by Zhanna Slor
If she did go to Ukraine, there has to be a way for my dad to find out. Ticket receipts, bank account statements, something. He’d know better than I would. Even though I am still slightly furious with him I immediately search the house to track him down. I find him drinking espresso in the kitchen while attempting to make a frozen burrito on the stovetop. The sight of it temporarily distracts me from the entire ordeal I’d read about and my new hypothesis.
“Papa, no. Just… oh my god.” I take the burrito and pop it into the microwave. My dad watches me take the frozen sack away from him, and he doesn’t fight. “You have to defrost it. Then it goes in the oven. Unless you want to eat a frozen bean icicle?”
“Your mom did all the cooking,” is his only response. The peach-colored walls—also my mother’s doing, I imagine—make his face appear even paler than it was before. I notice, for the first time, that he has dark bags under his eyes too. Papa has had insomnia on and off his whole life, and it is suddenly clear to me that he has not slept much, if at all, over the last few weeks.
My previous anger at him begins to shift into pity. “Well it is 2008,” I say, softly. “You could learn to cook too. It would probably take you the same amount of time to make a burrito from scratch.” The microwave beeps and I place the burrito in the toaster oven on high, with a timer on so he can’t screw it up. “It’s beans and rice, Papa.”
“Sure,” my dad shrugs, blankly.
This despondent look makes me remember why I’m there in the first place. I should probably tell him where I think Anna disappeared to, but surprisingly, what comes out of my mouth is this: “Why did Anna stop painting?”
Papa narrows his eyebrows at me, confused. “I didn’t know she had. Why?” He leans against the shiny granite countertop, his hands looking for space to rest, but not finding any, because it’s so cluttered with kitchenware and old, dirty glasses. How long had my mom been gone, anyway?
“Well, did you see anything new at her apartment? Were her arms ever covered in paint?” I pry.
“I do not notice these things, Masha, you know this. I busy man.”
“But she’s not majoring in art, correct?”
“I not throw my money in toilet.”
My blood starts boiling again, replacing pity with frustration. The same frustration I’ve always had when it comes to my parents, but twofold, because I’m supposed to be the one protecting my sister and I’ve clearly done a terrible job. “Anna needs painting, Papa,” I explain. “She needs it like we need...” I wave towards the toaster oven. “Like we need to eat food. She’s not herself without it.”
My dad doesn’t roll his eyes at me, but I still have the impression of him doing so. Perhaps he is thinking so intensely in his mind how ridiculous I am that I can feel it. Or maybe I am imagining it because I know him too well. We’d had some similar arguments when I’d decided to make Aliyah, but in the end, he couldn’t really say no. When you’re a Jewish refugee, there’s a special place in your heart for Israel, knowing that you can always go there if you ever have to flee. Plus, I was twenty years old and Israel paid for my ticket. It didn’t matter, in the end, what he thought. Maybe that’s what Anna is learning too. “It just hobby, Maria. So what, she doesn’t paint a few months? School more important.”
I shake my head. “Not for Anastasia. You weren’t around when she was in middle school. She was so unhappy. She used to eat lunch in the bathroom, do you know that?”
My dad looks stricken. “This is gross.” He crosses his arms over his chest, as if he can protect himself from this information; or maybe he is trying to look tougher than he is. It doesn’t work, either way; his outfit, a loose white tank top with America written across it and plaid pajama pants, keeps the impression of toughness far at bay.
“People are cruel to kids who are smart and sensitive. You didn’t grow up here, so you don’t know what it’s like.” Here he frowns again, and I know he’s about to say something like It’s all the same everywhere with kids, but I don’t let him speak. Because it’s not. Not exactly. And even if it was, my dad was always popular in school. He wouldn’t get it. “Without painting, she’s just that girl eating lunch alone again. She’ll attach herself to any distraction not to be that girl again.”
