Home again, home again

The airport is pungent, smelling of every perfume all at once, Chanel and Gucci and ammonia and cigarettes. Faces are relaxed, wandering the duty free with time to kill.

We sat on the bed this morning, staring at ourselves in the mirror. I always rest this way for at least a minute before traveling. A superstition but also a meditation on good moments to come. You in your green scarf, fighting to stay awake, already worried about traffic.

In NYC the tourists are blissful, ignorant and lost. They ask me to take their picture on Broadway and 5th Avenue. They ask me directions, about where to go for lunch. The New Yorkers, the lifers, are stomping around in flip flops, beating the heat. They are buying things for their apartments from Pottery Barn, maybe a piece of wood that will prop up something terribly important. I glimpse their fragile, magnificent lives. Two different young women are sobbing, one in heels late at night, the other with keys clutched in her hands on some stairs.

I eavesdrop on conversations.
"No, I can't get her a cat."
"I'm worried what he really means is..."
"...and then my hormones changed after a year of the injections..."
"But then if we go there, she never will."

Their voices are measured, confident. Every word is pronounced like the narration for an imaginary PBS documentary. Accents are clean, pauses are long and dramatic - interrupted by horns and street vendors, by thundering garbage trucks and ambulances.

Two girls chatter on the corner of Broadway and 13th Street.
"I was like I was exiled, but I wanted to be there." She said.
On some days I could say the same, I thought.

There is a rooftop party on Saturday night, a penthouse with a pool on the 30th floor. There are models with boyfriend troubles, guys drinking Red Bull and vodka, coffee tables with giant photography books. The moon hangs fabulously low behind the Empire State Building just a few blocks away. The people and the cars are flittering along the orange lit streets below.

And after hangover cures the next day, after the sun slams down the avenues and I am cooking away, my feet know where to go. I can close my eyes and navigate the streets. I feel clean, simple. I am an empty cup. I find the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. I stare into the brackish water, at a tourist cruise puttering towards the harbor. The wedding ring is in my pocket - something I thought I had gotten rid of a long time ago. But it was in my closet somehow, in the darkness between rolls of unexposed black and white film and expired credit cards.

It is heavy in my hand. Scratched, unfamiliar. I wore it for almost 7 years. The first day it clanged against everything, making tiny bell sounds.

It makes no sound, slipping into the dark water.

hard boiled

I woke up craving an omelette, maybe filled with some leftover antipasti from our dinner party. E was still sleeping, one leg propped against the wall, violet eyelids just beginning to open. I started the little espresso pot, and swirled sweet butter into the pan. I cracked the first egg into a stray water glass, the yolk tall and yellow as a school bus. The cat came in and sat on the kitchen table, pressing her feet into the tablecloth littered with stray grains of sugar and tea leaves. The second egg made a dull thud against the edge of the glass, and I saw it was hard boiled. I stood for a moment, watching tiny bits of water sizzle around the base of the tiny coffee maker. Vika the nanny must have cooked it and then put it back in the carton, I realized. It was typical of her to do this. I pulled another egg from the carton and twirled it on the table with a great flourish. It wobbled dramatically, and fell to the floor. The cat jumped down to sniff its remains. I twirled another, and it spun in place. I put it back in the carton. That was all of the eggs. 


In Russia, there are ten eggs to a carton and I am always banking on the two phantom extra ones - that full dozen I thought I had bought if I was in the US. 


So, I made a one-egg omelette. I filled it with leftover fennel that had been roasted in duck fat, with sauted chanterelles and a few slivers of roasted pepper. It satisfied me. It filled me. I washed it down with coffee and then E wandered into the kitchen, her hair a sort of sparrow's nest, her eyes giant and sad. Holding her arms out, she just wanted me to hold her, to carry her around for a minute. 


