Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel

by Yelena Akhtiorskaya

  • • •

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING marked a momentous occasion: the Nasmertovs’ first encounter with freshwater. All their lives steeped in salt. It was nothing short of a rite of passage. First, however, they learned the meaning of the phrase in the vicinity and got to the bottom of the reasonable rate for the cabin: When Marina asked the elderly man at the reception desk how to walk to the lake, she got deadpan instructions for a four-hour trek along the highway.

  Out of the car, the cash unloading commenced—they paid for parking, for day passes, for plastic chaise longues on the carpet of pebbly beach. At last they were paddling their arms and legs inside the square allotted for bathers. There would’ve been no harm were the square a bit bigger, the swimmers fewer. How much progeny did a single family require? They’d always considered one the ideal and two the limit. But here five, six, even seven children all addressed the same elderly lady as Mommy. At first the Nasmertovs thought they were observing an aberration, but after further observation they were able to recognize that the aberration was them. All those children! An ocean was a dominant force. Whoever partook of it was subservient, abiding an implicit understanding that it was letting you in and could just as easily rescind the invitation. But a lake was the bathtub of these snot-faced kids. After flopping around for two minutes, Marina remarked how difficult it was to stay afloat, and returned to her chaise.

  Esther distributed bulki, stale white buns with an inedible crust that was softened by the damp heat from palms. Growing garrulous, she let slip that what she’d actually wanted to do for her birthday was see the Russian Marionette Theater. Obraztsov was performing in Millennium this week. It would probably be the last time he went on tour, considering he’s a thousand years old. Why hadn’t she said anything before? Well, she hadn’t wanted to stand in the way of their plans. But she did understand, didn’t she, that this was all being done for her? Maybe they could still get tickets, suggested Robert. If the vacation had to be cut short a day, so be it. Tonight’s the final performance, said Esther. The clouds went like this and like that, the bread got soggy in their fists.

  Cotton balls had been stuffed into Marina’s cheeks. The corners of her lips pulled taut, the dark side of her eyeballs throbbed. Was it Esther’s remark about the marionettes? Was it that no one had thanked her for putting all this together? That no one even acknowledged the effort involved? Maybe it was that her thighs were now large enough to rub together when she walked and a few layers of skin had scraped off. She sat with her legs on either side of the chaise, letting the wounds breathe. It was probably general exhaustion—she hadn’t been sleeping much lately. Things called out to her in the night. Things? There were no distinctions such as animate/inanimate, living/dead, past/present—it had all gotten hopelessly jumbled into one mass, and at night this tumor of concerns called out to her in its indistinct voice. During the day you had appointments, papers to fill out, people to speak to. At night there was no one to address. Marina was being bothered, but there was no one to bother back. Everything ended with her, prone, unmoving. And she burped up the strangest, most disconcerting concoctions. She was ashamed and frightened of her dreams. And she certainly wasn’t sleeping the nine hours she used to claim that her body needed in order to function, as if she were a car that only took premium. If I get even an hour less, stay away, she’d warned. All exaggeration, it turned out. Now she regularly did with half that and was fine. Only hurt, terribly, overwhelmingly wounded and hurt, in giant wraparound sunglasses and a new one-piece that concealed her new flab. Her stomach wasn’t so bad, not yet, but all she had to do was look slightly to the left to see what it would look like in maturity. Esther’s belly stretched her swimsuit until the individual fibers were visible, the parts that hadn’t been dyed. Her black swimsuit petered to gray over the mound of stomach—the stomach that had wanted to tremble with laughter at the marionette theater in Millennium Hall.

