Ed King (32 page)

“This?” said Pop. “It don’t look so good. This kind of place, they have violent crimes—somebody wants to take your purse.”

Zinaida was already out of the Honda, but she leaned in again and said, in her flat baritone, “Tank you and gud for holuday.”

Pop answered with all the Russian he had: “
Do svidanya
, Zinaida.
Spasibo!
”

This, Ed saw, forced Zinaida to suppress a smile—one that said Pop was a barrel of laughs—but then he could tell that she saw he could see this, because, having caught his eye, she purged her face of both the smile and its suppression. Ed said,
“Do svidanya,”
too, and this caused another problem for Zinaida, another battle with emotional transparency,
which she addressed by saying, once more, “Tank you,” and retreating.

Ed watched her go, mainly because, when Zinaida had suppressed her smile, he’d noticed something he hadn’t noticed before: cavities beneath her cheekbones, like Faye Dunaway in
Chinatown
, if minus the elegance. Now he hoped that, as Zinaida walked away, there might be more along these lines—a message in her ass or in the way she walked—but there was nothing enticing, attractive, or sexy, just a woman, approximately a bag lady, who looked like she was returning, empty-handed, from a government-run shop that had run out of tinned meat to a flat where the gas was turned off.

In December, Pop insisted that Ed come for Hanukkah, because, he said, Zinaida would make latkes, and also they could watch Georgetown play Virginia, “Ewing versus Sampson, what a match-up!” The latkes, Ed thought, were heavy on the onion, and fried not in oil but, thoroughly, in Crisco; they ate them in front of the television, on paper plates, with sour cream and a quivering, translucent plum jelly, and with Michelob Pop bought for the occasion. Zinaida, Ed noticed, intercepting her in the kitchen, drank beer from a glass while poking at her frying pancakes with the edge of a plastic spatula and blotting them with paper towels. “The pancake,” she said, piling latkes on her spatula. “You want?”

“Your English is getting better,” Ed answered, and took the latkes. “It’s much better, really. Way better.”

Zinaida pointed out the refrigerator and added, “More zour crim.”

“Sow-er creeem.”

“Accent,” explained Zinaida.

“Cream, with a long ‘e.’ ”

“Creeem.”

He hung around the kitchen. He set down his paper plate and leaned against the counter. From the living room came basketball cheers and the exclamatory voices of commentators. “He’s asleep in there,” Ed said, “so it’s just me, Ed. In case you didn’t know. I’m Ed.”

Zinaida pressed her latkes and said, “Ed.”

“Right,” said Ed. “So, Zinaida—am I saying that right?—where are you from? Basic ESL question. Where are you from, Zinaida?”

“From Soviet Union.”

“Specifically where in the Soviet Union?”

“What is
shpasifically
?”

“Your town. Your region.”

“Ach,” said Zinaida. “Bukhara. Tashkent.”

“Which one is it? Bukhara or Tashkent?”

“One is Bukhara,” Zinaida said. “Two, I am in Tashkent.”

“More ESL?” said Ed. “Okay, here we go. What were you doing in Tashkent?”

“Tashkent is big city. Many university. And government building.”

“And what were you doing there?”

“Tash
kent
.”

Ed said, “Okay, Tashkent, I got it, fine, but you, what did you
do
there? In Tashkent?”

“I am working for government. Seckaratary. Is word? Seckeckaratary?”

“Secretary. In Tashkent you worked as a secretary. For the government. You were a government, like, secretary.”

“Seckaratary.”

“Great,” said Ed. “This is really great. We’re having a great conversation.”

She didn’t answer, so he said, “In America we know like nothing about Russia. You guys use rubles, you have your five-year plans, you like to drink vodka, the main guy is Brezhnev except he just died, if anyone speaks up they get sent to Siberia, you’ve got a lot of nukes and a space program. Is there anything else? We’ve heard of Solzhenitsyn. And you’re good at chess. Spassky. Karpov. But we got Bobby Fischer. You got the gymnasts, we got the sprinters, you got the weightlifters, we got the swimmers. It’s a wash, I think. Détente.”

