grace

She stands in the red Chinese dress, knees together. The girl next to her somehow has the microphone. An elevator music backing track for Silent Night trickles out of the speakers on both sides of the stage. E looks like a forgotten bouquet of flowers left limp and dry in a vase. I cannot hear her at all, just the girl who sings loud and out of tune, missing half of the words entirely, the rest unintelligible. E's lips are moving. That is the only way to know she is singing along with this train wreck. The song ends with an abrupt click of the cd player, in mid-note. Bland applause ripples through the audience. That familiar sense of anger and frustration runs along the back of my neck. I know it is some pointless school play, a day that will be forgotten as easily as it was slapped together but my teeth will not unclench. I wanted it for her, not for my misplaced fatherly pride. I wanted her to know what it is to open her lungs and sing to the back of the room in that way she does when she is in the bathtub, or sometimes in the street. 

Once more she is pressed into the shadows here, even in the center of a stage. Once more, we are both reminded of how crude and random the culture is here, with its facade of grace. 

Parents and grandmothers are clamoring for positions, shoving cameras in front of each other. Giant smiles are creeping across their faces, great whoops and foot stomping as each child performs in some glittery leftover halloween costume. 

I crane my neck, give E a small wave as she goes back to her seat against the wall. She rolls her eyes. I roll mine back. Maybe we are too humble for this place. We don't have it in us to shove other people aside. 

Afterwards, I sit next to her as the room swirls with shrieking mothers and camera flashes. She takes my hand and squeezes it in hers. 

"You don't have to say anything Pop." She tells me. "I know."

"As long as you know." I say quietly.

We watch the room slowly empty. 

"At least everybody in New York knows I can sing good." She says.

"You even made some of them cry." I remind her.

E looks up at me, her eyes starting to get wet. 

She stares at me for some time, without blinking.

"We'll get there, kiddo." I whisper. "It just feels like we'll be stuck in Moscow forever."

She nods once, then stands up.

I see her brush the moment away, like a wet dog flicking its fur. 

The stage is empty now. I look at the shiny balloons and the swath of blue cloth meant to be the sky that covers just part of the back wall. 

"Come on, Pop." She says. "I want to show you the snowflake I made."