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

That I can never stop painting is basically all I’ve really learned from this little adventure that started with Zoya’s absurd message. That, and that everybody lies, so you should do your best not to.

And that includes lying to yourself about what you need.

“How about this,” Mom says. “I’ll go back if you go back. We can go together.”

“I just got here,” I say. What I avoid explaining is how that is not an option right now. Liam wouldn’t be the only one after me if I was to return.

“Okay, here’s another option,” Mom says. “Why don’t you go to Israel with your sister?”

I groan. Somewhere I must have known this would come up. “Israel, again… why is everyone always trying to send me to Israel? I would rather go to art school.”

“You want to go somewhere, that’s somewhere. The flight is free if you go on Birthright first.” My mom puts her heeled boots back on her feet. “You won’t be alone, and living who knows where. You can stay with Masha or her boyfriend.”

“What? Isn’t her boyfriend a cop?” At the mere mention of a cop, my heart starts to race. Ever since what happened with Tristan, when I see a police car, I automatically look away even when I haven’t done anything wrong. What if David could see just from looking at me all the terrible things I’d done?

“He works for the government,” my mom explains. “He’s not a cop. He doesn’t arrest people for speeding.”

“Well, that’s way better. I definitely want to live with some government spy,” I say. “Especially one who made my sister all religious out of nowhere. Have I mentioned how creepy that is?”

“Your sister isn’t that religious, Anastasia. She celebrates a few holidays, maybe she goes to synagogue sometimes. She’s happy, so what? Is the problem that you’re not happy so you don’t like seeing her happy?” My mom sighs again.

If I have a superpower at all, it’s the number of times in one conversation I can make someone sigh.

“I don’t understand how you can hate a place you’ve never even been. Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound? You’re almost nineteen years old. It’s not cute anymore.”

I’m not sure how to answer this. I stare ahead, watching as a little blonde girl in a red dress chases her dog down the boardwalk. I wish I could be that girl, entertained so simply, with so many years still to figure everything out, everyone constantly singing your praises no matter what you do. When we’re children, ninety percent of our lives consist of adults touching us and staring at us, most of the time telling us how cute and great we are. It’s a miracle that, as adults, we’re able to overcome all the constant devotion and learn to function without it.

Perhaps we never really do.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “It just… always gives me a bad feeling. I don’t know why.”

“I know why. It’s because you’re embarrassed to be Jewish.”

“No, I’m not,” I say, automatically.

How old do I have to get for my mother to stop telling me what it is that I think and know?

“Yes, you are,” my mom says. “I get it, I do. We all have to struggle with being Jewish in our own way. And maybe it’s our fault. Your dad and I didn’t grow up with it. We didn’t show you how to be Jewish because we didn’t know how, either. But I always felt Jewish in my heart. Maybe I thought it was automatically a part of you, that we didn’t have to do anything. But I was wrong; I see that now.”

I can’t remember my mother ever admitting to being wrong about something, and I am somewhat taken aback.

Am I embarrassed to be Jewish?

I certainly never offer up the information freely. Friends in Riverwest speak of Israel with such disgust I’d always avoided these conversations as if being associated with the place would beget disgust. I didn’t know enough about it to get involved and honestly, none of them did, either, so there seemed no point in starting. It’s not like being Jewish had ever felt natural to me, or relevant. Maybe my mom is right. On this point, anyway.

“When your sister was little, she fell in love with these red sandals that your great-aunt Vera brought from Israel.” Mom shakes her head a little and starts to smile. She’s watching the girl with the dog too, running back across the boardwalk, her bright blonde hair streaming behind her like a kite, her red shoes sparkling in the sun. “She kept walking around with them, even though they were way too big on her. She even started sleeping with them. Your father and I couldn’t get the things away from her even to clean.”

“Really? I can’t see her doing that.”

“We didn’t have much in Ukraine, as you know. It was something new, something… exciting. A pair of shoes. Israel felt like the most magical place in the world to us then,” she says, wistfully. “Anyway, I finally had to tell her that Babaika took them.”

“Who’s Babaika? Like Baba Yaga?”

“Sort of. She’s an old fairy tale ghost who likes to steal stuff,” Mom says. “All day long she was yelling ‘Babaika, Babaika, give them back!’ Bozhe moy.” She starts laughing a little. “You should have seen how serious she was.”

“I can’t imagine her being so caught up with a pair of shoes,” I find myself saying, but when I look over again, my mom is wiping her eyes. I can’t tell if it’s from laughing or crying. Either way, I am so sorry about it I have to bite my lip and look out to the beach again. I know I’m not supposed to, but I feel this… spark of excitement every time I hear stories like that, stories from the Soviet Union. Maybe it’s because, in a way, everyone else feels a little bit excited when they’re telling me. It’s probably easier after you’ve already lived through the scary, dangerous part, only to remember the high stakes, the action. Can you ever untangle nostalgia from real hardships? Is it your decision which truth to hold onto, the good or the bad, or does that decision get made without any input from you?

I clear my throat. “Do you ever… miss all that?” I ask my mom, once she has regained her composure. I’d never seen her cry and now twice in one day. She must really be losing it. I look back to the water to see that the girl is gone, replaced by a different dog, racing back and forth with a toy, followed by a man in jogging pants. The two of them stop at the water fountains outside the bathrooms and drink from it simultaneously. “The Soviet Union, I mean.”

“No,” Mom tells me, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think you understand how stressful it is to think you could be jailed or killed at any moment. To be afraid to walk in the street because you happen to be Jewish. Someone once reported me for having ‘capitalistic’ jeans. I made them myself! How can that be capitalistic? It still makes me furious.” She pauses. “I don’t think I was able to relax until we were here almost a year. I kept thinking they would find something to send us back,” my mom says. She pauses and takes a breath. “I thought it would be easier for you here, Anastasia. That you wouldn’t even remember the place you were born. But, somehow… I don’t know, for some reason you both insist on doing everything the hard way.”

I let out a groan before I can stop myself. “Have you ever thought that maybe I don’t want to do things the easy way?” I ask. “No one wants an easy life. They want a meaningful life. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive.”

“Maybe you think you don’t, but that’s only because you haven’t had to go through what we have. I didn’t want you to have to be hungry or tired or stuck in a position you hate because you don’t have another choice,” my mom says, right on cue. If survival consumes your mind for so long, you don’t get to see past it; you don’t get to the part where necessity and need start to diverge. I know she won’t understand, but I also know I need to explain. “I want what’s best for you.”