Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel

by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

  • • •

  IT WASN’T ANOTHER MIRAGE to which Esther enthusiastically waved but Pasha and Frida in the flesh. The family was barricaded on one side by water and on the other by cherry pits like tiny bullets that had perforated a flock of seagulls. They’re organic, said Levik, implying that they weren’t litter, though he would never say that as the family had a complicated relationship to litter. But the trouble with cherry pits was their clotted bloodiness and that they carried the ugly secret of mouths.

  What took so long? You had to wait until the sun was strongest! Put on a hat. Take a dip. Come here. Don’t get sand on that. Want a sandwich, a drink, oh, I know, an apricot? The pinprick sun reigned triumphantly, but the corners of the sky were thick, curdled, darkening. Frida sat between her mother’s slack legs, staring up.

  Soon there’ll be no more sun, she said.

  It’s out now, isn’t it?

  But the black clouds—

  Go swim with Grandpa.

  Frida ran until the water lopped off her knees. Grandpa! she yelled. Twenty men turned around, but Robert kept floating half the ocean away.

  Flies attacked Marina’s legs. She decided to ignore them. Not a minute later, bewildered by how painfully they bit, she began to swat. A plastic bag was blown into her hair, sand into her eyelashes. A neighboring family’s feral kids were shrieking, Esther chewed a never-ending apple. Helicopters, fading sirens, lifeguard whistles. Marina wiped the perspiration from her hairline, pulled up her straps, raised her head into the breeze. All around, tan, muscular specimens were running, digging, stretching, throwing balls, and then there was Pasha, folded crookedly into a low chair, his face contorted against the sunshine. Since they were no longer around, who fed him, who ironed his pants? Who reminded him to shower, to tuck in that shirt? Certainly not his wife. His visit, they’d decided, would be a chance for rehabilitation. They would pamper him, cram in a year’s worth of nutrition, hygiene, care. But then he emerged (last, of course) from the baggage claim, and his belly looked fostered, cheeks buoyant. His clothes were wrinkled, but twenty hours in transit might do that. Esther reassessed with lightning speed. Look at you! she cried. A haircut first thing tomorrow!

  Marina peeled her brother off the canvas chair, and they began to tread. This excruciating pace was Pasha’s only mode of moving, and to walk alongside you had to adjust yours. Pasha’s pace wasn’t a deliberate saunter—he had bad lungs and motor difficulties (such was the official statement), an unmanageable thought chorus, and no need to be anywhere, at least not in a timely manner. Not very long ago, Marina herself had been queen of the promenade, most qualified in a city of inveterate lingerers and loiterers to demonstrate how to stretch a quarter mile for hours, how to ping-pong gracefully between the Opera House and the Steps in four-inch heels. She still had trouble disassociating punctuality from the height of desperation.

  With her silence she was prompting her brother to say what he intended to say, which was that he’d given the matter due consideration and the answer was yes. Then the real work could begin—compiling a list of people to call, speculating about elements bound to remain uncertain for a while, and the paperwork, my God, the paperwork. She’d actually been expecting the announcement last night, imagining that it might accompany the first toast. A nice thought. Last night Pasha stumbled through the door at ten P.M. (five A.M. in Odessa) and protested, No food, not tonight, a preposterous request that only went to show how long they’d been parted. He began to fade at the dining table while Esther microwaved maniacally, suffusing the air with Chinese take-out smells and plastic. Pasha hated to fly, but more than that he hated interruptions. Packing, relocating, resisting the pull of his daily rituals, all this amounted to a profound psychological stress. So yesterday they’d kept to superficial topics. Today the big issues would be resolved.

  She looks good, said Pasha.

  She’s gotten fat.

  She was never a ballerina.

  They’re operating the day after you leave.

  Pasha turned sharply. I specifically asked her to schedule the surgery for while I’m here.

  God forbid anything interfere with Pashinka’s visit! Marina felt the heat double, the sun’s warmth amplified by rising temperatures within. Throttled by her own steps, as if she weren’t on her feet but riding in the dim backseat of a Soviet automobile.

