waiting

I hear honking from the balcony. The sound is weak, like one of those little toy cans that you turn on their side that makes the sound of a cow. A trolley bus stands in the middle of the street, blocked by a sedan. No one is in the car. Now a second trolley bus waits behind the first one. They are connected to a web of wires that run along the traffic lights above the streets, and spark sometimes when it rains. 

The black sedan is more than double-parked in an active street. It was left in the only lane the trolleys can use. A woman in a fluorescent orange vest and flip flops comes out of the bus, approaching the car, peering inside. Many of the drivers are women like her. I marvel at their ability to jump from the wheel during snowstorms, when the spring-loaded arms that connect to the wires get disconnected. I see them, in those same sandals whipping ropes into the air to snap things back in place. 

She stands for a moment, then goes back inside to honk some more.

I look down the street, seeing another bus approaching. There is something so allegorical about literally standing in the middle of the street, waiting for someone to correct a wrong.

There are six trolley cars waiting now, all honking the same weak song. There is one modern bus that stands after the black sedan. Old women are creeping out of the stopped trolleys, making their way past the abandoned car and then rumbling away, with their little rolling grocery carts and their drooping knee high stockings.

People are walking up to the black sedan, testing the wheels to see if the parking brake is on. One bus driver takes pictures of the license plates with her cel phone. I wait, for once to see the face of someone responsible, to see if there is an apology.

And then someone does approach the car, keys turning in the door. One of the buses pulls in front of him, blocking his exit and I have a fantasy that they will keep him there until the police arrive. I imagine an old woman whacking her purse against his windows, but nothing happens. I watch the man's sheepish, hunched shoulders as he does not drive off but pulls into an actual parking space instead, leaving the car there and going back down the sidewalk to the floating restaurant that sits on the river, where the waitresses are all in miniskirts and push-up bras, where the wine prices are four times more than they should be, where you can get sushi or steak or some stale, overpriced tiramisu.

animals

E sends me a message, I don't feel good. I ask if it is from driving in her mother's car half of the day or if it is her stomach. 

No, she writes. I am not happy today. 

I know it is because of the neighbor's girl, L.

Yes, from L. Eva writes to me.

Tell your mother you really do not like being around her. I reply.

I did. E answers. 

She is on a picnic with three neighbors and their children. I know all of them in passing, some better than that. After a few minutes, I decide to call her.

"So, what's going on now?" I ask, quietly.

"L was pouring water in cups and she poured some all over my pants." She says.

"Was it an accident or did she do it on purpose?" I ask.

She pauses.

"I don't know." She says, her voice sounding dead.

"Did she apologize?" I ask.

"No." She says quickly. "And everybody laughed at me."

"That's not right." I tell her. "That's not right at all."

"I know." She says.

"What else?" I ask.

"I went and lied down on a blanket and L came and pulled my shirt up and was trying to touch my bellybutton." She says, sad, frustrated.

The hair on my arms goes up. 

"And did anyone see this?" I ask.

"Yes." She says.

"And what did they say?" I ask.

"Nothing." She says. "They laughed."

"And how do you feel now?" I ask.

"I feel bad." She says, about to cry.

I stare at the floor for some time. I think of the act, the betrayal, the invasion. I think of how everyone saw this and no one said anything. I think of the things I would have said and done if I was there, how E's hand would be in mine and we would already be far from this place, that my choice words for L's mother and father would not remain behind my teeth for more than a minute or two. I think of E, the smallest one, her pants soaking wet, helpless, texting me in some unknown patch of grass. I stay calm. I tell her in slow, measured words what do to and what not to do. After she hangs up, I swear for a few minutes. I know the act could have been innocent, some silly playing but even then it should have been corrected, acknowledged. Knowing the adults are all drinking and laughing at E, I imagine the embarrassment she feels. 

As the minutes pass, I get angrier. 

E writes to me. My hands hurt. What should I do?

I call her again. She has touched a plant, krapiva, a stinging nettle. I tell her to be careful not to touch her face or anyplace else on her body, to wash her hands with a lot of soap. 

"There is no soap." She says.

"Even a wipe, like a baby wipe?' I ask her, knowing full well no one there has one.

