Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel

by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

  Aside from everything else they were feeling—worry, guilt, clamminess, a spreading itch—they felt betrayed. There was no way to address this feeling, nobody to yell at. It was foolish, senseless. Having been born and raised by the sea, they hoped that an allegiance had been established. They hoped by asserting, by claiming to be a coastal breed. They were people of the margin, of the edge of the land. If destiny wasn’t mentioned, it was meant. Inland folk weren’t expected to understand the distinction, just respect it. The particular body of water didn’t matter—coastal peoples from across the globe knew when they were among their kind. They dealt in axioms. They were spoiled for any other type of existence. The power of the ocean wasn’t questioned. Aquatic mystery was steady stock, safe to invest in. Living by the ocean was like going to third grade with someone who went on to become world-famous. The relationship became an integral part of one’s identity. That the ocean never entered into the agreement was forgotten until a reminder was issued.

  The storm had a Slavic temperament. It arrived with great force, bells and whistles, but burned itself out in less than half an hour—the vending machine didn’t run out of Coke, the security guard wasn’t used for meat (she had plenty). Upon return the sun shone brighter than before in compensation or apology or in an attempt to lure back the masses. Only degenerates and conspiratorial herds of pimply boys were enticed. Tousled neighbors poured out of building lobbies. What in the world, they said. Never before—a first! A tornado here? They hurried home, where, though it was very hot, they made gallons of steaming borscht as if to concoct the atmosphere in their beloved Soviet vats.

  Emerging from the nursing home, they observed the river of people drifting away from the beach. Then they inhaled and pushed against the current, shoulders colliding and feet stomping. They managed to squeeze up one bottlenecked ramp, then helped one another climb over the railing to forgo another. They walked slowly, and even though they could see from a distance that no one was there, they didn’t stop until reaching the exact spot where they’d been sitting. Marina flagged down a lifeguard resuming his post, but her tongue tangled. Too frantic for sense. Robert went straight with an appeal to the ocean. Did it have his son’s body, and if so would it kindly return it in any shape or form?

  Luck, usually so elusive, was in their favor. Levik in his search stumbled upon a gold Rolex, the clasp broken, camouflaged, sticking out of the sand, while Frida, sitting in a foul mood on a jagged rock near the jetty, pointed limply to a figure one bay away.

  That he was actually there was a shock. What did they expect? Maybe what they were used to—Pasha in Odessa, keeping guard over their memories. Not all six feet, three inches of him staggering disoriented and pigeon-toed in the midst of their sand. They were still yards away when he began to relate that under the boardwalk was an entire city. Tents, upside-down garbage cans, a mattress and a stove, he said, evidently unaware that he’d been separated from his swimming trunks. His figure was as unobstructed as the horizon (though on the Steeplechase pier, the fishermen, as if glued to the railing, were back to sipping from their long straws). His nakedness wasn’t startling—Pasha hardly relied on the basic buffering that garments afforded, not at all on the various boosts. Clothes detracted from his quiddity. In the nude he was uncompromised. Esther approached from behind, wrapped a towel around his rubbery hips.

  A homeless enclave, he said, intricate, set up just like—

  Was there a flash? asked Esther.

  A flash, said Pasha.

  He was struck!

  Don’t shout.

  He doesn’t look struck. We did just get a good look.

  Are you hurt, Pasha?

  They were very nice, actually, he said.

  But maybe, said Esther, pointing to her head.

  Robert cleared his throat. Chin raised, eyelids lowered, he dropped his voice an octave to recite, The tempest spreads a mist across the sky / frosty whirlwinds spinning wild.

  Like a beast it begins to howl / now it cries like a lost child, said Pasha.

  Let’s drink, dear friend / to my poor, exhausted youth.