  I was truly surprised by how vital she looks, Pasha resumed.

  It’s not the flu.

  But if she’s strong and in good shape—

  Mama, our mama, in good shape?

  If she’s strong, her body will take the chemo well.

  No chemo. They said surgery and a bit of radiation should be enough.

  Her body can definitely take the radiation.

  And I’ll have to take care of everything myself! A whimper escaped as a wave rolled over Marina’s sturdy ankles.

  That’s not true. Papa will help, Levik— Oh, my God! cried Pasha.

  What! yelled Marina, clutching her chest.

  That seagull—it’s monstrous!

  Pasha paused. He pointed.

  Marina appraised the seagull. It’s a bit on the large side, she admitted.

  A bit? That thing’s a dinosaur. Pasha took off, as if some amateur had picked up his marionette strings, in the seagull’s direction. In no hurry, it began to pump its white-trimmed wings, dragging its body across the sky.

  Allowing her brother to catch his breath, Marina asked, What changed?

  Nothing changed, he said. I just haven’t made up my mind, one way or the other. It’s not like deciding what to have for breakfast.

  Though you’ve never had an easy time of that either. Marina wasn’t sure for how long she’d been looking straight ahead with painful intensity. She turned and let herself look at her brother. Don’t you think we should get the bureaucratic wheels in motion? By the time you’re actually called in for an interview—

  Better we wait, he said, until I’ve decided.

  And why haven’t you?

  What could he say? He couldn’t admit that though he’d hardly seen a square inch of Brooklyn, it was enough to sour him on it. Anyway, that wasn’t the truth—that had nothing to do with his inability to make a decision, it was just what was currently on his mind. Last night, as the car turned onto Brighton Beach Avenue, Marina had exclaimed gleefully, We’re here! Eyes glued to the window, Pasha’s first impression had been horror. Filth, dreariness, and pigeon shit didn’t bother him, but five gastronoms in a row called Odessa did. His fellow countrymen hadn’t ventured bravely into a new land, they’d borrowed a tiny nook at the very rear of someone else’s crumbling estate to make a tidy replication of the messy, imperfect original they’d gone through so many hurdles to escape, imprisoning themselves in their own lack of imagination, forgetting that the original had come about organically and proceeded to evolve, already markedly different from their poor-quality photocopy. Such a bubble, no matter how enthusiastically blown, would begin to deflate in no time. Hold it, Pasha said to himself. Inner truth police! He had to admit that he’d come ready to discover just such a bubble. And the strong reaction had been at least partly the result of an overtaxed system.

  He was losing morale. The wind flung crowds into their path, crying toddlers with bent shovels and tipped buckets, mothers in a tizzy, stately African women with what appeared to be pillowcases on their heads, sand-flinging adolescents, joggers, overdressed ethnic clans. They swarmed in and just as abruptly dispersed, leaving Pasha and Marina gasping for breath. While they were engulfed in one such burst, a hand materialized, a long, wiry hand that clawed the air twice before hooking Pasha’s bent shoulder. The hand’s owner and Pasha stepped aside to examine each other by the water. The man was the size of a tiny, desiccated tree that had withstood brutal winters. Clumps of coppery hair, a tight, aggravated mouth. Now the other hand stretched for the other shoulder. They embraced. Marina looked away, wary. Was this someone she also knew? Would his wife appear?

&nbs
p; That’s Bronfman, Pasha whispered as they slipped away. Marina, relieved, only half listened. But Pasha was shaken up. According to Pasha’s mental records, Bronfman had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia during his last year at the Refrigeration Institute and died at the tragic age of twenty-one. But here was Bronfman, very much alive, working for the city’s transit bureau. Health insurance! Decent pay! Job Stability! Pasha, he said, you must work for the city. Except it’s impossible to find a job—at least it’s very, very difficult. The glitch must have been this: Unable to deal with a dearth of information, Pasha’s memory had filled in Bronfman succumbing to the disease, though in actuality his family had found a way to take him for treatment to the States, absconding urgently and covertly. In this miraculous land, he was cured, and here he remained.

