novice organizer’s part. Worse errors were known to occur in Ukraine. Someone could’ve easily forgotten to enter his name into the schedule just because he was too obvious a candidate for every single slot. The human brain had a funny way. A more probable explanation, he knew, was that they’d been teaching him a lesson. In that case the volumes of Google-able backlash from nonlocals should’ve taught a lesson in reverse.

At the conference he had spies. He didn’t have to ask — they volunteered their reports. His name circulated at public panels and during interviews, but most frequently in the gossip realm he so opposed. The volunteer spies had a great deal to disclose and did so with relish. Pasha was grateful. Motives weren’t questioned. He developed an addiction to their scoops, collecting evidence of victimhood. These purported friends were like drug dealers providing a steady supply of slanderous material. Pasha didn’t differentiate — a trivial scrap of spiteful blather from a notorious drunkard affected him no less than a six-thousand-word, vitriol-spewing, undigested work of so-called scholarship by a prominent critic in a widely read journal.

Pasha sulked around the house, not amused by Frida’s equally sulky accompaniment. She treated the moping of others as a challenge — could she mope to match? Several worries were on her mind: that it was already Saturday yet she was no closer to whatever miraculous intervention on the part of fate she’d been hoping for, that tomorrow she’d be faced with the decision of whether to accompany Pasha and Sveta to church or remain loyal to her condescending attitude toward all religious observance, that the day after tomorrow Pasha and Sveta were set to depart for their festival, and that Sanya hadn’t made the effort to see her on any of these days.

To escape the gloom, Pasha went to make the rounds of the corner marts, groceries, and shops on a fruitless search for a particular brand of Georgian mineral water, which he claimed was the only tonic for the gastric tumult that caused him to visit the bathroom as often as he checked his email for updates.

Can he possibly be this naïve? Frida asked once he’d gone, seizing the opportunity to reason with Sveta, who sat Indian style in her nightie on the living room floor, working on a watercolor. I mean, Frida clarified, he’s not an idiot. Doesn’t he realize they’ll keep doing this to him as long as he refuses to build defenses or change his ways? He makes it fun for them! Why won’t he just tell them to go fuck themselves? They’re nobodies! Instead he acts all wounded and helpless. How can he still be surprised by this bullshit? More important, how can he still bear to live in this city? If it’s so miserable, why won’t he budge?