  TWO

  THEY HAD LANDED IN AMERICA in the middle of a heat wave, temperatures soaring into the hundreds, the streets streaked with fire trucks and ambulances, shabby businessmen, water-selling opportunists. A blackout was wreaking havoc on the outer boroughs to which they didn’t yet know they belonged. Greeted at the airport by friends and relatives whose faces were incorrect in the flesh. These people were all arms anyway, gripping, squeezing, strangling, gesturing, and yanking them out of the frenzied arrivals area. It was night. They were distributed into two cars and taken by way of roads so potholed and fractured it was hard to believe they’d gone in the right direction on the three-rung world ladder to a low-ceilinged apartment with vicious air-conditioning. Sweat beads frozen off, sinuses excavated. The food on the table was identical to the food on the table in the kitchen in the apartment in the building in the city in the oblast in the republic in the Union they were prepared to never see again. But the table looked the same, faded oilcloth from the shop off Pushkin Street (they had the same one in their suitcase), as did the buttery pelmeni, vareniki in cherry sauce, brick of black bread, dill potatoes, cream herring—identical if a bit more gray and deflated, as the spread had been left out ceremoniously while the greeters, Levik’s father and stepmother, waited for them to clear customs. Everyone was ravenous except them, who claimed to have eaten on the flight. They were pale, emaciated, dazed. Toasts were raised in a perfunctory spirit. Exhaustion and fright appeared to win out over the magnificence of a soul reunion. Marina put her daughter and her brand-new Barbie to bed. A cigarette disappeared in two puffs. She excused herself to use the bathroom. Half an hour later, Levik’s stepmother found her in the bathtub sobbing noiselessly. The friends left hours earlier than planned, looking out car windows on their drives back to Long Island, knowing that they’d also been like that not too long ago but finding it impossible to imagine.

  That was seven hundred fifteen days ago—they were still counting, though it was getting less clear to what end. At first it made the change manageable, marked progress. It’d seemed that if not counted, the days might either not pass or sneak by in clusters, two or more at a time. One thing a Soviet upbringing taught you was to pay attention. Not like these lax Americans who didn’t even monitor their nickel-and-dime transactions at the grocery store. But what about the pennies—should you bother with those?

  Since Levik’s father had issued the official invitation, Pasha wasn’t able to legally tag along. The understanding was that they’d collect twigs for a nest, then send for Pasha and his humble flock. But he put a freeze on the plan. Why? The many reasons he provided never quite added up to an explanation. But then the Soviet Union fell, Esther was diagnosed. . . . Visits hadn’t ever been part of the plan at all. It was strange. There had been all this tragedy and finality, and suddenly you just had to have the money for the flight. No matter—soon they’d get Pasha over here for good. Notions were flying about. Considering Pasha’s allergy to life-decision discussions, the plan was to trap him into one immediately, get it out of the way. They’d agreed not to relent when the hostage began to squirm. But after what Pasha had been through, the scheme couldn’t be put into action. They weren’t monsters. Pasha’s talent was to shift dynamics until all sympathy was directed toward him. A steady current flowed his way. He aroused feelings without necessarily returning them and was permanently enclosed in an aura of exemption. It was inadvertent, though Pasha himself claimed that nothing was inadvertent, that there were no such things as accidents or coincidences.

  They believed in accidents and coincidences, but too many of them happened to Pasha. Whereas they were admirably bronzed, he looked like he’d barely escaped a house fire. Last night they’d bathed him in ice water cooled with rubbing alcohol as he slipped in and out of feverish delusions about an underground washing-machine city and a trash-can blues band; this morning he seemed better
, certainly quieter, but the water blisters hadn’t improved and the thermometer, slipped out of a mossy armpit, read 38.6 degrees Celsius. And in such a state he was headed to Manhattan, no stopping him—as if anyone were trying, other than Esther with an appeal of, Wait one more day, and Robert’s hushed plea, Wait for me! But he was off. Damn him, Esther spit. Where’s he going? What does he know about this godforsaken city?

  He knew that he couldn’t bear another minute in their little kingdom by the sea. Locating a chariot to take him out was no challenge. The entire neighborhood—cardboard castles, sand fortresses, Chinese take-out joints and all—went into Richter-worthy convulsions whenever a train pulled into the aboveground station. Stepping into the subway car, he took a seat with caution, as if someone might intercept and make him stand. His discomfort wasn’t physical—the air-conditioned car provided great bodily pleasure—but stemmed from the sense that a secret code was being intentionally withheld. He alternated between peering into faces and focusing on his knees. On Cortelyou Road a spark of panic flashed in his yolky eyes, and he said something incomprehensible to no one in particular. There was no response. He fell back into a glassy stupor. Another spark and he spoke again, louder. The car was packed with Russians who saw that he was in need of help, but some implacable force prevented them from becoming heroes. How bewilderingly Russian he was . . . it was simply indecent. His flailing let them possess their own proficiency, which was nevertheless too tenuous to be tested. And they knew the importance of being discreet. Someone was always watching. Luckily, there was Joe from Sheepshead Bay to come to the rescue. He screamed, he forced the Russki to repeat himself, making one wrong guess after another. But there would be no giving up. The destination, it was finally determined, was Manhattan Island. Did this trolley take him there? Manhattan’s big, said Joe, looking around. Where in Manhattan you wanna go? But Pasha had stopped listening. He was satisfied, requiring no more.

