Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

“You’re getting old. Why don’t you give me any grandchildren?” my grandma starts. “You know I don’t have much time left.” I don’t bother responding to this age-old request. I’m too hot. I fold my coat over my arm and stand up. Then I turn into the kitchen, which is only a foot away from the living room, hoping the air will be cooler here, but it’s not. In the sink, I notice, there are a few nice glasses and plates standing in water. Dirty.

“Babushka, you have grandchildren,” I say. I sit down at the small dining table, which is littered with photos and mail. “I think what you mean is great-grandchildren.”

“Masha, stop being such an elitist. You know what I mean,” my grandma says, nearly making me choke with laughter. She has a point, perhaps.

“Anastasia’s nineteen, and I’m not married or ready for kids in any way,” I explain. I gaze quickly at the clock, a Hebrew one they got on their last visit to Israel with an image of a praying rabbi in the background, says it’s a little past noon. My grandma went nuts buying things with Hebrew writing on them—besides the clock, there is also a mezuzah, several oversized T-shirts and caps, and at least ten different candle holders—all so she could practice reading them upon her return. In another life, she could have been a linguist. In another life I could have, too. “Sorry. You may need to wait a little longer for great-grandkids.”

I start rifling through their mail so I don’t have to look at them and come off as annoyed. This topic of conversation is always draining for me. I can’t think of a good excuse to leave already, although I would prefer to come back tomorrow or when I have less on my mind. I still have so much to do; I’m not any closer to finding Anna. She could be in danger. She could be in Ukraine! She could be in danger in Ukraine. I’m about to say I have lunch plans, but then I remember my dad knows I ate because we ate together, at Beans and Barley, about ten minutes before we arrived.

“I don’t have time to wait,” Babushka complains. “I’m practically dead already. What about this boyfriend of yours? Is he Jewish?”

“Mama, please,” my dad says.

“Of course he’s Jewish. I live in Israel.”

“You live in Israel? Bozhe moy. How could you do such a thing to your parents?” Babushka asks. Then she stops as if remembering something. “Well at least he’s Jewish. Tell him to marry you already so I can see your children before I die.”

“Babushka, you’ve been telling me you’re dying for about twenty years,” I explain. “I think it’s safe to say you’re not actually dying yet.”

“Nothing safe about being alive, young lady,” she merely replies. “Especially not at eighty.”

“You’re eighty-three,” my dad corrects. He is standing next to the table with his arms crossed, looking more impatient than I am. I look back to the scattered piles of mail. Most of it is junk, but then I notice a handwritten letter sticking out of an open envelope. Who would be writing my grandparents handwritten letters?

“Once you reach a certain age, who cares?” Babushka shrugs. This is true, but my grandparents have never really known their exact ages. My grandma’s mom forgot hers, and my grandpa lied about his to avoid getting conscripted into the Russian army for an extra year or two after the war ended, so he no longer remembers his actual birthday, either. We celebrate it on Yom Kippur. Which, as it turns out, was the day my dad called me to return. In the chaos, I had completely forgotten to wish him a happy birthday.

“Dedushka, Happy Birthday!” I say, standing up again to give him a hug. “I feel so bad now that I didn’t call you.”

“Oh, thank you,” he says, surprised, but smiling again. As I hug him, my coat falls from my hands onto the floor. I bend over to pick it up. The slight draft knocks over the letter I had noticed onto the floor and flips it over, so that I see the return address. I remain on the floor an extra moment to look at it to make sure I’m not imagining things.

Nope, I’m not. It’s a letter. From Anna. With her current address. I shove the envelope into my pocket and put the letter back on the table as I stand up. Relief blooms in my chest, and I am calm for the first time since my dad dropped me off in Riverwest.

Somehow, I manage to get through ten more minutes of small talk with my grandparents before my dad is satisfied we’ve stayed long enough.

“Come back soon,” Dedushka says. He glances over at my grandma, who is chewing on what looks like a cold leg of chicken, her face covered in some kind of sauce. “Say goodbye, Mila.”

“I’ll meet you in the car,” my dad says, and skedaddles.

“Don’t forget us,” Babushka says. “College is important but so are your grandparents.”

“She lives in Israel,” Dedushka repeats. “Anna is the one who—”

“Ah. Yes, that’s right,” my grandma says nodding, still chewing on the chicken skin. “Masha lives in Israel, and never visits, that ungrateful girl.”

“I’m Masha,” I explain. “I’m here now.”

She looks at me as if she hadn’t noticed me there before. “Oh, okay.” She folds her hands together on her lap and looks to my grandpa. “Where does Masha live, Sasha? Italy?”

“ Israel ,” he answers gruffly, sitting down on an armchair beside the couch. All the energy he had seems to have deflated

“Babushka, I’m visiting right now!” I explain, trying to keep myself from getting annoyed. Then I take a deep breath. It’s not her fault, I remind myself. She’d always been easy to get annoyed with; my whole life she was judgmental and sort of mean, causing fights with anyone she could find to fight with, fights so intense that she no longer speaks with any of her living siblings or their kids. Usually I could laugh her judginess away. This, however, is no longer the case. Now that she is obviously sick, it’s more sad than funny or annoying.

“Right,” she says, nodding, staring into space. “Did you know my brother is trying to take my plot at the cemetery? My own brother!”

“Huh?” I say. “Can he even do that?”

“Enough, Mila. No one is taking your grave, for the hundredth time!” He shakes his head at me and apologizes for her. “I don’t know where she gets this idea.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s not her fault either,” I explain. But my grandpa doesn’t believe this; I can tell from the expression in his eyes, which is still a little angry. He wrings his tiny, hairy hands together and closes them around each other. Sweat pools in the front of his white wifebeater tank top. Behind him, the radiator starts hissing. He stares at me, brows furrowed, serious now.

“Masha, I have to ask you: your sister’s not in trouble, is she?”

“What have you heard?”

Dedushka looks towards the windows, which are covered in lace curtains and a layer of snow. They face a parking lot with several large Dumpsters in a row. An old woman is standing there waiting for a tiny white dog to relieve itself in the dead grass. “I gave her some money a few weeks ago, but since then I haven’t been able to reach her. What happened to her phone?”

“Oh… I think it broke.”

“Did she go on a trip? She wrote us a few letters.”

“I think so.”

“But she’s okay?”

“She is totally fine. She had a fight with Papa.” I really do believe now that she’s okay. And if she’s okay that means I can go home. I only wish I could take her with me. I can’t stop thinking about how much better off we’d be if we’d never received that letter from the American embassy approving our refugee status; if we’d gone straight to Israel, like we’d originally planned. Israel is where we belong, that’s as clear as day now. My parents chose America for financial purposes, and the cost of this was everything that had gone wrong. Money isn’t enough, not the lack of it nor the surplus, to replace what you lose when you uproot an entire generation of people from their home. Money alone cannot take the place of community, culture, physical closeness. In Israel, it would have all been different. This would have never happened to Anna there. She wouldn’t have needed it.