"What is that!" She shouted, noticing the egg on the floor. 
"Not a hard boiled egg." I said.
"Ni krutyau." She said, laughing at me. "Not hard booooyulllled."
I put her down, and found some Ikea napkins to clean things up.
"I thought krutoi means something is cool." I said.
E was reaching for a cereal bowl, and froze for a moment - deep in thought.
"It means both." She said, and made a face to herself. 


That night I asked N about this word вкрутую and she confirmed, it means a very cool person, or even an object like a car or watch is "hard-boiled". There is even an expression, something like "only an egg can be more hard boiled than that guy". 


I fell asleep thinking about eggs and how men cannot make them. Fragile, almost perfect. Eggs bind things together. Eggs can be separated, whisked into a foam, carefully transformed into sweet ribbons of sabayon. And yes, hard boiled. 


As I drifted off, with the windows open to the sudden cool air I thought of the women in my life. Little E, growing and prancing around, dancing one moment, sobbing the next. E drawing pictures at the kitchen table long into the night. E making worlds from Legos and singing. E who refuses to leave the house still, and just wants to be surrounded by her things. And N with her sunburned shoulders and new bracelets. N with her laughter, with her smile. N who just came back and how we held each other, chins on shoulders, necks and arms, whispering tiny funny things. Once again familiar, more than a voice on the phone. Once again, surprising me in my office at the end of the day with small gifts, and maybe I close the curtains and turn off the lights. Once again, the voice of wisdom and simplicity. N, the calm in the storm. N, who still needs to be told she is beautiful. N, who missed me as much as I missed her. N, who is fragile. N, who is tough like her mother. 


They had sat together in the kitchen a few days ago, N translating my English, her mother sitting and nodding, tasting little corners of things, smiling to herself as I cooked. I made fresh ricotta from whole milk and a little lemon juice that we ate on fresh bread, with that cold antipasti. I was the only one drinking wine.  I made a fresh pappardelle with just egg whites and a ragu of duck. It was far too much, but I was so happy to cook for N's mother that I could not resist. We had found a curious way to communicate during the months since I met N - by sending small helpings of leftovers that N shuttled between us. A piece of fresh flatbread filled with fresh tarragon from her one day, some of that spiced blueberry cake from me the next. 


But now she sits here, with half-glasses and a black sweater. She watches E, running to show us a new drawing, describing the girls on the metro she has illustrated. She watches N, sitting next to me, polishing off a whole bowl of the pasta. The counter is a mess of dirty pans. The sky grows dark. The room smells of basil and that fresh ricotta. I will forget I put those egg yolks in the fridge. I will forget everything, because tonight I cooked for people I care about. The Italians say "I chop onions to feel alive", and that is exactly how I survive. The world may be a chaotic mess. Tomorrow I may get terrible news, but tonight we have dessert still in the freezer, a red grapefruit sorbet spiked with cloves and Russian honey. It will taste sweet on our lips, as we tilt our heads back and drain the bottoms of our cups. 

bittersweet chocolate frosting

E is making a low sad noise, something like a puppy when it is left behind. Her face turned into the corner of the wall, she stands in her underwear. Elbows slack and awkward against her sides, the cat is sniffing her ankles. She does not want to go outside, even if it is my birthday, even if we might take a cruise on the river, or eat shashlik in a garden, or go hear music. She just wants to be at home, surrounded by familiar things. I am dressed, showered, shaved, shoes on my feet.

And I slip them off.

I sit with her in the corner, all bones and tears in my arms. She curls up in my lap, her face against my t-shirt. She has drawn me a birthday card with a big yellow man and some heart balloons. She has had too much this week, having spent four days at her mothers where she was fed one meal of porridge a day, where she sat in the dark playing by herself, where she was yelled at for no reason, maybe watching reruns on the old tv if she kept the sound very low, counting the days until she would be back with me.

We play with dolls, acting out complex stories about shopping and running a restaurant. We twist the curtains into braids, imagining they are the hair from a giant. We take a nap under the fan, as the sun walks across the walls.

The smoke did fade a few days ago, although the smell remains, spiking the night air and I jump from bed ready to close the windows. It rained one night for almost an hour.