"No." She says in that same defeated voice.

"Ok, just wash them with water and stay calm." I say, half-full of doubt this will work.

"Ok, Papa." She says.

I spend the rest of the night checking in on her, until she goes home and falls asleep. 

The next day, I call in the morning.
"Are we still going to the zoo?" She asks me.
"Of course." I tell her. "I even remembered bread for the ducks."
She laughs once.

I am buzzed in and go up the stairs, waiting in the hallway for her to appear. After some time she does, her pants filthy, dirt and food crusted on her face. I buy a water downstairs and do my best to clean her up. She suddenly looks helpless to me.
We take the metro, changing and wandering the exits until we emerge at Barikadnaya. This was our Saturday, maybe every one of them that summer when she was five. We came out here, bought two hotdogs and ate them on the curb, then pressed our way down the messy sidewalk to the zoo entrance. The price was less then, but kids are still free. Most of the time I would forget to bring bread for the ducks, so we would tear off bits of our hotdog rolls, saving the last few bites to toss over the fence and watch them struggle to get it first, craning their necks back and gobbling them down. No matter what madness was washing over us, this brackish water and these ducks marked the first minutes of breath, of relief.

E still likes the monkeys, but has started to grasp the fact that these animals live in terrible conditions. They are stuck in concrete, with cloudy water littered with trash and dead insects. They waddle through the heat, patches of their skin bare and dry. Only a handful of zebras run on a field of grass and seem healthy.

She cranes her neck to see the polar bears.
"Why don't they have any snow?" She asks me.
I shrug my shoulders.
"They should have snow." She announces in a loud voice.

There are crowds of people pressing faces against glass. Mothers are dressed in carefully selected ensembles. Fathers have cameras swinging from their necks. Children stuff cotton candy and sugared popcorn into their faces. They are all having a wonderful time, snapping memories, laughing, shouting at the animals, pointing, whooping, cheering.

We walk slowly, silently.
E does not look at half of the animals, just holds my hand and squints in the bright afternoon sun. I want to ask her about yesterday, to go through the events and see if there is a new version of what happened. I decide to wait until later and we are eating hamburgers and milkshakes. Later, when there are no dead rats on the ledges, no stench of cheetah piss, no trickle of soda running down the pavement, no rush of heat from the cheap rides and the bumper cars.

I love you, baby

Late in the afternoon I ask N if she wants to take a walk. She looks up at me, staring for a moment.

"Ok." She answers.

E skips into the kitchen.

"Get dressed." I tell her.

"Why?" She asks.

"We're going to get an ice cream." I tell her.

She bursts into the living room to change, pulling on red leggings and tall socks, a white skirt. She looks like an odd doll. 

We walk in the street, E holding one of my hands, N's arm curled in my other. The city is quiet. Handfuls of men stand in circles on the sidewalk, boasting, drinking from plastic cups, smoking cigarettes. We cross the bridge that stretches across the river. It is littered with broken glass. 

At a perehod (underpass) the florescent lights are flickering as we go down the stairs. A young man and woman wear sunglasses in the darkness, speaking in loud voices with their hands draped over each other's shoulders. As we get closer to them I see she is crying. He speaks in loud bursts. I cannot follow  the words. E looks up at me and I pull her hand to walk closer.

As we reach the bright end of the passage, I hear the girl call out in English, over-pronouncing the words with a thick sarcasm.

"I love you, baybbeeeeeeeeee." She calls to him.

Back in the street and the half-sun I ask N what they were talking about.

"She was telling him that she is pregnant and he was angry." She explains, loud enough for me to hear but so that E will not. "He said she did not protect her stomach." 

