The Nesting Dolls

by Alina Adams

“Yes,” Zoe says. “Good thing we all outgrow that.”

  She wonders if Gideon will realize she’s joking. She wonders if he’ll get the joke. She wonders if the joke’s on her.

  “Well, my grandma wasn’t playing. It’s our family tradition, she said, not going down the same path as everyone else. My grandma was a Black Panther—can you believe it? She remembers when gun control was another tool to keep the black man down. Now, she’s got her NRA card and she flashes it every chance she gets. You can imagine how popular that makes her.”

  “Your grandma is brave.”

  “My grandma is something.” Gideon grins. “Not sure if brave is the right word for it.”

  “My grandma is something, too,” Zoe echoes. “Not a fan of doing what’s asked of her, either, especially if it’s the government asking. Brave isn’t the word I’d use, though. Spiteful, maybe?”

  Zoe feels a twinge of guilt at not only sounding like she’s criticizing Baba, but for blabbing family secrets. Baba hates anyone knowing their business. She says she refuses to be the subject of gossip. But then Zoe decides she and Gideon are engaging in a fair and equitable exchange of goods and/or services. Information is the ultimate twenty-first-century good, according to the people who decide these things. So Zoe is being a proper capitalist. Baba can’t object to that!

  “My grandma marched, protested, and got arrested”—Gideon equitably spills his own family tea—“so my dad could become a lawyer who could send his son to private school. They sacrificed so I could become the man I wanted to be, no matter what anybody else, including the government, thought. If the man I want to be is a guy who doesn’t care if he sets the world on fire, who wants to play with his code and read books and enjoy himself, that’s still a victory for what they fought for. That I even have that choice to make.” Gideon qualifies, “That’s what I keep telling my grandma. She’s not exactly on board.”

  “I wouldn’t dare try that argument. My family didn’t come to America so I could disappoint them. Though they constantly make me feel like, no matter what I do, I have.” Zoe isn’t sure why she’s telling Gideon this. Except maybe his expressing opinions she didn’t know people were allowed to have is giving her the confidence to express opinions she knew she had but understood she wasn’t allowed to express.

  “What about Alex? Does your family not like Alex? Everybody likes Alex.”

  “Yeah, Alex is the bright spot. He’s exactly the kind of guy I should be dating.”

  “Should,” Gideon muses. “What a romantic word.”

  If he only knew for how many generations of Zoe’s family should was the operative romantic word.

  Her phone buzzes.

  It’s Alex. He’s sorry, he’s being held up.

  “Rain check?” Gideon guesses.

  “Yup,” Zoe confirms, sighing as she hangs up. She’d made an effort, put on makeup and everything. A whole face wasted.

  Gideon picks up on her disappointment. He asks, “Want to catch a movie instead?”

  Chapter 38

  Based on the collection of books in Gideon’s office, Zoe is thinking: comic-book blockbuster. She’s sort of right. Gideon does take her to see a sci-fi flick. A double feature of Little Shop of Horrors, the original black-and-white Roger Corman cheapie from the 1960s and the movie musical from the 1980s, being screened in the back of a Village comic-book shop. About fifty people are packed into a space meant to hold, at best, thirty. Based on the number who wave or nod their heads in his direction, Gideon is a regular.

  Zoe and Gideon arrived too late to snag a folding chair, so, after raising a hand in greeting to some of the other audience members, Gideon drags in an empty packing crate from the storage room. He links his fingers and drops his arms, indicating Zoe should step on his conjoined palms, and he’ll give her a boost up. It’s a bit of chivalry Balissa never mentioned in her litany of things men should do, or Baba in her litany of ways to make them suffer, which Zoe finds touching.

  The first movie starts. So does the conversation. Barely a line is uttered in either film that doesn’t provoke a response from the audience, especially when a ridiculously young Jack Nicholson appears as a dental patient who gets off on pain. There are cries of “Here’s Johnny,” “You can’t handle the truth,” and even something about holding a chicken between your knees. Zoe wants to join in. Zoe always wants to join in. Primarily so she doesn’t stick out. But she’s not certain what the correct response is in this situation. Lacy once dragged her to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Zoe recalls that audience interaction is extremely regimented. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can get one banished to hipster Siberia.