  • • •

  ROBERT AND PASHA were getting the hang of it, their oars moving swiftly, in unison. Objects on the shore dwindled to insignificance as they leaned forward, leaned back, pumping their arms. Yes, they had arms! Those arms had biceps and triceps and all that stringy stuff. This had been Robert’s halfhearted suggestion, an idea nixed before uttered, and Esther, overhearing, experienced head-to-toe convulsions of mirth that didn’t stop until fat tears launched down her cheeks, and even then, wiping them away with her handkerchief, squealing in pain, she continued trembling with joy. Her allegiance was foremost to humor. Blunders, missteps, and odors were her comic fodder. People’s sensitivities, like their food allergies, were tiring. But by the time she was done appreciating the mental image of her husband and son manning a canoe, there was no chance they weren’t going to do it. Without a word Pasha followed his father’s lead to the rental station, claiming they weren’t in a position to turn down anything gratis.

  Gliding farther out into the boundless lake, they were noticing superbly, noticing splotches of light dancing on the water’s metallic surface and how the clouds receded from their advance—OK, so there wasn’t much to notice, until the houses dotting the shoreline metamorphosed into mansions, each guarded by an obedient yacht. Such commodity fetishism wouldn’t have impressed them, but arduous teamwork and exposure to direct sunlight operated in conjunction to make a man inclined to be impressed. Look over there, said Robert, nodding toward four stories of architectural sleekness, glass walls, extraterrestrial sensibilities. And this one, said Pasha in reference to an ocher villa of palatial proportions. Pasha used his oar to push aside a turgid log. Robert steered them clear of rocky terrain. The sun drilled into their curly backs, extracting sweat. Shirts off, legs spread, breath labored. Conversations were initiated, but none stuck. Grunts and groans would have to suffice. Talk was superfluous. Sweat, toil, brotherhood.

  The necessity of a major life change became glaring. Robert had always enjoyed working with his hands, pruning the garden, cracking walnuts, repairing the fence that one time. A primordial feature was activated. He became more spacious. The fog lifted from imaginary distances, extending the inner horizon. And he had an advantage. Levik may have been more naturally gifted in the handiwork department, but Robert didn’t have a tizzy the moment a switch failed to turn something on, no tantrum when a few bolts didn’t fit into place. He had no temper to lose. But everybody (Esther) ridiculed him whenever he set to tinkering with a broken contraption or went to do his sport (a set of torso twists and toe reaches performed on the boardwalk). A muffled clap of thunder in a distant valley set off the tremendous nature poetry of Tyutchev. The lake itself began a plangent recitation of Bunin’s “Returning from Nazareth” and “Summer Evening.”

  The water level in the boat was rising, and Pasha ingeniously thought to put his new baseball cap (Levik’s old baseball cap) to use. The damp cap would then be refreshing on his scalp. As he ladled capfuls and flung with gusto, his oar came loose, plopped into the water, and sank to the bottom. It happened so fast it might not have happened at all. Pasha squatted to peer into the lake, but the boat’s sway forced him back into his seat.

  A glance of uncertainty passed between father and son. Flanked by dense rows of huddled, inscrutable trees, the lake was congealed sky, the sky an emptied lake. Absorbent and reflective properties made it a challenge to panic properly. They were nowhere, nobody around to incite distress. And they wouldn’t incite each other’s. In predicaments Robert and Pasha served the same extinguishing function. They were the turgid logs that killed the flame, and if they happened to ignite, it turned into one massive blaze—a purely speculative metaphor, as in their many encounters with disaster they’d managed to steer clear of that one element, having never tempted fate with grills or space heaters.

  So I guess, began Robert, but he aborted. A moment later he tried again. What probably happened, he said, but decided not to. Hmm, he said, hmm. See this metal ring that’s holding my oar in place? It was probably already damaged on yours, and when you let the o
ar go, the weight finished off the job.

  Oars aren’t supposed to sink.

  Damaged! Nothing’s really free in this world!

  It’s our luck that’s the problem, said Pasha.

  Will we be charged? How much does an oar cost?

  A million dollars. Are you about to go down there?

  Robert seemed to consider it, peering into the clogged drain of the devil’s bathtub. Price doesn’t matter, he affirmed. Let’s head back.

