American Gypsy (28 page)

As kids Zhanna and I used to play at the abandoned church cemetery down the road from our house. The land was overgrown with stinging nettle, the graves grassy mounds we tripped over and then crossed ourselves so as not to anger the dead. Every time we came home, our arms and legs bloomed with hives. As if stung by nettles, my skin prickled once more with my father's words.

“If you and Mom were together this would never happen,” I said.

He locked himself in again. Nothing new there. As long as he had his music, the world remained a pink-clouded festival.

He was still absent (incredibly rude by Roma standards of hospitality) when Alan moved his chair closer to mine—too close—later that evening. Dad, please stop tinkering with your guitars, I thought. Would you really sell me for a recording machine? The C-sharp scale rang across the house, then arpeggios, then the latest arrangement of “I Will Survive,” with salsa rhythms pulsating in the hardwood floor beneath our feet.

Igor, as the only adult male at the table, raised his glass. Four glasses joined his, one belonging to my potential husband. He didn't have sexy sideburns or long, beautiful fingers. He was Alan—a cologne-soaked, thin-haired, big-lipped, nail-chewing mess of adolescent hormones.

Since no one was openly discussing marriage thus far, I grudgingly entertained the notion that perhaps I had overreacted. Grandpa Andrei used to say that a teenager's emotional state resembles a busted compass with the needle spinning. Knowing Olga, the entire thing could've been a farce to make me squirm.

I took a pile of dishes into the kitchen, planning on staying for a while, maybe even washing a few plates.

“Hey,” I heard from behind me.

I set my load on the counter, breathing deeply.

He stood too close, and so did his Brut.

“Crazy stuff, huh, this marriage business,” he said.

Relieved to hear a sensible opinion, I turned around. “I know. Maybe we should tell them together.”

“Tell 'em what?”

“That we don't want to do it.”

“But I do … wanna.” His eyebrows wiggled and he placed a hand lovingly over his crotch. “It'll be good for us, for both of us. I've got mad skills.”

It wouldn't do to burst out laughing. I stared at his face, unblinking, ignoring the stuff happening below his waist, but the movement of his hand was unmistakable.

“What are you doing?” I said. “Stop it.”

“I'm hung like a horse. That's why I don't wear briefs.”

Was he trying to shock me? He didn't seem intelligent enough.

“Good to know,” I said finally, turning back to the dishes.

He grabbed my arm. The bulbous part of his nose reddened. “You don't believe me.”

“I'm not interested, Alan.”

“I can prove it.” He reached in the back pocket and took out a scrap of paper.

“What is it?” I said. There were names and numbers of three girls written in surprisingly neat handwriting.

“My exes. They can vouch for me.”

Out in the living room the gossip had moved from local to international. “You remember so-and-so from Moscow? I heard they had one of those surgeries that make a penis out of a vagina.” “Now I've heard it all.” “Oh, you think so, do you? Listen to this one. My mother's neighbor Artem was walking down the street when an icicle broke off the roof of a nearby building and impaled him straight through the skull.” “What a way to die.” “He lived!”

The carefree banter continued even when Alan and I joined the table, though I didn't miss Svetlana's knowing nod and a pat on her son's shoulder as he sat down. I had a sudden urge to run for Vegas, get lost in it the way my mother had.

 

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

Reprieve came from the most unexpected place. Grandpa Andrei died of kidney failure and my father became a beehive no one dared to disturb. He endured the loss in solitude, even his guitar mute. My own grief, two years after Ruslan's murder, was like an old cut seeping blood again.

For days, Dad talked about the past. The time he drove his father nuts when he gambled away the old man's gold cigarette case, and about having to steal it back or get kicked out of the band. Finally Olga put him on a plane to Moscow for the funeral. While he was gone, Olga and I didn't fight, too worried over Dad's state.

He came back with two waterfalls of silver down the outer edges of his beard: his own father's trademark.

Several weeks later, and without telling Olga, Dad bought a plane ticket for Grandma Ksenia. With Grandpa gone, it was up to my father, as per Romani tradition, to take care of his mother. When Dad informed Olga of his mother's arrival that very day, my stepmother hurled a nearby vase at his head (one of many airborne attacks to follow).

Grandpa Andrei, with Dad and Aunt Laura, 1953

Out of all my relatives, I would turn out most like Grandma Ksenia. Back in our days of rancor, of course, neither of us had expected such irony; although I was named after her, Oksana being a derivative of Ksenia, she'd been a stranger to me for all of our time in Russia, and I honestly didn't know the proper way to act around her now that she was coming to America. My childhood memories are vibrant with the faces of my grandfather, my parents, and the many band members. Grandma Ksenia is the only shadow, perhaps because we often seemed to clash—not only over my questionable lineage but also over silly things like the whereabouts of Grandma's favorite Pavlovoposadsky shawl or how her cold cream ended up smeared all over our cat's face. I admit there were times I was Dennis the Menace to her Mr. Wilson, but we did have our moments of truce.