  Zoe whispers to Gideon, “What am I supposed to say?”

  He looks at her queerly. “Whatever you want.”

  His confidence in Zoe calls to mind Alex. And puts Zoe under the same amount of pressure. After she left the Mix & Mingle, Zoe would confess only to Lacy how Alex’s inherent trust made her feel unworthy. She wouldn’t dare express the same thought to Alex. Yet, with Gideon, Zoe doesn’t hesitate to sheepishly admit, “I don’t want to embarrass you. If I say something stupid, you’ll look stupid for bringing me. And if I don’t say anything, they’ll think I’m stupid. Or that I think I’m above all this, like I’m too good for it.”

  “Just be yourself, Zoe,” Gideon says, vocalizing the exact opposite of what her family would say. It’s exactly what Zoe must have known he’d say. Why else would she have trusted him with the confession in the first place? Gideon indicates the crowd in all their geeky glory. “Does it look like anybody here came to judge?”

  Gideon is right. Nobody at the comic-book shop cares what Zoe does or says. Even Gideon watches the movies, not her. The exception is, when Zoe laughs, he turns and grins, pleased to see her enjoying herself. When she gathers the courage to sing along with the onscreen bouncing ball, he joins in. After Zoe comments how Seymour and Mr. Mushnik are stereotypical Jews who’ll do anything for a buck, including sacrificing human beings to a carnivorous plant, and wonders whether Little Shop could be a Muppets version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion libel about Jews killing Christian children to make matzo with their blood, he does not look at her like she’s out of her mind.

  “That’s the spirit!” Gideon says.

  This not-being-judged thing is intoxicating. Zoe wonders if this is how Lacy and her fellow Americans feel all the time. She wonders if this is how Alex feels most of the time. She wonders how he does it. She wonders if he’ll teach her. She wonders if maybe Gideon already has.

  After the movies, Gideon and Zoe say goodbye in front of the comic-book store. It feels like they’ve been through some momentous experience together, two soldiers returning home from war. Or something more intimate.

  “That was fun. See you later, Zoe.”

  Funny story: When her family first came to the United States, the American volunteer assigned to help them get settled took her leave from them that first night by saying, “See you later.” They thought she’d meant later, as in later that night. So they stayed up until one a.m., waiting for her to come back.

  Zoe is tempted to blurt out this personally embarrassing tale to Gideon, to keep things from getting awkward. And to keep the evening going just a little while longer.

  But Gideon doesn’t do awkward. After saying it was fun, he gives Zoe a hug. That lingers sweetly after he’s disappeared down the block.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the boy who’s courting you is Alex Zagarodny?” Mama and Zoe are shopping for Baba’s party again, this time on the hunt for a T.J. Maxx dress that doesn’t look like it came from T.J. Maxx.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” There’s a Russian saying: Beat a child every day. If you don’t know what they’ve done to deserve it, they will. Zoe’s philosophy is the inverse: Apologize every day. If you don’t know what for, your family will. “How do you know about Alex?”

  “Alex’s mother’s neighbor is the sister of your great-uncle’s n
urse.”

  “In Israel?” Zoe’s love life is now a matter of international importance?

  Having failed to find a non–T.J. Maxx–looking dress at T.J. Maxx, they exit in an offended huff. A car whizzes by on the street, all four windows open, rap music blasting loudly enough for Zoe’s stomach to clench in synch with its rhythm.

  Mama clutches her purse closer to her body, even though the car is now half a block away. “Those hooligans . . . They think they can do whatever they want with no consequences. No manners, those people, no respect.”

  If Zoe knew what hackles were, and if she felt certain she had some, they would now be on the rise. “You can’t say that, Mama. You can’t generalize about all black people like that. How would you feel if you heard someone say all Soviet immigrants are welfare frauds and . . . and . . .” Zoe can’t think of anything equally bad that also isn’t a synonym, and so completes her righteous indignation with, “and . . . computer programmers.”

