Sergey shook his head.
“Are you feeling sick or something? Because I did everything well, right? It’s not my fault?”
“No, it’s not your fault; I have a headache,” he said, avoiding her stare.
“Headache? Do you want some Tylenol? I’ve got some in the bathroom.”
“No, I’m okay. I just took some.” He needed to leave, but Alla had scrambled to her feet and was blocking his way.
“I don’t have to give you your money back, right? Since it’s not my fault.”
“No. No, you don’t.”
She let Sergey pass but followed him into the hallway, buttoning her blouse as they went and wiping her chin with the back of her hand.
“You know what? I’ll give you your five bucks back, then. I might have change in my purse after all.”
“No, that’s okay.”
Sergey reached for his shoes. He felt a momentary sting about the money, muffled by the desire to leave this place. Right away. Run down the stairs, push open the exit door, and take gulps of cold ocean air.
“Maybe you want a glass of water or something? Some juice? I’ve got some currant juice.”
Sergey shook his head, quickly lacing his shoes.
And then as he stood to leave, Alla caught him by a sleeve.
“I know what I’ll give you. Some borscht! You can’t say no to a bowl of borscht, right?”
In the bedroom, Elvis drew out the last stammering note and the cassette ended with a snap.
ALLA SEATED Sergey at the kitchen table and went to turn on the gas under a large enamel pot.
“Won’t take long, don’t worry. We have to let it simmer for five minutes or so,” she told Sergey.
Alla moved the lid a little bit so that only the slightest puffs of steam could escape, then broke a clove off a head of garlic sitting on the windowsill and grabbed a bunch of parsley that was hanging upside down from a cabinet handle.
Alla peeled the garlic clove, cut it in half, and chopped it up. She had changed and was now wearing a fresh white T-shirt over the same track-suit pants he saw before. Most of the makeup had been washed off her face, which made her look both rougher and younger. Sergey marveled at how light and fast her fingers were.
“Do you want a shot of something, Sergey? Masha’s husband has a whole collection of infused vodkas.”
“Thank you,” Sergey said, “but I don’t drink.”
“At all?”
“It gives me headaches.”
“Well, I can’t drink either. I have to go to work in a couple of hours.”
“I thought you worked here.”
Alla froze, the knife suspended in midair.
“Here? What do you mean here? What do you think I am, some kind of a prostitute? I work as a nanny in Manhattan!”
Sergey mumbled an apology, and Alla calmed down enough to resume chopping.
“They are a very good family. Americans. He’s a lawyer, and she used to be something too. But now she does her projects, that’s her word—‘Alla, I have a lot of projects today’—and I watch the kids. She loves me, because I speak a little English and don’t mind doing the cleaning and the laundry. She says their previous nanny didn’t speak any English at all, and the one before her knew only two words: No laundry.”
She mixed the garlic and parsley together on the cutting board, sprinkled them with salt, and chopped them up.
“I live with them too. But Masha — she’s a really good friend; we go way back — said I could stay with her on my days off so I could take a break from them, you know. To rest, to sleep, to cook some real food. There used to be this other woman, Lubka; she rented a room from Masha, and it was her business. Then she found another job and moved out, and Masha offered me the room to take over. ‘God sees,’ she said. ‘You’re better looking than Lubka.’”
Alla paused, probably expecting a confirmation of her better looks, but since Sergey had never seen Lubka, he didn’t know what to say.
“What do you do, Sergey?”
“I install carpets.”
“Oh, that’s a nice job too. I hear they pay well.”
Alla opened the lid on the pot with the borscht and fished out four large pink potatoes. “I cook them whole in my borscht, then take them out and crush them. My mother and my aunts all used to do it like that.”
She carried the steaming bowl to the table and prodded the potatoes with a large fork. “Well, not as fluffy as in Russia, but still nice and soft. You have to crush them, not mash them. I don’t know why, but they say it’s important.” She stuck her fork in and broke the soft yellow flesh of the potato, leaving four furrows in its surface.
“You know what, Sergey? Why don’t you slice the bread while I’m doing this?”
She took a dark brick of rye bread out of a bread box and handed it to Sergey along with a cutting board and a long steel knife. The bread had such a fresh, heady smell that Sergey couldn’t resist breaking the crust of the first slice and stuffing it into his mouth.
“It’s a nice knife, isn’t it?” Alla asked.
Sergey nodded. “Did you bring it from Russia?”
“Masha. Masha did. She came to stay, so she shipped a whole bunch of stuff here: plates, knives, cutting boards, bowls. Even — listen to this — even a basin for washing clothes! Can you believe this? A basin for washing clothes!” She laughed, and so did Sergey.
“What about you, Alla? Are you here to stay?”
“Me? No way! My family’s there. My husband, my girls.”
Sergey stared at her. “You’re married?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been married for eighteen years, not counting another two when I was married to my first husband.”
She turned to point to the cluster of snapshots clipped to the refrigerator with banana magnets. Most of them pictured two young women and a stocky mustached man.
“What about you, Sergey? Are you staying?”
“No. I came only for a year. To work.”
“And how much of the year is left?”
“Actually, I was supposed to be heading back by now, but then we decided, my wife and I, that I might stay a little longer. You know, since I’m making good money here.”
“Oh, I know, I know. I know this song by heart. ‘Don’t worry, Mom, we manage fine here.’ And they do, they do manage fine without me, as long as the money’s coming. ‘Of course I miss you, Alla, but you better stay as long as your visa is good.’”
She took the bowl with crushed potatoes and carefully slipped them into the pot.
“Think about it, Serezha. He used to bring me coffee in bed when we first got married. Coffee in bed! That’s how crazy he was about me. And then suddenly it was all gone. How, when? Once, a few years ago, I was readying myself for a party — dressing up: earrings, perfume, mascara — and my husband walked into the room and squinted at me from the corner. ‘Remember, Alla,’ he said, ‘what a heavenly beauty you used to be?’”
She paused and looked at Sergey. He felt he should say something to her but didn’t know what.
“Yeah, just like that. But what can I say? Life is life, and the only way to live it is to take all the shit that comes with it.”
She stirred the borscht and put the lid back on.
“How long have you been married, may I ask?”
“Eighteen months.”
“Eighteen months! And you spent twelve of them living apart! Saving for an apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. For two apartments. One so my oldest daughter could divorce her husband, and another so the youngest could get married.”
Alla went to the refrigerator and pulled the snapshots of her daughters from their banana clips.
“See here, Serezha,” she said, carefully placing the pictures in front of him. “This is Natasha, my oldest, very nice girl, quiet, serious, smart, not at all like her papik—alcoholic. She is my daughter from my first marriage, and my current husband never really warmed up to her — which could be a good thing, some people say to me. But that’s why Natashka married that jerk at eighteen. Didn’t want to live with us. He drinks, he cheats, and he doesn’t work — exactly the three worst things about a husband — and poor Natashka got all three. My husband at least has a job. She would’ve gotten a divorce, but there is no place to live.”