The UnAmericans: Stories Read online

  “Well,” Ya’akov said, “after Reb Yandorf and the rebbetzen, you’re the first.”

  I kissed her cheek. She even smelled like a mother, of sweat and cooking oil and a dozen oniony dinners. “I’m so happy for you,” I tried. “That’s wonderful.”

  “Thanks.” Then she glanced at me with more concern than a daughter should. “You’re really sure Sveta’s making you happy, too?”

  That was the understatement of the century. I loved waking up beside Sveta, watching her rub sleep seeds from her large brown eyes. I loved how quickly we slept together, as if neither of us could muster a reason to hold back. And I loved the sex itself, which was undeniably, almost unbelievably, good. I loved watching her face scrunch up and then go slack, and I loved the moment right after, when she would huddle into the nook of my arm and run a hand over my hairy chest, calling me her big bear. I loved that she came to Friday night dinner at Ya’akov and Beth’s and never let her eyes glaze during the blessings, though I’m sure she was bored nearly to sleep. I loved that she was kind to them, and I loved the quiet dignity she maintained when refusing to join in on the prayers—letting them know that growing up, she hadn’t been allowed to learn them—rather than snapping at Ya’akov, as I often did, to hurry up already so we could eat. Those moments at the dinner table, I felt as if Sveta were teaching me something important: that I didn’t need to make every opinion known, didn’t need to be filterless, that sometimes the best thing was to sit quietly and smile and sip my wine. I loved the weekends, when we would take the paper to the park and spend all day lazing around the meadow, watching the neighborhood parade by with its strollers and dogs. I loved kissing her in that meadow, on the street, on the subway platform, just before the train roared into view—as if we were the only ones who existed, as if the entire city were being carried away in a tornado, and we were caught smack in the center of its glorious gray swirl.

  Of course there were nights when I heard her slip out of bed after the lights had been off for hours. As my eyes settled into the darkness of the room, I’d see her standing by the window, lifting a book or a paperweight off my shelf. Not really looking at the object, just turning it over in her hands like she’d forgotten its function. Usually I rolled on my side and fell back asleep, knowing at some point she would return to bed—after all, when Gail first left, I’d found myself wandering the rooms of my apartment, opening cupboards or flicking on lights, then forgetting why I had entered the room in the first place.

  But one night—it was October, a work night, two weeks after I’d learned Beth was pregnant—I put on my slippers and followed Sveta’s footsteps down the hall. I found her on her knees in the bathroom, face cupped in her hands, weeping. She was in one of my undershirts, so baggy it reached her knees, and the sight of her on my bathroom floor was—well, it just was. The room was dark, but there was enough moon coming in from the window that her skin lit up white. I had no idea what it meant to find her hunched on my tiled floor in tears, and to be honest, I didn’t want to know—who would interrupt a moment like that to ask if she was having, like the fool would suggest, a meltdown?—so I knelt beside her and stroked that soft ambiguous space between her back and her behind. I wiped her damp face with the heel of my hand, and then I asked her, just like that, and she said yes.

  WE’D BOTH learned that the big things you plan in life never live up, so we kept it small at a nearby synagogue. I would have preferred to sidestep all the Orthodox malarkey and have the wedding at City Hall, but then Beth wouldn’t have come, and Sveta, maybe because of her secular background, said she couldn’t care less where the ceremony was held. Sveta’s cousin Galina flew in from Chicago and carried flowers down the aisle. She looked older than Sveta, late forties at least, with dark curly hair and delicate wrists that suggested she had once been slender. I hated thinking she had probably been at Sveta’s first wedding, too, wearing that same puffed pastry dress, so I concentrated on the clacking sound my Oxfords made as she scattered roses across the room.

  Under the chuppah Sveta looked especially flush-faced and pretty, wearing a silky dress that stopped at her ankles. Saying the vows was much easier the second time around. While the rabbi droned on about the seven blessings and the history of the ketubah, Sveta started to cry: not enough to smear her makeup, but enough for me to notice. For a second, I wondered if she was scared to be going through this again. Or, worse, if she feared the whole thing was all wrong. But then Sveta gave me one of her smiles—just a flash of teeth, and then it was all about that lower lip—and I thought, My God, this woman has tears of joy for me. I raised my foot above the glass and the guests broke into applause.

