hate/love

It is like driving in a snowstorm, at night. The headlights shining into that tumbling loop, showing no landmarks, no signs, just a few feet of the road ahead. My growing paranoia feels like that snow, growing, smashing into the wet pavement, then returning.

I am a passenger, and the doors are locked. We are just here for the ride, putting one foot in front of the next, manufacturing faith that things will turn out well. We have no idea what we are doing, or where we are going.

Outside the windows, the sun has suddenly disappeared.
A flock of black birds fly close together.
The sky is a giant washing machine flipping them around.

E is writing invitations for her birthday party. N has written the words out for her to copy.
We are sitting at the kitchen table. I am making gnocchi for dinner, with some roasted pumpkin.

E changes the words, instead of writing I like you, she writes I hate you. 

This is my nightmare, that there is something broken inside her I cannot fix, that life in this wilderness has twisted something deep inside her that cannot be unraveled.

I get her to take a bath.
She curls up next to me in her pyjamas afterwards and we have a quiet talk.
"I don't know." She tells me.
I tuck her into bed, surrounded by stuffed animals she has dressed in her own shirts. A rabbit. An elephant. A tiny white kitten with giant eyes. They all have names.
I kiss her goodnight.
"I love you, kiddo." I say.
"I love you too, Pop." She says.
She has never said this before.

The next day, she changes the word hate, blotting it out with flowers and hearts so now it says like.
We bring the invitation for one girl, leaving the second at home.

Things slump back to normal. We practice guitar. We do solfeggio homework.
E's mother does not call for days.

On Saturday, when she should take her there is a sudden cough in her voice. She says she is sick, but maybe will be better in a few hours. E sighs, looks up me, hanging up the phone.
"She's not gonna take me today." She says.
"I know." I say.
"She's not really sick." E says.
I nod once.

E spends the afternoon turning the living room into a version of her kindergarden.

Later, her mother calls saying maybe she will take her on Sunday. 

But Sunday comes and goes, and she never takes her. 

I walk quickly on the wet sidewalk, my hands deep in my pockets.

A man is playing his accordion in the underpass by E's school. He sits in a tiny folding chair that is about to break and fall sideways. The song is fast, but I would not say it is a happy. The accordion opens and closes with a sort of labored breathing.

He stares off at the empty wall across from him.
His eyes are too big for his face.

No one gives him any money, but he is here every day.

black and white (five years)

Faces, the same. The old woman in the underpass holding that yellowing and split piece of tupperware, eyes lowered. No one gives her loose change. 

There is new snow on the windowsill. I am waking up with a headache in the darkness, the black dot of Monday growing bigger. It is here now, with the stench of diesel and electricity. There are wet footsteps in the snow. E holds my hand tight, slipping on the ice as we turn corners. Walking in silence, the flakes still falling, this winter holding on and on. 

Faces are staring off at nothing with tired, pickled expressions. The wet, sour life repeats its song. 

The black dot grows and grows. Five years here now.

I was a guest in a man's house. He took us to an empty room - just a sofa at one end, and a massive stereo that sat on the floor. Drunk on good wine and limoncello, he put on Invitation to the Blues, by Tom Waits. The sound was magnificent, wrapping around us, bouncing off the hardwood floor. E was downstairs, playing with some kids. N was next to me.

I rested my head on her shoulder and closed my eyes.

a fever

She is weak, hardly strong enough to make it to the bathroom to pee. She looks so tiny now, a stray leaf than can be flipped around the apartment by the smallest draft. The fever does not pass quickly. I sleep in the big chair next to her bed, waking every two hours to check her temperature. It rises and falls, some sort of overheated ocean inside her.

E accepts spoonfuls of purple medicine, small glasses of cool water.
She is bored.

N is sick too, quarantined in her mother's apartment. We speak at random hours, her voice rough and quiet, barely more than a whisper at times. 

It will be a full week that I do not see her, falling asleep alone in bed, waking up to check on E, to place a cool wet towel on her forehead. 

The days merge into shifts of trying to stay awake and entertaining E.  The fever has a hold on her, deep in her veins. We watch a lot of films together, in the middle of the day. She falls asleep halfway through them, her face pressed against my arm. I leave her there to go wash dishes, maybe boil some potatoes. 

I don't know what to do besides that.

It is all lost time. A forced breath.

gasoline rainbow (that is our song)

The pancakes are meant to look like the sun. They are supposed to signify the end of winter. Deep yellow eggs, butter and thick cream combine into some kind of promise. The worst has passed, they say. The ground will grow warm again. The ice will melt. Jackets can soon retire to the backs of closets.

The week of maslenitsa should be spent making snowball fights, and sledding. Inside, towers of blini and aladushki stand in the center of kitchen tables, surrounded by sour cream and red caviar, with preserves, with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. 

On Sunday, all is forgiven. Anyone can ask forgiveness and they cannot be denied.  

