I’m sorry to bother you, said Frida. It’s just that the situation out there isn’t good.
They’ve come for me, he said with resignation.
Patients came, said Frida, trying to espy in Yuri’s face the barest glimmer of relief.
Those geezers? What else is new? They come here like it’s the toilet.
They’re demanding the money.
What else do they have to live for?
And they’re very upset I’m not giving it to them.
Yuri’s chin stirred. Well, why aren’t you?
Because you said . . . Oh, never mind! As she stood up, her calves tingled from scrutiny. She pretended to inspect the notebook on his desk in order to prolong the moment, letting her legs be slathered in admiration. As she took a step away, something tenderly grazed the back of her ankle, and she got the distinct sense that this something was Dr. Gamsky’s lips, that mix of smoothness and bristle.
Wait, Frida, he said when she turned the knob.
She hurried back, squatted down again, steadying herself with a hand on the seat of his chair. She checked in with herself and knew she was prepared for whatever happened. He had that look on his face now, the one she was afraid of. Was it shame at his intentions, natural embarrassment at the situation they had found themselves in, or just an attempt at concentration? That look would’ve been fine on anybody else, but Dr. Gamsky was too manly for facial expressions. Yet he insisted on having them. She wanted to assure him that there was no need for shame or embarrassment. Suddenly dizzy, she toppled softly onto the carpeted floor. Her legs folded under her, calves pressed into the small rubber wheels of the swivel chair. Her fingers were tugging at the carpet’s individual fibers, or the fibers were tugging on her fingers. Her hair seemed to be everywhere, tousled, like in the bedroom of a French film. Dr. Gamsky was looking at her unwaveringly. Overwhelmed by the certainty that they were about to kiss, that it was only right, Frida leaned in. Dr. Gamsky’s hand, which was the size of a German shepherd’s head, shot outward. Frida didn’t flinch. The hand scratched Dr. Gamsky’s nose.
You know, Frida, he said, you should call Diane. The two of you were such good friends, always running around together, sly looks on your little faces. Always up to something, weren’t you? And then you lost touch—why?
Was it possible he didn’t remember?
That was a long time ago, she said, keeping her face immensely close, figuring that abrupt recoil would be suspicious. We were kids.
You were a good influence on her. All that trouble she got into, who knows, maybe if you’d stayed friends, it would’ve been different. And now she’s living in the pit of Harlem, just as long as it’s Manhattan. Let me give you her number. She’d be so happy to hear from you. There are pens up there, on my desk.
The desktop was at eye level—Frida strained to reach up. She tore a thin strip from a yellow notepad, plucked a fat blue marker from the pen holder. Ready, she said, tensing as she took dictation, because just identifying Dr. Gamsky’s baritone approximations and translating them into digit form with a marker her fingers barely wrapped around was an incredible feat. Once it was accomplished, read back, confirmed: relief. Underneath the digits, she wrote Dinka.
While Frida was handing out bills, a mental reel began to play—jumping on a bed trying to touch a motel’s popcorn ceiling, rollerblade racing to the sole intact swing that hung like a last tooth in a ravaged mouth (Frida always won, the reward for which was pushing Dinka as she swung), biting into a blistery hot dog with ketchup-smeared fingers as they sat in damp bathing suits whose rampant itchiness was relieved by the rough texture of the sloping concrete steps overlooking the ocean, gulping down bottle after bottle of peach Snapple and weighing themselves obsessively, the scale reading seventy-eight pounds, eighty-one pounds. Oh, the splendor of those long-gone days. What fun they had! The supply of fond memories was endless, and the painful ones, while also in abundance, had been rendered void by time—Frida couldn’t possibly still be angry at the summer-camp snubbing of a ten-year-old, even if it had incorporated some advanced tactics of persecution. When she finally left Dr. Gamsky’s office, which was situated behind a large plastic-surgery facility with window-walls featuring ads of stone-faced women whose foreheads were being injected by arm-size syringes, she was clutching the yellow scrap with Diane’s number, wondering how so many years had elapsed without an attempt on either of their parts to revive the friendship.
