The Cosmopolitans (22 page)

Her mother said, “And these women, they bring me their old
chulki
, stockings, stretched out, torn, not washed and I am supposed
to say, ‘Thank you, thank you, in Russia we had no such things, only
skins of bears for legs, teeth for control top.’”

Malcolm nodded. “You wanted new pantyhose.”

“No,” Stalina almost shouted. “That’s like this Fiddler, ‘ If I were
a rich.’ We never were thinking, ‘We come to America, streets are
gold,’ we come for freedom, not pantyhose. I can get new pantyhose
on black market.”

Malcolm nodded again. See? he seemed to be saying, with his
unfolded menu, with his comfortable thighs in the barstool, it can
all be easy.

“And all the time I wonder, what do they see when they hear:
Soviet Union? Onion domes, maybe, icons, maybe, nuclear missiles,
maybe. But no. They see little Jews in little towns with cows. I never
even see a cow in my life.”

“I saw a cow in first grade, once,” Malcolm said. He was about
to tell the story of how the cow had licked him up and down like a
child molester.

Stalina gripped her handkerchief between her fingers. “We, we
were intelligentsia, we thought we would come and tell people what
it was like, we would give lectures like Uncle Lev.”

Milla had been thinking of what to say. “But, Mom, no one’s
trying to give you pantyhose anymore. We’re Americans, we have
citizenship, all that stuff was bad, but it’s over.” Malcolm nodded.
Her father didn’t look up from rubbing her mother’s wrist.

“You think?” Stalina said. “If we are such American pies, why
is no table? We are waiting already ten minutes.”

“It’s a Saturday night,” Milla said, lamely.

Osip snapped his fingers, but they made no sound. Malcolm
took another sip of his beer, stood, and returned a few minutes later,
“It’s all fine.”

When their waiter arrived, red-haired, casually apologetic,
“Table’s almost ready, do you know what you want?” Stalina had
to turn away, madly making up her stained, ruddy face, and it took
three tries for him to understand she only wanted water now.

Osip

Stalina greeted their guests,
“Young people in the house, a jolly
group.
” She hadn’t lost hope in Leonid as a potential husband, for
Yana, this time. She hurried everyone out of their coats. Yana and
Pratik came out of the kitchen and Katya wandered downstairs,
looking sleepy. Yana looked slightly too awake. Her tee shirt had
something to say about micro-loans.

Roman Chaikan came into the house smiling, stuck out his
hand: a nice boy. Osip resolved to alert him, later, to the fact that his
underpants were showing.

Stalina herded them to the dining-room table. Alla Chaikin sat
next to Osip and talked about immigrants. “
They want everything in
Spanish, did we come here and speak Russian to the street signs?
”
Osip, who’d heard this before, and made all possible jokes, put
pickled radishes on her plate.

Carrying in the roast, Stalina said, “
Lenya, how’s the skiing? I
see you’ve developed many muscles.
”

Leonid blushed. “I don’t get to do it as much as I want, since
my promotion.”

“Again a promotion!” Stalina said. Alla smiled, listening.

“I will carve?” Pratik said, and took up the knife. Osip nodded
his agreement, although Pratik had never before asked to do that.

Alla said they’d recently been to Boston, demonstrating against
the estate tax. “
I have to tell Stalinatchka — but she’s busy — we had
dinner with the Nudels.
”

“Okay,” Osip said. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, Alla was so
jubilant in sharing this news about his wife’s former lover. Even
here in the U.S., where his name sounded funny, and where he’d
immigrated at an age when right-thinking people retire, Nudel had
somehow scraped together a big lab.

“
They couldn’t go on the march, his gout…but anyway he said
he got a grant and could triple Stalina’s salary if she joins his lab.
”

“
How does he know what my wife makes?
”

Alla’s orange eyebrows shot up and she took in a mouthful of
pickles.

Leonid told a long story about a malfunctioning ski lift in
Germany, and the amusing questions his buddies had asked the
operator.

Pratik, whose talents did not lie in carving, said, “I personally do
not need any kind of machine to climb a mountain. In Bangladesh
even small children climb mountains without any machine.”

“In Russia, too,” Roman said.

