Vaclav & Lena (3 page)

He can hear the alarm clock buzz in his parents’ room, then his mother clunking around in the bathroom, and finally his father coughing his morning cough, so Vaclav knows he won’t have to wait long.

When Rasia enters the kitchen, she takes in everything with her eyes. Vaclav can see her catalogue the room, and he can see her begin to smile. But her smile is the wrong sort of smile right away. It is not a happy smile, it is a nervous smile, a smile that goes straight across her face instead of curling up at the ends.

“Vaclav, we have to talk about what is happening in the bathroom,” she says.

Even though he does not know what, Vaclav is sure that he has done something wrong. He suddenly feels embarrassed and anxious, because Rasia is staring at him and looking nervous, and this is not good.

“I know now about your bath time,” she says, trying to speak softly and gently. She wants to have an open, supportive conversation with her son, because everyone says to talk to kids about these things so that there is no secret and no shame. She means to sound warm, nonjudgmental, but straightforward. Like Oprah.

“You go in there at nighttime so no one will know? Is this happening every night?” Rasia can feel that she is not sounding like Oprah.

Vaclav knows now what she is talking about, and he knows that he was not doing this thing in the bathtub. Vaclav knows now that when his father came into the bathroom, and he covered his
mekki
with his hand because he was embarrassed for his father to see it, his father thought that he was doing masturbating in the bathtub. Vaclav knows about this from talking to boys at school who know a lot about it from their older brothers or from television stations that they have at their homes.

Rasia takes a deep breath and tries again.

“Where did you learn this?” She is still meaning to make this conversation a nice conversation, but it is coming out all wrong, and she is sounding like a KGB commandant instead of a cool American mother. She doesn’t want to have the same horrible conversation that she had with her own mother. She doesn’t want Vaclav growing up like she did, believing that if you touch or even scratch yourself for an itch your buhguhgie will rot and fall off on the ground and shrivel up like an old potato.

Vaclav knows that no matter what he says, she won’t believe him, and that if he argues with her, she’ll talk more about it, and she’ll ask more questions, and he’ll die of being embarrassed. If he denies it, she’ll think that he’s a liar in addition to being a person who does masturbating in the tub at night. Vaclav knows that it is best to just stand and be quiet and be still.

“Vaclav, this is okay to talk about; you can tell me.”

“Okay,” says Vaclav, and, grabbing his backpack, he bolts for the door without even bringing up the question of permission to have a show on the boardwalk of Coney Island.

“Have a nice day of school!” she shouts after him, grateful herself for his escape.

FAMOUS AMERICANS
…

O
nly after Vaclav runs out of the house does Rasia notice that he made toast for her, that he set the table so nicely, took out her favorite jam, that he even put up water for tea. Rasia turns off the stove and sits down at the table. At first she has a panic because she thinks the list is homework that Vaclav has forgotten, and she is about to run out the door to give it to him, until she sees the words
parents
and then
magic show
and stops. She reads his list, all the reasons he should be allowed to do a magic show.

She wants him to stop with the magic, all the time magic. But she understands.

They spent a long time waiting to come to America. A long time she waited to have Vaclav, because things were so terrible, and then there was glasnost, and just when Rasia thought things were going to be getting better, they got worse, and everything came apart.

She went, eight months pregnant with Vaclav, to wait in line to get on a list to go to America. Oleg had a good job as an architect, he didn’t want to leave, but he said if she wanted to wait in a line and put their names on a list, then fine. She didn’t realize it then, because she was still a young person and still in love, but he was the same then that he is now, his tuchas always stuck to whatever chair he’s sitting on, no matter how uncomfortable.

They told her there was a limit to the number of Russian Jews America would take, that it could be years. They told her they could get her on a plane to another country the very next week. She told them thank you, and that she would wait. Vaclav was born, and Oleg lost his job just like everyone else, just like she knew he would. Now he was a new father who couldn’t pay for his son’s diapers, and he went out every day to complain with the other men. He came home smelling of vodka, but Rasia thought if she could get him out, if they could get to America, everything would be fine, and he would be sweet again and make his jokes again.