Turning down Brighton Fourteenth Street and heading in the direction of the ocean, Frida quickened her pace, head retracted, as this small stretch was more dangerous to traverse than the Bermuda Triangle, rivaling it in terms of bizarre occurrences, not to mention awkward run-ins. It was a block short of the official border between Brighton Beach and the more prosperous Manhattan Beach, and all distant relatives and no-longer-quite-acquaintances had flocked to this fringe, where they could pay reasonable rents while getting wafted by ritzy breezes. Also, the train was almost out of earshot, not so far away that important service announcements couldn’t be heard but at enough of a distance that Grandma didn’t lose her dentures every seven minutes. Frida stumbled past tidy strips of lawn, her favorite with a PLEASE CARB YOUR DOG sign, double-parked Ferraris with needlessly tinted windows, the vacant lot that persisted in being a vacant lot despite its prime location, the homeless guitar band playing classic rock hits (mainly “American Pie” on a loop), and took those sloping concrete steps to the boardwalk, resolved to find a bench, overcome her phone anxieties, and make the call. Why shouldn’t Diane be happy to hear from her? She’d be overjoyed. Incidentally, she was having a little get-together at her place that Friday. It was late notice, Frida probably already had plans, but she was welcome to join. Plans could be scrapped. Frida’s nervousness prior to ringing the doorbell, her stomach cramps, her rapid pulse, would prove for naught. She’d instantly feel comfortable, finding herself in a dimly lit room with beanbag chairs arranged in a rough circle, one empty chair for her to claim, and a carton of red wine (like their parents had at picnics) in the center. Diane was mature, transformed, welcoming. The other beanbag chairs were occupied by youngish intellectual types who exhibited in equal measure Odessa humor, Petersburg interests (sans pretensions), Moscow cosmopolitanism (without the coarseness or hard consonants), and New York transit proficiency; who watched Tarkovsky films and played chess (and would finally succeed in teaching her how); who listened to Pink Floyd and Vysotsky and could recite whole stanzas of Eugene Onegin but never went on too long doing so, choosing instead to dance a little, European style, inside the beanbag fortress; who had jobs in the sciences but whose passions lay in art and literature; who got together every weekend in a casual but never obligatory manner and considered this gang, this kompaniya of theirs, a second family, sort of the way her parents considered their kompaniya. If they emulated the model, what was wrong with that? The model was tried and true. And they weren’t about to emulate blindly. Adaptations would be made. Think of it as the furthering of a tradition. Into the Vysotsky and Mashina Vremeni repertoire, they’d introduce nineties hip-hop, Uzbek rap. Along with Pushkin they’d recite Nasmertov—because surely Frida wouldn’t get the usual stupefied stares when attempting to explain whose niece she was, an excruciating mistake she was determined to repeat whenever given the chance. It was an attempt to bridge a terrible gap, an attempt that invariably proved futile. Within the home Pasha was a world-historical figure grappling with Dostoevskian forces. But the outside world squinted and asked, Pasha who? A poet? As in, they still have those? One reality was bound to triumph to the exclusion of the other. But with the kompaniya she’d just remark offhand that her uncle was the Pavel Nasmertov and they’d gape in awe.
And while the kompaniya was exclusive, Frida would be adopted despite her shortcomings. Her new friends would patiently peel away the layers of timidity, anxiety, acne, and fear, revealing—what, exactly? They would certainly know what, detecting deep within her something worthy of being revealed, somet
hing deserving of that grueling peeling work. In the end she’d be unrecognizable. In a good way. It would be the true her, fully realized. People would say, She bloomed late. An example would be made of the transformation. Everyone had taken Frida for a lost cause until suddenly, at the ripe age of twenty-five, she did a 360. Or was it a 180? A total turnaround, regardless. Left behind the field of medicine. A clean break. Never looked back. Lost weight and began parting her hair differently, in a much more becoming fashion, though the difference itself was elusive. Perhaps a creative calling should be involved? She’d been one of the top students in her high school’s acrylic-painting class. The kompaniya would probably encourage a return to that. They would be supportive, nurturing of the very tendencies the rest of the world tried to weed out. They’d let her borrow money when, painting maniacally, she went broke.