I expect my dad to wave this off, but he surprises me by taking it in, absorbing it. “I did not know this,” he says, almost sadly. I find him staring at a framed childhood photo of us hanging on the wall near a light switch; in it, we are both wearing bright red snowsuits and are standing outside our old apartment building in Chernovtsy. It’s one of only a few pictures of my childhood that are in color, which probably makes it that more difficult to look at for him. Like he is remembering exactly how it used to be back then, at that house, in those difficult but rewarding years. Or maybe he is thinking about how much easier it was, even in the Soviet Union, to raise little kids, as opposed to grown women. With him, it could go either way.
“It’s not something you really tell your parents,” I explain. “Especially when they’re working two jobs just to feed you.”
“I did not move from Soviet Union so kids could eat lunch in bathroom,” he says, a little bit irate now.
“Yes, I know. You also didn’t move from Soviet Union so that we could wear ripped jeans or work in grocery stores,” I say, giving him a knowing look.
“Okay, okay, now I am joke,” he says.
“No, Papa. Not everything we do is a reflection on you. Only what you do is a reflection on you.”
“What you saying?”
I can’t believe I have to explain to him what is so clearly obvious. The man may understand math, but he does not have a clue about how people work. It’s too late for our relationship to be like it once was, but maybe it’s not too late for him and Anna.
“If she wants to be an artist, can’t you let her try? Even if she fails at least she’ll know she tried. She won’t resent you for the rest of her life.” Papa has such a blank look on his face I wonder again if I am accidentally speaking Hebrew. But I know I’m not. This is a different sort of mistranslation, one that has nothing to do with language. After all this time he still doesn’t know how to be supportive of anyone pursuing a path that might differ from his. Clearly, he learned nothing from all of our altercations and my subsequent absence.
“If you do, I’ll tell you where I think she went,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
His eyes go wide. Now I have his attention. “You found her?”
“I found her computer.” I pause, waiting to see what he says. “She left it here, didn’t you notice?”
He thinks about this and shakes his head. “I never go in her room.”
“No wonder you’ve had zero luck finding her. Have you even tried?” I ask. The toaster oven timer goes off and we both stare it, before I move forward and remove my dad’s gross-looking frozen burrito and hand it to him. His arms drop to his sides.
“So, get to it!” he says, not taking it from me, as if he forgot what he was doing in the kitchen in the first place.
I put the burrito down on a plate, and without turning around to face him, I say, “You’re not going to like this.”
“I don’t like any of this, so?”
“Well, I found an old conversation between her and this woman called Zoya. The one you asked me if I knew about?” I rotate to face him, and see his eyes widen in horror. “Anyway it looks like Anna might have gone to Ukraine. To, uh, Chernovtsy.”
He leans his hands against the counter, letting his shoulders sag a little, like he’s a balloon deflating. This is clearly not the answer he expected. What did he expect exactly? That Anna was hiding in Riverwest, still? That she’d taken a train to Chicago and we could just drive to pick her up? He probably assumed she was with her boyfriend somewhere because it was easier. And maybe she is—but I am no longer so sure.
“You’re telling me Anna is in Chernovtsy?” he asks.
“Well, thi
s was a month ago. And I’m not sure, it just kind of seemed like it…I was reading between the lines a little.” I take out a cup from the cupboard next to him, and fill it with water. “Maybe you can look into it? Don’t you have access to some of her accounts?”
“I do not need. I know she cannot afford.”
“Can you please look anyway?” I decide not to tell him my theory on that. “Or you could talk to this Zoya woman. Do you know her? I would have messaged her from Anna’s profile but she deleted her account so I can’t write back. MySpace too. Didn’t she write you too?”
“She did, but there’s no way…” He starts shaking his head emphatically no. “I’m not writing her.”
“What? Why? Don’t you want to find Anna?” I say. “She probably went to Chernovtsy to meet her. She could be there with her right now!”
“Even if I wanted to. Which I do not. I blocked her.”
