the bravest (a miracle on ice)

Music theory class ends, and we shuffle out into the bright sun. The streets are full of dust. We make our way to the metro. Friday afternoon is the hour of crowds. 

Our friends are waiting outside Rimskaya, outside the third ring at the far East edge of the city. On the top floor of a shopping mall, there are a still a few seats around the rink. We press through the crowd, and find four chairs together. E and another half-Russian, half-American girl are at their first hockey game. 

So am I.

E is anxious. Music is blaring, spurts of hard rock favorites that end after thirty seconds, then silence, then another classic rock hit. Guns N' Roses. George Thorogood. Bon Jovi. 

"Welcome to New Jersey." I tell E, cracking wise.

She rolls her eyes.

"When does it start?" She asks me again.

"Soon." I say.

The players do emerge, swooping around the ice. The FDNY team line up pucks in a perfect row, slapping them easily into the unguarded net. Cheerleaders climb onto platforms - a handful for each team, although they are all Russian girls, just twirling different flags. The theme from Rocky comes on. Something jumps inside my throat. E looks up at me, smiling, pointing things out to me. She asks for a pen.

I dig in my bag, producing one. I give her one of my moleskins to draw in. She draws everywhere. I don't knock it.

She waves the notebook away. 

She draws on the back of her hand.

New York. 

She has this habit of surprising me. This is what being a parent is all about. These odd surprises, when we realize what little people our children are, blotchy copies of ourselves and all their own at the same time. 

"Which are our guys?" She shouts at me. 

I point at the team in red, taking the pen back from her.

"They are from the Fire Department." I tell her. 

She nods, then points at the blue team.

"They are Moscow Emergency Services guys." I tell her. She makes a face. "Like when there is an accident. They come first."

She nods again, suddenly so wise.

Our friend's daughter next to her waves a tiny American flag around.

E thrusts her hand in the air. 

"New York! New York!" She shouts. "Can I have the pen?"

I give it back to her.

She writes some more.

The players stand in a row. Speeches are made, echoing in a garbled mess around the rink and into the great hollow shopping center. A marching band is tuning up. The Star Spangled Banner kicks in, and everyone lurches to their feet. I show E that she should put her right hand over her heart, but having drawn on her left, she twists it back on herself to place it against her chest. The singer is a woman, half-pronouncing the words. My throat jumps again. I can't remember the last time I heard the song in person. I look down at us, in some bizarre corner of the world but here, now. I am singing along with her. E's voice picks up. She has no idea what the words are, but she fakes it, singing "na-na-na-na-na-naaaaaah."

The song ends. The Russian anthem blares on, sung by a man at a deafening volume. The girls put their fingers in their ears.
The game begins.

The FDNY team has a player named Bravest and I cannot believe the irony. I watch Bravest make the first goal of the game. He seems to be everywhere. The Russian's have names like Ageev. After a few minutes I understand that every player for the FDNY team has Bravest on their jersey. I am laughing at myself. E copies me, not even knowing why.
"We are winning!" She shouts at me.

The game plods along. We take a one point lead, then it evens up. The cheerleaders are swiveling around. Drums are beaten. Horns are blaring. Old women jump up from their seats, their hands pointing towards the roof. E smiles up at me. Her arm remains in the air, even though she is getting tired of keeping it there.
When we miss a goal, I am shouting in the brief silence. We are the only people rooting for the US team. When we make a goal, New York, New York blurts on for a little while. Lights flash on the ice. E wiggles around.

We win by one point.
Hanging from the bleachers, E waves her flag at the players.
"I love New York!" She shouts at them and they break into nervous smiles.
She shows her hand to them and they grow silent.
They give her a game puck.

Later, we understand someone stole her hat. She cries for a good half an hour on the way back to the metro. I explain how I can buy her another one just like it, but she says no, there will never be another hat like that one.

At home, we eat a late dinner and she falls asleep at the kitchen table.

The next morning, I tell her we have to take a bath before she goes to her mother's for the day. I start the hot water, squeeze in the bubble soap. Her mother calls.
"I am taking you in half an hour." She says.
"No, in an hour." E says. "I am going to take a bath."
"I don't care about your bath." Her mother says.
E looks at me with that wounded face.
"We should at least wash your hand so she doesn't see the words." I say.
E shakes her head.
"I want her to see them." She says. "It says something I am scared to tell her."
I take a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
"Ok." I say.
"And I want to show her the flag they gave me too." She adds.
We put it all in a plastic bag, the game puck heavy in it.

the shiny balloon and the waltz of the dolls

Her face is puffy and red. Her cheeks painted in tears, she sits in the dark, empty room waiting for me to take her. Time to put on jeans and a coat. Time to go to guitar class. The teacher breezes into the room as we are leaving.

