Boris Fishman - A Replacement Life

Avi and Slava remained rooted in place, bovine. The heel disappeared and Arianna vaulted back into view.

“I have to go,” Avi said hoarsely and stalked off.

Slava tried to tamp down the system-wide expansion in his groin. “What was that about?” he said, a little hoarse himself.

“Avi the Jew thinks I’m a JAP. I don’t want to disabuse him.” Her eyes flashed insolently. He was learning the meaning of her expressions. This one meant: I don’t care, but I do. He felt a tweak of satisfaction at this penetration of her invincibility, then instantly felt guilty for it.

“Thanks for defending me,” she winked.

Slava stared, dumbfounded. It hadn’t occurred to him that she could require defending. She held her expression a moment, then laughed. She was joking.

Slava had spent Sunday translating his letter for Israel into Russian, so Israel could hear what Slava had written. “Well, you certainly don’t know how to speak Russian,” Israel said, “but it sounds like you might know what you’re doing with English. It’s beautiful. Who’s the girl?”

“Your sister,” Slava said. “So to speak.”

“I’m saying who is the real-life model.”

“No one,” Slava said. “My imagination.”

“She sounds fierce. Must be one of ours.”

“She’s not one of ours,” Slava said.

“So it is someone!” Israel laughed. “Got you. Oh, you snot-nose. I can barely walk the block, but I can still run circles around you.”

“There’s an American expression, Israel: ‘You get more by honey than vinegar.’ Try it sometime.”

“My God, you’re a stiff berry. I hope you find an American girl, Slava. It’s easier for you than it is for us, but it’s hopeless for you all the same. But less so for your children, especially if you go with an American girl. And then your grandchildren won’t even know where Minsk is, good riddance.”

Slava acknowledged the lecture.

“So, did you talk to your grandmother?” Israel said. “It was her: staring at Shulamit, gulping the milk.”

“In a way,” Slava said.

“Next time you see her, say hello from me. You tell her that before that hooligan Yevgeny Gelman got his claws into her, she had another admirer on Karastoyanova. I wish you to find a woman like her, Slava.”

“And what is that like?” Slava said.

“She wasn’t an easy person. She held grudges for decades. People she didn’t like? She minced no words. And she never did anything she didn’t want to. But her heart was big. I’ve never met a woman who loved that way, and I include in that assessment my dear departed Raisa. There wasn’t a false bone in your grandmother’s body. For better and worse.”

“That is the opposite of my grandfather,” Slava said. “What did they see in each other?”

“Marriage is a mystery,” Israel said. “In the end, logical explanation is impossible. Tolstoy was wrong: It’s the happy families that are happy in all different ways, and the unhappy families that are unhappy in the same depressing, predictable fashion. It’s a small miracle, every time, when two people can make one life.”

“So it’s out of your hands,” Slava said.

“No, no,” Israel said. “Quite the opposite. You have to work at it.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Slava said.

“I am almost dead,” Israel said, “and I still don’t understand.”

Throughout the day, Arianna a suddenly awkward presence on the other side of the divider, Slava glanced at the telephone, willing it to ring with Grandfather’s number. By now he would know that Slava had written a letter for Israel. So, call. When you didn’t want to hear from him, he found you, and when you did, he was mum.

Slava lifted the receiver, listened to the dial tone, returned it to the cradle. The phone looked like something Grandfather would appreciate: a spaceship console dressed up as a regular old touch-dial. Slava didn’t know what function most of its buttons performed. Conference, transfer, something called ABS. Was that the button for phone records? His limited purview at the magazine was sufficiently served by one through nine. He snapped the phone out of its nest and bashed the buttons.

“How is he?” Slava asked Berta when she picked up.

“He talks at night,” she said impassively.

“Saying what?”

“Negotiating, counting. I don’t know. It’s impolite to listen.”

“I’m sorry it keeps you up,” he said.

“It’s my job,” she said. “We honor our old people.”

They stalled in an uncomfortable silence. After an eternity, Grandfather picked up the bedroom phone. “So?” he said. “Hello.”

“Nothing. How are you?”

“The doctor says it’s normal.”

“What’s normal?”

“Talking to God in your dreams after… you know. A passing. I wake up, I don’t know what planet I’m on. It’s like I have two bodies. Everything falls from my hands. Easy for him to say normal, he’s not the one feeling it.”

“I’m sure it’s temporary,” Slava said.

“That’s what he said, ‘temporary,’” Grandfather said. “As temporary as life or what? Tfoo , may these doctors get covered up to their heads. I heard you wrote something for Israel.”

Slava smiled to himself. “I did,” he said.

“That poor man. His wife — isn’t. His son — the roof went on his head. Man has two valor medals, shrapnel in his body, and he lives alone in an underground cubbyhole. You can’t compare his apartment with mine.”

“Yes, he didn’t pretend to be a vegetable,” Slava said. “It’s cozy, actually. Like The Master and Margarita .” He mentioned the book as an alliance with Israel. His grandfather didn’t read.

“I read the first and last page of that one. His apartment isn’t as nice as this one. Look at the size of my kitchen.”

“And you’ve got a woman cooking your meals. He heats soup from a can.”

“Exactly.”

“You live much better than he does.”

“We do what we can, Slava, we do what we can.”

“You’re really clever and he’s dumb,” Slava said. He upbraided himself for his orneriness. Not practical if he was calling with a need. He had to think like Grandfather.

“I always tell him at the doctor’s office, ‘Let me help you think about these things.’ But he doesn’t have the mind for it, he says.”

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Slava said.

“Why wouldn’t he be telling the truth?”

“Does everyone tell the truth?” Slava said.

“I do. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Oh, I see,” Slava said.

“Listen, a little birdie flew in here today,” Grandfather said.

Slava brightened. Maybe he wouldn’t have to ask.

“Said Vera Rudinsky is meeting some friends for dinner.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised to hear Vera’s name. Since the funeral party, Arianna had filled his mind. “And what kind of bird was this?”

“The kind that knows what it needs to know. She wants you to meet them. The friends.”

“She’s a vulgarian,” Slava said unconvincingly.

“She’s not Bulgarian, she’s one of us. That girl has an ass like a tomato. I saw the way you were looking at her — everyone saw. I’m not saying you have to marry her. Go spend an evening together. Do you know how to do that?”

“You’re too depressed to go outside, you’re playing matchmaker?”

“I get done what I need. So what, you called to ask how your grandfather is?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a couple of days older than you. You want another name.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because you’re my grandson,” the old man said with satisfaction.