This scenario was countered with one of a lackluster reunion in a single-halogen-bulb kitchen with a faded, old-before-her-time Diane, the pauses in conversation accentuated by a child’s wailing in the background—or, worse yet, Diane not faded in the least but as manipulative and snobbish as ever, only more proficient with underhanded techniques of humiliation. It was foggy and blustery on the boardwalk. A gust blew the scrap with the number right out of Frida’s clutch, in a direction that was the opposite of home.
• • •
LAST NIGHT, SAID MARINA, Baba Fira rode into town on a horse.
Were you happy to see her? Frida asked from the backseat.
Levik chauffeured them down Coney Island Avenue, skirting double-parked halal-meat delivery trucks, imprinting the frank façades of nightclubs and funeral homes onto their retinas. He tensed up when Marina touched on the spiritual realm.
You don’t understand, said Marina. You were too young when she died. Baba Fira was always an old lady—desiccated, wrinkled, a fright. From my earliest memories, her back is so hunched that her nose points to the ground. To make it from one room to the next, she pushed a chair in front of her. It took an hour to get from the kitchen to the bathroom, and you can’t imagine the sound. But she must’ve been only fifty at the time. A little later, not much, I somehow got stuck with bedpan duties. The last twenty years of her life, she was practically a corpse. Not a woman you imagine on a horse.
But in the dream she was fine? asked Frida, though the last place she wanted to be was in a car with her parents, analyzing dreams about their grandparents. She put her open mouth to window, as if trying to suck the outside into her lungs.
She was sort of slung over the horse and dangling, like a coat.
You said hello?
I was too busy yelling at you. You were supposed to be accompanying her to make sure she didn’t fall, but instead you were home. She rode into Potemkinskaya all by herself.
Frida looked at the back of her mother’s head, or rather the back of the headrest attached to her mother’s seat, which grew a face and walrus tusks. A moment ago Baba Fira had been riding her horse under the train tracks, galloping past Zuckerman Pharmacy, turning onto Brighton Sixth. The horse, unlike Baba Fira, was large, black, splendid. But evidently the whole time this horse had been riding into central Odessa. Instead of helping her great-grandmother, Frida had been home, a home she didn’t remember and couldn’t imagine. How did she die? she asked.
Levik ran a red light. She was always dead! he shouted. She never died!
Stroke, said Marina. Do you even have to ask? The answer is always stroke.
What about cancer? said Frida.
Levik dropped them off at the banya and went on his way. He had big plans for the day.
A series of practical steps and formal interactions distracted from the conversation, which had settled comfortably on the subject of cancer—who had it, what kind, coping mechanism (Alla Gabor, breast, happy to get new ones, eating only asparagus puree). A silent rule with discussions such as these was that they weren’t returned to. A penny might fall from your pocket and you’d bend down to pick it up, in the process dropping the subject for good.
There was a misunderstanding with the poised Baltic lady who inspected their gift card, apparently issued under old management. Current management used different gift cards. But the management at this establishment changed weekly, and there was always a new Baltic lady to have a gift-card misunderstanding with. When enough fuss was made and Marina’s blood pressure reached a satisfactory mark, the situation was suddenly resolved. Bleak smiles exchanged. Marina and Frida put their wallets and keys into a plastic bag and in return were granted keys to lockers. With light steam! said the bloodless Baltic lady, who had a smattering of white pimples on her temples.
For those who have only imagined the scene inside a ladies’ locker room, the actuality was a handful of half-squatting women struggling with their locks. The key never fit, and then the key got stuck. There was an atmosphere of stifled panic. Bathroom doors were left flung open, as if the occupants had fled. The floor was wet and contaminated-seeming. A woman came in with hair piled on her crown like a scoop of ice cream about to tip. One side of her bathing suit had ridden up a dimpled buttock, exposing skin that was soaked, shapeless, pinkish, like whale blubber. Women, too, went to great lengths to avoid eye contact.