  THE NEXT afternoon, we were off on a honeymoon to Ukraine. Beth and Ya’akov drove us to the airport. The women were quiet in the backseat: Beth nauseated and pale, small hands stroking her stomach; Sveta dozing with her cheek against the window, still tired from the wedding. Sunlight caught her gold band and I twisted my own; when Sveta slipped it on the night before it was as if it had always been there, as if there was never an interim when my finger was bare. We veered onto the Triborough Bridge and the skyline rushed into focus, so miniature and grand. I nudged Sveta to look up, but she was groggy and slow, and by the time she opened her eyes it had disappeared from her view.

  We pulled into Kennedy, and Ya’akov and I unloaded the trunk while Sveta went with Beth to the bathroom.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you,” Ya’akov said, setting our luggage on the curb. “You move fast.”

  “Would you let it go already?” I said.

  “I’m sorry.” He clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Sveta’s great and I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

  “How did you mean it, then?”

  I stared hard at that bony hand, perched on my shoulder like a proud parrot, but Ya’akov didn’t remove it. He met my eyes. “We just want what’s best for you. Forget what I said and enjoy the honeymoon. We’ll look forward to the photos,” he said, and I wondered if I would ever be able to hear that we without feeling my throat clog.

  Then it was time to go. Sveta and I said our goodbyes to them and slogged through security, and soon we were taking off. By her feet was a handbag full of magazines, but she just kept staring out the window. I followed her gaze but all I saw were clouds, the kind that look sturdy enough to nap on. The sun set. I thought about how if the plane flew in the other direction, the sun would set and set and set.

  At Charles de Gaulle we took a shuttle to a dinky terminal and boarded a little plane with orange vinyl seats and no leg room. As it taxied off the runway and bumped through the sky, I reached for Sveta’s hand. It felt lighter than usual, and warm with sweat.

  “You’re afraid of flying?” How odd to think I didn’t know this about her.

  “Not so much,” she said, but her cheeks had blanched. “It’s just these tiny planes, they frighten me.”

  I thought to say, but you’re the one who wanted to fly halfway around the world. A month ago, just days after I’d asked her—I’d still been rolling the word fiancée on my tongue, tasting the sound of it—Sveta had come home with a Ukrainian guidebook. “You can imagine more perfect honeymoon?”

  “Terrific!” I had said, though I’d been hoping for Tahiti.

  I must have seemed underwhelmed because she’d looked at me, her round face more serious than usual, and said, “I haven’t been back to Ukraine since Nikolai. My whole life—it was there.” I think I understood only then how infuriating it must be for Sveta to translate feelings this complicated. “I know your life in U.S. I want my husband to know place that make me. Please,” she said. “Anyway, we have nice time in Kiev. You can see my flat from youth, my school. And what a treat for you to see where your people are coming from.”

  There was no point in telling her I’d never had much desire to explore the city my relatives had fled. All my life I’d tried to look forward, not back. My grandfather worked for years in a factory until he had enough money saved to open
a tailor shop. My father took over the shop and added a dry-cleaning business, and when it became mine, I hired more workers, bought a quality steam press—all in the name of moving forward. I kept the shop open on holidays to increase profits—all in the name of moving forward. But sometimes, when I was locking up the shop or drifting to sleep, I’d think about how everyone around me seemed to be regressing. Beth returning to the Brooklyn shtetl I had abandoned, Gail acting impulsive and smitten and happy—nothing like her age, nothing like I had known her to be. And now me, vacationing in Kiev. Still, what could I say but yes?

  SIX HOURS later the sun was coming up and we were in a taxi, swerving through Kiev. Everything was calling out to be photographed—the dark choppy water of the Dnieper; pine trees that lined the road, so green they were almost blue; even sights as commonplace as a mother and daughter on the corner, clutching plastic grocery bags and peering down the block as their bus came closer—until Sveta sighed and tucked my camera back in its case.

  She’d seemed almost annoyed with me the moment the plane touched down and we had to split into separate lines at customs. And now she was acting as if there were an invisible person between us in the taxi whose space we needed to accommodate, her body pushed against the passenger door, the window down, her arm hanging out.