  Mama’s stride doesn’t break. “Spare me your internationalism.” She spits it like the dirty word it is at their house. “You went to your school for smart children in Manhattan—Baba and I saw to that. You didn’t have to walk the halls of public school in Brooklyn every day, getting called a nasty-ass Communist who should go back to where you came from, or a stuck-up bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone because you study hard and answer the teacher’s questions.”

  Mama is right. But her experience doesn’t complement the narrative Zoe has decided on, so she ignores it, pushing down her guilt at having escaped the same fate, in the service of a greater, universal good. “I’m sorry that’s how you remember it, but fearmongering stories don’t make it okay to tar everybody with the same brush.” After the topsy-turviness of the past few days, it feels soothing to articulate finally what Zoe has been drilled is the correct thing. To feel confident that she is right and Mama is wrong.

  “Who is tarring? I am not tarring. Where do you see me tarring? You are the one who is tarring. You are like the people on the television, and the Facebook. Somebody says one thing about one person, and you act like she has said many things about many people. Just like in USSR. First they make you confess, does not matter if you did this thing or not, you must feel guilty and confess. Then they force you to beg forgiveness, explain how you know better now—self-criticism, it is called. Still they say no forgiveness for you. Because you confess to this once, you are guilty for always, there is no sorry, no changing your mind. Anything you say can and will be used against you forever; it is the law here today in America, too, that is what I think.”

  “What about Baba and Deda? And their friends?” If the suspect won’t immediately confess to your satisfaction, go after their family and known associates. “Don’t tell me they don’t stereotype all black people as hooligans.”

  Mama laughs. She laughs harder than Zoe’s heard in a while. “Do you know what your baba said when I cried about being bullied? She said, in the USSR, there were African students at the university, brought over so they could see how wonderful Communism is. But they were all so serious, so hardworking, the other students complained that they were no fun, that all they cared about was their grades! And your deda, he chimes in, the Vietnamese students, they were the ones who only wanted to have fun; they so lazy, they hardly showed up for class, and they didn’t care for studying at all!”

  There’s too much for Zoe to unpack, including the blasphemous notion that there could be different stereotypes about the same people in different cultures. She, once again, ignores anything that doesn’t conform and sticks to her initial point. “Baba and Deda aren’t in the USSR anymore. I’ve heard how their friends feel about the African Americans here. The words they use. Sure, they say negr,” Zoe whispers, “which means Negro in Russian. But they’ve lived in the U.S. long enough to know what it sounds like to other people. I can tell what they really believe.”

  “Have you ever seen your baba go along with what everyone else believes?”

  “Well, no . . .” She’d told Gideon that only the other night.

  “And does your deda treat everyone as an individual, regardless of the people they come from?”

  “Well, yes . . .”

  “So you see, you are the one who is tarring all of us. I know there are many fine blacks”—Mama hesitates, then confesses—“but I do not like Oprah. Always telling me how I should live my life. I do not need this.”

  True. Mama and Zoe have Baba for this. Unlike Baba, though, Oprah doesn’t designate twenty minutes after they depart any social gathering to reciting an inventory of the things they did wrong there. The first time Lacy invited Zoe to a party, Zoe felt so peculiar afterward. It took her several occasions before she understood it was because Lacy didn’t harangue Zoe as soon as they’d left. When Alex seemed a little disappointed in Zoe during the Mix & Mingle, she’d felt more in her element than after seeing the movies with Gideon, when he’d acted like she’d done nothing indecorous. Where was the closure?

  “Alex’s business partner is black,” Zoe blurts out, not sure to what purpose.

  Mama nods as if she expected nothing less. “He is a nice boy? Smart?”

  “Very nice. Very smart.” Zoe feels bummed Mama deprived her of the chance to enumerate Gideon’s sterling qualities as part of a soul-stirring defense in the face of her unrepentant racism.

  “I am sure your Alex only works with very nice, very smart people.” Mama changes the subject, though, in her mind, she’s done no such thing. “You must invite Alex for supper. Do it quickly, Zoyenka. Before he loses interest in you.”