Zinaida answered, “My country, Uzbekistan,” then turned off the burner underneath the latkes. “No talk,” she said. “I clean.”

For Hanukkah, Pop gave Zinaida a bonus: twenty Susan B. Anthony silver dollars, each in a sleeve, but presented in a brown paper bag. She seemed genuinely pleased, and even stayed in the living room, standing up despite Pop’s insistence that she “sit, sit down, sit already, Zinaida!,” to watch the exciting end of the Hoyas and the Cavs. Then, since by coincidence they were leaving Pop’s apartment at the same time, Ed offered Zinaida a ride home.

In the Honda, Zinaida reverted to mute fretting and put on her purse-lipped,
wary expression. Ed, driving, glanced at her hands, which were long, pale, bony, and full of tendons, with a couple of swollen, arthritic joints that had yet to defeat their handsome grace. Then, at a loss, he said, “The Jewish Family and Children’s Services.”

“I know.”

“How did they find you?”

“Yes,” said Zinaida.

“How long have you been in San Jose?”

“Two month.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Why did is what?”

Ed thought about this and then said, “Here because?”

“Because immigrant,” said Zinaida. “Immigration.”

Ed, again, gave her answer some thought. They were driving on a spacious palm-lined boulevard, and Zinaida was admiring, Ed thought, the big homes, either that or looking at them so as not to look at him. “Immigrate because?” he asked.

Zinaida’s expression now suggested ambivalence, and also—maybe—that he was stupid. She said, simply, “Soviet Union,” as if that explained everything that needed to be explained, then returned to looking out her window.

So Ed gave up. They drove without talking. It was irritating to be giving Zinaida a ride now, but, to be fair, maybe she didn’t understand that in America polite talk was part of the deal when you accepted a ride from somebody. Then she said, out of nowhere, “University?”

“Excuse me?”

“You are student?”

“Yes.”

“You are studying what … field?”

“I’m studying mathematics and computers. I’m learning, right now, about computers.”

“Good,” said Zinaida. “For future.”

Ed said, “Right now’s good, too,” but it occurred to him that this construction was unintelligible, so he added, “But you’re right—it’s good for the future.”

Zinaida raised her forefinger, as if to say, “Very good, you concur with my pragmatic, post-communist wisdom,” then went back to looking out the window.

But Ed felt liberated. She’d offered something. So on the expressway he put to work his pidgin English skills and teased from Zinaida biographical particulars. She lived with her sister, who had two children, a boy and a girl, ages eight and eleven. Her sister’s second husband, a Ukrainian, had gone to Houston for some ambiguous reason that sounded nefarious. Ed caught the drift from Zinaida, as he sorted through her expressions and rudimentary phrases, that the Ukrainian was treacherous, mean-spirited, and an absconder, and that he and the sister were engaged in a trial separation that should—this was what Zinaida advocated—lead to a divorce.

Then it was time to drop her in front of her bunkerlike apartment complex, where, he imagined, the signature smell was stewing cabbage. “Tank you,” she said, and Ed answered, “My pleasure; what a good opportunity to get to know you a little better.” Zinaida took his measure defensively, tugged her head scarf lower at the back so as to cover escaping tendrils of hair, got out, and didn’t look back.

On Pop’s birthday, Ed brought a grocery-store cake, a carton of ice cream, a box of candles, and a card that said, on its cover, “It’s your birthday,” and inside, “Just in case you forgot!” Zinaida’s dinner menu, at Pop’s request, was breaded veal cutlets, canned corn, rolls, and a salad of iceberg lettuce and tomato wedges with bottled ranch dressing. When Ed was seated, Pop said, “Zinaida, your cutlets look top of the walk, but when do you give me my birthday present?”

“You are a funny joker,” answered Zinaida. “Ha-ha, funny guy. Tomorrow, okay, I bring present.”

“Pah,” said Pop. “So you forgot, it’s all right. Why make a federal case? I’m an understanding guy. So, now, here’s what I want for my birthday—please, Zinaida, sit down at the table and
have one of these beautiful cutlets
!”