  I figured she was tired, and didn’t want to bother her. So I opened my guidebook and leaned toward the driver. “Vy hovoryte—”

  “Yes,” he sighed, “I speak English.”

  “Maybe you can show us some sights? Some old KGB stuff?”

  Sveta’s face cleared and she cringed. Through the rearview, she muttered something to the driver, and though I didn’t speak a word of Ukrainian, I recognized her expression—the international look of I’m sorry.

  As we made our way down a thin, cobbled street, she said something else to the driver and we stopped. Outside the window was a department store, glass-walled and wide, with mannequins in dresses and heels.

  “This used to be the shop where my grandmother work as stockwoman,” Sveta said, more to her lap than to me. “Now looks like Bloomingdale.”

  “That’s a good thing, no?” I said.

  The taxi started up again.

  “Maybe,” she said, but she stiffened. Then she sat upright, silently watching her city blur past, and all I could concentrate on was the way her nostrils widened and closed as she breathed.

  OUR HOTEL room in Kiev was just a sunken bed, a mini fridge and a green floral armchair pushed against a window. This was what the travel agent had called four-star? I opened my mouth to complain, but stopped. With Gail I would have said something, but maybe that had been part of the problem. On the second go-around I knew to keep things breezy.

  “Smile,” I said, pulling the camera from my fanny pack and aiming it at Sveta.

  “Stop with photos,” Sveta said, flopping on the bed. “How are you not feeling jet lag? My ears haven’t even popping.”

  I knelt beside her. The carpet was pale brown, the kind we had in my living room growing up. I kissed her. She let me. I read this as a go. I tucked my hand under her sweater.

  “Howard, I’m smelling like airport.”

  “So?”

  “What I’m needing is rest,” she said, blinking into sleep.

  I looked around the room, at our unpacked suitcases and the old floral chair and the brown carpet, and told myself not to overanalyze—there was nothing wrong with Sveta wanting a nap. I lay down and wrapped my arms around her, and then the exhaustion hit me, too.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep when I felt her slip out of bed. She tiptoed into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The clock on the nightstand read 12:18, but with the heavy drapes, was it A.M. or P.M.? I yanked open the curtains, cracked the window and the cold air jolted me awake. Afternoon; we still had most of the day.

  When I turned the knob, Sveta stood at the sink, wiping her eye makeup off with a tissue. In the mirror her face looked weathered and puffy, older somehow—as if the flight had aged her. She stepped out of her sweater and jeans; I stared at a body still so amazingly new to me: her full white hips, the swelled curve of her upper arms. Her back was like some secret object being unveiled.

  She began to take off her bra when she saw me in the mirror. Then she hooked it back on. “You’re needing the toilet?”

  “I wanted to see if you’re okay.” I hoped my voice didn’t sound as pleading to her as it did to me.

  “I’m fine, thanks.” She turned to face me and I was stunned by her expression: she seemed genuinely startled to see me standing there. “But you’re let all the cold come in.”

  “I’ll go check out the shops downstairs,” I said, walking out, not knowing what else to do. Just before the room door slammed shut, I saw Sveta step out of the bathroom and pick up the phone.

  “Galina,” she said after a moment.

  I waited. I pressed my ear to the closed door, but all I heard were hiccups. Then the hiccups broke into sobs.

  DOWNSTAIRS LOOKED like an American hotel lobby: potted ferns, gloomy nautical art, a pretty concierge tapping away with long pink nails on a computer. Men in glossy black loafers and dark mustaches—I had never seen so many mustaches—whispered into cell phones, conducting business I sensed was enormously important. I sat on a sofa and watched them, but after a while I gave up trying to understand their conversations and wandered into the gift shop. There I found all the presents I needed to buy without ever going outside: a matryoshka nesting doll for the baby, a set of bath towels with the hotel name stitched in Cyrillic for the fool, a scalloped wooden jewelry box for Beth.

