Lara Vapnyar - Still Here

Finally the dinner ended, the bill was paid, good-byes were said, and everybody was headed home. Laszlo had ordered Uber, and the car appeared instantly out of nowhere and whisked him away as if this were a spy movie. Nguyen unshackled his bike and rode off, looking small and defiant with his genetically different ears and powerful little finger. Dev and Vadik descended the steps of the nearby subway entrance. Dev was taller than Vadik, but that could’ve been because Vadik’s back was stooped. Regina thought Vadik would kiss her good-bye, but he didn’t. So now Regina and Bob were on their own.

“Shall we walk home?” Bob asked. Regina nodded. It was cold but not freezing like Laszlo said. February in New York was actually warmer than November in Moscow. They were walking in silence, but not in peace. Regina could almost hear Bob’s thoughts brewing in his head. He was mentally listing the offenses she’d made through the dinner, sorting through them, choosing which one to call up first. The indelicate pants that didn’t fit? The fact that she screamed with delight when she saw Vadik? Her yawning? Her refusal to take the test? Her haughtiness when she explained why she didn’t want to take it? Her being on the verge of tears for no reason? She walked, looking down, listening to the ringing sound her high-heeled boots made against the cobblestones, waiting to be chastised like a child.

“Regina,” Bob finally said. That alone showed how pissed he was, because he never, ever addressed her by her name unless he was really angry. “Have you ever asked yourself why I take you to these dinners?”

“Yes, I have. Actually, I was just asking myself that earlier tonight,” Regina replied.

“And what was your conclusion?”

“I don’t know why.”

They stopped walking and were standing in the middle of the sidewalk facing each other.

“So you think this is some sort of punishment, right? Making you sit through a boring dinner like this?”

“Punishment? I’m not a child.”

“Then stop behaving like one! You kept rolling your eyes like an angry teenager. My daughter used to do that when she was fourteen. Fourteen, Regina! You’re thirty-nine.”

“I’m aware of how old I am, but thank you.”

They both looked and sounded like actors in a play. Standing in the middle of this clean dark street. In the light of the streetlamp. Fighting. Regina imagined Bob wearing a beard and a hat à la Henry the Eighth. She snickered.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Bob said. “You roll your eyes and you laugh! I take you to these dinners to bring us closer, damn it! To help you understand what I do, to get you excited by what I do. I’m clearly failing to excite you. I thought maybe if my guys talked about our projects, you would find it more stimulating.”

Bob did sound like an actor onstage, but he was also sincere; Regina knew that he was. And he was right on a lot of counts.

He did try to bring them closer. He did try to understand her friends, to read her favorite books. He even took some Russian lessons. He stopped with his Russian though, because Regina kept laughing every time he said spasibo. She couldn’t help it. He pronounced it as “spasybo,” which came out strangely soft and touchingly funny.

“You know my therapist tells me to bury my father,” Bob said.

Regina groaned.

“Yes, I know, I know. You hate therapy. Therapy is self-indulgent. It’s for dumb Americans, right? Russians are so far above it, right?”

“I just don’t see the use. How can anybody know me better than I know myself?”

“The point of therapy is to make you do the job of knowing yourself. It’s your responsibility to know yourself, but you do have to work at that.”

“And I don’t?”

“You don’t. You’re still wallowing in your mother’s death. Look at you, Regina. Ever since you came back from Russia, you spend your days looking through your mother’s things. You started working, that’s great. Let’s hope it lasts. But you barely pay attention to anything else. Your mother died two years ago! It’s time to get over it. Regina, you need to bury your mother. Bury your mother and get on with your life.”

Regina looked up, imagining huge billboards in front of them, rising up, getting closer, all with the words: BURY YOUR MOTHER!

Something in her expression seemed to alarm Bob.

“Honey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He put his arms around her as if shielding her from pain. It always amazed Regina how much physical touch mattered. Bob felt warm, Bob felt big, Bob felt kind. Perhaps she did love him after all.

—

“Bobcat,” she said later, when they were getting ready for bed.

“Yes, baby.”

“I need to tell you something. It’s about Russia.”

Bob tensed. He asked her to wait, then went to the living room. He returned wearing his eyeglasses and carrying two tumblers of whiskey. He didn’t get into bed but sat down in an armchair and handed one of the tumblers to her. Regina had to sit up and cover herself too.

“Go on,” he said, staring into his drink.

Shit! Regina thought. The way she said it must have made him think that she had had an affair.

“No, no, it’s not that!” she hurried to say. “It’s about this little girl I met there.”

Bob took a big swig and looked at her curiously.

Regina told him the whole story about Aunt Masha and Nastya.

Bob listened patiently, not uttering a word except to exclaim “Oh, Regina!” when she told him that she had offered Aunt Masha money.

“But she is bluffing, right?” he asked after Regina finished the story.

“What do you mean?”

He swirled his empty glass, making the remaining ice cubes clink. Regina took a long sip of hers.

“Your Aunt Masha. She couldn’t have possibly found another family that fast.”

This hadn’t even occurred to Regina.

“She couldn’t?” she asked. She felt insanely relieved.

“Of course not,” Bob said. “Let’s go to sleep now. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Honey,” she whispered.

“Yes, baby.”

“Could you please say ‘spasibo’?”

Bob sighed.

“Please?”

“Spa-sy-bo.”

And Regina laughed, kissed Bob on the neck, and turned to her side of the bed.

“Get up,” Vica said and patted Eric on his warm, sticky shoulder.

He moaned and turned away from her. It had become such a pain to wake him up in the morning. There was a Three Musketeers wrapper stuck in his blanket and a Nintendo DS under his pillow. He must have been up half the night playing and munching. Vica suspected that it was Sergey’s mom, Mira, who had supplied the candy. It used to be Sergey’s job to control his mother’s whimsical grandparenting. Now Vica couldn’t complain to Sergey anymore. She couldn’t say anything to Mira either, because she relied so heavily on her help.

Mira would arrive at 7:00 A.M. every day so that she could feed Eric breakfast and walk him to the school bus, then she would wait for him to come home to feed him her elaborate meals. Mira wasn’t very good at being neat. There would be a small pile of dirty dishes in the sink, puddles of compote on the floor, and grease splattered on the stove. Mira wasn’t very good at overseeing homework either — Vica would come home and find none of Eric’s assignments completed. She was almost grateful now that Eric hadn’t taken the test to get into the Castle — he barely managed the workload of his public school.

“Get up!” Vica repeated, and this time Eric raised his head off the pillow and opened his eyes. Light brown and perfectly round. The eyes of a frightened cat.