My pity turns back to anger. “Papa…” I start. I think of the German word verschlimmbessern: to make something worse when trying to improve it. Though I’m not even sure where to apply it: Anastasia, or my dad? “No offense, but it seems like I’m the only one here actually trying to find Anna. This woman claimed to be your daughter, and Anna may have believed her. So maybe figure out how to un-block her?”
My dad looks up at me for second, then turns back toward the counter without acknowledging that I know about his little secret now. For a man who has always advised 100% transparency, he sure doesn’t practice what he preaches.
I shake my head. “No wonder Mama flew off to New Jersey,” I say. “Is she…? I mean, does she…have proof?”
“She’s lying, Masha.”
“Papa, Anna must have a reason that she believes this girl over you.”
“What can I say? She angry with me.”
“You don’t know Zoya’s mom or anything? Wasn’t she your accountant?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I told you, I read their messages.”
No explanation from my dad arrives, but I know without him telling me: he had an affair with this woman. If he hadn’t, there would be no reason for Anna or my mother to listen to a stranger in Ukraine. He doesn’t want to know if Zoya is his. It’ll be easier to deny it that way. Or maybe he does know and isn’t telling me.
“You never dated her mother?” I try again.
Papa sighs, but he doesn’t say no. He looks tired, not defiant.
“But you slept with her?” I ask. He still doesn’t answer, but he can’t look me in the eye. I guess I don’t blame him. This is the most uncomfortable conversation I’ve ever had, and it might be his too. Or, one of three, anyway. “Papa?”
When he still refuses to answer, everything I understand about the situation in Milwaukee changes in an instant. In all the time that I was reading their online correspondence, I didn’t once consider that Zoya might actually be his daughter. But she could. He basically admitted it with his silence. This girl, whether or not she approached it well, could be our family. By Jewish law, we have to help those in need. When it’s family, there’s no question about it. It’s a fundamental principle of Judaism, and it’s the obvious moral thing to do. Even the worst Jews on earth would be able to see that. I’m telling my dad all this, but he shakes his head at me.
“Bunch of crap. This nothing to do with being Jew.”
“Shtuyot b’mitz,” I say.
“What?”
“That’s Hebrew for ‘nonsense in juice,’” I explain. “It means exactly what it sounds like.”
I look at my dad, the too-bright lights above us making his face even more pale and tired-looking, to the point where for the first time in my life I realize he’s an old man. In my mind, during all these years away, he was always so strong and intimidating; bigger than life. Now, I’m not so sure what he is. At best, he’s a cheater. At worst, an absentee father to a poor orphaned girl. I know that despite his mistakes he is still all the other things—the doting husband, the reliable protector—but right now I’m so livid I can no longer stand being in the same room.
I turn to leave, then change my mind. I may be mad, but I still need to follow through on my search. “Actually, can I borrow your car?” I glance at the clock. I have about thirty minutes until Shabbat, so if I leave now, I can get to Milwaukee right on time.
Papa looks lost in thought and waves me off. He doesn’t ask me what I need the car for, but he is clearly relieved to be done talking about Zoya, so he points to some keys hanging by the door. “Fine. Take your mom’s.”
MASHA
________________
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I arrive back in Riverwest right as the sun is setting, and park the car by Rose’s house for the night. I turn the corner and head into Riverwest’s very-popular tiki bar, Foundation, which is also on Bremen Street. Then I order a drink. Sure, I told myself I’d come out to look for Anna’s roommates. But the truth is, I’m not sure I have any right to look for her, nor do I feel at all equipped to find her. I’m not saying I give up, but maybe I am giving up for the night. And don’t I deserve a break? It’s not like any of this is my fault, and my dad is barely trying to find Anna. I feel totally overwhelmed doing so much heavy lifting. And what I used to do when I felt overwhelmed was drink.
I guess I haven’t changed that much after all.