The economy got worse, and Vaclav got bigger, and they kept waiting. In the meantime, she bought books and tapes and learned English and taught Vaclav. She didn’t want him to be scared to leave his home, like she was, she wanted him to be excited to be American. She paid a small fortune for black-market English books for children about famous Americans, about Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, and Molly Pitcher, but his favorite, the one he asked her to read again and again, every single night, was the book about Harry Houdini.

Vaclav especially liked the part of the book about how Houdini came to America when he was four, just like Vaclav, how he became America’s most famous magician, how he amazed President Theodore Roosevelt with his magic and performed at the World’s Fair, about how he could escape from heavy chains, how he could jump, handcuffed, from bridges. He liked the parts about how Houdini struggled with his act, how he practiced and never gave up.

Rasia thought that this Houdini person probably drove his mother to an early grave, worrying her with all his death-defying feats and doing Chinese water torture, and was not someone Vaclav should be so interested in. But Vaclav wanted to hear a story about a little boy who came to America and became a big, brave, magical man, and this she understood.

Every night she read Vaclav the book about Houdini, until he knew every word. When they finally got their papers and Rasia told Vaclav that they were moving to America, he already knew all about the place they were going to live: Brooklyn, the home of Coney Island, where Harry Houdini performed his first magic show. It was coincidence only—Rasia knew someone who was in Brighton Beach and could give her a good job doing bookkeeping and help them to find a house—but to Vaclav, it was a sign.

For Oleg, in America, it was worse. He didn’t have the right license to be an architect in America; he would have to go to school, take tests to prove that he knew what he already knew. He told her that he would drive the cab until he could pay for it, but all he ever spent his money on was the satellite on the roof for the Russian TV channels and vodka to drink while he watched it. He hated going out; he hated when the store clerk treated him like an imbecile because he didn’t know words for drain cleaner or cotton balls. Rasia remembered the Oleg she fell in love with, who was a charmer, who was famous in a small-town way, flirting with old ladies, always giving gum and toys from his pockets to children, who sang songs to make her laugh. She knew now that she would probably never get him back.

LENA IS IN A MOOD OF LAUGHING
…

V
aclav counts the steps as he walks along Avenue U, from Thirteenth Street, to Twelfth, to Eleventh, all the way down to Seventh, where he turns the corner and sees Lena sitting on the stoop outside her house, swinging her string-bean legs. He is always excited to see her, but today he is especially excited, because he has a big plan to share with her. Vaclav smiles, and waves, and trips a little bit on the sidewalk right in front of her, but he does not fall down.

Lena tries not to, but she laughs very loudly at Vaclav. Vaclav is glad that Lena is in a mood of laughing, because this will make it easier for him to persuade her of the new big plans.

“Did you get permission?” Lena asks Vaclav, as she hops off the ledge.

“Is very good English, Lena!” says Vaclav. Lena rolls her eyes at his flattery, hands him her stack of books, and they begin their walk together toward Public School 238.

“Okay, okay. Sheesh. Tough audience. Getting permission is not the best way to go. Getting permission is not for this. This, which is part of destiny. Not permission needed.”

“You no get,” Lena grumbles.

“I can have this permission if I want, but it is not the way. This is a test, of the universe for us, and we must prove ourselves and overcome this adversity. We should be thankful for adversity, for giving us chance to forge our strength, like Houdini, who never gave up trying, and was always adding to his escape act more chains and more locks.” Lena rolls her eyes again, because Vaclav is saying this about Houdini and adversity and destiny all the time.

“We do by ourselves. Is less trouble. Is better, okay?” Vaclav stops walking and pleads with Lena with his eyes. Lena plants her hands on her tiny hips.

“No. Your mother must give permission.”

“Lena!”

“I will not do without permission. Is trouble,” Lena says, and stomps ahead of Vaclav.

