“I know extra,” he said feebly.
“Yes, you know extra. You’re worried about twelve dollars. How about market rates? You don’t know what market rates are. They can take away everything you have. Section 8, Berta, everything.”
“Okay, let’s not wet our underpants right away,” Grandfather said. “It’s not your name on the thing. I’ll tell them I wrote it myself and an agency translated.”
“Why did you need this?” Slava said. “Israel lives like a political prisoner. His kitchen looks like there hasn’t been food cooked there since his wife died. He’s got these blocks of cheddar, you want to kill yourself looking at them. You have a one-bedroom apartment for a hundred dollars a month, and you have a woman who cooks all your food. How much more do you want?”
“I need you to figure out this eligibility business. You could get more people if they expand it and postpone the deadline.”
Slava closed his eyes. “If they expand eligibility,” he said weakly, “maybe you could get in honestly.” But that wouldn’t change anything. Always there would have to be some deception for more. More, more, more.
“Berta sent in your letter and the affidavit this week,” Grandfather said. “It’s too late.” He used the English word — effie-davey. “The Katznelsons came over the other day. They said you wrote them a good one. I haven’t seen them in two years. They didn’t even call after the funeral.”
“You saw people who didn’t call after the funeral?”
“You lose a little steam in the late years, Slavik. Thirty years ago, they would’ve heard from me. They would’ve heard from your grandmother. But they came, I’m telling you. They brought flowers, they brought your letter, they wanted to see mine. One of their grandsons translated their letter, they said he couldn’t get his nose out of the dictionary! But I still like mine the best, with the cows.
“The Kogans came, the Rubinshteins came,” he went on. “You remember him, with the cross-eye. Their son just had a boy, they invited me to the bris next week. And you’re telling me you don’t want to do this.”
“Can’t you see, devil take it, this is what I’ve been trying to explain,” Slava said.
“I’ve always been your biggest supporter, Slavik. Who is your number one supporter?”
Slava dropped his hands. “Forget it.”
“How’s progress with Vera?” Grandfather said conspiratorially.
“Leave me be,” Slava said.
“You’re talking to someone who can find out what he needs to know. That girl has a twinkle in her eye.”
“That was a kilo of mascara you saw, not a twinkle.”
“So she knows how to take care of herself, what’s wrong with that? Did you write their letter?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not yet?”
“I just got here!” Slava said. “It’s not a bread where you add the ingredients together and the dough rises. Look, I have to go.”
“Good luck,” Grandfather said. “You are my only joy in this world.”
In the kitchen, Garik and Lazar sat while Lyuba and Vera busied with dishes and cutlery. Crossing the kitchen, Lyuba paused to admire her daughter. Vera laid her arms around her mother’s formidable circumference and smooched her upper arm three times.
“Leave me alone, you rascal,” Aunt Lyuba said, beaming. “Slava, how old are you now?” She started setting dishes with faux-Greek fretting in front of the men. “Same as Vera?”
“Twenty-five,” Slava said. “My birthday’s next month.”
“I was already swaddling that one when I was twenty-five,” Aunt Lyuba said. “Now look at her.” They all investigated Vera. She adjusted her dress, her hoop earrings bouncing.
“You can’t compare life over there,” Uncle Garik said. “At twenty-five, you had every question answered already.”
“Are we eating tomorrow, not today?” Lazar Timofeyevich bawled.
“I’m doing it, I’m doing it,” Aunt Lyuba shouted. “I have only two hands. Verochka, my princess, you think you might want to do something?”
Vera pulled down the hem of the dress. “Chicken thighs?” she said.
“Yes, please. Use that knife in the drying rack.” Aunt Lyuba turned to Slava. “I expected you a little later, Slava. But there will be a lamb to make you forget your name. Just so you know, Vera can cook something, too, once in a while, if she wasn’t so busy with work. Frankfurters and mashed potatoes for now, but we’re working on it.”
“There’s a little place near where I work,” Slava said. “The guy makes lamb like it still breathes.”
“One of ours?” Uncle Garik said. “Central Asian?”
“No,” Slava said. “Lebanese.”
“Oh,” Garik said. “Ali Baba.” He raised his palms and swiveled in imitation of a dervish.
“There is only one solution to that problem,” Lazar Timofeyevich said.
“Kill them all!” Vera yelled a little hysterically, obviously repeating something she had heard around the dinner table. Slava watched her fingers work through the chicken thighs, flecks of grease decorating her wrists. With her teeth, she notched up the sleeves of her dress.
“I never said ‘kill,’” Lazar Timofeyevich said. “Please don’t put words in my mouth. I said ‘remove.’ Just give them money and please go someplace else. Our people have not suffered enough, they have to deal with this, too? Just leave us alone.”
“Where is Lebanon, anyway?” Aunt Lyuba said. “I am always curious now when they are talking about the war on the radio. Is it the same as Libya?”
“It’s in the Middle East,” Uncle Garik said. “They do make good food, however.”
“He has this special layering technique with the pita that he learned from Moroccan Jews,” Slava said, trying to steer them to impulses of solidarity.
“I heard on the radio once that Arabs are famous for their hospitality,” Garik said. “They invite you into the tent for tea, but once you’re inside, they kill you.”
“I think that’s a legend from long ago,” Slava said. “They don’t live in tents.”
“Don’t be naive, Slava,” Garik said. “What do you expect, they tell you to put tulips in gun barrels in this country.”
Vera deposited a serving plate layered with chicken thighs in the middle of the table. Aunt Lyuba shook her head. “My doll, who serves a plate this way?” She removed the plate and began to garnish its edges with sprigs of parsley. “Voilà!” she said a minute later, returning the dish to the table.
Everyone ate in busy contemplation, the men pushing the food behind their cheeks with their thumbs, Vera wiping her plate with bread. Lyuba was only half seated: more bread, more napkins, more garlic. She’d eat in peace when the men were finished. A flock of shrieks rose outside, the children playing.
“I think it’s time for lights,” Lyuba said, rising again. “Verochka, tell us about something. How’s work?”
“It’s daylight outside,” Lazar Timofeyevich said. “You’re wasteful with electricity.”
“Then you should have bought a house with windows,” Lyuba said.
“Nothing special,” Vera said. “Fashion boutique on Avenue X. Contest for the radio station.”
“She works in piar,” Lyuba said. “She connects Russians customers to American business. Isn’t that right, my dove? She earns above fifty thousand dollars a year.”
Vera blanched. “I connect Russian customers to Russian business,” she said. “I have only one account Russian to America. In this country, Mama, salary is a private issue.”
“Slava’s one of us,” Lyuba waved her away.
“Completely senseless,” Lazar Timofeyevich said. “If you need toothpaste, you go and buy toothpaste, I don’t understand why someone has to advertise toothpaste.”