Could it be true? Of course, it was beyond me to show my grandmother that I believed one shred of her story. It was too late. I had already made up my mind about her.
“Go back to bed, Baba,” I say. “Come on, let’s go back to sleep.”
She looks up at me like she has an endless river of things to tell me, her eyes wet but lucid, and I do not want to hear it. Instead, in a small voice, she says, “I am exhausted.” And then she follows me back to the apartment.
Which is where I lie, wide awake, waiting for signs that my grandmother is asleep—but she continues to toss and turn until I hear Uncle Ivan and Snowball stepping out for a walk, and then I hear Mama and Aunt Tamara stirring, so I lose my chance to creep back under the linden tree to dig up the necklace, which is very unfortunate, because when everyone gets up, Mama insists that Baba accompany me and my sister and the brothers to the market, where she dies before I have a chance to return her finery.
I leave it resting under the linden tree until we prepare to leave the mountains. Then, while my sister and Bogdan sleep above me, I sneak out to dig it up, pausing to run my hand over the Papa and Mama portrait packed in the dirt. Though the town is silent as I claw through the earth, when I look up at the apartment, I think I see it: a tiny rustling of the curtain on the balcony. Did Polina hear me leaving the room and go out there to see what I was doing, suspecting that the only thing worth digging up in the middle of the night was the damn necklace? Or was I just seeing things? The next day, she treats me with her usual indifference and does not seem particularly suspicious, though she is so weak that it’s hard to see how she feels about anything.
I keep the necklace hidden in Kiev for the next decade, until Bogdan dies and we buy the cottage by the sea, and then I hide it under the floorboards there, not knowing what to do with it for all these long years until I began telling Natasha my story and understand where it must go. I resurrect it during my return to my seaside home, finding it waiting for me there, as shiny and formidable as it had been in my youth. At first, I am almost afraid to touch it, as if it is haunted. As if my grandmother will materialize out of the ether to slap me for taking it away, and tell me, one more time, “Why Larissa. I did not think you cared for nice things.”
My edges fade by morning. All night long, it is not the conversation with my grandmother that flits before my eyes, but my last conversation with my sister. I see Polina, shorn-haired, standing beside me at the Kiev station as she prepares to board the train that will take her away from her Motherland for good. After I told her to keep up her looks a little more and she scoffed at me and said, “Is that right, Larissa? Our grandmother cared about appearances, didn’t she? And look where it got her.” I wondered—had she seen me digging up that necklace, just before we left the mountains, understanding what I had done? Or was she just commenting on our grandmother’s frivolous nature—one she had decided to forgo, and one which she believed, with good evidence, that I carried on?
I have tried to return to that night again and again over the years, to stare up at Building 32 after I unburied the necklace to see if someone was watching me from the balcony. Sometimes I saw my sister in her nightgown, but more often I saw nobody. Once the ghost of Papa appeared, staring out into the dark woods, eyes tinged with disappointment at me for not taking care of my sister. Yet another time, a ray of light shined on the balcony and revealed Licky merrily rolling around on his back, his belly basking in the glow. My grandmother and horse-faced Aunt Shura made an appearance once, doing the can-can with their arms around each other, their skirts flying up.
And truly, what did it matter? It is as pointless as trying to recall whether I ate fish or beef on my wedding night. There is no getting Polina back. Though I have my doubts, if there is something on the other side of this life, then perhaps I will find her again. Perhaps I will walk toward her, and tug on her arm as she had once done to me as we were leaving the city. “I’m scared,” I would tell her, while she would give me a triumphant smile and say, “Well, don’t be!” It would serve me right.
Though there is one thing I can do when I return to my country, I decide. I can make a trip to that orphanage in Kharkov, after all. Why not poke around there? It could not hurt to see the place where my father and uncle spent their formative years. I have seen a photograph of the endless gray building and have pictured all the little bunk beds inside, though I hope they have been updated since my father told us about them in the mountains. There is nothing to fear. I picture myself opening the door and stepping into the warm, welcoming light.
Just after I hear Natasha stumbling in, I manage to drift off at last, floating on a stormy river on a tiny boat with my sweet father, who is troubled by the roiling waters. We’re wearing heavy winter coats and wool scarves. Papa kisses my forehead and tightens my scarf and says, “You need to bundle up, Larissa, the winter is going to be colder than ever this year.” Then he closes his eyes and begins to cry, which I slowly understand is not my father crying, no, it is the baby stirring, followed by the even-sweeter sounds of her mother waking up to care for her and that, I think, is not the worst sound that could interrupt your slumber.
Natasha
“And then Babies Vera was like, ‘Wow, with all that makeup, you actually managed to look like you were on the brink of starvation—very impressive!’ Can you believe her? She called me fat the last time I saw her too. It’s like, I get it, I get it—why don’t you try having a kid and see how you come out? And it’s not like those girls are hot shit themselves—with all that makeup, they all look about forty-five, but do you see me insulting them?” I say, trying to keep things light, like I don’t care that nobody came to the play, as Yuri and my grandmother and I dig in to our last breakfast together, one I prepared with some difficulty, due to my brutal hangover and lack of sleep.
The sky was already turning pink when I got home from the after-party and I just curled up in bed scrolling through my phone, counting the likes on my #curtainsup #Mamasback #grandmotherland #brightlightsBrightonbeach posts, trying to feel happy that anyone at all cared at least a little bit, even though a picture of Tally sucking on her foot would have gotten more traction. Though I knew I killed it, I wished the people who liked my damn post had just come to see the play instead. My one comfort was that I think my grandfather wouldn’t have found a thing to criticize. I could almost picture his letter to me: You were perfect. Just the right amount of emotion. And you did it all yourself!
Yuri shakes his head as I continue to make fun of the Borsch Bitches. “You should be happy the Borschies came at all. That was nice of them.”
“Stop being so reasonable,” I say.
“What is wrong with looking like you’re forty-five, dear girl? I would amputate my left foot to be forty-five again,” says my grandmother.
“You look much better than those girls, Larissa Fyodorovna,” Yuri says with a wink.
“And who cares how much you weigh?” Baba says, ignoring the flattery. “You were phenomenal. Truly. And I have seen quite a range of your previous work, so I can say this with confidence.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“What? It is a compliment, darling. You are evolving, and I am so proud.”
“It was your best work by far, Natashka,” says Yuri. “You should have seen yourself—it was like you were possessed. The part where you ate the cat? You were amazing.”
His eyes are somber but sincere. Though he said the same thing last night, I didn’t really hear him. “Thank you.”