  That’s what he told you? Marina asked.

  He said he was living in the yellowish bungalow on Corbin Place behind the poodle groomers and I should drop by Thursday evening for his meditation group. You can’t tell a man that you were sure he died fifteen years back.

  Discovering Bronfman among the ranks of the living put Pasha in a frisky mood. He shook his beard into Marina’s face like a lavish, impulsively assembled bouquet, splashed her shins, and laughed in his deflating way, like the sound made by turning the exhaust valve on a blood-pressure monitor (a favorite evening pastime). They got back to find everyone deep into the stern phase of beach time. Esther sat under a giant hat that seemed to have been punched in on one side and chomped sunflower seeds, the gnawed shells lodging in the crevices around her crotch. While she was discarding, Robert was in the process of acquiring. There were no beautiful seashells on Brighton, but Robert was determined to collect regardless, as this was the endangered activity he was known for. Marina dropped to the blanket and resumed her solar torpor. Levik picked his toes, using his free hand to flip the pages of a year-old National Geographic. Pasha tried rousing them with over-the-shoulder taps and affectionate pinches, but they grew progressively grumpier until he gave up and waded into the warm, turbid ocean for the prescribed dunk.

  While Marina was away, Frida had made a friend. The girls had dug a pit, fortified it, and adorned the fortress with turrets, parapets, some ornamental dripwork. They added a ditch at the base for water to collect and sat in the pit presiding over their domain. The friend was a fine-boned tyrant, making it apparent to Marina that what had been uncovered in her daughter was a tendency. Your side needs more shells, the friend said. Frida, who’d never notice such a deficit herself, ran over to Robert and asked for some of his. Overjoyed by the request, he distributed the shells one by one, holding them up to the light and rotating and telling a story about each. But the friend didn’t approve of this strategy. Those aren’t shells but scraps, she said. Frida scoured the shoreline until finally producing an adequate batch. The friend had a high forehead, a taciturn chin, collapsed blond ringlets crusted with sand. She pointed to where Frida must put each shell and once they were perfectly spaced granted Frida entry. With erect spines they sat in their puddle, laughing into the faces of those who made pleas to join them in housekeeping. After being turned away countless times, one persistent boy returned with a pancake. The friend admitted she was ready for a snack. Attempts to divide it into three pieces were unsuccessful—it was one slippery, tough pancake. They would have to go in a circle, taking bites off the edge.

  Marina watched as the jellyfish was passed around. She couldn’t decide: to intervene or not to intervene? Instinct told her to go, but her body remained grounded. As Frida’s turn neared, Marina looked away, aware of an unreachable dread.

  • • •

  LET’S HEAD BACK, said Levik.

  Why must you spoil everything? said Marina, herself in the first stages of heatstroke. You think I don’t see you checking your watch every second? No one’s keeping you here. Only next time we’re with your family, see how long I last.

  Just then, the wind turned up. Esther’s hat flew high off her head like a puck in a strength-tester game. The ocean started to bubble, as if a colossal motor had been turned on in the depths. The bottom of the sky overtook the top, plugging any remaining holes, and the celestial concoction began to stew. A lost balloon was like a soccer ball being kicked around by an invisible aerial team. The ground tipped, and a sheet of sand slid eastward, burying blankets, towels, bags, and knocking vertical tanners, proselytizing proponents of upright sunning, off their feet. A protracted moment of stillness was had as the atmosphere held its breath, turning greenish blue from lack of oxygen. A lash in the distance was followed by an audible inhale of determination, a generative buzzing, an interspecies murmur. Airlifted off her throne, Frida’s friend thrashed wormlike until a bald, barrel-chested man set her down and landed his ringed hand on the weedy nape of her neck. A minute ago the collective focus was directed outward, to others, to the horizon; now it was sharply rerouted in. The rest of the world disappeared. People gathered, grabbed, collected. The sky, done stewing, began to crumble on raw, sunburned shoulders. Hunks of ice the size of pinecones. The more it came down, the darker the sky turned, like those who grow angrier as they rage.