A few days earlier, I had spent a perfect evening with friends, eating dinner in a rooftop garden long after dark. High above the city on Lenin's Hill we sipped cold beers, brushed bees from our salads and slumped into our chairs. It was the first time I had relaxed in weeks. I stared off at the city below us, the car headlights like a string of white pearls being dragged across the earth. The slow curve of the river bringing everyone towards home. I smelled fresh tarragon, and laundry detergent. I smelled vanilla ice cream. The smoke was something we were forgetting. A slow walk after dinner past the students sucking down beers, past the haphazard rows of motorcyles, the bikers in Italian leather outfits, the Harley guys with their aging girlfriends squeezed into hotpants, past a tiny church I had visited almost 10 years ago on my first trip to Moscow. And then home, not turning on the lights, just calling N and drifting to sleep.

That was my birthday party I thought as I held E, while her tears soaked into my clean white shirt. Of course I wanted to go outside with her, maybe throw coins at Kilometer Zero like we did on my birthday last year. 600 rubles (about $12) to my name on that day, and we had such a beautiful time eating shashlik at a tiny place, dodging raindrops, wandering the city. I wanted to repeat this experience with actual money in my pockets. But no, it would not be.

I got E as far as the market, where I bought baby lamb chops and spinach, parsnips and a great box of chanterelles. E suddenly wanted apricots and plums, raspberries and sour cherries. We made our way home and I cooked a magnificent dinner. E sat in the kitchen, drawing countless pictures of a small family shopping, playing together, of women in a beauty parlor. My birthday cake was not strawberry as we had planned but spiced blueberry with bittersweet chocolate frosting. E decorated it with sprinkles, and sang happy birthday to me. It was not the the day I had planned or expected. But we were together to celebrate, and people were calling with beautiful wishes. N would be coming home in a day.

I sat and drank a glass of red Abkhazzian wine, fresh and sour on my lips. We had come a hell of a long way since my last birthday. Sometimes I take certain freedoms for granted, caught up in the details of some vague and luminous future I have imagined.

E was already fast asleep.

this bitter earth

short film about the Moscow smoke conditions from marco North on Vimeo.
">short film about the Moscow smoke conditions from marco North on Vimeo.

We are still waking up with headaches, leaning from the bed and looking to see the sky. The same white cloud is there, the same smell of burnt rubber, the same sheets slick with sweat. We are hiding inside, watching marathons of our favorite tv shows. We are making little dishes of strawberry jello to eat late at night, cool and sweet on our throats. E is fine, marching around in her underwear, hair matted to her forehead, a thousand drawings around her feet.

There was a plan to go to a dacha for the weekend. They had no extra beds so I ran out and bought a little tent, sleeping bags, a lantern to turn on when it finally got dark. I would read from The Book of The Green Fairy until E fell asleep in the fresh air. The plans fell through, as plans will do. The lantern still got some use in the darkness and I still read her french fairy tales.

When she is with her mother, I make my way to work a little earlier. I buy nectarines from the same woman hunched over her box of fruit between parked cars on Smolenskaya. She holds a wet kerchief to her face, whispering the price to me. It's business as usual here. Two out of three people are smoking cigarettes, even cigars - walking through these clouds of smog they say are the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes every four hours. Men with no shirts on sit on stairs, smoking and staring off into the pale distance. Moscow girls in pushup bras and stilettos are tottering down the sidewalk, adjusting their miniskirts, sipping from bottles of imported water. Tourists wear glittery dresses and force smiles as they pose in front of a monument, asking strangers to take pictures of them in this soft white haze.

A giant billboard floats in the distance, promoting a new film that will premiere in September, called "Moscow, I Love You." I can't think that far ahead. I am thinking of buying more jugs of fresh water, vitamin E and no tears shampoo. I can't look at the teenage girls wearing ridiculous gold costumes standing in this deserted street, hawking gym memberships to me every time I pass them. I don't understand why they are not at home, or wearing masks. A throaty motorcycle pulls up, a sequence of lights glittering along its fat lines. The man wears a giant black helmet, and turns up his stereo. It is playing John Lennon - Imagine. The words are echoing around the pale sooty avenue, beyond ironic.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.


