Read Online American Gypsy by Oksana Marafioti - Free Book Online

nothing.”
    Dad and Stepan knew each other from the postwar streets of Kiev, back when they ran with a gang of Ukrainian kids, searching for food like the rest of the half-starved population. Once, Stepan dug up a can of food that turned out to be a grenade, which exploded, blowing away half his hand. Despite the injury, he became a virtuoso guitar player.
    All I remember of that evening, besides the Russian fur hats called ushanka flying in the air and men rolling in mud-smeared snow, is Mom sneaking hundred-ruble bills to the militzia , the Russian police, to keep the Roma boys out of jail.
    When my parents’ tour bus crashed into a bulldozer parked illegally on a country road one winter night, Dad spent four days in jail for thrashing the bulldozer driver, who’d decided to take a booze break in the shrubbery and had forgotten to turn on the emergency lights. The bus driver had died upon impact, and Grandma Ksenia had broken both legs. The next day, the Roma were urged by the town’s administration to either take the stage or not get paid. When they did, looking like war casualties, arms in slings, faces lacerated by broken glass, the audience started to laugh. “Look! The Gypsies were fighting again!”
    My mother said into the mike, “We had a terrible accident last night and lost a friend. This first song is dedicated to his memory.” The subdued audience behaved for the rest of the show, and later several locals brought food and drink to the hotel where the Gypsies were staying. A peace offering at a time when food began to disappear from markets and restaurants due to one of the worst recessions the Soviets ever experienced. This act of generosity from people who might not have had a full meal in months made Mom teary-eyed, while Dad rallied the band and the unlikely guests for an all-night vecherinka (party).
    God knows Dad needed constant supervision, otherwise he’d spend more time in jail or intensive care than onstage. And Mom was all too happy to keep rescuing him and his spirited brood, as if she thrived on pandemonium. Her flair for diplomatic magic staggered the Roma, who by nature trusted no one and whose tempers put wildfires to shame. My mother never ran out of occasions to exercise her skills.

 
    JOURNAL NUMBER 1
    Just weeks after my parents divorced, Mom resumed molding Roxy and me into Americans in case we ran into a brain surgeon or two.
    The three of us were sitting on our cots one night, and Mom stroked my hair as she described her vision of my wedding.
    â€œI’ll string your hair with natural pearls, one for each strand, and you’ll wear a diamond-studded gown embroidered with real golden thread. And I’ll fly in our family and friends from Russia and Armenia to sit on our silk-cushioned chairs and eat escargots from our golden spoons.”
    Roxy, who’d been brushing Mom’s hair this entire time, said, “What if her husband doesn’t have enough chairs?”
    â€œHe will, because he’ll adore his mother-in-law and do anything to make her happy.”
    Like most girls, I grew up playing house with my dolls. Every type of divination Zhanna and I tried evolved around a single question: Will I get married? We read the tarot, but most often, we used the pendulum. All we needed were a needle and a thread as long as a child’s forearm. I’d hold the thread by the tip, steady, with the needle pointed at the ground. “Will I get married to the handsomest man in the world?” I’d ask, and silently beg the needle to swing in a circle, a sign for “yes.”
    But in America, I was no longer obsessed with marriage. I had convinced myself that I’d grow old and sprout hair on my face (like most females over fifty in my family) without a man to push my wheelchair or tweeze my chin. Truth is, I had known a boy once who owned not a single golden spoon. For him I’d have stitched a thousand wedding