podarok (the present)

E is curled up in her tiny bed, a swirl of sheets twisted around her. It rained briefly as the sun came up a few hours ago and now there is a soft wet air in the apartment. Her chin tucked into her shoulder, hands frozen like an Italian sculpture. I watch her like this for some time, drinking my coffee. There are few things in the world as perfect as watching someone you love while they sleep.

Her face is serene, as if she lives some perfect life.

We went to a birthday party on a boat for N's cousin Misha last night. The oppressive heat had just broken when we arrived, N's giant purse clanging around beside us as we brought her nephew and E across the astroturf landing.

E made fast friends with a girl her age, before we had even pulled away from the dock. Laughing, scarfing down cucumbers, the children wove their way around the long table. The sun flashed from between the great buildings and monuments we drifted past. Cold bottles of white wine were uncorked. Platters of thinly sliced fish and meat were spread out. One stretch of the river stank of god knows what, quickly replaced by the smell of fresh cut grass. Other boats cruised past us pumping disco music, the dancing crowds waving hysterically, thrilled when we waved back.

N stood at the railing in a sleeveless, backless top. Her giant sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose, she was more quiet than usual today. N is a very private person, and I am always sharply reminded of this when we are out in a group as opposed to just the two of us. Later, I found out she was a bit sea sick. Well, river sick.

Birthday toasts were made. Countless snapshots clicked away. Toys were lost in the chairs, then found again. E asked for the extra shirt I brought for her as a low wind grew, throwing her hair around. She asked me to put her hair in braids and I did. She announced to the people around us that I am her mother as well as her father.

All too shortly, the sun set and it was time for coffee, tea. Time to polish off the open bottles. I felt like I had been sitting in this perfect chair for a short lifetime, my arm loose around N's shoulder.

As we made our way off the boat E hugged me, squeezing my cheeks.

"Pop." She said. "Everybody liked me!"

On the stairs by the road, I congratulated Misha again, explaining how I had forgotten his present. He touched E's hand gently and shook his head once.

"No, this is the present." He said.

two deaths, two shadows

On Friday E played hooky and went to work with me, even to a long meeting where she drew tall girls in my notebook. She sat in complete silence, picking out felt tip pens from a bag and occasionally rolling her eyes over to me as I waved my hands around and took notes. Later, we ate fresh Chebureki and went to a playground.

The night drew upon us, the sun still tall in the sky. I carried her home in my arms and made pasta for dinner.

Sergey called me with news. An actor we had worked with had died suddenly, and the tiny little film experiment we had made together was Evgeny's last performance. Something about a blood clot. I could not really listen to the details. Those handful of of hours we spent shooting coincided with my first nights in the apartment when I moved out. I had one plate, one fork, a t-shirt for a towel. We shot that half-baked story at 2 AM one curious night in December. Evgeny was running a fever, but came anyway. He told me in his rushed, slurry Russian he had never played an angel before. We drank vodka together. He understood my directions immediately. He got involved in the vampire girl's costume options, urging for more cleavage, always more cleavage. He smelled of salt and pickles, his musty coat full of dust. When I taped the cardboard wings on him, he laughed and laughed.

I uploaded the film for Sergey, imagining how bizarre it would be to show this at his funeral, how beyond ironic it was. I thought about that night and how I felt some odd kind of return - - to life, to expressing myself no matter how mundane or foolish. I saw pretty girls and spoke to them, wondering if they understood me at all. I sat in traffic with Sergey, hashing through the details of our business. The stagnant life had gone uncorked. I felt lonely, naked, raw. I woke up looking at the hard sky outside new windows, wrapped in my jacket for a blanket.

On Saturday, I cleaned the house. I roasted duck legs and fennel for a ragu. I really wanted to cook for N tonight. I wanted to sit in the late sun and roll out pasta, her standing on one foot stirring the sauce. I wanted to smell basil on our fingers.

I got another message. Howard, my college writing teacher had died. I spent four years in his classes, growing under his guidance - - his laser precise comments, his encouragement, his brutal honesty. One of my sophomore exercises eventually became my first novel. When it got published, fly-by-night, choatic and marginally - I still called him, thanked him.  Howard made one short laugh and told me he was not surprised.

I have a scrap of paper he sent me that summer after Sophomore year. He scribbled - "You came under a lot of fire, and you stuck to your guns. I don't always agree with you, but I think you have a lot of courage. Keep going."

When I came back, he told me I should develop this little nugget of a story "to gnaw on its bones" as he always taught - - this difficult, almost impossible work. An intimate story about a little girl, as she eventually becomes a young woman - -molested, raped, a runaway, a survivor. How could a 19 year old boy write this successfully, honestly, truthfully? It took me 13 years, and I threw most of it out a number of times, starting over from scratch. Howard forced me to go to incest survivor meetings, events, art shows. He told me it was my responsibility to get things right.

And now he's gone. I know he loved his wife very much. I know he loved the Mets, and a good dirty joke.

Today I took E to school. The Moscow sun spread our shadows long in front of us. We looked like we were on stilts. E gripped my hand, sweaty and strong. We walked in silence.