  Back in the room, Sveta was still on the phone, wrapped to her chin in blankets. She nodded at me and cradled the phone to her cheek, suddenly responding to the other end in only nyet’s and uhuh’s. Her voice was low and wavery; I knew not to mention the hotel’s long-distance rates. I sat beside her on the bed and opened up the matryoshka doll. A smaller doll was tucked inside. I opened up the next one and the next one, until there were five little dolls lined up on the bedside table.

  Sveta placed her hand over the mouthpiece. The look she shot me made me swallow, hard. “Go enjoying the day,” she whispered. “I think I’m wanting to stay in.”

  I sat there, staring at my wife, with her short rumpled hair, bare toes peeking out from the heap of blankets. I wanted to ask what that look was for. It was even worse than the one I’d gotten in the bathroom: it was the terrified look you’d give an intruder barging into your hotel room. But I had a feeling I knew the answer, and the last thing I wanted to hear Sveta say was that she had made a mistake. I knew it was ridiculous to be threatened by a dead man, but I couldn’t help it. Nikolai had been the kind of man, I decided, whom people in America had never referred to as Nick. The kind of man who would have seemed ten times more charming and intelligent than I did, simply because of his accent. A man who would have looked dashing in his white radioactive gear, wandering the Chernobyl countryside while women fell at his feet. A man who made love like a pro, a man who was probably—oh, God—the original big bear.

  And yet I knew, deep down, that it wasn’t only him. It was the way Sveta had closed into herself this morning as we passed that department store. It was the bewildered way she’d looked out the taxi window, as if her city had gone into hiding. It was the fact that she’d called her cousin when she felt this bad, rather than turning to me. I hadn’t even had time to mess up in the ways I’d anticipated, ordering stupidly in a restaurant or bumbling in front of her friends. That moment in the taxi earlier, when apparently I’d said something embarrassing I still couldn’t pinpoint—those sorts of things I had worried about, of course, but had believed they’d all seem inconsequential once we returned home to New York. But this felt different. As if the moment the plane landed in Kiev, Sveta was no longer certain I belonged in her life.

  All at once I felt crowded and dizzy and nauseous. I took in some air, what felt like all of it left between us, and said,
“How about showing me your old school?”

  “Not now.”

  “Later, then. When you’re off the phone we can go.”

  “Howard,” Sveta said, “I’m not wanting to give tours now. Why don’t you go seeing some sights yourself?”

  “It’s fine, I’m in no rush.” I sensed I was talking my way into a hole, but I couldn’t stop. I never fucking could. “Relax now and we’ll go out for an early—”

  “Stop, please.” She muttered something to Galina, put down the phone and led me to the door.

  “Listen,” I said, reaching for her arm—but as I said “listen” she said “have fun” and closed the door. I stood outside the room, noticing, for the first time, the view of a soccer stadium from the open hall window. Amid the bleats of horns below I could hear the faint cheers of the crowd in the distance. I leaned against the wall and said “No” out loud.

  Then I knocked, twice, and Sveta opened the door.

  “You’re my wife,” I said. “Just tell me. Did I do something, anything, to make you feel—”

  “It’s nothing like this.”

  Then I said it: “You thought you loved me, and it turns out you don’t.”

  A maid wheeled her cart by. Down the hall, a vacuum hummed. “I’m so sorry,” Sveta said. She stared at the carpet, then thrust a guidebook at me.

  THE DAY was blue and crisp. Trees were still bare but the snow had melted, visible only in tiny patches along the sidewalk. I stuffed the guidebook into my fanny pack and roamed the streets, mapless and lost. I looked up at the blocky rows of concrete tenements, wondering if Sveta had lived in one of them, if she’d had a balcony crisscrossed with clotheslines and dotted gray sheets, like the ones billowing up now in the breeze. Two boys played tag, zigzagging through a row of parked cars, and I wondered if Sveta had been the kind of girl who would have hitched up her school dress to play with them, or if she would have stayed upstairs with her grandmother, avoiding cuts and bruises. I didn’t know, and I felt ridiculous standing there in the narrow alley. So I followed the walking tour in the book instead, moving onto cleaner, bush-lined roads. I visited Lenin’s statue and St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral, the Taras Shevchenko Museum and Golda Meir’s childhood home, caring less about the significance of each place as the day dragged on.