  Deciphering maps wasn’t one of Pasha’s fortes. Languages were. He knew English, but strangers in an existential hurry did not. To be locked into the most desperate exchanges, from which both parties left aggravated, with a residue of elemental human failure, wouldn’t do. In the margins of his notebook were the phone numbers of old acquaintances and friends of friends whom he hadn’t the least intention of contacting. But there were pay phones on most corners, and a few even produced a dial tone. Hello, Arkadii Gulovich, this is Pavel Robertovich Nasmertov, currently in your monumental city, doing very well, positioned at the intersection of street number fifty-three and Avenue of the America, having just visited the Modern Museum of Art. Can you direct me to Guggenheim?

  The individuals he wished to see he’d refrain from calling until getting his bearings in their city. Too many warnings were tacked onto this metropolis. You’ll be overwhelmed and disoriented, you’ll be yelled at, robbed, cheated. Nothing like it. It may have taken two hours to find his way out of the Met, but he could now be tested on the medieval wing. When with utmost satisfaction he decided to return home, he placed his final call to one Renata Ostraya. This turned out to be a bit of a blunder. The lady introduced herself as the spiritual custodian of the émigré literary scene. She was extremely glad he was touching base. There were a slew of not-to-be-missed events throughout the month, most of them held at a venue for which she could vouch—her place. These were the poets Pasha had to be introduced to, and these were the poets, entre nous, it was better to avoid altogether. Pasha took truncated breaths, repeatedly failing to insert a comment that might extricate him from the litany. He didn’t have it in him to stop feeding coins to the machine. He nervously fondled its bendy spine. When Renata ran out of steam, he asked about a direct route from Madison Avenue to Brighton Beach. You’re staying there? So began another round about the unfortunate Brighton ghetto and the gorgeous Upper West Side. It was very soulful in that part of the city—just like Europe. Then the coins ran out. A robotic female voice warned of impending doom. The pay phone shuddered, Renata dispersed.

  The train was waiting for him to saunter inside before it closed its doors. Wedged into the corner, feeling mighty, Pasha went to work sifting the free literature amassed at information desks, making two piles, one to discard and one for further study. He next looked up when the conductor shouted, Last stop, last stop, train going to the yard, everybody off! He grabbed a pile, suddenly unsure whether he’d grabbed the one intended for keeping or for tossing, and scrambled out onto the platform. He’d arrived at Woodlawn, in the Bronx.

  • • •

  IF ESTHER AND ROBERT NASMERTOV were to give an official account of their son’s relationships (which, to be sure, they’d be glad to do), the name Misha Nasmarkin would be assigned, with harmonizing confidence, that parentally beloved distinction of best friend. In accordance with the rule for household-endorsed friendships, it had its origins in tender youth. From first grade all the way through to tenth (the last year of schooling prior to college), with the exception of that one year Pasha stayed home due to let’s not get into it, the two boys had been in the same class. At thirteen they both made the leap to the gifted-and-talented high school (unhindered by the four layers of added hurdles, one for each Jewish grandparent). They’d taken up a common cause—the death of Ms. Pulvitskaya, enemy of literature (a cause of which even the parents approved). And the surnames! It was as if the universe had, in the spirit of economy, created two boys but one desk. Day after day, year after year, it was their four legs, twitching and kicking or lifeless and numb, Misha’s on the left, Pasha’s on the right, but regardless because all four belonged to the desk. Ten-year-old Pasha had already demonstrated a catastrophic intolerance for the idiocy of others, yet he found a soft spot for Misha, not in response to a quality inherent in Misha but to Misha’s struggle with the class, which met his ceaseless attempts at fitting in with merciless contempt that in turn sparked in Misha a still more fervent desire for acceptance. Misha was the pit stuck in the windpipe of a burly beast. Pasha adopted him, allowing him to get away with remarks, tastes, and habits that from anybody else would’ve been grounds for that person’s obliteration from Pasha’s psychic radar. In a room of thirty, Pasha might acknowledge the existence of a handful. Many of the obliterated were teachers, their assignments obliterated along with them. Pasha would’ve been expelled on more than one occasion had his father not been the Dr. Nasmertov. For those deranged teachers with no mortal fears (Ms. Pulvitskaya), Robert would bring smoked pork sausage wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. The taste bent her soul in such a way that even outside her stomach nothing could remain as stark and unbending.