Marina seemed to think there was a race on for who got to the sauna fastest. The clock was ticking, there wasn’t a second to spare. She abandoned Frida to her miserably slow maneuvering and hustled to a clear victory. By the time Frida made it, her mother lay across the top shelf, shutting out the world. Her palms were open, fingers curled, summoning total relaxation. Legs rolled apart. Russet tufts strayed far from the edge of her faded swimsuit (the functional one). She appeared to be making a public demonstration of the phenomenon of gravity, which had healing powers if allowed to work its magic but which the smallest disturbance turned into a force of harm. Frida sat two shelves below, squeezing her knees. Cold wedged deeper than you’d imagine and had to be extracted arduously. This was the seminal moment, when it was necessary to just commit. In the dim corner, someone was panting.
Did he sound at least a little happy? asked Frida.
Damn it! cried Marina.
What’s wrong? What did I say?
I got honey in my eye! She rubbed her eyelid and licked her hand. Her feet flew up to the ceiling. Did who sound happy?
Pasha—when you said that I was coming.
My brother doesn’t get happy.
Though it would appear that Frida was getting exactly what she wanted, she felt uneasy, perhaps because of the way events had unfolded: She’d voiced a desire to go to Odessa, pretended it was a firm decision, pretended there was no talking her out of it, opposed the pleas of her family, stood her ground, didn’t let her father’s newly acquired stutter or her grandpa’s wildly vacillating blood-pressure readings shake her determination—and when that determination was finally registered, the entire matter was seen from a new light. Of course she should go! It was the city of her birth after all, and her only cousin getting married. Hadn’t they been encouraging her the whole time?
But she preferred not to go to the grocery store alone!
Besides, said Marina, I haven’t exactly told him yet. After a pause she added, He hasn’t been feeling well.
My God, has the man been to a doctor?
Don’t be silly. Nobody goes to doctors in Odessa.
Shhh!
As the atmosphere was halfway between sewer and cathedral, it was unclear what the convention was about speaking. A full-blown conversation, evidently, was frowned upon. The process demanded respect. The banya experience was ritualistic, sacred. An air of immense gravity was brought about by the sense that one’s ancestors had been heating their bones in the same way for millennia. The banya didn’t just offer heat, a good sweat, but a connection to something primal and a purification that went far beyond the pores. They sat in these small, dark, wood-paneled rooms, silent except for labored breathing and the occasional hiss of water on coal, shedding layer upon layer of falsehood, soul grime,
dead skin, pretension. To encapsulate, the process was as follows: Sit clutching your red, splotchy knees and counting the seconds if you’re a daughter, or lie back and snore occasionally if you’re a mother, for half an hour on a shelf in a scorching, oxygen-deprived chamber, leave chamber and jump into a tub of ice water if you’re a mother, or dip your toes in if you’re a daughter, repeat at least five times in order to be sure you’ve gotten your money’s worth.
A young man who looked like he’d crawled from under the earth’s crust, as if his home were amid igneous rock and magma, who may have been made of a single cell blown like a balloon to man size, opened the tiny metal window onto the coals and used a frightening contraption that must’ve had some alternate, highly specific function to fling water inside. There was a deafening hiss; nothing else happened. He wrapped the end of a towel once over his palm and spun the towel above his head, a naked cowboy with a terry-cloth lasso. Individual nose hairs were set on fire. Further inhales were put off until the lungs took them by force. An oppressive heat descended, intending to stay awhile. The young man sat down beside Marina’s feet and began to sweat. The pores could be seen working. They were trained, disciplined pores. Not like those on Frida’s legs, which refused to release a drop. The man held an unkempt birch venik like a weapon between his knees.
Who’s not afraid? he said, and tickled Marina’s toes with the venik’s leaves. Her knees flew up. Propped onto her elbows, she peered at him.
Turn over, he said. I’ll give you a steam.
Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel Page 17
