“It is not!” I shouted.
“Whatever,” said Vera. “We’re moving anyway. I won’t have to see you ever again.”
“Moving where?” I asked, shocked.
“Like I’m going to tell you.”
I realized she didn’t know herself.
“When?”
“As soon as Mother is on her feet again,” said Vera, and as a goodbye she kicked me in the shins, just like the good old days.
Our phone hardly ever rang. When Grandfather was away—and he was constantly away, building houses for other people for free, as Grandmother scowled because of his income—he didn’t call home a single time. Some mornings Grandmother would freeze in the middle of a sentence and say: “What day is it? It’s Uncle Fjodor’s birthday,” or “It’s Soviet Army memorial day. One must congratulate all the men of the family.” When I asked her why she never called anyone she reacted angrily: “Who’s going to pay for that chitter chatter? You?”
Once or twice a year I witnessed the phone ring and Grandmother rushing to pick it up and yelling, “Hallo!” again and again until she finally said, “Fine, then,” and hung up. The fact that the calls always came around my birthday and New Year’s, when all Russians congratulate their relatives, bothered me so much that I decided not to ask any questions.
Grandmother and I both cringed at night when the phone rang, the way we’d been taught to by television crime shows. It always meant somebody had been murdered. Grandfather was already in his cot on the other side of the wall, he had come home early by his standards.
I made it to the phone first.
“Hallo?” I said the way they did on TV. Grandmother came closer, I raised my gaze and saw Grandfather standing in the doorway unnaturally pale.
“Why are you crying, Vera?” I asked before Grandmother ripped the phone away from me.
“Dry your eyes now, child,” she said. “I survived it, too, and your mother has broad hips. What did you say? How much water? Blood? Stop mumbling, I can’t understand you. Put a towel beneath her. Is she conscious? So there you go. In that case it’s not so bad. I’ll send Opa over. He can take her to the hospital. Are you crying again? No, listen to me, she’s not going to die. How is it my fault? You’re dehydrated, dear child, and your mama probably is, too, the way she’s howling in the background. You should both drink something. Old Margo will come over with Opa and bring you to our place. No you can’t say that to your Oma, dear child, I don’t know that word.”
She hung up the phone and whirled around the apartment in a useless show of activity. Grandfather was still standing in the doorway, not moving. I wondered if someone could simultaneously be dead and standing up.
“Brainless man!” screamed Grandmother. “Do you have the car keys? The woman is deteriorating. Let’s go!”
Later I believed Grandmother had been right and everyone really would have died without her. Amazingly quickly she returned with Vera. I’d stayed pressed to the window the whole time. I’d never been home alone so late at night before, in fact I was never left alone at all. I thought about using the opportunity to search the cabinets because I was still agitated about the packages that had disappeared. But my limbs felt as heavy as lead. When I finally decided to do it, it was too late.
Vera sat down next to me on the couch with glassy eyes, Grandmother set down the plastic bag she had hastily packed with Vera’s things. “Old Margo has never left a child in a lurch,” she said with satisfaction.
I shoved Vera’s foot cautiously with the tip of my slipper. “Everything will be alright,” I whispered. She didn’t react.
“Shall I make you a fried egg with ketchup, dear child?” asked Grandmother.
“Where is his mother?” asked Vera in a monotone, gesturing at me.
“What did you say?”
“Where is his mother? Is it true that she sold him?”
“No,” said Grandmother calmly. “Look at him, would anybody ask for money for that?”
Vera shook her head.
“There you go.”
“But where is his mother then?”
I kicked Vera harder with my foot. Just because she felt rotten was no reason for her to drag other people down.
My grandmother’s eyes flashed menacingly.
“Do you believe in a god, dear child?”
Vera shrugged her shoulders. “We’re Jews.”
“Doesn’t matter. That happens. Go into the other room or somewhere else where nobody will see you, dear child, and kneel down and pray to your god. Perhaps he will help you and will be merciful to your beatific mama. And watch your filthy tongue in the future.”
