What do your parents say?”
Every question comes at me like a stab. I have never seen him like this. He sits in the chair, rocking slightly, his fingers twirling my acceptance letter, his gray eyes pale with anger, sliding past me. There is something raw, something dangerous, in his ordinarily ironic snub-nosed face. He looks like a scorned lion, and I am startled by a faint twinge of regret at the thought that I may never touch his lips again.
“My parents think it’s a great opportunity. But Vasily, I haven’t yet decided—”
“This is stupid,” he spits out. “I never thought of you as stupid before. You would have a much better life here. You’re somebody here. Your family is important, my family is very important. You and I, we can accomplish anything we want. Over there, you’ll be nothing, a pathetic little immigrant, an empty space. A zero.”
I too am beginning to feel angry, but I force myself not to abandon my mollifying tone. “Look, I’m not talking of moving overseas, it’s just a four-year college. It would mean seeing a bit of the world, no more than that. Don’t you ever want to have some new experiences?”
“You can have plenty of new experiences here,” he says, and a tight, ugly smile twists his face. “In fact, I can arrange for something new right now.”
I no longer find the hardness in his eyes enticing.
Things are shifting inside me.
“I think,” I say slowly, “I think I will do it.”
He holds up my letter with the tips of his fingers as if it were something contagious, and pretends to study it, rocking the chair faster and faster. “Never heard of this place. Some dreary provincial hole, I gather. Didn’t peg you for the type who’d want to live in an Uncle Tom’s cabin among beggars, niggers, and Jews.”
For one instant I am speechless. In the next, I receive, for the first time ever, the indisputable waking proof that there is a God who watches over us—a benevolent God with impeccable timing and a twinkle in his ageless eye. My childhood chair breaks apart under Vasily in a spectacular explosion of cracks. As the seat falls in, he falls in also, his arms and legs now crammed into the wooden frame, sticking straight up. And even though I already know that in the next few months, before I leave for a college deep in the American South, there will be many unpleasant encounters—lips thinned, eyes averted—in the university hallways, awkward silences among our mutual friends, gatherings and memories ruined, for the next few minutes—three full minutes, no less, until he manages to extricate himself at last—for the next three minutes, as I watch him flail and strain and turn purple, I am certain that someone is up there, gently holding my life in the palm of his hand—and all is right with the world.
Part Two
Past Perfect
7. Library Cubicle
The Grateful Dead
“Hey, you’re that Soviet girl, aren’t you?”
I raised my eyes from the page. A bear of a boy in a rainbow-colored shirt was leaning on the corner of my desk, setting my towers of books to a dangerous wobble.
“I prefer ‘Russian,’” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “Russian. So, how do you like it here?”
“I like it very much,” I said. “It’s quiet. And it stays open all night.”
“Oh,” he said. “No, I didn’t mean . . .” He seemed vague, amiable, good-looking in a bland, healthy, entirely forgettable way. “I meant, how do you like America . . . You know, what do you like most about it?”
I smiled politely.
“The library,” I said. “It’s quiet. And it stays open all night.”
He had something written on his shirt. For a moment I puzzledover the meaning of the words, then grew impatient, and glanced at my book.
“Well, anyway, you’re studying. Sorry to have disturbed you,” he said.
I turned the page, heard his steps retreating into the silence of the stacks.
In the past few months I had been asked many
Every question comes at me like a stab. I have never seen him like this. He sits in the chair, rocking slightly, his fingers twirling my acceptance letter, his gray eyes pale with anger, sliding past me. There is something raw, something dangerous, in his ordinarily ironic snub-nosed face. He looks like a scorned lion, and I am startled by a faint twinge of regret at the thought that I may never touch his lips again.
“My parents think it’s a great opportunity. But Vasily, I haven’t yet decided—”
“This is stupid,” he spits out. “I never thought of you as stupid before. You would have a much better life here. You’re somebody here. Your family is important, my family is very important. You and I, we can accomplish anything we want. Over there, you’ll be nothing, a pathetic little immigrant, an empty space. A zero.”
I too am beginning to feel angry, but I force myself not to abandon my mollifying tone. “Look, I’m not talking of moving overseas, it’s just a four-year college. It would mean seeing a bit of the world, no more than that. Don’t you ever want to have some new experiences?”
“You can have plenty of new experiences here,” he says, and a tight, ugly smile twists his face. “In fact, I can arrange for something new right now.”
I no longer find the hardness in his eyes enticing.
Things are shifting inside me.
“I think,” I say slowly, “I think I will do it.”
He holds up my letter with the tips of his fingers as if it were something contagious, and pretends to study it, rocking the chair faster and faster. “Never heard of this place. Some dreary provincial hole, I gather. Didn’t peg you for the type who’d want to live in an Uncle Tom’s cabin among beggars, niggers, and Jews.”
For one instant I am speechless. In the next, I receive, for the first time ever, the indisputable waking proof that there is a God who watches over us—a benevolent God with impeccable timing and a twinkle in his ageless eye. My childhood chair breaks apart under Vasily in a spectacular explosion of cracks. As the seat falls in, he falls in also, his arms and legs now crammed into the wooden frame, sticking straight up. And even though I already know that in the next few months, before I leave for a college deep in the American South, there will be many unpleasant encounters—lips thinned, eyes averted—in the university hallways, awkward silences among our mutual friends, gatherings and memories ruined, for the next few minutes—three full minutes, no less, until he manages to extricate himself at last—for the next three minutes, as I watch him flail and strain and turn purple, I am certain that someone is up there, gently holding my life in the palm of his hand—and all is right with the world.
Part Two
Past Perfect
7. Library Cubicle
The Grateful Dead
“Hey, you’re that Soviet girl, aren’t you?”
I raised my eyes from the page. A bear of a boy in a rainbow-colored shirt was leaning on the corner of my desk, setting my towers of books to a dangerous wobble.
“I prefer ‘Russian,’” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “Russian. So, how do you like it here?”
“I like it very much,” I said. “It’s quiet. And it stays open all night.”
“Oh,” he said. “No, I didn’t mean . . .” He seemed vague, amiable, good-looking in a bland, healthy, entirely forgettable way. “I meant, how do you like America . . . You know, what do you like most about it?”
I smiled politely.
“The library,” I said. “It’s quiet. And it stays open all night.”
He had something written on his shirt. For a moment I puzzledover the meaning of the words, then grew impatient, and glanced at my book.
“Well, anyway, you’re studying. Sorry to have disturbed you,” he said.
I turned the page, heard his steps retreating into the silence of the stacks.
In the past few months I had been asked many
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