Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo Page 4

  The obligatory walk through the premises: a Soviet habit. Following Maya out of the kitchen, Alex for some reason imagines himself in his mother’s home when she was twenty-three, just a year before Eugene Rubin walked into her life. A shamefully obvious notion follows: Once, my mother was my age. Alex tries to picture Raisa as a young woman but can’t, even though he has been shown many pictures in many albums; Raisa’s present rolls and tiers insist on the view. Attempting to do the same with his father, all Alex can conjure up is Eugene at his present age, fifty, crouching; that is the way Alex manages to translate him to a younger size.

  After the tour, Alex obliges with a taste of Maya’s grechanniki. When the patty—ground pork and chicken mixed with buckwheat and stewed carrots, a peasant’s meal—meets his tongue, he stops speaking and closes his eyes. His mother does not make grechanniki, but he does not need the direct comparison. The comparison is between someone who plays hockey in Riverside Park and the great Slava Fetisov. After Alex is finished stuffing himself (Maya has to ask him to stop so something is left for the table), they work. Alex stands at the sink, soapy to the forearm, and she bustles behind him, next to him, under him. The kitchen is so terribly cramped—at one point, Maya sets up a cutting board on the floor—that no movement leaves her more than a foot from him, and from this he takes solace even though he knows he shouldn’t. He tries to keep his eyes on the caked Dutch oven in his hands, but he can hardly ignore the appearance of her mouth just inches from his thigh, all the skin her shorts and A-shirt fail to conceal (it’s twenty degrees outside but a hundred in the cubbyhole kitchen), the way house slippers stay on her feet as they never do his.

  “Whom is the dinner for?” he asks again.

  “A friend has a friend who puts money in restaurants,” she says, sending a pan of beef chuck de Gaulle into the oven, briefly enveloping Alex in a fogbank of heat. Alex wonders about the purpose of such an investment if she has to go home in three months, but keeps quiet.

  “Are you worried about things back home?” he says, not wanting to remind her directly of her impending return. Nor himself—if he does not speak of it, it does not have to be real, at least for the duration of this visit. And while the visit has to end, it will not do so for a very long time; there is still so much to be done before dinner is ready and the kitchenware has been cleaned. Never has Alex been such an enthusiastic, deliberate washer of dishes.

  “It’s no longer home to you?” Maya says.

  “It’s different for you,” he says. “We left without a return ticket. There was a day two years ago after which I’ve lived more of my life here than there.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” she says, and Alex hesitantly admits a reservation into his moonings about Maya. He doesn’t like the declarative way that she speaks, so flauntingly indifferent to his opinion.

  “Do you want to return, then?” he retaliates.

  “My parents are there, of course I want to return,” she says, then curses because her thumb has landed on the handle of a hot pan. Alex half turns from the sink with intention to minister, but she waves him away, sucking hungrily on the finger. “But I have a devil in my head about cooking,” she says through the finger in her mouth. “I’m trying to fuck up as much as I can, so he leaves me alone.”

  Alex turns back to the sink in a welter of disagreeable thoughts. He isn’t accustomed to crass words from the girls he dates. Then a new thought finds him once more: When Maya is not overly declarative, she is overly self-deprecating. He doesn’t intend to exploit this weakness, or even mention it, but it makes him feel less cornered.

  “How did it start?” he says like a doctor filling out a chart.

  “Maybe two years ago. Around the time you became an American. There was a festival on campus with local restaurants. All the chefs were wearing that white hat that French chefs wear. Every chef was a guy—except one. Her face was flushed to the roots of her hair. She had these hands—cut, burned, bruised. I just stared at them. They were beautiful. I felt like a twig next to her. If I saw her on the street, she would have struck me as a questionable woman. But there . . . She was magnificent. She was nice—she asked me if I cooked. I said not really—just dinner, you know, what my mother and grandmother taught me. Not, like, for people. And she said that if I was willing to spend one year practicing, she would come and eat at my house in one year.”

  Alex pauses, his hands around a patch of steel wool. “That’s who’s coming to dinner?”