"Pop?" E said.
"Yes." I said after a moment.
"I know how to tell if a woman in pregnant." E said. "They have a big belly and a tiny popa*."
I laughed and laughed.

* popa - tushy, bottom, derriere

the truth about wild strawberries

There was an entire day listening to screaming across the phone, eventually yelling myself. The raw hard facts once more. I am a powerless tourist here, protected by no one. And my daughter is the same. The threats and vicious ultimatums had gotten especially bizarre and just plain crazy in the last few days. With the slightest capricious inspiration her mother can draw blood from both of us, changing and rearranging visitation, sleeping arrangements, money arrangements and really seeing each other at all. Each day I leave my daughter at school or at her mother’s house could be the last time I ever see her.

Thursday night left me feeling particularly helpless. I worked late, trying to find a way to combine exhaustion and hunger that might lead directly to sleep. But 11PM found me wide awake. No appetite with the sun still hanging in the sky. Drinking sweet, cheap wine, the empty sounds of the city drifted up through the open windows. Her toys scattered across the floor, drawings half-done. Some proof that she had really been here yesterday. A pale white light etched the room in perfect detail. I cried for some time, something I have not done in more than a year. Staring at the ceiling, the blankets twirled around me, tears rolled into my ears I almost did not hear the phone – N calling to check on me.

She arrived a few minutes later, curling next to me. We lay like this for some time.

“I failed.” I whispered to her. “I can’t protect my daughter.”
N ran a hand across my mouth.
“No, it’s true. She suffers. She cries herself to sleep when she is not here.” I said. “She is not fed, washed, or cared for and I can’t do anything to stop it.”

Later, N smoked a cigarette in the kitchen. It was almost 3.
“I need a miracle.” I said in the darkness.

The next morning we woke, sipping coffee in silence. I drank some church water from a tiny glass, and propped a new fatherly-looking hat on my head. N kissed me once on the cheek.

On the way to a meeting that afternoon I ate a Stardog from a street vendor close to my office. I had not eaten one in months, but they remembered E and asked where she was. I tried to explain, and whatever I did succeed in expressing in Russian made their faces drop.

Passing Gorky Park and the Lenin Statue on Oktoberskaya I wondered how E was feeling now, wondering who would take her from school today.  Wondering if she would ever see me again.

Back in the office, a phone call came from her mother, mumbling under her breath.  Some kind of madness, and the fact that I would take E from school today.

I ran through the streets, holding the hat to my head. E launching into my arms in the schoolyard. The old woman with gold teeth that sells us nectarines and apricots – today a plastic cup of wild strawberries. There is a giant hole in E’s Hello Kitty tights, and she is jumping in water puddles. The soft wet earth smells like a dog.

We arrive at the playground, suddenly starving and eating the fruit. The wild strawberries are exotic, fragile. In Russian zemlyanika, “little things from the earth”. I used to believe it meant “tiny earth” but now I learned from N you must crawl in the dirt to find them, you must get very close to the earth to find them.

The woman who told me they are “tiny earths” is long gone. A clever act that ended many, many years ago.

the bittersweet return

Being away for a week seemed like it would be such a short piece of time. Just enough to buy a few gifts, renew my visa and share a handful of drinks with old friends. I did not realize how much would happen and how deeply I would be missed.

I spoke to E almost every day, as she reminded me to buy big shoes and a princess Jasmine doll. (I tend to buy shoes too small for her, convinced she can't have grown so much.) Now I carry a paper cut-out, a tracing of her feet to be sure. But when I got back, E explained to me that her mother told her every day I was away that I would not be coming back - that I was lying about buying shoes and toys for her. E processed all of this, calling her mother terrible things. I understand there was a lot of yelling in that house while I was away. So of course when I turned the corner of the detskie sad and E saw me, she laughed and cried a little and told me everything.

"I knew you were coming back for me." She said, her chin on my shoulder, her face pressed against my neck.

We went home, and cooked chinese food together, the kitchen soon full of wrapping paper and new toys.

N missed me more than she expected to. As I spoke to her each day I was away, she was quiet and calm. We spoke about funny little things. Little jokes and goodnights. But after I was gone for five days, she came out and told me she missed me. There was such pain in her voice.

It was raining when I left New York.

Back in Moscow, we spent a quiet afternoon together after the airport. We spoke about our relationship, more than pillow talk. The pieces were all falling back into place. There was chaos still, problems still. There is time still. There are giant wounds that must heal somehow. There are bills to pay. A massive collection of emails and phone calls and faxes to sort through.

But there is love now. A deep, concrete love.

On Sunday N took us to a music festival in an estate outside of the city. Within the forest sat a kind of castle - maybe more like a mansion. Thousands of people sat on the grass and listened to music of all kinds, blowing bubbles, sleeping in strange poses, drinking beer, playing with children, licking ice cream cones, staring at the balloons that floated off into the clouds.

The last band we saw played a perfect country and blues, in Russian. We danced, kicking up dust. E pumped her fists in the air, shouting out spontaneous lyrics. N stood close, her head on my shoulder. They played blues after blues. We shook our heads slowly, nodding and bending one leg in rhythm. At least for an hour, we were all together.