“Yes, it is not difficult at all,” Pratik said, attempting to saw
through cartilage.

Yana smiled strangely.

Leonid returned to his colloquium with Stalina, who admired
his charms in an increasingly loud voice.

Having reached the conclusion that the Molochniks, like many
reasonable people, preferred her son to other conversational topics,
Alla spent the rest of the dinner happily and productively.

Katya

While their families shouted and laughed around them, Roman
was asking Katya, “What’s your big secret? I know you have,”
which no one had asked before.

And Katya was saying, to her own vast surprise, like one of
those cartoon characters crawling across the desert, moaning for
water, suddenly handed a pogo stick, an oasis in a single bound! —
“Another voice comes out of me sometimes.”

Jean

When she was pregnant, Jean had moved furniture in and out of
their new summer house. She’d applied for, and won, a position at
a prestigious law firm. She’d gotten a part in the annual New York
Bar Association show, a roast of an Italian attorney general, playing
the part of his young, expectant mother. She’d danced across the
stage holding a salami and singing about how her son would be “an
attorney, in general.”

So when Milla stood in the entrance to Jean’s office, waiting for
the world to offer her a chair, and said, “Maybe today’s not the best?
I feel a little…” Jean had no patience.

“Don’t you want to be prepared for your baby?” she said.

Milla nodded dumbly.

“Sit. Please.” Jean had to finish filing or she’d never remember
where she’d left off, but she was so flustered by the sight of this
gormless child about to bear a Strauss, it took so long to remember
where everything was, that in the end she just left it like that, saying,
“In an hour, I’m taking a deposition, so we have to be very efficient,
don’t you agree?”

Milla said, “Sure.”

As they walked, Jean told her about a fabulous brand of baby
food they were selling in the department store just a few blocks away.
It was organic, of course, but everyone was saying their products
were organic these days. Did Milla know about the different types
of organic produce?

No, she did not, so Jean had to explain about genetic modification
and heirlooms. It was all hazy in her mind — she was recalling facts
from an article she’d read last month. Milla, as a prospective new
mother, should have known more about these matters than Jean did.
Jean did not know everything; however, she read. Before she could
catch herself, she was asking Milla, “Shall I get you a subscription
to
Town and Country
?”

This offer gave Milla, magna cum laude alumna of Southern
Connecticut State (please!), the chance to say, “I don’t really read
magazines?” and smirk when she thought Jean wasn’t looking.
“Could we walk a little more slowly, please?” Milla said.

“Of course.” Jean looked down at their feet. Milla’s were barely
visible, but Jean saw enough to realize she was wearing her eternal
penny-loafers. Some women thought pregnancy gave them a free
pass on footwear. Jean didn’t believe in free passes. Her shoes were
heels, four inches. Her feet inside them were gnarled trolls. “Have
you finalized a name?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Oh? Oh.” Malcolm hadn’t said anything.

“If it’s a girl, Isadora. If it’s a boy: Isidor.” She sounded peculiarly
proud of her sissy boys’ name.

“Hmm…” Jean said.

“For Isidor Strauss, the Macy’s guy? Remember you said once
that you were related? I looked on the Internet, and he was really
heroic his whole life, not just on the
Titanic
.”

“Of course,” Jean said, “Yes. You should know it’s not really
discussed in our family. We try to be more modest.” A silent minute
later, she said, “I thought we’d start here,” opening the door of her
favorite French textile boutique. “We can buy sheets for the crib —
won’t that be fun?”

“Sure,” Milla said.

“This is the kind of store,” Jean went on, guiding Milla through
the pillows, the rough silks, “where you tell them what you need, and
they choose for you. Have you ever been in a store like that? We’ll
just let them know you’re expecting — not that we really need to let
them know. They can see you. And they’ll say — ‘Zees one here, for
you,’ or ‘Zees one is horreebleh.’ All vite?” She’d somehow slipped
into her mother’s Yiddish accent.

Milla said nothing.

“Is this fabulous?” Jean said, holding up the tiniest vine-
patterned blanket. No blankies here, only blankets. “Or do you hate
it? You hate it.” She replaced it in its cube.

“It’s — nice,” Milla said.