By the way, Nadia called while you were out. She’s not very happy.
Is she ever?
She’s particularly unhappy, then.
Her moods aren’t my responsibility.
Calling your family is.
I’ve hardly been here a day!
It’s been a few.
Well, you know what they say, time flies…
Don’t you care how Sanya’s doing?
He’s grown. Takes care of himself.
He’s sixteen! Do you need me to remind you of yourself at his age? Nadia claims you don’t make any effort with him.
Since when do you listen to Nadia?
Since she’s allowed by law to call me Mama.
Mama, she’s unhinged!
That much was clear the moment you brought her through the door.
That happened on the same day she started calling Esther Mama. In that time, in that place, everyone had been in a rush to the altar. For good reason — a walk down the aisle with nothing but butterflies or buckwheat in the bride’s stomach was unheard of. But marriage was by no means a life sentence. The babies matured quickly, becoming adults by their sixth or seventh birthday, and the guys, however decent, often returned to the streets, though never for long. Nets were ubiquitous, vision blurry. All of this was understood, not necessarily openly talked about. Adolescent Pasha had been ahead of his peers in his grasp of certain subjects (those that came with a textbook) and equivalently behind in what Esther called the Life Subject. Of course it was the only subject at which he wished to excel. When at the age of eighteen he introduced his new wife, Nadia, Esther asked with resignation, When’s she due? He laughed. We’re not expecting! Esther spit on the floor and reddened. You married her just to marry her? What a romantic! You could’ve at least had the decency to knock her up. Now how am I supposed to explain this to everybody?
By twenty-one Pasha was a father. No longer ahead or behind but, along with the rest, somewhere in the thick of it, he felt sorry for himself — while Esther felt obliged to side with her daughter-in-law, who had the valid complaint that not long after they exchanged gold bands, Pasha stopped paying attention. Esther sided with Nadia, partly for revenge. Much heartache could’ve been avoided had he taken to Dora: sensible, warm, from a nice Jewish family, a good cook, not too homely (a beauty in comparison to Nadia). She would’ve treated Pasha like a king. Instead he chose the cold, insane, pasty, pear-shaped, droopy-haired Northern Nadia, who didn’t even give off the good-in-bed aura.
Pasha was handed the phone well into the second ring. Sanya picked up. Mama’s catatonic, he said. Half an hour later — that’s half an hour of international-calling minutes — Sanya managed to coax his mother to the phone.
We miss you, she said in an evaporated residue of a voice. We want you back.
Pull yourself together. I’ll be back in no time.
When?
You know when.
But that’s so long from now, Pashinka….
During her lethargic slumps, lasting about a week, Nadia became as pitiful as possible. A burst of household activity ensued. Hopping out of bed before dawn, she’d mop floors without sweeping or use a wad of wet toilet paper to smear window grime. The fervor amounting to nothing, she’d yell, This is why we never have company! You should be ashamed! How do you stand to live in such filth? These scenes took place in front of Nadia’s toothless mother, who barely reached Pasha’s hip bones and wore a kerchief wrapped twice around her shrunken face. She slept in the kitchen. She used to share her thoughts, then began to think better of it, and by now had reached the ideal state of not having a thought to hold back. She didn’t speak, so it was hard to tell to what extent dementia had eaten her brain. When there were shouts — and when weren’t there? — she sat by the window with eyes shut, smacking her lips. This deactivated mode had its disadvantages: She stopped helping around the house. The apartment suffered, but dust balls and vermin were easier to ignore than Olga Ivanovna’s screech. At one time he’d been afraid for her life — the woman’s histrionics could’ve made a strangler even out of her angelic Lenin. And she probably wasn’t even that old. At her pace she could easily persist for another half century. But why think of such horrors when they existed in a different time zone?
Esther was rushing out of the kitchen when Pasha said, Wait. I wanted to ask you something.
Quickly!
What do you think of when I say fireplace?
Chimney sweep.
Oof, said Pasha, relieved. So you don’t think about—
The time you burned to a crisp everything precious to me in a fit of hysterical paranoia?
THREE
TAKE THE Q to 14 ST/UNION SQUARE, keep to the back of the train, get out the narrow exit behind a long-haired man tangoing with a life-size doll, cross to Virgin Megastore side of Broadway, go in direction away from George Washington on horse (numbers get smaller) until E. 4 Street, cross to corner with Tower Records, summon willpower to resist revolving doors, find door a bit farther down, tell Jamaican doorman with lazy eye you’re there for Mikhail Davidovich Nasmarkin, confirm you mean Meesha in the loft, sigh with relief as he directs you to an elevator and illuminates a button, launch up to some preposterous floor, shut eyes to avoid surfaces busy with your decrepitude.
The blob of color at the end of the hall was Misha. Gold sneakers consumed his ankles, denim shorts fell almost to those ankles, and a yellow carnation peeked out of the breast pocket of his camouflage T-shirt. Flattened by their embrace. His corkscrew brown hair could’ve been apportioned into five poodles. I can’t believe you’re actually here, he said in a way that made Pasha wonder, Why not? The next half hour was spent getting the atmosphere just right. What was Pasha’s beverage of choice? There were cocktail mixes, espresso varieties, iced herbal teas, fresh-squeezed juices, and vintage wines. Bob Dylan was laid on the gramophone but, failing to satisfy, was replaced by Charles Mingus. Misha announced them as if they were coming out onstage to perform. Pasha took a seat on a stiff couch but was moved to a stiffer couch, closer to the skylight.
I see you eyeing that beanbag, said Misha. Don’t be shy.
Pasha plopped down — it was harder than he thought.
Tell me everything, man, said Misha, sitting at last. He switched the cross of his legs. Pasha opened his mouth, but Misha stuck up a just-one-moment finger, flew out of his chair, rounded the corner, and was back with crocheted coasters for their sweating drinks. Force of habit, he apologized. But once again he was stooped over the gramophone, fidgeting with the volume knob, because Mingus was getting out of hand. Returned with a bowl of cayenne-smoked pistachios. Don’t blame me when you’re addicted. Pasha obediently popped one into his mouth. Rotated it around in his cheek. Within several seconds his eyes shrank into slits of water and a trickle could be seen dangerously near set-off in a nostril. Attempts to bite down proved futile. Misha pretended to look out the window. See that hotel across the street? he said. There’s a pool on the roof. Models sunbathe topless. He craned his neck. Not right now, though. Pasha reached for a napkin to spit out the unbroken nut. Something in the apartment intensified its whir.
Weren’t we going to go somewhere? said Pasha, sinking deeper into the chair’s loosely packed, grainy cushion.
Misha turned sharply. My place is stuffy, isn’t it?
It’s a superb apartment.
It gets OK light. I didn’t even pick it out, to be honest.
And location — it’s the artistic crux of the island, no?