Vera got up and went into the other room. When I looked in a bit later I found she was indeed on her knees. She was propped up on Grandfather’s cot and murmuring something into her fists.
Grandfather came home shortly before sunrise. Grandmother and Vera had long since fallen asleep. Vera lay on a bed of pillows and blankets that Grandmother had put together on the floor. I was awake, listening to Grandmother’s snores, with Vera’s restless breathing as a second track. I heard the footsteps stop outside our door. Several minutes of silence followed, and I began to think I had misheard the steps. Then the key scraped into the lock and Grandfather crossed the room with quiet steps and faded into the darkness in the adjoining room. I slid off the couch and crept after him.
He sat down on the cot, his face buried in his hands. I sat next to him, nearly convinced that either Nina or the baby had died. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say in situations like that. The question that animated me the most was whether Vera was now going to live with us forever, meaning Grandmother would then have the deadweight of two orphans to deal with. But I didn’t dare blurt it out.
Grandfather took his hands away from his eyes. “Go to bed.”
“We’re all going to die,” I said. I couldn’t think of any better words of consolation.
He looked at me blankly. I didn’t know what more I could say.
“A boy.” Grandfather held his hands apart. “So tiny.”
And only a few seconds later did I realize he wasn’t talking about me.
MAZEL TOV
Grandmother didn’t tell anyone when she headed off to the hospital with a helium balloon, a flower bouquet, and a cake. She came back with the exact same things, the balloon straining upward and bouncing behind her like a disobedient child. Vera and I were sitting at the table eating soup that Grandmother had made for us in the gray first light of morning and left on the windowsill.
“You couldn’t find the hospital?” I asked hopefully.
“The stupid woman isn’t there anymore,” said my grandmother. “She took off, the nut, and nobody was able to stop her.”
“They’re not allowed to,” said Vera. Ever since she’d found out her mother hadn’t died, she had been very concerned about her basic rights again. As Grandmother had already observed a few times, the German language had unpleasantly stained her: Vera always wanted to debate things, an example I was explicitly not to follow. About her little sibling Vera conspicuously did not ask.
“Hospitals are allowed to confine mothers who pose a threat to their child,” said Grandmother. “Where can she be? In a shelter for disgraced girls? She hasn’t been a girl in thirty years.”
“Maybe she’s at home,” I said, and under the table Vera gave me the hardest kick I’d felt up to now.
When we later talked about whose fault all of what followed was, Vera put all the blame on me. If I hadn’t put that stunning thought in Grandmother’s head, our lives, in Vera’s opinion, would have gone on unchanged, two parallel existences that never intersected, with me as the only go-between.
What happened, however, was that the three of us climbed aboard the tram. Vera and I carried between us a plastic bag with tiny rompers that Grandmother had sought out in
secondhand shops, then washed and ironed them. The helium balloon was already wilting and kept bumping against Grandmother’s head, which we would have found funny in other circumstances. Now, though, neither Vera nor I was in any mood to laugh. We scuffed our feet in front of Grandmother as the treetops rustled and the wind carried a sweet scent of blossoms mixed with something decaying. Grandmother kept shoving us in the back. My shin still hurt terribly. I peered over at Vera, her face was blank, as if someone had turned out the light.
We saw Nina and Grandfather from a long way away. They were standing in the entryway of the building, and Nina, whom I hadn’t seen in months, seemed both bloated and thinner at the same time, pale and infinitely tired. Between her and Grandfather was a bulky stroller that was draped with a white scarf. The wind buffeted the scarf as well as the balloon, the string of which Grandmother clutched.
She didn’t seem surprised to find Grandfather next to Nina. She gave me and Vera final instructions: “Keep your distance from the newborn. Any germ could kill the baby. You two are filthy bacteria slings. You should lie down,” she transitioned seamlessly to address Nina. “Why are you holding her up with your nonsensical chatter, Tschingis? You want the milk to go bad?”
