“Has anyone asked Vera what she wants?” Slava said.
“You have to speak into this ear,” Lazar Timofeyevich said impatiently.
“You are willing to give away your one granddaughter to someone who earns half her salary?”
“What?” Lazar whined. Slava wondered if the hearing impairment had been invented for deployment as needed. It had caused notably less interference at dinner.
“It’s not important,” Slava sighed. “I have to go, Lazar Timofeyevich. Long trip back.”
The old man shrugged, too weary to continue. He rose somberly and shuffled off to a corner cabinet. From it he withdrew a sealed white envelope, thick, and dropped it on the table in front of Slava. Then he lowered himself back into his chair. “Make it good,” he said.
“What is this?” Slava said.
“Your fee. Two hundred and fifty.”
“Thanks,” Slava said. “I don’t need a fee.”
“Your grandfather said not to give it to you, but you’re the one who deserves it.”
Slava felt warmth in his cheeks.
“Lazar Timofeyevich, you should have waited until they came,” Lyuba said reproachfully from the doorway. Garik was next to her, two eavesdropping children.
“Wait till who came,” Slava said.
“Who, who,” Lazar said, an old owl.
The doorbell rang, a slow tick-tock that banged around the tiled halls for eternity. They stood sealed to their places. On the elders, it dawned that Slava had no idea what was happening. Why had he been kept out of it? Well, he kept his distance now, they had heard. Fucking children, God pardon their speech: You give and you give and they spit in your face. Why were they so set on pairing Vera with Slava? That was the only reason they’d said okay when the Gelmans asked to come over. It wasn’t the kid’s fault that the parents — the grandfather — was a high-nosed prick. But what, the apple falls far from the tree? The kid was a strange one, too — in his own way, but strange all the same. All this flashed through the minds of the elder Rudinskys.
“Must be them,” Garik said.
“Who,” Slava said, a mild hysteria entering his voice. He knew the answer, but prayed to be wrong.
“Them, them,” Lazar said impatiently.
Lyuba disappeared into the hallway. Slava jumped from his chair, Lazar following at lesser speed. When Lyuba opened the door, the three men were bunched in the hallway behind her, wearing pained expressions: Garik because he didn’t know what to expect from this encounter — in some ways, he felt responsible for the estrangement, because his need for the limousine seed money had started it, though for the same reason, he also felt the most aggrieved and unprepared to reconcile, though of course he would do it for the children; Lazar because he was halfway to the next world and therefore understood, as only his granddaughter did, the imbecility of such estrangements; and Slava because he was bewildered, one that his grandfather had been charging for the letters, and two that, very likely, there were Gelmans on the other side of that door. Above their heads, Vera’s feet pressed the carpeted stairs. She was still wearing her goddamn arousing heels, the stilettos pricking the soft carpet.
The door opened to reveal, indeed, two Gelmans — father, daughter — and one Shtuts. Slava’s grandfather wore a white guayabera and an expression of disdain. His daughter was in a multiflowered tunic. Her husband was tidy in a short-sleeved shirt. They held chocolates, cheap champagne, the weight of the world.
“From New Jersey, they have graced us with their presence,” Lyuba said. She was aiming for playfulness, but the words came out scornfully.
“What are you keeping them outside for?” Garik said. “You’re wasting air-conditioning. Come in, people, come in.”
“It’s Slava,” his mother said, as surprised to see him as the Rudinskys.
“He’s on this side of the door already,” Lyuba said coquettishly.
The person in question examined his grandfather with blazing eyes.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” cried Vera, and ran down the remaining stairs into the hallway. She began to relieve the Gelmans of their bags and setting out house shoes from the closet. Massed in the foyer, the Gelmans obediently began to shed their footwear.
“I’ve cleared the table from dinner already, I just have to set out the china,” Lyuba said.
Grandfather’s nostrils flared. He was always being invited for coffee and cake after a dinner to which he had not been invited.
Dumbfounded, Slava searched out Vera’s eyes, but she avoided him. “Why don’t we sit in the living room?” she announced, and ran into the kitchen to gather provisions. Slava followed her, though he could only stare.
Her hands were deep in a cabinet. She stopped rummaging and looked over at him. “Are you going to help or not?”
“You’re joking, right?” he said. The adults trooped past the kitchen doorway en route to the living room. Lyuba was about to come in, but Vera waved her away. “The good china,” Lyuba hissed from the doorway and winked at Slava, an accomplice.
“Why can’t you let them settle it themselves,” he said to Vera.
“Because they’re children, that’s why,” Vera said.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“You’re not leaving,” she said. “Help me.” Her expression softened. “Please.”
“He’s charging people,” Slava exclaimed. “Behind my back.”
“I’m sure it’s for you.”
“I don’t want the money!” Slava yelled.
“What’s the matter in there?” they heard from the living room. Vera and Slava stopped to listen. Their bickering had given the adults a subject of conversation. Someone even laughed. “You see?” Vera said to him through her teeth.
The children appeared in the living room carrying two trays of gold-rimmed plates and teacups. Stiff with silence, the adults were wedged into a sofa and love seat, thighs against thighs. The appearance of the children gave them a subject.
“What’s for sale today?” someone asked.
“What does the tea cost?” a second added.
“Just like old times,” someone announced, because it wasn’t like old times at all.
“Today we have a special,” Vera said playfully. “Open house at V and S Alimenti. Free snacks and tea.”
“Hooray,” Slava’s mother said tentatively.
Slava wished violence on all of them. After he set his tray down, he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the white envelope. Stepping over Garik’s feet, he thrust it in his grandfather’s face. The conversation stopped. His grandfather looked up at him, fearful and mocking.
“I think this is for you,” Slava said. The white envelope hung between them like a poisonous sun. It anchored a galaxy of fat Russians.
“Can we skip business talk this one time, please?” Vera broke in. She snagged the envelope from Slava’s hands, folded it in half, and wedged it housewifeishly inside her décolletage. “Looks like I’m getting a shopping trip out of all this.” Everyone laughed.
“It’s so nice that you wanted to come,” Lyuba announced when everyone had settled down.
“We wanted to come?” Grandfather said.
“Vera said—” Slava’s mother began.
“Oh, what difference does it make!” Vera cried. “You me, me you… we’re together. We’re together for the first time in almost twenty years.”
“Well, everyone, you look the same,” Garik said, and again they laughed.
“What the fuck did we get ourselves into,” Lazar said, not much hilarity in his voice. He meant America.
“Do you know that some people just stayed in Italy,” Slava’s mother said. She pulled at her tunic.
“If I did it again, I’d stay in Italy,” Garik said. “Do you remember these two?” He pointed at Vera and Slava. “They’d be speaking Italiano by now.”