There is a line out the door and we wait. E cranes her neck, deciding what flavor she will get. A man approaches us, almost stepping on my toes. He is drunk, unwashed, unshaved, asking for money. I look into his bloodshot eyes as I shake my head no.
The line inches forwards.
Somehow we find a table, and E spoons into her masterpiece. N makes a steady series of perfect bites.
A woman in a long overcoat wanders in and goes from table to table. She says she has a sick child and that she needs money.
No one gives her anything.
A man and woman make their way to the table next to us. They have giant backpacks they rest on the chairs. His has an object strapped to the side, wrapped in layers of yellow plastic and then with tape. I see it is a gun, something automatic. I turn to N. She shrugs her shoulders.
"It could be a paint gun." She says. "For those games."
I think for  a moment, wondering how this could be possible, but the longer I look at it the more I think it is real. At the same time, E drops her spoon in the cup and surrenders.
"I can't eat any more." She mumbles to us.
We dress quickly and I sense the gun wrapped in plastic just inches from us, even as I am throwing the half-full cup in the trashcan.

On the way home the wind picks up a little. I still walk in the middle, holding their hands keeping our fingers warm.

brutal youth (and twenty seven wishes)

He swings the book bag hard, thwacking her right across the face. I look up at the two of them, guessing they are both eleven, maybe twelve years old. He swings again, landing square on her nose and she is knocked back. A mother standing at the bottom of the stairs of the lobby separates them, as they shove against her, as voices shrill in the clammy air his higher than hers. 

Questions are asked. 

The boy speaks first, his eyes bulging from his face red now dripping with tears. His skin is pale, almost translucent. The girl stands, calm, tapping one toe on the wet floor. She interrupts, shrugs her shoulders. A group of mothers stare at them. I cannot tell which one is his, or which one is hers. 

They are not children. The girl wears pink cowboy boots covered in sequins. The boy is sobbing. He looks like he has never been in the sun or even the playground. I do not understand a word that is being said so I am left guessing who is guilty based on body language. 

I cannot tell. 

The security guard comes back inside from smoking his cigarette. I stare at him, wishing I had the words to rub his nose in, that I pay a special fee every month for him to sit in the lobby, that mothers are doing his work for him, that he is useless. 

I get a text message from E. They will be late coming back from the field trip, maybe even an hour. I watch the boy being dragged off by his mother. I would not have guessed it was her. The girl sighs, hands on hips. She seems too calm. I wonder if this is a subtle message, that she is the instigator. 

The children arrive in a messy group and E waves at me from behind the glass of the front doors. I jump up to take her and she makes a face.
"We can't go home yet." She tells me. "It's Grischa's birthday.
"It will take five minutes." Her teacher tells me in English.
I take E's hand and we climb the stairs together. The classroom is full of children, some still with their coats and hats on. As soon as the teacher enters the room they raise their hands.
A blonde boy stands by the chalkboard. The teacher rests her hands on his shoulders. She calls out the children's names and each one compliments Grischa, then describes something they wish for him. He smiles after each one, his head ducking forwards in quick thanks.
After all the wishes have been made, the teacher pulls his ears with a gentle tug and the children count to nine. He must remain on his toes on the ninth one as he tiptoes to a bag on his desk. He doles out chocolates and chewy candies to each of them, making a series of serpentine trips around the room until his bags are empty. He offers me a chocolate wrapped in purple foil and I take it. The children laugh, shoving things into their bags and wriggling around in their seats.
We head home as E tells me about Pushkin's house, and how his great grandfather was African, about what the rooms looked like, about how she did not get sick on the bus even though she does in cars.

We stand in the line for the poultry stand at rinok. There is an old woman in front of us arguing about the price of the eggs, or maybe just the cost of the paper carton. I am not sure. A round woman wattles up behind us with a little boy. He cannot be older than three. He is crying. She slaps at his face with a flyswatter until he stops. E rolls her eyes up to me. I shake my head. We cannot say anything. The boy makes quiet whining noises. He suddenly looks younger to me.
I ask for a small chicken, less than two kilos.
The boy begins to cry again and the woman smacks his ams and bottom with the flyswatter. People are passing us. No one bats an eye.
We go inside to buy a pastry for the walk home.

I know you

There is a moment when you pass them in the street. You smile and nod. You know they recognize you, walking with your child's guitar slung across your shoulder. They do not flinch. They know you. You sat next to each other in the back of the classroom for two years while your children studied music theory. The little ones sat in the front seats sometimes with their eyes closed just listening and guessing what interval was being hammered on the piano. 

This is the part I never understand. 