She leaned down over the stroller and lifted the white scarf. Against her instructions, Vera and I immediately crowded in behind her to get a look. I’d never seen a newborn before. I was of the same opinion as my grandmother, that they should be kept behind closed doors in sterile conditions for the first few weeks.
Lying in the stroller, wrapped in a blanket, was the tiniest being I’d ever seen. It was so little that it didn’t even seem human to me. It must have come from another world, from some alien workshop, where they’d crafted an exquisite miniature copy of my grandfather.
Vera and I were standing side by side next to the stroller when we noticed Grandmother had taken a step back. Vera put out her hand and touched the baby on the ear, and I wanted to shout at her not to break anything. I turned to Grandmother. Without looking at her face, I took her hand after I’d confirmed that Grandfather had taken the flowers and the bag from her. I hadn’t thought about the balloon, and it followed us, buffeted by the wind, to the tram stop, where Grandmother finally let go of my hand.
“Do you want to lie down, Oma?” I asked once we were safely home. Grandmother hadn’t said a single word during the ride. I would have preferred it if she’d dumped the contents of her purse over my head and cursed the entire world. In order to keep her busy I’d asked her nonsense questions the whole time, like whether the Soviet flag really got its red color from the blood of our enemies, and whether I’d ever be able to taste French fries, and finally even if she’d ever fallen off the stage during her past as a dancer. Grandmother hadn’t reacted.
At home, too, I’d not been able to catch her gaze even once. I pulled out the couch, pinching my finger in the process, just as Grandmother had always predicted, and shouted: “Ouch!” But none of it seemed to interest her. I got out the bedclothes and spread them out on the couch as best I could, and fluffed the pillows. Grandmother sat motionless at the table. I took her a glass of water, then, after a bit of thought, a glass of vodka. The bottle was in the refrigerator, Grandmother believed in vodka poultices in the case of fever. Finally I shook her arm.
“Leave your Oma alone, little one,” came a murmur from her mouth. I looked at Grandmother. Before me sat an old lady shriveled like the balloon we’d bought for Nina.
I choked back my tears and put on the television. She still didn’t say a word.
I didn’t expect Grandfather to come home that night. For all intents and purposes, I thought, he didn’t ever need to come back. There was nothing here that he would need urgently. His toothbrush was at Nina’s. His miniature copy as well. I could sleep on his cot tonight. On the other hand, could I really leave Grandmother alone on the couch in her condition?
While I was in the bathroom I heard the apartment door open and then close again. I was sure that Grandmother was heading for the nearest river. She had talked of that time and time again in desperate moments: “I can’t take it any longer with you two. Where’s the nearest river?” And it played no role that the nearest river was thirty kilometers away and that she had no driver’s license. But when I had a look, she was still sitting there. Sitting opposite her was Grandfather. Their hands were on the table but not touching, and the strange peacefulness of the scene tickled my nose. I fought off an urge to sneeze.
“You know, Tschingis, dear Maya,” said my grandmother after what felt like an eternity. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. I know the same is true for you. It’ll continue as long as we live. This cripple here,” she gestured in my direction with her head, “he’s here for life, too. You can’t leave him behind, and at some point you’ll be all alone with him. Every year counts double for me. I’m an old woman, and you’re a young man. I’m sorry that you made another brat, but that baby has a mother and this one here does not. He has no one except us.”
She paused for a long time, inhaling deeply. Then she reached across the table, pulled the open pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of my grandfather’s shirt, and took a lighter from the shelf above her head. She lit a cigarette and, with excited horror, I inhaled the smoke wafting towards me into lungs that had supposedly been clotted since my birth. In our apartment there’d been a strict no smoking policy as long as I could remember.
“Your punishment is us, Tschingis,” said my grandmother. “Look your Margo in the eyes. I’m not going to hold you back, you are a free man. You work a lot, your honor isn’t at issue. So you have a son. It fills one with pride: A son. Go to him if you want to. And think of dear Maya. Perhaps she’d still be alive if . . .”