  But the second oar wasn’t decoration. Circling in one spot as if caught in a slow-motion tornado, they succeeded only in getting disoriented. You have to alternate sides, said Pasha, and grabbed his father’s oar, which also came out of its lock with ease, making Pasha feel strong and mighty. In trying to alternate sides, he flooded the boat more. Their shoulders ached. Blisters stiffened their palms. They decided to wait for a boat to pass, meanwhile drifting into a dark, narrowing nook of the lake shaded by grotesque trees that obviously had to find circuitous ways of meeting their nutritional needs. There was a smell of damp, verdurous pulp, as if at the end of the lake a giant grinder were mashing the lake, trees, shrubs, and sky.

  A few minutes passed in silence before Robert recognized his fortune. What more could he want? Locked with his son in a capsule, stranded in the American wilderness with nothing to occupy Pasha’s interest, no one to divert his attention, no disciplinary interjections from Esther, no impossible-to-keep-up-with ideas from Marina, no CDs, books or art catalogs, no phones, friends, subways, no Chelsea or Guggenheim, just trees and a few clouds, which they admired, appreciated, perhaps willfully sustained around themselves, but without true investment. Trees and clouds were the natural world’s equivalent of TV, which someone always kept turned on. Robert and Pasha were at most peripherally tuned in.

  This reminds me of our plane rides, said Robert.

  Are you afraid of falling to your death?

  I’m enjoying your company.

  Pasha shoved his arm under Robert’s nose, pointing to a crescent-shaped scar on the inner wrist. That’s Yerevan.

  Robert laughed. And I’ve always considered myself a nonviolent man, he said.

  Arm flipped—bite marks. Tomsk.

  I took you to Tomsk?

  Where didn’t you take me?

  Arkhangelsk?

  You mean Talagi Airport? Twice.

  As the city’s leading specialist in clinical neurology, Robert had been ordered by the Ministry of Health to constantly engage his phobia, which, considering Soviet aviation statistics, one would be hard-pressed to call irrational. He gave consultations and seminars in small towns, but he also paid visits to the central hubs, where innovations in the field were taking place. Best of all, he attended to emergency patients in remote villages, flying in dilapidated toy planes equipped with thoughtful holes in the floor—rides were so bumpy the doctors usually vomited. An initial romantic plan to forgo flight and ride the rails proved unreasonable; Robert only had to look at a train in order to be robbed blind. He began pulling Pasha out of class, bringing him along on the flights. Clutching his son’s hand, he could overcome the fear just long enough to enter into the vehicle of fiery torture and death. Stuck in these capsules above the marching clouds, Robert shed poisonous sweat, convulsed, clawed the armrest and the pale forearm of his son. In his university days, Pasha became more reluctant to put his life on pause, and in the fall of 1982, the phobia abandoned Robert, like a neighbor that moved out of the building—the claustrophobic atmosphere dispersed, everyone rejoiced, and a replacement neighbor moved in.

  Are you homesick? asked Robert.

  Pasha was stripping bark off a wet branch like string cheese. He shrugged. I don’t consider Brighton home.

  I didn’t mean Brighton.

  Can’t say I’ve thought about it.

  Means no.

  Probably. I’m a little tired of it all.

  Robert hiccupped. It all?

  Nothing, I shouldn’t complain.

  But you did say you were tired.

  Nadia.

  Oh.

  Having never stooped to the subject of women, they weren’t about to begin now. They had an understanding. Robert didn’t need to know about his son’s emotional or sexual entanglements. He had no advice to give. That part of Pasha’s life could be as fraught as necessary and belonged to Pasha’s future biographer, who’d surely take an avid interest in such matters, probably even amplify, adding her own artistic touches. It was preferable that Pasha maintain a high level of activity and complexity in his personal life. It would be suspicious if a poet didn’t do so. Still, Robert couldn’t help but find it distasteful. Get a wife and stick to her. Robert was starving for news of Pasha’s career, foremost his current literary projects but also about the other poets in Odessa, what they were up to, suspecting that it was delightfully mediocre yet needing the facts in order to condescend responsibly. Pasha was cautious with this information, distributing it in meager doses. At times Robert had to wonder whether withholding didn’t provide his son sadistic pleasure. But occasions when Pasha disclosed generously didn’t go smoothly. When he touched on the Odessa poets and their versified propaganda, Robert was all frothy spittle and dilated pupils. Enthusiastic agreement irritated Pasha. In response to an outpouring of convictions, he demanded thoughtful contradiction or silence. And when he detailed a current project, Robert’s follow-up questions were inevitably concerned with how the undertaking might further Pasha’s standing, because, my dear, one collection of poetry does not an established poet make.

