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Authors: Nadia Kalman
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knew there was no way she could lift her hand and point a finger and make anything recognizable.
Her energy was about the supermarket circular she’d found and reading parts of it aloud to her mother over the phone to convince her she was eating. Katya would have eaten for real, because Matt didn’t like her skinny, but the combination of things she was taking — the things it took — made her throw up too often for eating to be worth her time.
A guy flip-flopped through the door. “Still here?” he said, tossing his backpack on the floor. Katya curled her legs up on the window sill. “You’re always sitting there, why?” he said with some kind of sensitive thing to his voice.
“I don’t know,” Katya said. She’d found you could get by with “I don’t know” and “Nothing much” and nothing much more. Why hadn’t Matt told his friends she didn’t like to talk?
“I could just push you out right now,” the boy said. Some stupid instinct made Katya grab the frame, so that when he pushed her a few seconds later, she did not fall.
She crossed her arms, stooped her head down so she’d clear the glass. “Do it again,” she said.
He looked at her and raised his hand to her shoulder, then laughed and backed away, taking out a cell phone. “Some crazy bitches.”
Katya felt a different person take temporary control of her, not Brezhnev, someone else, a window-grabber, a confirmer. She packed up her bridesmaid’s dress, called the airline from a pay phone outside. When the feeling ran out half an hour later, she wanted to cancel it all, but lacked the energy, which was how that other person had planned it.
Osip
But they were supposed to be happy! A house before a wedding should be full of giggling and photography. If only someone told him the problem, then Osip, who at twenty-one had published a paper about elevated rails, would find a solution. But in the United States, even in his own family, apparently, his problem-solving abilities, of which one professor, overjoyed to find a smart Jewish boy like Osip at their fifth-rate provincial polytechnic, had called his “sublime pragmatism,” counted for nothing.
He stood watering his big lawn like a big — or at least largish — shot, wondering what could be the matter. Here Milla was marrying a famous Strauss. (He’d asked Mrs. Strauss whether they were descended from the jeans-maker, and she’d said yes, and he’d made a funny joke.) Yes, Malcolm was a bit — uncertain, and made other people uncertain as well. Malcolm seemed always to be worrying a decision when he spoke to you, wondering, should he be more friendly to you, or less? Or was there someone else he needed to be friendly to — at that very moment? Osip told himself that he, too, had been uncertain at Malcolm’s age. He just hadn’t let on: Stalina had been pregnant and they had married. They were in America now, and America was the freedom to admit you didn’t know what you were doing.
The rest of the family was jealous of them. Stalina’s cousin Valentina had been calling to inform them about the layabouts, the failures, the suicides and homicides who’d graduated from Ivy League colleges.
Stalina liked prestigious people. Stalina liked making others jealous. Stalina liked weddings. What, then, was the matter?
Osip turned the hose on some bushes. It didn’t matter if the bench got wet, because Katya was the only one who’d ever sat there.
What would his father have done in Osip’s place? He would have waged a successful campaign. He would have been victorious in battle. Osip sighed. Whenever he tried to imagine what his father would do, he found himself, for lack of information, instead imagining what the Commish would do. For the Commish, these family matters would be a distraction from his real work of the week, uncovering a drug ring, say. The Commish’s wife would have found it charming that such a tough, streetwise man had no idea when it
Her energy was about the supermarket circular she’d found and reading parts of it aloud to her mother over the phone to convince her she was eating. Katya would have eaten for real, because Matt didn’t like her skinny, but the combination of things she was taking — the things it took — made her throw up too often for eating to be worth her time.
A guy flip-flopped through the door. “Still here?” he said, tossing his backpack on the floor. Katya curled her legs up on the window sill. “You’re always sitting there, why?” he said with some kind of sensitive thing to his voice.
“I don’t know,” Katya said. She’d found you could get by with “I don’t know” and “Nothing much” and nothing much more. Why hadn’t Matt told his friends she didn’t like to talk?
“I could just push you out right now,” the boy said. Some stupid instinct made Katya grab the frame, so that when he pushed her a few seconds later, she did not fall.
She crossed her arms, stooped her head down so she’d clear the glass. “Do it again,” she said.
He looked at her and raised his hand to her shoulder, then laughed and backed away, taking out a cell phone. “Some crazy bitches.”
Katya felt a different person take temporary control of her, not Brezhnev, someone else, a window-grabber, a confirmer. She packed up her bridesmaid’s dress, called the airline from a pay phone outside. When the feeling ran out half an hour later, she wanted to cancel it all, but lacked the energy, which was how that other person had planned it.
Osip
But they were supposed to be happy! A house before a wedding should be full of giggling and photography. If only someone told him the problem, then Osip, who at twenty-one had published a paper about elevated rails, would find a solution. But in the United States, even in his own family, apparently, his problem-solving abilities, of which one professor, overjoyed to find a smart Jewish boy like Osip at their fifth-rate provincial polytechnic, had called his “sublime pragmatism,” counted for nothing.
He stood watering his big lawn like a big — or at least largish — shot, wondering what could be the matter. Here Milla was marrying a famous Strauss. (He’d asked Mrs. Strauss whether they were descended from the jeans-maker, and she’d said yes, and he’d made a funny joke.) Yes, Malcolm was a bit — uncertain, and made other people uncertain as well. Malcolm seemed always to be worrying a decision when he spoke to you, wondering, should he be more friendly to you, or less? Or was there someone else he needed to be friendly to — at that very moment? Osip told himself that he, too, had been uncertain at Malcolm’s age. He just hadn’t let on: Stalina had been pregnant and they had married. They were in America now, and America was the freedom to admit you didn’t know what you were doing.
The rest of the family was jealous of them. Stalina’s cousin Valentina had been calling to inform them about the layabouts, the failures, the suicides and homicides who’d graduated from Ivy League colleges.
Stalina liked prestigious people. Stalina liked making others jealous. Stalina liked weddings. What, then, was the matter?
Osip turned the hose on some bushes. It didn’t matter if the bench got wet, because Katya was the only one who’d ever sat there.
What would his father have done in Osip’s place? He would have waged a successful campaign. He would have been victorious in battle. Osip sighed. Whenever he tried to imagine what his father would do, he found himself, for lack of information, instead imagining what the Commish would do. For the Commish, these family matters would be a distraction from his real work of the week, uncovering a drug ring, say. The Commish’s wife would have found it charming that such a tough, streetwise man had no idea when it
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