Boris Fishman - A Replacement Life

“Don’t worry, it’ll be under your name.”

“I’m not worried.”

“You should be,” Slava said. “We’re committing fraud. International fraud, apparently. I know that means nothing to any of you.”

“We are always behind you, Gogol,” Israel said. He clapped Slava’s arm. “Have a safe trip.”

As Slava walked out, he wondered how Israel had meant it. Behind Slava in defense or behind Slava, hiding.

On his way to the subway, Slava found himself looking around casually — was anyone interested in his progress? The day’s last light was leaking away, so it was hard to tell. The street crawled with the usual suspects, grandmothers with mesh bags, a bowlegged Mexican, a cop chewing gum, everyone moving, no one stopping because he stopped. Slava felt resentful relief.

On the train home, Slava went over the details of their conversation — visions of swinging pricks, quadriplegics, Kharkov, and shrapnel sieved through his mind, refusing to snag on some brain branch and bloom — but all of it was either irrelevant or too broad for a claim letter. What had happened to Grandmother after the close call with the Germans? More forest wandering? No, that wasn’t the right direction. Overly similar narratives — Slava was sure that was a red flag.

It had been bothering him since that first night. He hadn’t gotten Grandmother right in Grandfather’s story. Israel was right that improvements could be made, but he was wrong about which. In Grandfather’s letter, Slava had described Grandmother’s actions, but he hadn’t described her . What was she like? He couldn’t find out through a scene before or after the war, because that wouldn’t qualify. And it was hard enough to conjure her as a fifteen-year-old waif without having to disguise her as a boy.

He had three stations before he would go underground. He sighed and dialed Grandfather.

“Hi,” Slava said cautiously.

“Hi yourself,” Grandfather said.

“News?” Slava said.

“The new bed’s here,” he said. “It’s nice. Smaller but nice. Japanese wood. First they brought a twin, but that’s the width of a hospital bed. I’m not sleeping in a hospital bed. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I can’t live here anymore. How can I live here if I lived here with your grandmother?”

Grandfather had forgotten their argument long ago. He didn’t hold grudges. They were impractical.

“How do you feel,” Slava said, stalling.

“Like a racehorse. You?”

“Spoken to Mom?”

“More often than you,” Grandfather said. “She’s been here every night.”

“Do you need anything?”

“I need it to be 1975,” he said. “Your grandmother and me on the beach in Yevpatoriya. Do you know how difficult it was to get a vacation voucher for husband and wife at the same time? Most people had to take vacations one by one. And the authorities were always wondering why the country had such a problem with adultery. Degenerates. Do you remember when we took you there, you thought it was water in the cup but it was vodka, and you fell asleep under the table on the beach?”

“Can you tell me something else about Grandmother?” Slava said. “Something about the ghetto?”

“I told you everything I know.”

“Try to remember something else. I need it.”

“What for?”

“I just need it.”

Grandfather took a moment to ponder this. “She didn’t like to talk about it,” he said at last.

“I know, you said that. But surely she said something else. How can you live with someone for fifty years and not know!”

“So now you will educate me on how to live with a woman. Why don’t you wipe the snot from your nose first.”

“I’m about to go into the tunnel.”

“Good for you.”

“The phone doesn’t work in the tunnel.”

“There were pogroms,” Grandfather said. “In the ghetto. Thinning the herd, they called it.”

“And?”

“That’s all there is!”

“All right,” Slava said.

“Call more often,” he said. “Remember your grandfather.”

SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2006

She slept without any clothes. In the morning, Slava liked to finger the grooves left in her face by the pillow. She twitched so he would leave her alone. He waited and then started again. The cat collaborated by climbing on her head. Its name was Tux, but Arianna always called it the Beast. It didn’t look very beastly, just black and white spots that shifted together with its bulk when it moved. Occasionally, Slava and the cat would stare off across Arianna’s sleeping body, taking the other’s measure.

Finally, she opened her eyes. “You know, if you stopped, he’d stop,” she said.

“We can’t stop,” Slava said. “We’re animals about you.”

She laughed. “If you’re so fond of me, let me sleep.”

“You’re hot as a furnace inside that blanket. You could power a factory.”

“So that’s why you sleep so far away,” she said. She threw off the blanket and jumped on top of Slava. The cat resentfully gave up its position. The weight of Arianna felt solid and reassuring.

“It’s Saturday?” he said.

“I hope you’re right, or I’m late for work,” she said.

“So you don’t — Shabbat?”

“To synagogue? Not every Saturday, no. Some Saturdays. My mother’s problem. I pick and choose.”

“Why aren’t you going today?” he said.

“Because I’m happy right here.”

Slava looked up at the ceiling. “Who are you?” he said.

“I know,” she laughed.

“Where did you come from?” he said.

“Los Angeles,” she said. “City out west.”

“What did you think when you got off the plane that first time?”

“Well, I’d been here before.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I thought: Here is a place where everything will be different tomorrow.”

“I think that’s why I dislike it,” Slava said.

“You don’t know anything except your neighborhood,” she said.

“That’s why I don’t,” he said.

“Something tells me that’s not why.”

“Let’s talk about you,” he said.

“It was lonely,” she said. “For some reason, I couldn’t talk to anyone in school. Sometimes you feel things very strongly and you need to follow it even if you don’t know why you feel that way. And I didn’t want to talk to anyone. It’s like all this was my secret and I didn’t want to share it with anyone.”

“You sat on the windowsill and smoked cigarettes.”

“Yeah. But then it stopped one day. I got tired of cigarettes. I really wanted to be healthy. The day I had that thought for the first time, I went to a yoga class. When I was finished, I went to another one. And when that one ended—”

“You did a third.”

“I went to half of a third. In the middle, I was done. I got up and walked out.”

“You’re enlightened.”

“Hardly. I just stopped wanting to dig around.” Her dead fingertip indicated the spot between her eyebrows. “I’ll come back to it. There are things I don’t have, and that’s all right. There are things I want that my mother also wants for me, and that’s all right, too. Do you know what I want?”

“Tell me.”

“For you to make breakfast.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“ Pourquoi ?” she said, drawing back. “I thought we’d have the day.”

“We’ve had the week? I have an errand.”

“What do you have to do at ten A.M. on a Saturday morning?”

“Just something,” he said, looking away. “Some of us work on the weekend.”

“Don’t, Slava,” she said, and rolled off. They lay without speaking as she checked her phone. The crown molding near the ceiling was beginning to peel in one corner.