My grandmother put the cigarette out in a coffee cup.
“Congratulations, Tschingis,” she said after another pause. “I forgot to say that in all the excitement. You’ll have to forgive me. Mazel tov.”
I leaned against the wall because I was suddenly overwhelmingly tired. Grandfather sat upright, tears ran down his dark cheeks. I couldn’t stand the sight. At that same moment I stopped trying to suppress a fit of coughing, and my lungs exploded.
LITTLE UNCLE
It wasn’t the sound of a baby screaming that woke me, because, in my deep sleep, I just incorporated the screaming into something unrelated to me, like the static from the television next door, on the other side of my thin wall. It was the much softer hissing of my grandmother that woke me with a start. I sat up in bed immediately, rubbed my eyes, and let myself fall back onto the pillows once I’d remembered that it wasn’t due to me this time. For outsiders the sound might have seemed threatening, but I knew the differences in the noises my grandmother made.
“Shshsh,” she’d say persistently and affectionately while swaying gently back and forth on the chair. She’d thrown a scarf over the lamp on the nightstand, which did dull the light but also cast spooky shadows on the wall. The milk gurgled from the bottle, the baby sighed. I closed my eyes.
“Good boy,” purred my grandmother. “No need to cry so loudly, you see you’ve woken Maxi. Maxi needs to go to school in the morning so he doesn’t stay so stupid. You’re a big boy, you’re seven months old now, you’ll go to school, too, and bring the best grades home to old Margo.”
I was no longer awake when she went back to the couch. The baby still slept in a cardboard moving box that served as a provisional bed for him. Grandfather wasn’t there.
“Back at the construction site, the wretch,” murmured Grandmother. “Takes every job just to get out of the house. As soon as the baby arrives the wife’s no longer any fun, eh?”
When I tried to ponder how it was that we had a baby in the apartment now, I just couldn’t. I tried to remember that moment immediately after the birth of my uncle, when Grandfather stood motionless at the window as if Nina still lived on the other side of the courtyard, but
actually never saw the children of the newcomers at play because he had his eyes shut. I remembered Grandmother and the growing tension she spread, and how she dropped things one after the next, a spoon, an apple, a plate. She never picked them up. At some point she sent Grandfather out with a shopping list. He came home with diapers and groceries.
My grandparents carried full bags to Grandfather’s car and disappeared for a few hours. I stayed behind with the unfamiliar feeling of being forgotten. After they returned Grandmother held forth about which types of cribs were particularly deadly. A day later my grandparents carried a large carton to the car together, and Grandmother told me that Grandfather had put together a crib under her guidance. Finally she held out her palm to Grandfather and ordered him to hand over the key to Nina’s apartment. I couldn’t see his face, but he obeyed.
That same day Grandmother came home as white as a cadaver.
“I bought her vitamins,” she muttered, bracing herself on my shoulder. “I rang the bell politely, and only afterwards opened the door. Nobody was there. The refrigerator was empty, the trash was full. Didn’t I tell you to look in them every day, you Asian gob?! Why do you screw everything up? What will I do now?”
I found myself torn between the desire to run away and the nearly inexorable pull of the pain Grandmother was screaming in Grandfather’s direction.
“She’s weak, she can’t get far, Margaritalein,” said Grandfather hoarsely.
“Where do you think she is now? How many disgraced women have been fished out of the river with their bastard child?”
“There’s no river around here . . . ,” I muttered, but it wasn’t heard.
“Call the police!”
“And Vera was at school this morning,” I said. This time I was heard, and Grandmother abruptly calmed down.
It was easier than it seemed: Grandmother needed only follow Vera after school the next day. Nina had checked into a cheap hotel in the city and screamed at my grandparents to get out of her life. Grandmother swore that Nina would have thrown the baby at her if she hadn’t grabbed it in time.
My Grandmother's Braid Page 7