  “Not exactly,” Maya says. “She can’t make it, but she is sending a friend. The friend who buys into restaurants.”

  Alex whistles admiringly. “Not bad,” he says. He can’t resist adding: “Dima’s missing quite the experience.”

  “Oh, he’ll be back for the meal,” she says. “He’ll hold court. I cook, and he’ll seduce with his talk.”

  “That doesn’t annoy you?” Alex says cautiously, then berates himself—there is no cautious way to make a comment like that. He’s overstepped, and tenses against Maya’s comeback.

  “Annoy me?” she looks up. “What, that my boyfriend knows how to talk?” Alex feels as if the word boyfriend has been flung at him like a rock. The compliment to Dima’s charisma is a second rock. “Or that his best friend is helping me with the most important meal of my life while he’s off playing hockey?” Again, the insolent smile is up on her face. It occurs to Alex that he is hopelessly literal. What law says that people say what they mean, that insolence means displeasure and politeness means fondness? It does in Alex; Alex feels as if his true intent is always inscribed on his face; it is why he strains so mightily to trap the surge of his feelings, why he never argues with Dima, why he goes along with Raisa’s plans for his future. But perhaps others work differently. It strikes him that Maya has referred to him as Dima’s best friend. That is news to Alex. He has learned and thought of so many new things in the hour he has spent with Maya. If that kind of person isn’t deserving of his desire, who is?

  “That’s Dima,” she answers herself. “You can’t make a dog fly. He’s wonderful. He’s just Dima.”

  Until now, Alex has been torching himself trying to figure out how to finagle an invitation to remain through dinner. But after this comment, he wishes only to leave because all the trying in the world can’t help Alex if Maya does not mind Dima’s flaws. After Alex concludes his shift at the sink, the light outside growing dim even though the clock is only at four, he excuses himself even though Maya calls him crazy—he’s not her charwoman; after everything he’s done, he needs to stay for dinner, at least. At least? he thinks with a bitter hopefulness. No, he doesn’t require charity. In fact, he is craving the cold sting of the outside air. He wants to slide his hands into his pockets and watch his breath unfurl out of his mouth as his cheeks turn the color of radishes. He wants to shriek like the parrot. This he knows how to do.

  But he surprises himself again because—against his own wishes, in thrall to the movement of his hands, even as his dignity protests—he calls her the next day to find out how it went. And she surprises him with a delight at hearing his voice that he—even correcting for the fantasies that kept him awake, masturbating into his boxers while Eugene and Raisa slept on the other side of the hallway—can’t write off as pure politeness. She owes him for helping; how can she make it up? No, no, he says unconvincingly. And then she says: “I want to see you, you idiot.” He feels light-headed. “But how did it go?” he says sleepily, inebriated with her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. And that way it begins.

  At first, not knowing how to square his desire with his guilt, Alex accommodates both: He proposes to cook dinner for his friend Dima and Dima’s girlfriend Maya at his parents’ house. You’re going to do what? Dima says. Alex ruins everything, belatedly marveling at the obliterating sway of his infatuation: He thought he could impress Maya in a category at which she excels and he has not even attempted. They chew stringy rabbit as Alex ruminates on the spectacular way in which he has gra
tuitously kneecapped his aspirations. Dima makes fun but Maya neither makes fun nor pretends the meal is a success. She explains that everyone eats chicken instead of rabbit because rabbit is so lean; you can abandon a chicken in the oven for an hour, but a rabbit you have to bathe like an infant. Daydream for a minute, and you’re dealing with tough meat. Alex does not tell her that he spent many moments at the stove daydreaming. Alex feels an alliance with Maya against Dima—an alliance of rabbit specialists, but he’ll take what he can get. If you want, I’ll show you another time, Maya says. He wants.

  And so it goes until it has gone so far one has to pretend otherwise. Alex passes many nights mashing his pillow as he tosses and thinks about Dima. What was brazen then is timorous now. But somehow he holds on, powering blindly from he doesn’t know what reserve. He alternates between avoiding Dima’s phone calls and not letting Dima alone until Dima will allow himself to be treated to dinner (out, not with Alex at the stove), though when they are finally seated Alex is surly and distracted. Because Alex can’t leave Maya alone, he can’t leave Dima alone. His friend laughs—Alex has not wanted to see so much of him since they saw each other every day in junior high school.

