“I can’t buy a ticket, Mama. I lost my documents. I’m never getting out of here. It’s the end for me.”
His eyes were so full of despair that Nora felt she was being turned inside out. He understood everything. There was no hiding, and nothing more to hide.
“I didn’t come here to bury you. I came to pull you out. But you have to help me—I can’t pull it off without your help. Let’s do it this way: you forget about yourself for a while, and help me save my son. All right?” Nora spoke quietly, calmly, in a voice that was almost steely, but inside she was howling and keening, being torn to bits.
“Mama, I told you, I don’t have any ID. I lost everything—my green card and my driver’s license.”
So he didn’t remember how they had gone last time to the Russian Embassy to get him a new passport. In order to do this, they had had to file a report with the police about the theft of the old one, and to have new photographs made. It hadn’t been difficult. In the Russian Embassy, Nora had stood in line, and they submitted the application together. The passport was supposed to be ready within the month. Then Nora flew back home. Six months had passed since then. She realized he didn’t remember, but she asked, just in case, “And your Russian passport?”
“My what?”
“We applied for one last time I was here. Did you lose it again?”
“No, I completely forgot about it.”
Nora called the embassy. The passport had been ready for a long time, but it was only valid for him to be able to buy tickets to fly back to Moscow. Which was just what they needed.
They went together to pick up the passport. Tengiz was flying in on the same day, and Yurik promised to go with Nora to meet him at the airport. But suddenly he started hurrying nervously, claiming that he had urgent matters to attend to. He asked her for twenty dollars, and promised to come to Marina’s in the evening.
Nora met Tengiz and took him to Marina’s. The entire rescue operation was not at all to Marina’s liking, but their long friendship bound her to the obligation of offering Nora and Tengiz refuge. Yurik didn’t call that evening; he called the evening of the following day. When he showed up, he hugged Tengiz, and they ritually clapped each other on the back. And then Yurik immediately hurried off somewhere—on business. He asked his mother for another twenty. Nora gave him the money, realizing he needed it for a “fix.” Everyone understood the situation. Nora said that she would buy the tickets the next day, for the following day.
“I’d rather wait a week,” Yurik said.
But Nora objected. “No, Yurik. You wrap it up today. I’m buying tickets for the next flight. This is an urgent matter.”
The next day, Nora and Tengiz went to buy tickets. They bought a new one for Yurik, but Nora’s return ticket was, just by chance, for that very date. A hundred-dollar fee allowed them to change the date on Tengiz’s ticket so he would be on the same flight.
Nora asked Yurik to come over on the evening before the flight. Marina’s nerves were so strained that she took the children and went to stay with a friend in Tarrytown. Yurik didn’t show up that evening. Nora didn’t sleep the whole night. She called Yurik every half hour at what she thought was his apartment—Tom Drew’s, that is. Tom first told her that Yurik wasn’t there, and then stopped answering the phone. If he knew where to look, he would have tried to find him, but no one knew. Yurik himself might not have known where he was.
To make it to JFK on time, they would have to leave home at four o’clock in the afternoon. Tengiz had hardly slept all night, either. He was gloomy and depressed, and went to take a walk in Central Park. He said he’d be home by two.
Nora stayed behind alone. She had never in her life felt so desperate and helpless. She counted her money—$830. It was clear that they’d have to rebook their existing tickets, because there wasn’t enough money to buy new ones. She wondered how much Tengiz had on him. It would hardly be possible for them to buy three new tickets. They could go to the Aeroflot office and try to exchange them. But something stopped her—the faint hope that Yurik would show up in time. She wandered around the empty apartment. She found a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cupboard, poured herself a shot, and drank it down. Vile stuff. But she immediately felt somewhat better, though not at all relaxed. She looked at the clock: ten in the morning. They still had six hours before they needed to leave the house for the airport.
She lay on the couch in the living room. One wall was covered with Marina’s paintings, which had a tinge of the screams and anguish of expressionism. Marina had graduated from the Stroganovsky Institute of Industrial Art, but soon thereafter immigrated to the United States when her career in Russia was just getting under way. She had been one of the most promising students in her graduating class, but things didn’t work out for her in America. Immigrants always land on the lowest rung of the social ladder, from which they need to start to work their way up again. Nora closed her eyes. Marina’s pictures, which loomed before her, weren’t making her feel any better.
Tengiz made his way to Columbus Circle and then into Central Park. He had no idea how enormous it was—this piece of Manhattan, with its granite boulders heaving up from the ground, overhangs, bare trees, snowy expanses, and frozen puddles. It was cold and sunny. The paths were peopled with multitudes of sweaty joggers, some with headphones and some without, bicyclists, and even horseback riders. No, Tengiz did not like America, although the park was wonderful. Something prevented him from taking a shine to it. Maybe, despite all its charms, it was still too big, too simple, too indifferent, this America; and our boy was being stalked by death here …
He went down to the big lake. It glittered with a fresh layer of ice. He sat down on a bench and felt as cold as the devil on a church pew. He lit up a cigarette. The bench was in a secluded nook, away from the runners and the walkers. Two black fellows were sitting on another bench not far away, one of them with a guitar. He was strumming quietly. A third fellow joined them—a young white man. It was Yurik. They shook hands, and exchanged something in the process. Holy shit, heroin! Of course, it was heroin. Tengiz was afraid he might scare them, but he couldn’t let Yurik get away. So he started to sing. He sang a Georgian folk song at the top of his lungs. Yurik turned around and saw him, and his face lit up. He said goodbye to the others, who melted into the bushes immediately. Tengiz hugged Yurik, and they clapped each other on the back. Without withdrawing his hand from Yurik’s shoulder, Tengiz announced joyously, “Let’s go home, kid! We’ve got a plane to catch.”
“What do you mean, Tengiz? I thought it was tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow? Tomorrow’s today. Besides, what difference does it make? Let’s go.”
“Hold on, I have to collect my things, my guitar.” Yurik tried to wriggle out from under Tengiz’s grasp.
“What things, buddy?” Tengiz put on his most winning Georgian accent, the one he used for telling jokes. “What do you need that stuff for? An old guitar? Come on, we’ll buy you a new one, and go to the airport.”
Buying a new guitar was a dream Yurik had long cherished. He had sold his favorite instrument dirt-cheap several months before to a dealer, and his only other guitar wasn’t worth beans. “Let’s see. I know of this place with good prices, but it’s sort of far away. Let’s go to the Guitar Center; maybe we’ll find one there.”
By two o’clock, Tengiz, Yurik, and the new guitar all arrived at Marina’s apartment.
Nora had already called all the ticket offices and agreed with one of the Aeroflot employees to rebook the tickets at the airport. She would pay a fee for these services to one Tamara Alexandrovna, who would meet her at the JFK entrance. How convenient it is to be Russian sometimes, Nora thought. Our bribery network functions the world over. The last vestiges of Nora’s anxiety evaporated when she saw her men standing in the doorway. “Oh, Tengiz…” was all she managed to say. Yurik sat down in a chair and began to tune the guitar, as if nothing at all had happened.