This fear, this impulse to disconnect. These people on the sidewalks and hallways, aloof, saying you are nothing, you are forgotten. Saying, "I do not know you."

And at the same time there are armies of people busying themselves with ugly acts, meddling, insulting, telling good children they are bad. There are people weaseling for information in kitchens, sucking on cigarettes. 

To what end, I do not know.  

Maybe this is a way to fill their days.

The annual painting of fences has begun. Oily, giant misshaped lumps glisten in the cool wet air. Like bones that broke and were never set correctly they reheal into grotesque skeletons. There are cigarettes burning. There are trashcans on fire. No one does anything. The militia are chasing the women who hawk roses for forty rubles away instead.
This is how things work here, adding layers on top of layers. This is how things hold together here instead of scraping them clean to the bone and starting fresh.

I can remember Spring on the farm, with mud and pig shit and the first wildflowers. There were baby ducks. There was maple syrup reduced slowly over fires, the sap running in troughs, the snow melting all around us giving way to rotting leaves and the raw earth. There were broken robin's eggs and dead hatchlings. There were mice in the dark corners of the barn. There were cats that padded across the wet grass trying to catch them.

Left alone, a person can stare at viscous acts for days and accomplish nothing. I have to wake up at seven, to get E fed and iron one of her white shirts. We run through the three compositions, her playing them almost perfectly then leaving the guitar on the couch to watch cartoons for a few minutes. I do not have time to shave. A sloppy peanut butter and jelly brings itself together right on the kitchen table and goes into a grocery bag. I pull her hair into two ponytails and her face winces, readjusting them until they are loose and crooked. Shoes go into the bag, a juice box, a camera I never end up using.

Moving across the pavement our shadows run long and blue in front of us.

We will get there first, and practice in the familiar little room. The rest will arrive, thumping and plunking their way through their pieces. E sits on my knee then goes to the window for some time. We are ushered into the big room and then the parents are told they must wait outside. I find my way back to the little room that opens onto the stage. I will sit here and wait, listening for E's music hoping it will carry through the tiny crack I rest my head against. I cannot simply stand in the hallway or in the lobby. I can't.

There are a series of balalaika pieces, accompanied by the piano teacher. An hour goes by and I picture E tiny in her chair, hungry. There is a break. I hear the judges making phone calls in the hallway and I duck inside. E waves at me, sitting right next to the stage.
"I'm in the practice room." I whisper to her. "I can hear you play through the door."
She nods, smiling.
I let out a nervous breath.
She waves me outside, they are starting again.

A low wave of embarrassment runs under my sleeves. I know she will be fine.
I just want to witness it.

of cakes and trains

E splashes in the bathtub behind a closed door. I remind her to scrub her neck and behind her ears.

"Okaaaaay." She calls to me in her loud singsong voice.

The cake is almost done, the middle still a bit soft to the touch. The kitchen smells of lemon and polenta and almonds. The windows are open. 

A crossdraft smacks the balcony doors closed. 

"What was that?" E asks.

"Nothing." I tell her. "The wind."

"Oh." She says to herself.

"Finish soon, ok?" I tell her.

"Ok, I am getting oouuuuut." She sings.

"Don't forget to pull the plug so the water goes down." I tell her.

She does not answer.

She brushes her hair in the hallway in front of the mirror, her head cocked to one side. She stares at herself. 

I pack the cake in a bag, gathering pens and pencils and blank paper for her to play with.

"Where is the party?" She asks me.

"N knows." I tell her, pulling on shoes.

I call N to tell her we are on our way and she tells me to wait. 

She will come upstairs and have a coffee first. 

We navigate the streets, turning and staring at signs then driving a bit then stopping to unfold a map. E is quiet in the back seat. I keep hoping she will take a nap. 

The sun is going down, but pushes through the windshield for as long as it can. One hand across my eyes I try to balance the map for N to check when we get to the next red light. 

We find the place and are the first to arrive. 

The apartment is old, a Stalin one as they say with big rooms and tall ceilings. 

E sits on a sofa in the kitchen and amuses herself. I wash my hands and roll up my sleeves, asking what I can do to help.

I dry lettuce leaves.