I loved visiting her at Easter. Dad's family, like most Romani, was very religious. Even Baba Varya attended church services. Romani don't have a common religion, often adopting that of their country. Their original beliefs were similar to those of many tribal people: the land is the mother and all depends on her mercy. But the people I grew up with were Russian Orthodox, especially Grandma Ksenia.

Every Easter our visit followed the same course: we'd walk up the steps where Grandma already waited, having phoned earlier to make certain we were coming. “
Isus voskres
(Jesus has risen),” she'd say, and kiss us one by one on each cheek. We took turns replying, “
Vo istinnoh voskres
(In truth, he has risen).”

Inside the house, the aroma of citrus and vanilla led me to the pantry. I cracked the door and found my prize under the pristine white cloth:
paska
, a traditional Easter bread as tall as a ten-gallon hat. From its flushed russet crust a fragrant cloud of steam escaped. I wanted to break off a piece and taste the sticky-sweet raisins waiting on the inside. Last time I did that, I was grounded for two weeks, but it was worth it. Grandma was a fine baker.

Now Grandma walked through the door with Dad at her back, and I hardly knew her. She held herself as if making a stage entrance, an action so instinctive that she hardly noticed it. Two years had passed since I last saw her. She had aged twenty. Her short hair lay sparse and coarse, with a generous band of silver at the roots. Time had creased her face, rubbed the pride from her now sunken eyes, pinched once perfectly contoured cheekbones. The only sign of the well-known songstress was the crimson-red lipstick. When I was little, I thought she kissed pomegranates.

“My dear granddaughter,” she said, and spread her arms. All my qualms forgotten, I went to her.

Olga came clinking out to greet her, dressed up in her finest. She must've worn all of her jewelry at once.

“Welcome to my home, Ksenia Fyodorovna.”

She led Grandma away, as if showing the house and the furniture couldn't have waited for later. But Dad's shoulders visibly relaxed.

Several weeks went by in startling peace. It became a habit for my grandmother and me to listen to the morning radio program in Russian. The first part was a thirty-minute exercise routine accompanied by a crisp piano. It had been created especially for seniors, but I didn't mind that, so surprised was I at the old woman's determination to finish each day's routine. We'd follow the instructor's voice. “Turn at the waist from side to side! Now stride in place! Get those knees higher! One, two, three, four! Don't forget to breathe! Chest open! Chin lifted!” We also started taking the bus to the beach every time Dad and Olga forgot their truce and turned up the volume. “Adults have no time for the children or the old,” Grandma would say on our way out the door. Santa Monica was her favorite beach, though she swore her preference had nothing to do with the sweaty guys playing volleyball in their Speedos. We'd sit on a bench and I'd tease her about it. “Grandma, I never knew you liked sports so much.”

Grandma Ksenia could bring an entire theater to tears

“Child, if I were twenty years younger I'd be out chasing that ball.”

“With all those hairy guys?”

“What other kinds are there?” She chuckled at the shock on my face.

Later I found black-and-white pictures of my grandparents on the Black Sea coast where they vacationed every year. Grandma's legs are ballerina-slender and Grandpa's legs are not bad, either, quads and calves like rocks beneath a flowing river. She's propped up on a huge boulder near the water, holding one of those Chinese paper umbrellas with peacocks painted on it, looking like a wartime pinup girl. Next time we went to Santa Monica, I brought a camera. The only picture of us together was taken there, by a man who claimed to have once dated Marilyn Monroe.

On Santa Monica beach

Grandma Ksenia had spent years wading through the gossip and scandal of stage life, and she was an early riser. Both turned out to be bad news for Olga, whose pawnshop trips and disappearances were becoming habitual. When Grandma told Dad that she suspected something shady, an affair perhaps, he confronted his wife.

“Why doesn't your mother keep quiet and enjoy our hospitality?” she said.

I had just come from school. Grandma Ksenia stood in the living room between Dad and Olga.

“Is it true, Olga?” Dad demanded. “Are you sleeping with another man?”

Grandma implored him to sit. “Calm down.”

Olga's face, her bulging eyes, spit hatred at the older woman. She stood in the kitchen doorway, her normally braided hair a thick black foam of curls down her back. She jabbed a finger at Grandma Ksenia.

“Buy her a ticket back to Moscow.”

Over Grandma's shushing, the argument inflated until Olga stormed into the kitchen. I'd thought she went in search of her keys to get away, but she ran back with a ten-pound sack of oranges, which she heaved over her head and flung at the old woman. The sack sailed across the living room. I scrabbled to intercept it, and Dad shoved Grandma aside as it crashed into her shoulder.

“
Nou suchara, podozhdi! Ia seychas boshkou tebe otorvliu!
(Just wait, you bitch! I'll rip your head off!)” Dad lunged at Olga, with me and Grandma dragging him back.