The gym club girls in their costumes slump against each other, defeated. Some of their postcards flutter to the sidewalk and they hesitate, then go about picking them up.

I get angry. I feel sad. I feel tired, defeated. I have work to do.  I have a child to take care of, which makes things very simple.

Every night I call N, happy to hear about the minor mishaps of her Bulgarian retreat. There is nothing new to say, so we just listen to each other breathing for a little while.

I dream I am alone in a boiling hot swimming pool. The sky is black and motionless, the sun lost somewhere. The moon and stars are gone. People are coming, their faces burned - disfigured by flames and smoke, now white with scars. Naked, they slip into the water. They surround me, and I cannot move in the heavy water, pushing against the surface to go to the cool blue floor. No, I am treading water, and they are breathing the air from my lungs. They are closing their mouths on mine, sucking every clean molecule of air from me.

Babylon

We have been waking up in blue clouds of smoke. Even the closest landmarks are ghostlike from early morning. Throats thick with the taste of burnt rubber, noses edged with black residue we stare at each other.  It seems half of the country is on fire, and we are safe up here. We can cook three egg omelettes and drink the last of the cold juice from the fridge while the rest of the city goes to hell.

Your latest flowers are dying on a high shelf, but a smile is warming across your face. I washed the sheets and the towels, the rest of the house a mess, a war with flies, a cascade of toys and papers and jeans. You forgive me because I have a clean shave, and we are going out for dinner. Some jazz, a perfect table in a corner, grilled lamb so juicy it squirts across my plate and onto your shirt when I bite into it. La Galife, we will be back if only to see the drummer with mismatched plaid shorts and shirt making those faces, shoulders hunched, brushes swirling, staring at the back of the piano player's head.

We take a shower when we get back, leaving the lights off. Splashing cold water in the darkness, drinking great gulps from the faucet and spraying them on each other. Flopping around, half-wrapped in towels and then not.

Once again in the early, foul haze  I wake up to drink cold water.  I watch you sleeping, the curves of your body a map of sunlight - where it has burned into you, and where it has not. The orange towel loose and cool against you, I return to bed.

You are going away again, for two weeks this time.

I dream of an apocalypse. There are fat women entering the apartment from impossibly tall ladders. We are moving from room to room to keep away from them. The sky is on fire. We all hide in the bathtub with wet towels across our faces, you and E and me and the cat.

This morning there was a dead mouse in front of the elevator, when I went out to buy milk and cereal for E. The dead grass smells of chemicals. There are fresh flowers that were not there yesterday, planted by imaginary workers in the middle of the night. It seems nothing actually grows here, things just survive or are replaced. The street a gunmetal cloud, buses and bridges look more like monuments in the desert.

Later walking through a stretch of apple trees, I smell the sour green fruit  - now rotting and littering the sidewalk. There are workers repainting a black fence a few hundred meters from the white house. Why the fence needs painting, I cannot imagine. The fumes are intense, and only one of them wears a mask. The rest are leaning on each other, sweating in the late morning sun, staring into the blue smoke swirling around them, mouths full of gold teeth.

Sometimes when I am in bed with N we talk late into the night.
"It's too hot to sleep together." She might say, and I will laugh.
"But we just slept together." I might say.
"Ah, no I mean just to sleep together." She says.
"To sleep NEXT TO each other." I say, correcting her.
"Hmm." She says, her chin on my shoulder. "It means if we sleep together, we are not sleeping at all?"
"Something like that." I say.
"This is the curse of Babylon." She says, rolling onto her back. "This confusion of languages."
"It's just our pillowtalk." I say, pulling her back.
"A pillow can talk?" She asks, flashing her clever smile.
We are quiet for some time, just holding each other.
"Babylon pillowtalk." She says, whispering in my ear.