  And otherwise, said Robert. How’s the institute?

  It looks like I’ll finally be getting that assistant.

  You need an assistant? I never had an assistant.

  It should’ve happened ages ago, said Pasha, who’d been working at the Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases for a decade, because the rule in Russia, perhaps not exclusively, was the greater the writer, the shittier the day job. The job was just one more thing for which Pasha could thank his father, who for years had treated the epileptic daughter of Amalga Svinovna Allergiskaya, head of the institute (“one of the leading ophthalmology centers of Europe”) and creator of “the first in the country Center of Treatment for Severe Eye Burns.”

  Why’s that? It’s busy over there?

  I’m busy over there! On top of everything, I’ve been put in charge of a weekly newsletter. Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. I’m the one writing everything—reports of ongoing construction projects, future construction projects, profiles of new equipment, personal accounts—

  Personal accounts?

  Like success stories, very gruesome, with the same ending tacked on—Thank you, Filatov Eye Institute, for giving me back the ability to see my glorious country in all its fine detail. Something like that anyway, patriotic, good for business. The patients are encouraged to write these. Being illiterate and legally blind doesn’t stop them. Nurses deposit giant stacks on my desk daily. I used to go through them, salvaging anything I could, but now I write them myself, though the guilt of throwing them out makes me read them first.

  Let me guess—Amalga Svinovna’s brilliant idea.

  She retired. Actually, I believe she moved to Brooklyn. Now the head is Ivan Kopeyk. You may remember him, that small fascistic burn specialist with the cleft lip. He’s singled me out, in a good way. The man has literary pretensions. I’m not complaining, but an hour in his office can be draining. Aside from the assistant, he keeps promising to get me a raise.

  Then I take it you’re not even considering . . .

  Considering what? said Pasha.

  You know what!

  Pasha sighed. Just because I didn’t come the moment you guys beckoned, that doesn’t mean I’m not considering.

  I know, said Robert. And it’s not my place. Either way I’ll understand. Whatever you decide.

  But they won’t, said Pasha, thumb pointing backward. Even in the middle of a lake, they were over his shoulder.

  They will, t
oo, in time, said Robert, pleased. They were the bad guys, he the understanding papa. (Ashamed.)

  Pasha leaned over the boat’s edge, wanting a gulp. His mouth was dry, forehead burning. Somewhere along the way, he got distracted—fingers dipped in water, none on his tongue. Am I considering moving here? Either they tiptoe around the subject or they ram right into it, as if their approach could steer my decision, their choice of words or the tone in which they’re said influence the outcome. But this need for techniques only reveals an inherent fallacy, thought Pasha, whose aversion to life-decision discussions arose foremost from his skepticism of the very concept. If decisions existed (he’d never seen one for himself), they certainly weren’t born on the same plane as conversation. Decisions ripened in the moldy darkness of the cellar, whereas articulation needed windows. There’s a lag, thought Pasha, a distinct lag, between the inchoate stirring forces and the perceivable world. But what was he getting at?

  Pasha’s lower lip jutted. His eyelids sank. The strength required to keep them lifted was now aiding the mental process. When Pasha thought, bodily functions dimmed significantly. He was the biological antithesis to the concept of multitasking. Robert panicked. He feared that Pasha’s wilting meant that his son had grown desperate for a return to land. Robert began twisting his torso this way and that, hoping to indicate through fruitless motion that he was addressing the issue. Meanwhile the sun spilled like syrup over treetops and it got colder. Wind gathered over the lake, abiding clearly demarcated roadways and traffic regulations as it traveled.