"Sontsei maya." She says. My sun.

She smooths a hand over E's hair and makes a face to me, that I should not worry.

I wonder if I should ask. It could make things worse.

I make some jokes, pretend I forgot to bring a hairband for her, pretend my hat is her hat and her hat is my hat.

We tromp down the stairs and outside. 

She squeezes my hand extra tight.

"So, what happened?" I ask in the alleyway.

"Some water spilled." She says, her lower lip flapping around, jutting into the air.

"And?" I ask.

"That's all." She says.

"So, you spilled some water." I say. "Like a cup of water?"

She nods yes.

"All over the floor?" I ask.

She nods yes.

"And what - somebody pushed you, or it was just an accident?" I ask.

A silent moment passes.

"An accident." She says, under her breath.

I adjust her hat. I zip her coat all the way to her chin. We walk for a few minutes without talking.

"Hey, do you want to make fried chicken again for dinner?" I ask her.

She nods yes. 

I shout jokes and distractions as we walk down the noisy avenue. I get her to crack a smile, snot dancing from her nose as she laughs once. I even have a stray napkin in my pocket to wipe it all away.

Inside, the old man at the front desk tells me that Roman, the guitar teacher cancelled his classes today. I eyeball him. 

"He did not tell me that." I say, waving my phone around in the air.

The old man shrugs his shoulders. 

A mother and her child approach us, she is talking fast and I can't understand her. Normally I ask E to help translate, but she is lost in her thoughts. The woman has a pickle face. She is saying something about Roman.

I repeat what I told the guard. She shrugs her shoulders.

I send Roman an SMS in my crude Russian.

The front door opens, and he is already here.

The old man at the front desk makes a pathetic face, and stares off at the wall behind me. 

E is distracted, staring at her feet as Roman has her warm up, adjusting the positions of her feet, her hands. She has a concert in a week. Roman asks me to put my chair next to his, so we look like a real audience. He has E enter the room, bow slightly and sit. She fumbles across the three songs, making mistakes she has never made before. He is disappointed. He gives her tough advice. He has her repeat one measure ten times, until she gets it right.

I think to tell him that she had a difficult morning. I think to protect her, to play interference. A part of me wants to step in, to yank her down the hall, buy her an ice cream or a raspberry eclair and bring her home until she feels better. But I don't. She is seven now. She needs to start to handle things herself. I take a step back. I watch it play out. She is struggling, suffering. Roman does not know what happened this morning. He knows her. He knows she can do much better. His hands are clapping out time. She sets her jaw. She is playing so quietly today. My skin itches. I am thinking to take her early, to tell Roman we have an appointment and we should cut class a little bit short today.

Then, she plays the song better than she ever did. The Waltz of the Dolls. Or maybe My Favorite Doll. Something about a kukla (doll). She plays the new song quietly but in rhythm, without any mistakes. Roman relaxes a little. E breathes a bit. The smell of that terrible paint they use here comes into the room. Roman says we are done. He gives some instructions about how to prepare for the concert. He makes sure we have black pants and a white long sleeved shirt for her.

Later, E takes a nap at home. The afternoon sun is filling the room. I have a tiny window open. One of the shiny balloons N bought for E's birthday drifts around the room, still floating around somehow weeks after the party. It slides past my wrist. It suddenly drifts up to the tiny window and in a one motion shoulders its way outside. It rises into the clouds, and out of sight in a few seconds.

postcards from early Spring

A car is stopped in the middle of the road. The trolley buses can't move. Three of them stand, packed against each other honking wildly.

Behind the dark windows I can see a man and woman, their faces buried in each other's coats. She could be his mother. She could be his wife. She could be his sister. I cross the street, staring into the windshield. This odd moment of tenderness stands out to me. I cannot remember seeing an act so public and sincere for a long time. 

Yes, there are always people with tongues down each other's throats on the street corners or in front of the train station. This is different. This is a private moment. 

The feral stench of fresh paint blows towards us. Ancient cans of enamel - jade green and China blue stand in the dirt. One man paints as seven watch, hands on hips, cigarettes loose on the sides of their faces. Paint on paint, on dirt on paint on paint. 