I organize the wine bottles and open the one we brought, splashing some into a juice cup. Rioja swirls in my mouth, pulling my tongue back, my cheeks in. It needs to breathe.

I chop carrots and celery into sticks, balancing them in piles on a bowl pulled from the cabinets. 

It is a relief to ask what I can do and be told, not be be in charge. 

E is getting bored, asking if any kids are coming. I sit with her and play as guests slowly arrive. The wine tastes better now and for some reason I am not hungry, just ready to sip from the yellow cup and have E slumped against me, with N on my right with her hands dancing in the air as she talks to people. She is crunching on those carrots with tiny bites. 

The conversations struggle in English, half me nodding my head and interrupting in Russian. The party is small, and all in the big kitchen. E is getting bored. At one point the hosts disappear into another room for some time and return with a giant long object wrapped in brown paper. 

"It is for you." One says, giggling and smiling. "Because you are so sweet."

N is embarrassed. E jumps up, all curiosity.

We thrash at the brown paper until a long photograph is exposed. A landscape of rock and ocean and sky. We thank them. There are toasts. 

I refill my glass.

On the way home a train is chugging in the dark, its cars full of sand. I jump in my seat. There is something about trains, something simple that never fails to captivate me.
"Look!" I tell E who is already sleeping and does not wake up.
I watch the cars rattling into the city and plunging into a tunnel, then it is just steel and glass and concrete swishing past us. Nothing new.
I rest my hand on the back of N's head. The photograph is jumping around, balanced across the back seats like a tent over E's head.
"It's fine." I whisper.
N smiles, looking at me for a moment then back to the road.

it's a big world (the thaw)

I imagine I can smell the ocean on my fingers, brushing them across my face in the middle of the night. The low rumble, the quick whip of air that pushes sand into my eyes. But no, it is Moscow with melting snow and traffic, with giant puddles and armies of men chipping ice and carting it away. It is Moscow, where the same wheels turn. Time to pay rent. Time to pay for E's next field trip. Time to wait in line at the bank to pay for music school staring at the long decorated nails of the cashier. 

Something happens with the thaw. Cars drive more recklessly than usual without the fear of black ice. Neighbors lurch into the elevator instead of waiting for the doors to open all the way. Sunday afternoon on the metro and people are shoving their way through the doors before we can get off the car. I push them back with one hand, the other tight around E's. I have given up speaking Russian at these moments and just speak English in a loud voice. It is just easier. 

The neighbor smokes in the hallway wearing the same shorts and slippers.
He does not open the windows yet. I see him in the late morning light staring at the trains that drift in and out of the station. I think he cut his hair but am not sure.

I wonder if he reads mysteries.

The pettiness of the people here runs wild on Sunday. An old woman stands in my way, and I step aside to let her pass but she will not. She mumbles and expects me to walk through a giant puddle first. I wave my hand, show her she can walk on the dry path. She is swearing at me and the words fly out of my mouth, some avocados jumping in the bag on my shoulder as I pass her, turning and waving my hands asking her what she wants.
"It's a big world." I shout in Russian and her face whips away, looking down.
I ring the doorbell and take E from the sole night at her mother's house. She mumbles through the intercom telling me she is almost dressed.
I sit in the stairwell, the smell of stale cigarettes and frying onions swirling up the stairs.

Later we go out for ice cream in a shopping center. There are no free tables except for one with a pair of gloves on it. I imagine someone forgot them, so I move them to a bench. We sit and E spoons into her masterpiece, fruit and syrup, cold and sticky. A man approaches us, shouting. He smacks the gloves back on the table, saying the table is his. I see he was in line and did not buy anything yet.
"It's not a restaurant." I tell him. "You can't reserve a table here."
He waves his gloves, smacking them against his hands.
I stare at him, force a giant smile onto my face and make not motion to leave.
He swears a string of disgusting phrases I hope E does not understand.
A minute later another table frees up and he stomps over to it with his girlfriend.
E licks her spoon and smiles at me.
"Does it bother you when I have to yell at people?" I ask her.
Her mouth twists around for a moment.
"Kind of." She tells me. "But sometimes you have to."