  No longer bound by the 120-by-70-centimeter wooden board full of obscene and graphic carvings, the boys would’ve drifted apart in one of a million ways. Instead Misha’s father was tipped off to a very likely arrest—he was the director of the vodka plant, a position that rarely ended in leisurely retirement—and they scrammed. The friendship was embalmed. That they lived in different countries and continued to correspond was seen as a testament to their bond; in fact, it was the only reason for its survival. Minimal maintenance required. A seasonal phone call, a rare letter of personal updates peppered with unavoidable literary pretensions, a warm sentiment or two about one day living in the same city or at least on the same continent.

  Misha had arrived in America at an odd age, too young for the usual immigrant dance step of struggle and settle, sweat blood for two years, then fall into a respectable career with decent pay and a retirement plan, fueled by the hope that your progeny will have a better go of it but too old to attempt camouflage, hoping only that the seams don’t show. His father belonged to the businessman species, one of those hastily assembled men with an electric stride, a plethora of tics, and an inability to sit at dinner tables. They abridged the struggle and settled for nothing short of the full American-dream package, which included a certificate of struggle completion, Park Avenue penthouse, tasteful collection of automobiles, new face for the wife even before the old one went to
shit, and a downtown apartment for their artistic son. Artist was preferable to writer—why set limits, and didn’t he also have an interest in film? They provided the best platform for success that money could buy, enrolling him in non-degree programs, financing interactive projects, and passing along relevant phone numbers, which he used unabashedly, because timidity was the quickest route to nowhere. With an accent he thought to be his only hindrance but was actually his edge, Misha asked the local literati out to dinner and to drink the fine champagne (cognac) at his loft. In return he expected to be taught the ropes, the implicit request being that a cushy spot in the front row of the American Parnassus be freed, dusted, and prepared for his soft, pasty, not overly demanding tukhes. Meanwhile he’d be following in the steps of Conrad and Nabokov and transmuting his literary output to the only language now acknowledged.

  Nobody protested when Misha offered his loft for Saturday soirees, sampling of his liquor cabinet, laughing at sloppily told tales of backward life in the old country—they distill their own moonshine on the job! drink their mother’s perfume! pay doctors in sour cream whose quality is tested by sticking in a fork!—but upon being handed a manuscript of his novel-in-progress they became unreachable. Though there were those, too, who prioritized a good time and would wiggle endlessly to get it. I haven’t had time yet; first chance I get; my mother’s sick; so much potential. As these wigglers assumed, Misha tired of asking or finally noticed the darting gaze of a friend yet again being inconvenienced to lie.

  If Misha couldn’t be great, he’d be contemporary—he returned to composing in Russian, making “shocking” use of its wealth of profanity and thereby alienating the friends of his parents, a not-insignificant demographic when it came to sales. But Russian friendship, unlike American, was burdened by loyalty—a chapbook came out in Moscow and was translated into Turkish. He tried to live as if his life were a success, which inevitably led to discrepancies and incongruities. Reality was a bad choice of enemy—it had no need for disguise, didn’t respect the rules, and hit below the belt. Every new and/or unknown situation (in which reality festered in its most virulent strain) had to be met with all available shields and methods of defense at the ready. A reality-twisting muscle developed, which converted raw contradictory information into what should have been, bridging every inconsistency, manually returning everything to the shelter of sense; with time the muscle’s power grew, and by now it worked almost at the speed of reality. The “almost” was tragic. It revealed the muscle’s existence to those who were either very intimate with Misha or very perceptive. Pasha, who was both, posed a significant threat.