I stand in the dark kitchen, exhausted.

Looking out at the black, pitted snowbanks, I see smoke trailing from twin chimneys in the distance. This winter  will not surrender. In the rest of the world, flowers are pressing through the wet earth. Not here. Just brackish muddle puddles stretching across parking lots. Just snow, and more snow. Ice chunks fall in wet thuds from the rooftops as we walk behind the buildings. Cars spin their wheels in furious turns, filth and slush spraying across everyone in their path. 

I do not feel like celebrating. 

E's regular teacher is away, replaced by a series of random substitutes. One tells me I have to bring toilet paper from home. I do, and it sits in E's locker for days. Just an empty order that should have been ignored. Next I am told I should make pancakes for the next day, but then I learn that school is closed on thursday. More randomness, which comes as no surprise. I have always felt that life in Russia is a bit like sitting on a train with no conductor as we coast towards some destination. There is no chance of stopping, or going back, no left turn, no right. Just this drifting into somewhere in the distance as we buy milk and pay rent, as we celebrate birthdays, as we attend funerals, as we toast at weddings, as we watch children perform in school plays and yes, as we make pancakes for maslenitsa. 

In the darkness, I sip a first coffee and splash apple cider vinegar into the bottom of a white cup. I fill it to the top with milk. In ten minutes it will sour, turned thick and fizzy. In the bottom of a metal bowl I combine corn flour, a pinch of baking soda, a shake of baking powder, a little salt. I think I hear N waking up, but I am wrong, she was just turning in her sleep. I add two spoons of sugar. 

Searching the drawers I find the grater, and add some fresh nutmeg. I must wake E soon. Next, a little bit of cinnamon. I crack an egg, then add the soured milk. Stirring it all together, I fight the sleep from my eyes and finish the coffee. Maybe I should make another one. Last, a splash of olive oil. The batter rests, bubbles growing and popping in silence.

I kiss E's forehead, smooth the hair from her face. 

"I am making pancakes for you to bring to school." I whisper to her. 

E smiles, her eyes still closed. 

She was already awake.

I put a clean shirt and tights on the little chair next to her bed.

In the kitchen, butter is melting in the big pan. I drop spoonfuls of the batter.

"Should I make them with apple?" I ask E, who stands barefoot next to me.

She nods yes.

I peel one quickly. It is old, going a bit soft. 

"I want to cook with you." She says, quietly.

I cut the apple in half, then in very thin slices. She stands on a chair next to me, placing two slices on each pancake. I flip them over, and she leans against my arm.

Outside, E hums a song to herself. A plastic box full of pancakes swings from my side, clouded with steam. 

"You remember that song?" I ask her.

She nods.

"It's our song." She says, yanking my hand.

"And you know the words?" I ask her. 

"Little darlin', I think the ice is melting." She sings.  "It was years but we were here."

"Here comes the sun, and it's alright." I sing, after her.

"I remember when we sang that when I was a baby." She announces.

We pass a group of stray dogs. One of them noses the plastic box in my free hand. E laughs, and says maybe we should give him one. A giant black car swerves past us and the dogs trot off.

"That is our song." She says, squeezing my hand. 

"Yes it is, kiddo." I say."Yes it is."

E stops in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Pop, a gasoline rainbow." She says. "Take a picture."

not any more

The store is not open yet. A truck is parked on the sidewalk outside. Men with armloads of flowers are shoving through the doors, half-sliding across the muddy tiles. I jump in between them and stand with my hands in my pockets. The room stinks of roses and lilies, like cheap perfume. Women in sweaters wear long faces. I try to get their attention. They ignore me, walking in and out of little rooms, their hands empty.

At one point, an old woman wearing half-glasses asks me what I want. I point at some yellow flowers that are not peonies, but something like peonies. Then some purple ones. Four and three, I say. She wraps them in silence, in simple paper. I pay her and she gives me the wrong change - too much. I give it back and her eyebrows are raised. Her face lights up a little. I tell her it will be a long day. I tell her it smells wonderful in the little store. 

Walking through the frozen park, passing playgrounds submerged in dirty snow I think of Misha's gift, the crystal plate for chocolate cakes. I think of my friends in jackets in my old kitchen on 1st Street, throwing back shots of cognac before nine in the morning and then taking the cab down to city hall. 

No, that was someone else's life. 

I am not the man that got married on Valentine's Day. Not any more. 

Inside, I pull my boots off quietly. I slide into bed next to N, kiss her ears. 

She moves. 

"Happy Valentine's Day." I whisper to her.

She smiles, her eyes still closed.

The paper rustles. 

She reaches, squeezing the little bouquet. 

Somehow it falls off the side of the bed. 

"Oy!" She says, suddenly awake, reaching for them, pulling them carefully back to her pillow.

I make some home fries, scrambled eggs. The patter of the shower, and N brushing her teeth are the only sounds. The flowers are in a vase now, in the center of the kitchen table.