I chose Foundation because Liam suggested it, but also because it’s my favorite bar on the planet. I used to go to here every other day. The bartender has an actual barbell mustache, waxed on both ends. There isn’t a single TV, and the tables all have little candles on them. It’s like another planet. No, it’s like it exists outside of time. In Foundation, it could be 1985 or 2020. As soon as I get swallowed up by the smoke and the blowfish lamps and Jim Croce singing about New York, I even start to feel a little better.
Sipping on a Mai Tai with a fun straw, I study every face that walks in the door. But no one looks familiar. I don’t recognize even one person; not anyone I used to associate with, or the tattooed hipsters Anna was living with. Maybe it’s harder to get a fake ID now than when I was her age. Whatever the case may be, it’s a bust. I am sitting between a girl with pink hair reading a book and a middle-aged man with a motorcycle helmet, waiting to close my tab, when I see what the girl is reading: Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. This is so Milwaukee that I can’t help but comment.
“‘The new American Dream is to achieve wealth and recognition without having the burden of intelligence, talent, sacrifice, or the human values that are universal,’” I tell her. “Doesn’t that just totally explain reality shows?”
She looks up, confused. “Huh?”
I point at the book. “It’s a line from the book you’re reading,” I explain.
A nervous smile replaces the confusion on her face. “Oh, sorry!” she says. “I don’t think I got to that part yet.”
I try again. “‘The purpose of art is to provide what life does not,’” I say.
“Ah! I love that one,” she says. “I think I highlighted it.”
“I did too. It sounds deep, but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure that it’s true,” I say. “Shouldn’t art provide exactly what life provides, but in a different way? Like that book for example. That’s life too, but presented in an orderly fashion, a story within a story, pages bound by paper and glue.” I explain the word Maya, Sanskrit for the mistaken belief that a symbol is the same as the reality it represents.
The girl’s eyes go wide with either surprise or discomfort, it’s hard to tell. Maybe I’m talking nonsense; I don’t know, I have had some powerful drinks. Then she merely shrugs, and sips her beer—something dark and frothy—and puts it back down. “I don’t know. Like, I think art—or at least books—do provide something life doesn’t. Like, I don’t know, closure, or something?” She smiles without looking in my direction. “There’s a beginning, and there’s an end, and you know when both of them happen. In life,
you don’t remember the beginning, and you usually don’t know when the end is coming. And you definitely don’t get closure, about pretty much anything,” she says. Then, she turns to face me, and I see her cheeks are pink.
I nod, surprised. “I guess you have a point.”
Blushing more, she adds, “Also, I love how he makes the inanimate objects characters who talk. It’s so cute.” She smiles again, then turns back to the book. I leave her alone this time, because who am I to bother someone who is so deep in a book they can read it at a bar? I’m just glad people still read at all. On her birthday, I used to buy Anna copies of my favorite books—History of Love, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, One Hundred Years of Solitude—but I couldn’t get her to read a single one after she read Harry Potter in sixth grade so eventually I gave up and sent her art books instead.
I pay my tab with the cash my dad threw in my bag, and walk to Bremen to give it another shot. There isn’t a show happening, so it’s fairly quiet compared to my previous visit. I sit at the bar and ask the bartender for a drink. It looks like the guy who was working with Rose previously, but I can’t be sure. There are so many bespectacled boys in tight pants around here they are starting to blend into each other. It must be though, because he tilts his head in recognition, as if wondering where he knows me from.
“Are you Anna’s sister?” he asks.
I nearly choke on my vodka soda. “How did you know that?”
He crosses his arms over his chest and smiles proudly. “I’m good with faces.” He reaches across the bar and offers me his hand. “Jared.”
“Masha,” I say back.
Jared shakes his head in amusement, still smiling. “You two look so alike,” he marvels. “But also…not at all alike.”
Broad statement as it is, I understand what he means. At first the two of us look like we could be twins, until you start to look at our faces more closely. By the end of which you’re not sure if we are related at all. “How did you know my sister?”