“Lena, no trouble, will not be trouble,” Vaclav pleads. “We will plan by ourselves. No one will know. We will have secret show, on Coney Island, with secret acts, and we will plan in secret. No trouble. None.”

Lena likes to have secrets, this Vaclav knows. She slows down her walk and tilts her head just a little. Sunlight glows around the black fuzz of hair that has escaped her French braid.

“Lena, since you are the best secret keeper, of course, you will be in charge of the secret planning of the secret act. You will be the master.” Vaclav knows that this will please Lena, that this is the key. Vaclav also knows that he will still be the master of the secret planning.

“No.”

“What?”

“You are thinking that you will still be boss. No, is fake, I will not do.”

Vaclav quickens his step, thinking about this worst-case scenario. This is a list that he did not write down but a list that he composed only in his head.

WORST-CASE SCENARIOS:

1. Permission is not given to have show on boardwalk

AND

2. Lena will not agree to show without permission of parents

Vaclav thinks about doing the show without Lena, but the show cannot go on without Lena, even as the show must go on. There is no show without Lena. Lena is necessary for all the illusions; they have already accomplished so much together. Lena is irreplaceable. Even if Lena was replaceable, no girls at school will replace her; none of them even speak to Vaclav or look at him in the hallway.

“Plan is not good, Vaclav.…” Lena says, trying to be gentle but interrupting Vaclav’s thoughts anyway.

“Don’t think now. We’ll talk later. No more talking now,” says Vaclav.

Lena makes a grumbling in the back of her throat, and they continue down Seventh Street toward Avenue P, toward school.

THE WAY THINGS ARE AT SCHOOL
…

P.S. 238
is a school that was built very long ago, with big bricks and enormous doors and windows. There is a huge door in the front of the school, where parents and teachers and visitors can enter. The students, including Vaclav and Lena, must use the side doors.

Each morning, students play on the side playground, which is just blacktop with lots of lines drawn in different places for hopscotch, and four square, and basketball, and marbles. Kids also play cards, sitting on warm asphalt. When the bell rings, the boys line up at the boys’ door and the girls line up at the girls’ door. The boys’ door is on the right, and above the door there is a stone plaque that says boys. The girls door is on the left, and above the door there is a stone plaque that says girls. The school hasn’t used the separate entrances in an official capacity for years, but the boys still refuse to walk through the girls door, and though the girls dare one another, giggling, to walk through the boys door, no one ever does.

When Lena and Vaclav arrive this morning, they have missed all the playtime because they dawdled on the walk, talking about the act. Vaclav joins the end of the boys’ line, and Lena joins the end of the girls’ line. The lines slowly feed into the building single file. Vaclav and Lena look at their feet. There is no girl for Lena to talk to and no boy for Vaclav to talk to.

Inside, they both climb two flights of stairs to the third floor. Vaclav goes to Mr. Hunter’s room, and Lena to Ms. Walldinger’s room. They will not see each other until ESL class, when they will both descend two flights of stairs, with all the other kids who have stinky lunches.

In Mr. Hunter’s class, Vaclav is the only stink-lunch ESL kid at the green table. The other boy is Ulysses, and the two girls are Nachalie and Genesis. Each table has two boys and two girls; no table has more than one stink-lunch kid.

On the table is a Do It NOW! worksheet. There are always four Xeroxes of the Do It NOW! worksheet on each table, and the children are to begin work on them immediately as they enter the classroom.

Vaclav thinks this must be the best part of the day for Mr. Hunter. During this time, Mr. Hunter stands outside the door to the hallway, one foot in, one foot out, looking for straggling students, even when everyone is already sitting in the classroom. Next door, Ms. Troani also straddles her classroom threshold, and they talk to each other like people on TV, with lots of jokes and gestures and winks and laughing.

Vaclav focuses his mind, trying too hard not to think about Lena or about getting permission, and reads the Do It NOW! There is a paragraph about fires. Then there are questions about fire safety. There are directions to the children to discuss with their group what they would save from their homes in case of a fire.