Peter was excited and did most of the talking and Keith did his best to educate him on the research center, explaining its structure and the kind of work that was developed there, all the while reminding him that even entry-level jobs like the one Peter would be applying for were highly competitive. Peter continued as if such information was irrelevant but Luda interjected from the kitchen.
“Please,” she said. “Is this real interview?”
“Real? Yes,” Keith said.
“They are serious about him?”
“Yes, they’re serious. It’s a real interview.”
Luda had paused in the midst of her work preparing dinner and appeared to Keith now as if the center of a painting, the counter sloping toward her on one side and on the other the sink with leafy sprigs of wet vegetables fringing its polished steel surfaces, and then in the midst of that warmth stood Luda herself, not an image of a woman but rather an image of a human being in a location of weight or meaning, as if the locus of some physical space that he had forgotten about entirely but which was somehow present here, in this house, and the sight of which rendered him unable to speak.
They sat at the table, Luda and Peter on one side, Keith alone on the other, and Luda dished out a series of pillowlike cabbage leaves from a casserole dish, each stuffed with ground pork and beef and dripping with some kind of thin red sauce and topped with sour cream. The smell that emanated from it was wonderful indeed and upon the first bite the flavor of it flooded through him all at once. He simply could not remember the last time he had tasted anything so good and he said as much and Luda blushed.
“This is Ukrainian food?” Keith asked.
“The best Ukrainian food,” Peter said.
“The only food I know from that part of the world is that beet soup.”
“Borscht,” Luda said.
“Bah,” Peter said. “Beets are like terrible dirt. I hate them. Old grandmas make for children to eat for cruelty.”
“Shush, Petruso,” Luda said. “He might like borscht maybe.”
“No one likes borscht except grandmas with no teeth. He has teeth,” Peter said.
“I haven’t eaten like this for so long I can’t even remember,” Keith said.
“Thank you.”
“She is best cook,” Peter said.
“I agree,” Keith said. “And I don’t think I’ve ever had borscht.”
“I will cook you borscht then next time,” Luda said.
“Not even you can make borscht good,” Peter said.
Luda smiled and then said to Keith, “I am happy you have made my husband your friend.”
“Luda, do not—,” Peter began but Luda placed her hand on his and he quieted immediately.
“Petruso does not want me to say maybe but it is true. You are someone to look up to, I think. For Petruso and this family.”
Keith searched for something to say in response. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
“Yes,” she said simply.
Again the pause as he thought. Then he said, simply: “Thank you.”
“He knows this,” Peter said.
“Maybe true,” Luda said, “but good to say.”
Was he someone to look up to? Even now? He might have believed this to be possible once but that was so long ago now. “I’m glad to be here,” he said.
The food warmed him to the core. He had been given a glass of fruit juice of some kind — peach, he thought — and a glass of wine and Peter kept both glasses full so that Keith had no idea how much wine he had drunk, knowing that given his medication only a few glasses were enough to bring on drunkenness, a state acceptable when sitting outside with Peter but less so when sitting in Peter’s home as a guest. And yet he did not feel like a guest but rather was warm and comfortable and full as if he had become a member of the Kovalenko family somehow. It had been so long since he had felt such a sense of belonging. Not for many years with Barb. With Quinn, though, even during those last months when they were often at odds there had been brief moments of contact between them, silences in which they had simply been together, father and daughter.
And then he could feel her memory turning inside him and he looked up from his dinner plate. Her face floated in the room somewhere, watching him with vacant eyes.
“You are OK?” Luda said and he looked up at her abruptly.
“Oh,” he said, “yeah.” He looked from her to Peter. Both of them were staring back at him.
“You look maybe not well,” Peter said.
“No, no, I’m fine.” He paused and then said, “Maybe too much wine.”
They both continued to stare at him and he took a quick drink of water and then looked back at Luda and said, “You know,” and then paused again, cleared his throat. His heart thumped wildly in his chest. “I know a bit about Peter’s life but I don’t know anything about yours.”
“This is nothing to talk about,” Luda said.
“Please,” Keith said. Just that. Quinn hovering against his chest. Then: “You grew up in Ukraine?”
“Yes,” Luda said. Her eyes were downcast, not as if ashamed but as if embarrassed by Keith’s attention.
“Not like me, though,” Peter said. “In Pechersk. Very nice in Pechersk.”
“Yes, it is nice there,” Luda said.
“Very nice,” Peter said.
“You were wealthy?” Keith said.
“It is long time ago,” Luda said.
“Not so long,” Peter said.
“My grandfather and father worked in Russian government. Many government workers lived in Pechersk. By river. It is very nice there.”
The feeling of Quinn was fading now, the fear and terror of loss drifting out and away from him as Luda spoke, as if the story, someone else’s story, was enough to press that secret gravity away from him.
“When Ukraine is independent we must leave. My father was good man and people like him and so we stay in Pechersk for years but then he has the cancer and is buried. Then not very good anymore.”
“They kicked them out to street,” Peter said with obvious disgust.
“Not so bad as that.” She looked up at Keith, their eyes locking together.
“Bah.” Peter waved his hands in the air.
“Where did you go?” Keith said.
“To university,” Luda said. “For job, not for student.”
“Is that where you met Peter?”
“Yes, that is where I met Peter.” She did not break the eye contact, instead continuing to stare at Keith, her complete attention focused on him. “He is very different from those people I knew before.”
“I was poor,” Peter said.
And now Luda did look at her husband and when she spoke her tone was quiet and lilting, like a beautiful, sad bird: “Yes, but not like poor. Not … how do you say … not stupid.”
Peter did not say anything, instead shaking his head, his eyes half closed in thought.
“He is very smart man,” Luda said.
Keith nodded. “I know.”
“Bah,” Peter said again. “This talk is embarrassing to me. We talk more about job so I know what to do tomorrow for interview.”
Keith looked over at him, and at Luda.
“We were married quickly,” she said as he met her eyes once again.
“Quickly?”
“Yes,” she said. “Quickly.”
“Ah,” Peter said. “You embarrass me now even more.” A hush fell and Keith sat and wondered what she meant and then Peter said, “You do not understand. She was to have baby Marko.”
“Oh,” Keith said. Nothing more. He glanced at Luda and her eyes were cast to the table again.