  In the mornings, Alex makes commitments; he will exert discipline and refrain from contacting Maya. Some days his resolve makes it all the way into evening. He’s furious with himself; in college, he could make himself sit with schoolwork night after night, but that willpower has vanished. Maya doesn’t help him because she doesn’t say no. What was insolent then is solicitous now. Yes, she can come visit him for lunch at the investment office where he works. They go to a nearby park with sandwiches and a milk bottle that contains watermelon juice mixed with vodka, and push pins up and down a game board. Alex has always found board games asinine—until now. So this is how you fill the tyrannical hours: You play board games with the person you like (love?). This is what happens when Maya comes around—her presence kneads the unease inside him until it shapes into insight. His brain, formerly lake, turns to river.

  He does not return to the office until three, four. He weathers the eyes of his supervisor, tastes spiked watermelon on his tongue, squints at his desktop. And where is Dima right now? he wants to ask Maya before they say good-bye at the park. He does not. He wants to kiss her. He does not. And even though she was first to confess some kind of interest—I want to see you, you idiot—she does not, either. In this department, Maya remains old-fashioned. In fact, she remains with Dima. If she is interested in Alex, why won’t she break up with Dima? It follows that she’s not really interested in Alex, merely drags him along for amusement—she’s not solicitous, after all, but insolent like before, and cruel, too. He’s drunk. Alex experiences hours-long bouts during which Maya is a subject of resentment, anger, derision. Then he calls her.

  Alex and Maya are in Battery Park. Only three weeks remain until her return to Kiev, where the first flowers are coming in according to her impatient mother. Alex has volunteered to show Maya a corner of his city he himself does not know. It’s May, the sailboats and weekend cruises are out on the rippling brown felt of the Hudson, yellow-beaked birds seen only in the coastal parts of the city wander about, the spring’s last wind rustles the line of lindens flanking the water, and the season’s progress is marked by the diminution of clothes on the wearers.

  “This is New York,” Maya sighs. She is participating in the diminution: a sleeveless dress, white with blue flowers, cinched together by a tan belt the width of a finger. It sits on her stork frame like a wall hanging. And yet, he desperately wishes to reach out and touch the sharp hip that sometimes comes through the fabric. His chest rattles: three weeks. Will they really leave each other without remarking on what’s happened between them? Because something has happened, hasn’t it? For Alex, life after college—adulthood—can be summed up as: knowing less every day. So if someone were to take him by the hand and gently explain that it was all some kind of misunderstanding, he would be surprised, but not very surprised. A part of him craves the humiliation. He will return to his corner—with clarity now, without illusions. Safe in having volunteered but not been called up.

  Alex fears Maya. He wants her to leave Dima, but doesn’t that mean she would leave him if someone else came along? Isn’t the very thing that Alex loves about Maya—a year out of college, Alex was beginning to sink into a slumber he couldn’t understand, though he knows it has to do with his parents, the life that awaits him, himself—the thing that is going to take her away from him when the next adventure appears? To be reassured that Maya consists not only of impulse but bedrock, mustn’t she remain Dima’s girlfriend? He recalls with jealousy the condolence he felt for her during their first encounter. In the cramped kitchen, agitated with cooking, cigarettes, and cold air, Maya would say something strange and Alex would pity her. (His parents, as always, his invisible audience: “Would you listen to her?”) That reaction to Maya seems unimaginable now, like a language lost over the years. But the years have lasted only three months. His mind refuses to work itself into a pattern.

  “You like it here,” he says finally, trying to release his shoulders, trying to make himself stop.

  “I miss my family,” she says. “But once you’ve seen this, it’s hard to long for Kiev.”

  “And what’s this?”

  “Energy. Movement. Possibility.”

  They wander in silence. Maya has taught Alex to love silence. Confronted by it, he had used to rush to say something. Now, he relishes silence as much as his pride at relishing silence.