  “I thought men were to be tortured,” Zoe teases.

  “You are enough,” Mama reassures her, in what passes for a compliment at their house.

  Chapter 39

  “Our Zoya is ashamed of us,” Mama announces over the supper their Zoe has agreed to share with her, Baba, Deda, and Balissa, in exchange for Mama calling a cease-fire in the argument to get Alex to do the same. Mama collects the empty soup plates while Baba brings out the roast chicken and potatoes powdered with dill, clucking as usual. “I do not understand this, in Odessa, we buy one chicken, it lasts a week. Here, one chicken, one meal and it is gone!”

  “I’m not ashamed of you.” Zoe sighs.

  “Then why will you not invite your young man to visit with us?” Mama persists. “We can help you, Zoyenka, to evaluate if he is appropriate person. We have much life experience. Better to make decisions than you youngsters.”

  “Did Baba and Deda think my father was the appropriate person?” Mama pretty much told Zoe the answer to this while they stood in front of her father’s house. But Zoe’s goal here is not to get information. It’s to deflect attention.

  Baba opens her mouth. Deda cuts her off. “I did not.”

  It’s the most definitive thing he’s ever said on the subject.

  “Why not?” Zoe asks, stunned.

  Baba interrupts, “What difference does it make now? What happened is what happened, no going back for anyone. What’s the point of combing through the past? That’s not the direction time moves in. My mama and papa loved,” Baba puts heavy emphasis on the next word, “this one.” She flaps her hand in Deda’s direction. “I had no choice but to marry him.”

  “Because I am so wonderful,” Deda chortles.

  Baba ignores him. “So that is that, too.”

  While they’ve been talking, Balissa has been nibbling, ladylike, at her chicken wing. Once she’s done, she dabs at her lips with a napkin, sets the napkin down next to her plate, and lifts the now licked clean bone, snapping it in half and gracefully inserting the jagged ends into her mouth. She is sucking out the marrow.

  When Zoe was little, any ill table manners were greeted with the query, “Would you eat in front of the Queen of England like that?”

  Zoe suspects Her Majesty frowns on marrow sucking. But just like they insist sunburns lead to good health, Balissa can’t surrender her Soviet conviction that marrow
sucking is the prime way to get iron.

  “Sometimes”—she slides the cracked bone out of her mouth—“no choice is the best choice.”

  Instead of a family supper, which Zoe doesn’t mention, for their next date, Alex escorts her to the Guggenheim Museum for a reception honoring New York City’s most dynamic 30 Under 30. Is it supposed to inspire her, or make Zoe feel guilty for not being among them? On the one hand, Alex makes her feel like she could be. On the other, he seems to be chastising her for not doing enough to make it happen. Just like at home!

  Everywhere Zoe looks, they’re surrounded by tuxedos and cocktail dresses; outside, a red carpet with photographers, and inside, towering art that nobody understands but everyone pretends to. She whispers to Alex as they breeze by the indifferent-to-them paparazzi, “Will Oz the Great and Powerful rear up in flames and throw me out for being Dorothy the Small and Meek?”

  Her reference is to the movie, though Zoe first came to the story via a Russian translation of the book, where the heroine’s name is Ella, and her slippers aren’t ruby but gold.

  Alex squeezes Zoe’s hand reassuringly. “You belong here.”

  That should have answered Zoe’s earlier question.

  It leaves her feeling only more confused.

  Alex is so confident, Zoe suspects now wouldn’t be a good time to reveal she’s never been to the Guggenheim before. Not that her family is uncultured. They’ve hit the symphony, the ballet, the opera. But they prefer that culture come to them. Operas, ballets, and symphonies tour. Museums stay put. Baba does remember visiting the Vatican while they were emigrating. Seeing Catholic splendor, on the heels of Soviet deprivations, made such an impression that now, when the Pope makes declarations regarding the evils of capitalism, conspicuous consumption, and how we should do more for the needy, Baba informs the TV, “When the Holy See sells off their mansions and their paintings and their helicopters, and hands over their profits to the poor, then I will listen to what he has to say about me giving away my things.”