The day passes in silence. I work without listening to music, taking breaks to cube some fresh pumpkin and start it roasting slowly in the oven. Squeezing fresh lemons and blood oranges, I cook down half of the juice with some Russian honey. Mixing them together, they go into the freezer in a metal bowl. It will be sorbet in a few hours. I make a mound of semolina flour on the kitchen table, crack eggs in the center, add a splash of good olive oil and knead the dough. The house smells warm.

I get E from school. She has a message scribbled on a heart to show me. We sit at the kitchen table, as I roll out the pasta into crooked sheets, cutting them into squares. She drops tiny spoonfuls of the pumpkin in their centers, sticking her finger in her mouth to taste them. A plate fills with the tortellini, their points looking like funny hats. 

This is what I will remember next year.

(we are all) mothers of invention

A mother by invention, I took care of N for a week, then E after they both got sick. It felt comfortable, natural. The rhythm of bowls of soup and tissues, finding a new movie to watch, an extra blanket during a nap. It is dead cold out there, -32C today. Waking up in the hard air, I remember moments from my childhood on the farm. The downstairs toilet was always frozen over, and we would pee in it, trying to melt the layer of ice at the bottom. Under ski masks, inside metallic snowsuits we plodded down the driveway for a quarter of a mile to wait for the school bus in the dim light. We were the first ones on, and the last ones off.

Coming home from school, I would lay down in one of the fields, dry stalks of wheat poking through the heavy snow. I would build tiny amusement parks for the mice to play in. A slide. A go-kart track. A swimming pool.

I am working on a book that touches on some of this. The story about building worlds in the snow, Wild Asparagus is deeply personal. At the end, I jump from the dinner table and run outside, convinced someone is calling my name but no one is there. Just the mountains, an empty tire swing and the dogs. I crouch down in that tall grass and hide. I don't want to go back inside.

In the beginning, I thought being a writer was a bit like playing god - deciding people's fates, orchestrating each path, making it rain, making them fight. I watch E spending an entire day coming up with names for the girls in her stories. This is the initial thrill, the exhilaration of being able to control something. Eventually, we learn that humility is the final destination. Listening to the characters, instead of telling them what to do. It sounds so simple now, but it took me years to embrace.

Somehow, I had to surrender to the stories.

Every time I pass a garbage can that is on fire here, every time I open a box of eggs in the market to find half of them broken I have a choice to make. No one is watching. No one seems to care. It all adds up to a moment of surrender, or choosing - inventing. There is no controlling anything here. There is no fresh pen, no empty piece of paper. It may read like a story, but it isn't one.

No, we have to invent our happiness.

papina dochka

A fat little lady breathes very loud. Her nose a long hook, her sweater ill-fit she stares at our documents, flipping the edges of pages with a yellow fingernail. There are ones in English, photocopied and notarized translations, a forest of papers spread across her little desk. E is squeezed next to me. N is explaining things, shushing me when I try to interject. I am not helping. At one point the woman shrugs her shoulders and stalks off.

We are ushered into a large office, then sit at a long table. Two more women are there, their long blonde hair in elaborate upsweeps. Costume jewelry, brightly colored sweaters, ballpoint pens resting next to books with tiny notes on them they ask E questions like her birthday, or counting to ten. They ask her a subtraction question that she gets wrong, then right. I try to breathe. I stare at the blank yellow walls, smell the musty textbooks.

They are happy to accept her. In a few moments they understand everything about her mother and our situation. Smiling blandly at me, I see they sympathize enough to accept the bizarre pile of documents we offered. They could be difficult, but chose not to be. The profound absence of her Russian mother, the overt love of papers with the right stamp on them, the orders to wait in lines for additional pages and stamps has evaporated. Today we dodged a bullet.

This is where E will start school next year. There are mosaics on the walls, clusters of noisy children, tall windows that look out onto a snow-covered playground. E looks up at me after she answers each question.
"Papina dotchka." One of the women says.
Literally, father's daughter, a little girl raised by a single dad.

Outside we jump around on the icy sidewalk. It is -25 celsius and we half-run to the car. Sitting inside, we try to decide what to do. It is almost three in the afternoon. There is a wall of traffic on Kutuzovsky. I say if we go to rinok for five minutes I can buy everything we need for a shrimp risotto. E claps her her hands. N smiles.

We tromp through the slippery lanes, all holding hands. We buy arborio rice from three dark-haired men who keep asking if I am Turkish. I am sure they are overcharging us. We buy extra things like fresh goat's cheese from my favorite lady. Her gold teeth shine in the dim light as I greet her, boasting about my little entourage. We buy fresh bread and pastries. E is already eating hers as we leave.

Driving home with the radio on, the music splashing around the tiny car I begin to relax. E is in the best school we could find in the district. It may be a lion's den. It may be a haven. There is no way to know until next September, but at least we chose it.