  “What happened that night?” Alex says. Maya has never brought up the dinner that took place the day that they met, Alex assumes because it was a failure; otherwise, would Maya be leaving? Alex has resisted his curiosity about the details, not wanting to embarrass her, and feeling proud of his self-control. Then he wonders if the reason all along was that he hasn’t wanted to hear what a charmer Dima was at the table. And Maya would say so. Maya speaks as if she hasn’t bothered to consider how the information might feel to the hearer. It’s one of the things about her that Alex finds frightening. Alex says, “It’s cold outside,” and everyone Alex knows says: “Sure.” Maya says: “No, it’s warm.” Why does he love this person? Does he love this person?

  “The guy said he would invest if I slept with him,” Maya says.

  Alex stops in place.

  “Take it easy, Alex,” she says, biting her lip. “I’m joking.” However, there is no play in her face. Slowly, his shoulders ease up, a look of tight-lipped embarrassment replacing his anger.

  “I guess I’m grateful he came,” Maya says. “His name was Truman—like the president. He drank the vodka and ate the food—he put away everything, the plates were empty. He talked nonstop. About this restaurant and that restaurant, and June—the woman chef. They’d had an affair. She was the only not-beautiful woman he’d slept with, because she was that good, meaning in the kitchen. He said these words at my table. No one else spoke except Dima. He and Dima, he and Dima—just shouting at each other in this happy, drunk way. At first, I was happy because I thought Dima was warming him up, but soon I realized they’d both completely forgotten why we were there. They kept pouring glasses for each other, but not for anyone else. The rest of us just sat there. I lost my appetite. The guy got so drunk we had to load him into a taxi. I had to—because Dima was like a block of stone on the sofa, drunk himself. I never heard from him again, Truman, I mean. I was too embarrassed to call June. I’m glad I didn’t. This entire idea—I’m embarrassed to think of it. You’re the only nice thing that came out of that day, Alex.”

  Now Alex is livid at himself for not asking about the dinner a month, two, three months ago. Maya’s story makes him want to ask so many questions, issue so many apologies, direct toward himself so many chidings, that he makes the heroic decision to do none of it. He doesn’t think, he acts. He is dizzy with fear because his hand is reaching out to touch Maya’s hip. Because as it lands there, he feels under his fingers and the
flimsy ply of her dress the outline of her underwear and how tightly it presses into her skin. And he imagines the pink grooves left on the skin. And he imagines the skin.

  She doesn’t recoil, and this restores some of his confidence. No matter what, he thinks, he will always be grateful to her for having elicited this. Even if she tells Dima, this can’t be taken away. Whatever Alex was beginning to sink into before he met Maya doesn’t matter because she’s pulled him out. That’s why he loves her. Yes, he loves her.

  “I was wondering when you would finally . . .” She trails off.

  “I am finally . . .” He repeats her words, because it is all he can do. She laughs. This laugh is the nicest thing ever to happen to him. The hip, the laugh, the sun—he feels ransomed. The day burns with a dull roar.

  “I am leaving in three weeks,” she says with the resignation that was one of the first things Alex noticed about her. He envies her weariness, the certainty even if the certainty is in disappointment, at the same time as he wishes to destroy it, to replace it with delight. He has seen Maya express irony, and cynicism, and humor, but never delight.

  “I thought you would say something about Dima,” he says.

  “I am leaving in three weeks and something about Dima.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “Do your parents have friends in the visa section?”

  “Then let’s spend three weeks together.”

  “You are charming, Alex. And I like you. But I am not going to break Dima’s heart for three weeks with you.”

  “Would Dima’s heart break?” Alex says.

  “You’re right,” she smiles. “But still.”

  He ignores the sting of the rejection. The sting of—brazen, truth-telling Maya, too mindful of Dima’s feelings to hurt them. But what about Alex’s?

  “Dima is not a Jew,” Alex says savagely.

  She laughs and looks at the water. “It’s true, I would like to marry a Jew. But Dima and I are not going to get married.”