Lara Vapnyar - Still Here

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think the wine is really good,” Laszlo said and drained his entire glass. And just then the hostess appeared at the table followed by a sweaty, rumpled Vadik. Regina could never understand why seeing Vadik — simply catching a sight of him — never failed to make her feel more cheerful and relaxed.

“Vadik!” Regina exclaimed, and Bob winced. It was not that he didn’t trust Vadik and her together — it was Sergey who worried him, because Bob knew that they used to date in Russia. It was just that Regina’s friendship with Vadik made him feel left out. Bob was especially offended by the fact that Vadik and Regina couldn’t help whispering in Russian whenever they sat together at team dinner parties. “You don’t have to whisper, you know,” Bob said to her once, “I don’t understand Russian anyway.”

Vadik knew that, so he squeezed in and sat on the back bench next to Bob, not Regina.

“Sorry I’m late,” Vadik said, “I had to take care of something.”

“Girl troubles?” Bob asked.

“Something like that,” Vadik said.

The four other men sighed in support.

The food at Borghese was really exquisite — a salad of chanterelles and lamb tongues, veal brains in pistachio crust — but Regina found that she couldn’t enjoy any of it. And most of the conversation at the table was too technical for her to understand.

They had all tested their genomes with Dancing Drosophilae just to see how it worked. The results provided them with fun facts about their genetic diseases and heritages. Bob had tried to persuade Regina to get tested too, but she’d refused.

“Why do I need an app to find people with the same genome? I can just look around for people with the same nose,” Regina had said to Bob then. Now she felt compelled to repeat it for everybody at the table.

Laszlo chuckled, but Bob looked at her with displeasure.

“Regina, not everybody has a prominent nose like yours,” Vadik said.

Now it was Bob’s turn to chuckle. He slapped Vadik on the back and said, “That’s true, my friend, that’s true.”

What the hell, Vadik? Regina thought. Apparently he chose to pick his boss’s side over hers.

“Look at my forehead though,” Laszlo said. “I have an unusually low forehead, don’t you think?”

They all looked. He did have a pretty low forehead as well as a pretty heavy brow ridge that hung over his face like an awning over a terrace.

“That’s because I’m 3.1 percent Neanderthal, which is a very high percentage.”

“I’m 2.6 Neanderthal,” Bob said.

“We’re 2.8,” Nguyen and Dev chimed in.

“I’m 2.1,” Vadik said.

“So little? It’s because you’re Russian. Russians are descended from bears, not Neanderthals,” Laszlo joked.

Everybody laughed immoderately and then they turned to stare at Regina. It was her turn to share her Neanderthal percentage.

“I didn’t take the test,” she said.

“She didn’t take the test,” Bob confirmed.

“But why?” Laszlo asked.

“I didn’t want to know the results. Definitely not the medical ones.”

“Even though her mother died from a genetic disease,” Bob said.

Thank you so much, Bob! Regina thought. Let’s share my family’s medical history with your goddamn team. She had a momentary urge to get back at Bob by telling everyone about his obsession with his supposedly Tudor lineage, but she decided that that would be too mean.

They were all still looking at her expectantly.

“First of all, we are not sure if my mother’s cancer was genetic,” Regina said, her voice rising, “and even if it’s confirmed that I do carry that gene, there is only a fifty percent chance that I’ll develop that type of cancer and die. If I test positive, fifty percent is not enough to do grueling preemptive surgery, and I don’t want to walk around with the knowledge that there is a very good chance I will die the same death that my mother did. And if I test negative, imagine my shock when at some point some other horrible cancer gets me anyway. Or even the same cancer, just not the genetic form.”

The word cancer made Laszlo and Dev put their forks down and listen to her. Regina hated that. Hated the attention. She wished she had done the stupid test and could just share the amount of bear or Neanderthal in her blood so that they could move on.

“You have a dark mind, don’t you?” Laszlo asked. Bob nodded eagerly as if to say “Didn’t I tell you?”

“My father was from Eastern Europe too. Boy, was he dark!” Laszlo said.

“I guess we have to blame the bear gene for that!” Vadik said. Everybody laughed. Regina felt grateful for a moment, but Bob wasn’t giving up.

“This is not a question of darkness!” Bob said. “It’s about whether you’re willing to take charge of your life or not. By refusing the test, you’re refusing responsibility.”

“But my point is that we can’t be in charge of our lives anyway,” Regina said.

Bob just shook his head, and everybody else decided that it was wiser to leave Regina alone.

They brought in the second course. But now Regina was simultaneously too rattled and too bored to even attempt to eat. The silverware was too heavy. The act of cutting bits of food and lifting them to her mouth was exhausting.

Bob’s team continued discussing their genomes. Apparently, the shape and position of your earlobes could point to some genetic diseases. A large percentage of people with attached earlobes suffered from diabetes, while “danglers” tended to be stronger and healthier.

“I have one of each,” Nguyen said. They took turns examining his earlobes.

Regina fought the urge to yawn.

Bob gave her a look. He wasn’t stupid or insensitive. He could see how bored Regina was. So bored that she hated him a little bit. He was hurt. He was sad. He was disappointed. And not just momentarily disappointed — he was getting disappointed in their marriage. Why on earth had they ever thought that they could be happy together?

“Immortality!” Bob said suddenly. “Exactly! That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

Immortality? Regina must have missed the moment when they switched to that topic. If Vadik had been sitting next to her, she would have just asked him what was going on in a Russian whisper. She couldn’t possibly ask Bob and let him know she wasn’t listening.

Dev, who caught her puzzled expression, leaned over to explain: “We are talking about your friend’s app idea.”

“Acting from beyond the grave is bullshit,” Bob was saying. “True immortality is all about passing on your genetic material.”

Regina nodded absently, but then the meaning of his words dawned on her. She wouldn’t be able to pass on her genetic material, so according to Bob, she would be denied immortality. Now that was horribly unfair! Regina realized that she was the only one at the table who didn’t have children. Bob had his wonderful daughter. Laszlo had four children. Dev had two little boys. Nguyen’s wife was pregnant. Even Vadik had a biological child in Russia, even if he had no contact with him or her.

Regina thought of her mother sitting her at the table and showing her all those family photographs, telling her stories, teaching her how to read, teaching her to understand what she read, to feel what she read. And little Regina touching those buttons, each of which used to belong to someone in her family, so every time she pressed her finger to one it was as if she had made a momentary connection with a long-dead family member. It wasn’t her inability to pass on her genetic material that was devastating; it was her inability to pass on who she was. Then Regina thought of Nastya playing with the buttons and felt a sharp-edged lump in her throat. She had to make an effort not to cry.