  When the cosmos broke open, Esther was expected to take a miraculous split second to bundle belongings and snap fingers to safety. She was equipped with a top-of-the-line primal-mother tool kit, with which she could produce a week’s worth of meals from iron shavings, lint, and maybe a wilted head of cabbage, use a threadbare curtain to dress her family (distant cousins included if need be), cure the common cold and any other malady non-emetic in nature (puking elicited no sympathy), and get her family out of a disaster without a scratch. But they were witness to a terrible malfunction. Esther kept sitting, squinting and blocking the hail with her hand as if the sun were too direct in her eyes. As she finally got to packing, time halted emphatically. She attempted to shake out her towel and seemed to consider the usual ritual of changing from her swimsuit before heading home. They stood frozen, stunned. A green chair was hurled through the air. Boardwalk waiters hadn’t managed to collect dinette sets in time, and they flew off, doily tablecloths along with tables. The furniture, sand, even ocean were fleeing. Only buildings stood heedlessly. Awnings suffered most, as they tried desperately but failed to disengage.

  The beach almost fully evacuated, the remaining few were the elderly, moving as fast as creaky joints allowed. Lifeguards ran back and forth, tooting whistles. They soon abandoned the task of retrieving every last human scrap from the water and scurried to their stations. The scraps were insane, homeless, or drunk—what happened to them was already technically in the hands of fate. A pillar of dust came into view, tall and swirling, distorting everything in its path.

  Run! screamed Marina, and herself did just that. Blazing the trail, undoubtedly. But she didn’t turn around once, and unlike Esther she didn’t have a second pair of eyes installed in the back of her head. Crossing the boardwalk, they doubled over, struggling to secure each step, gripping their heads lest they, too, should blow away like the countless plastic bags. At a critical moment, Esther outran Marina, swerving into a nearby nursing home. The steamy lobby was packed with drenched, shaken beachgoers seeking refuge. A drowsy security guard made it known that she wasn’t pleased. Over her head a banner drooped—FABULOUS AT 90! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICE! A paper plate with a picked-at slice of triple-layer cake was being eyed by so many that she slid it into a drawer and turned the key.

  Just in time, said Marina, taking a deep breath and checking to see what was clutched in her hands: a pair of giant denim shorts and an unfamiliar towel.

  Have you seen Frida? asked Esther.

  Marina gasped. People turned to look. My daughter, said Marina. She began inspecting small faces in the vicinity—they were strangers’ children, almost hers. They shrank away from her fierce stare, not wanting to be recognized. Marina ran through the lobby, taking a harder look at anything with the potential to transform into Frida.

  Boo! cried Frida, crawling out from unde
r a marble table. Catching sight of her mother’s face, she began crawling in reverse, seeking the shelter of the stone. But she couldn’t move fast enough. Grabbed by the ear, she was dragged to join the rest of the family.

  Remember you have just one mother, said Marina. Better not rush her to the grave! Though Marina had grown up with such reminders from her own mother, she could never get the tone quite right herself.

  They finally settled in to watch. The gods were redecorating.

  Two years ago in Denver, Oregon, was a terrible hailstorm, said Levik. This storm caused almost seven hundred million dollars’ damage. People think storms aren’t dangerous, but even small storms are very dangerous. He swallowed. Did Pasha go to the restroom? I wouldn’t mind myself.

  Pasha! They hadn’t seen him since . . . Esther bolted outside, immediately thrust flat against the door. A young man with quick reflexes managed to tug her back in. She couldn’t steady her breathing—not enough air in that tight space to fill her breast. The security guard unenthusiastically relinquished her swivel chair, and Robert lowered Esther into it. Here they were, sweaty, in T-shirts on top of drenched bathing suits, huddled in the lobby of a nursing home. The storm pressed right up to the building. Windows trembled in keeping out the weight. It became black as night, the atmosphere thick and interwoven like a muscle. Along the sinews, threads of electricity traveled.