Lydia Fitzpatrick - Lights All Night Long

So Ilya melted snow in his palm, wet the cuff of his sweatshirt, and dabbed the blood away as gently as he could.

“You know what?” Ilya said.

Vladimir shook his head.

“He’s probably still in the elevator. You pressed every fucking button.”

“It’ll take him an hour to get to the top,” Vladimir said, smiling. Somehow he’d decided that the man lived in the penthouse.

That had been a decade ago, but as Ilya pressed the button to call the elevator, he had the strange sense that the man would still be in it, the panel ablaze, every button lit, as though he’d been trapped there in life just as he had been in Ilya’s memory. The PH button was still there, and Ilya was tempted, but he pushed the 7 for Maria Mikhailovna’s floor. The button lit up, the elevator whirred and lifted, and Ilya felt a bit of that old thrill, or he remembered it, which was not so different.

“I’m making macaroni and cheese,” Maria Mikhailovna said when she opened the door. “And french fries and apple pie. To celebrate. I had to use syr though, and the Americans use American cheese, so it won’t be quite authentic.”

“American cheese,” a voice said behind her. “That’s got to be an oxymoron.”

Maria Mikhailovna smiled and stepped aside to reveal a small, fair man—barely bigger than she was—with glasses identical to hers. Her husband was a policeman, Ilya knew, but he didn’t look the part. From the way Vladimir talked about policemen, Ilya had assumed that they were universally terrible, that they lived to spoil fun and besmirch human rights, infractions that Vladimir gave equal weight, but Maria Mikhailovna’s husband had this lively expression, his cheeks high and bright, like they were readying themselves for a laugh.

“Dmitri Ivanovich,” he said, and he held a hand out, and Ilya shook it.

“The cynic,” Maria Mikhailovna said. She had a glass of wine in her hand, and there was a shine to her voice that it didn’t have in the classroom. Ilya wondered if it was because he wasn’t used to hearing her speak Russian or if she was truly that excited to have him here.

“I know you two would rather be speaking English, but mine’s no good,” Dmitri said.

“No,” Maria Mikhailovna said, “it’s worse than no good. It’s hopeless. He only knows the words he shouldn’t, Ilya. I’ve tried to teach him, but he has such trouble paying attention.”

“It’s true,” Dmitri said. “When I was young, English was just a liability.”

Maria Mikhailovna ushered Ilya inside. Her apartment was not much larger than Ilya’s, but it was much nicer, and only she and Dmitri lived there. In the living room, there was an enormous single-pane window with a view down Ulitsa Lenina so clear that it was as though the glass did not exist. Windows in the kommunalkas were often papered over in the winter, rags stuffed in the gaps in the sill, and still the cold seeped in, but Maria Mikhailovna’s apartment was warm. There was the whoosh of central air, like they were inside a living, breathing lung, and the light had this rich, amber glow that came, Ilya realized, from lampshades.

Dmitri was putting a CD into a stereo flanked on all sides by bookcases. The CD clicked and the sound of some stringed instrument floated into the air, and the notes were so clear and singular and free of static that they made Ilya feel as though he were hearing music for the first time. Their tree was already up for New Year’s, the branches drooping with tiny glass snow maidens and wooden stars, and its lights were doubled in the window.

Ilya imagined Vladimir taking all this in—the tray of radishes and bread and butter, the tiny bowl of caviar, the pretty light, and the kvass that Maria Mikhailovna was handing him now, in a glass that looked like it was made of crystal. Vladimir would mock it all, no doubt. He’d want something stronger to drink; he’d ask if they had any rap or punk or club music.

“It’s so hard for me to believe that you two haven’t met,” Maria Mikhailovna said. She took her husband’s hand, and Ilya could see that for a moment she wanted to take his hand too. Her generosity had been a part of his life for so long that he hardly thought about it, and it occurred to him now that perhaps he gave her something too. She and her husband looked small under these high ceilings, and he wondered if they had wanted children of their own, whether that was something they’d had to give up on.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Ilya Alexandrovich,” Dmitri said. “You’ve made Maria very proud.”

“I hope I do as well as she expects,” Ilya said.

“You’ll do wonderfully,” she said. “I have a surprise tonight—besides the macaroni and cheese—I’ve gotten the surname of the host family.” She waited a second, her eyes bright. “The Ma-sons.”

“Ma-sons,” Ilya said.

“It’s spelled like ‘ma’ and ‘sons’ put together.”

“What are their given names?”

“Cam and Jamie. Only I can’t figure out who’s the man and who’s the woman.” Maria Mikhailovna giggled.

“Come-on jam-eee,” Dmitri said. “There are no patronymics?”

“No, sweetheart,” she said. “That would certainly make it easier, wouldn’t it?”

“Jamie has to be the man,” Ilya said. “A diminutive for James. Like James Bond. King James.”

“Maybe, but ‘Cam’? It’s manly for a woman, no?” Maria Mikhailovna said. “And they have three children.”

Ilya had tried over and over to imagine what his host family might be like. Sometimes he pictured Michael and Stephanie waiting for him in the airport. Stephanie would be holding a picnic basket, her breasts as pointy as ever in her sweater, and she’d suggest that they go to the beach for the day, and Michael in his glasses would agree. Sometimes it’d be Jean-Claude and his girlfriend from the unlabeled VHS, their lives happily domestic now that Jean-Claude had defeated the mob boss. He’d never imagined kids, though, and he didn’t know whether the idea thrilled him or terrified him.

“What are the children’s names?” Ilya said.

“They didn’t say.”

“Probably equally ugly,” Dmitri said. “Are you hoping for girls? Full immersion, right?”

Ilya’s cheeks prickled at the thought of living in a house with an American girl and all the intimacy that entailed: eating off the same plates, showering in the same shower.

“Dmitri,” Maria Mikhailovna said. “He’s not there to meet girls.”

“Of course he is,” Dmitri said.

In the kitchen, a buzzer sounded, and Maria Mikhailovna leapt up and ran for the stove.

Dmitri leaned toward Ilya and put a hand on his thigh, and his posture reminded Ilya of pictures he’d seen of politicians in the thick of deals. “I bought us frozen pelmeni,” he said, “just in case the macaroni doesn’t work out.”

Ilya laughed. “Whatever it is will be better than what my mother makes. She cooks everything ’til it’s carcinogenic.”

“That sounds like my mother, which is probably why she has cancer. That or the cigarettes,” Dmitri said. His expression was the same: still that jolly, cherubic look that made Ilya feel in turns relaxed and like he was somehow a source of amusement. “You know I’m from here too,” he said, “not like Maria, not a cultured city kid.”

“You were born here?”

“Born and bred.” He hummed a few notes of “My Berlozhniki” with false bravado, but Ilya could tell that his voice was good.

“I still had to leave people behind though. That’s a fact of life now. Simple. Some people are dead weight.” He made a “plop” with his lips, like a rock dropped in a pond. “I went to School #17. It was a better school back then, only there were no teachers as beautiful as my Masha.”