Pockmarked fences, like a teenager's acne now bright green, wet and sticky in the afternoon sun.

The parking lot is full of taxis and people are weaving their way around dirty puddles. Bricks are being torn up to bury some forgotten pipes under the sidewalk. 

An old woman who looks more like a battleship than a person seems to glide across the pavement, her tiny feet moving, everything else remaining still. 

"Strawberries! Strawberries!" She shouts. "100 rubles."

I see they are shiny, huge and going soft.

"Strawberries! Strawberries!" She shouts. 

You sleep on your stomach, a pillow under one arm. I come back from taking E to kindergarden, and your back is above the covers, that soft white light from the river painting your skin. I rest my hand there, warm from my pockets. I see you smile a little. 

I will start breakfast and bang some pans around in the kitchen to wake you up. You will creep in, wearing that tiny robe, your hair a bird's nest as you sip some black tea I have made for you. 

E tells me everything on Sundays, as we walk home. The trips to the fake doctor, the lies, the manipulations all tumble out of her as I lead us along quiet streets. She has a constant fear, that I will leave here and she will be alone. She has drawn a picture of my grave and shows it to me, her arm jutting towards me. Ugly, crude ballpoint scratches.  

I squeeze her hand. I listen. 

When she is empty, and has just started to cry a soft rain begins to fall. I bring us to a bench. I sit with her, telling her to close to her eyes. I do the same. We tip our heads back, seeing if raindrops will fall in our mouths. We try to taste them. We compare notes - maybe one is salty, another sweet.

"I'm not going anywhere." I tell her. "Not without you."

She nods once, staring at me.  

fireworks (a time capsule)

"Pop!" She shouts from the living room. "It was a bomb!"

We are in the kitchen. I do not even look. 

"It's just fireworks." I call to E, chopping some garlic.

There are always fireworks here, a series of holidays I will never grasp or remember. Fireworks for every day, just like Disney World.

An hour later, N calls me to the kitchen and points out the window. In the distance, a building is on fire. Federation Tower, the half-built jewel of modern Russia. 

Old men say it looks offensive, this cluster of steel and glass next to the river. 

Like any New Yorker who lived downtown that September morning, seeing a building on fire like this strikes a certain chord. It all tumbles back. Night becomes day. A time capsule opens and we look inside for a while, from a safe distance. Where we were, what we were doing, the drone of tv sets left on all night, the black cloud that drifted towards Brooklyn, the smell.

I have been standing looking at the flames for some time. N says nothing, but knows everything. She makes us two cups of black tea. I get E to brush her teeth. I put pyjamas on her bed to change into. We sit at the round edge of the kitchen table in the near-darkness.

Monday night, and no one is sleepy.

A helicopter thrashes the air outside the balcony windows. Dogs in the sky, patrolling the territory.

The next morning, all is quiet.
It is over, again.

from the moon to the earth (after the storm)

There is the eye of the storm, and the calm before it.

There is the aftermath, when overturned chairs and downed trees block the roads. We emerge, in yellow raincoats and tall boots. We wonder if the stores are open again. There is money in our pocket for something savory, then maybe something sweet.

The wet earth smells of bee pollen and dead leaves. This time is rarely noted. It is not a moment to pick up the pen and find a scrap of paper. It is a time to take a long walk, to gaze into the distance and imagine great things there.

It is a time to stay up late.

E is growing. There is a sadness to her, a defeated expression is there when she thinks no one is looking, when I spy her on the playground alone before I take her from school. 

She paints on a smile. She makes jokes. She asks me what is for dinner. 

Sometimes it feels like we are the same person.

She knows joy. She knows love. 

She knows what sacrifice is, and how to crack an egg. 

This morning she woke up as I tiptoed into the room, my first coffee balanced in one hand. Her eyes adjusted to the bright room, a sky completely white as snow coughed from the clouds. We could not see as far as the next building.

She sighs, pulling stuffed animals and warm blankets to her chin.

"Pop." She says.
"Yeah?" I say.
"I had a dream." She continues.
A catalogue of nightmares unfolds in my imagination. A new page waits to record the newest one.
"It was a good dream." She says. "I was on the moon, and you were on the earth and I was jumping from the planets and you were catching me."
"Woho!" I say.
She giggles.
I stand, pretending she is falling from the sky and I run around the living room imagining how I catch her.