“You have to,” said Ed. “It’s his birthday, Zinaida.” He shrugged, got up, and got a plate, knife, fork, napkin, glass, Michelob, and place mat.

Later, Zinaida had to eat cake, too. Ed taught her the words to “Happy Birthday” before she disappeared into the kitchen. Then it was time to watch
60 Minutes
, with Pop looking forward to the end-of-show segment, when Andy Rooney would be annoyed by something in a way that was “Irish, not Jewish.” Predictably, though, Pop fell asleep before Rooney’s rant, and when he did, Ed headed eagerly for Zinaida. “You see him five days a week,” he said to her. “What do you see that I don’t see?”

Zinaida was fussing with the cake-box flaps, trying, carefully, to catch their flimsy latches. She looked flustered by this effort and had her tongue between her teeth. “He don’t remember,” she said, not looking at Ed. “Where is his glasses? He don’t know where is glasses. I go with him to Lucky store, he don’t know Lucky store or street, where is apartment, he don’t know apartment. In kitchen, I’m here, he is saying, ‘Who are you!’ So I tink, yes, he is forget.”

“How is your sister?”

“Should not talk to husband on phone—mistake.”

“Your niece and nephew?”

“Father no good.”

“Cake boxes are impossible.”

“Is very good cake.”

“Take some home.”

“Children are spoil. Video game.”

“Well,” said Ed, “let them eat cake,” which he assumed she wouldn’t get—but she answered, to his surprise, “Marie Antoinette.”

“Or so people believe.”

“I am history student, Tashkent University.”

“How old are you?”

“Is not good question.”

“Ever married?”

“Not good question.”

“What happened to your marriage?”

“First husband, we are young, we are eediot, married. Second, he is older, choreographer.”

“And?”

“Is not your business. I learn on ESL. Not business.” She wagged a forefinger at him, sternly.

“Who cheated on who?”

“Is not nice question.” At last, she got the box shut. “Not nice question. You are Jewish boy?”

“Bar Mitzvahed. And circumcised. In case you were wondering—I’m circumcised.”

Zinaida turned one hand behind her now, and rested it on the counter with double-jointed flexibility. The inside of her elbow stared at Ed, with its tiny creases, blue with veins. “How old?” she said.

“Is not nice question.”

“How old?”

“Old enough.”

“You are child.”

“If you say so.”

Zinaida drew an ascending line in the air with an element, thought Ed, of choreography. “Up,” she said. “Now you are up. Later, not so much.” Her hand came down in a dénouement. “Is different.”

“So, Zinaida. Who cheated?”

Zinaida pushed the cake box, sharply, into the spot she’d chosen for it, beside the breadbox. Before she could say or do anything else, Ed pulled her in and kissed her on the lips. In response, she slapped him. “Hey,” said Ed. “That hurt.”

“Hurt,” said Zinaida. “You don’t know hurt! Your all life, no hurt, because rich boy, America.” Zinaida raised her hand as if to slap him a second time. “You are
boy
,” she said. “Boy who try to make love to moo-tear. I’m not moo-tear to that guy,” she said. “Is wrong—make love to
maht
’.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ed. “But I don’t have some kind of weird psychological problem, if that’s what you’re getting at. Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Da,”
said Zinaida, which he chalked up to a language difficulty: that she didn’t understand “psychological problem.” But what difference did it make? She didn’t want to sleep with him. “Okay, Zinaida,” Ed said, “you win. But just don’t hit me a second time.”

She slapped him again anyway. He cringed and drew back from her. “Some day you pay,” hissed Zinaida.

Pop eventually became a wanderer with no compass and needed to live behind a door he couldn’t unlock. Dan and Alice flew in to oversee his exodus to L’Chaim House and took Ed and Pop to dinner at nice places, but after a week—and having importuned Ed to visit Pop regularly—they were gone. The idea of visiting L’Chaim House had little appeal to Ed, but finally he went. After inquiring about Pop with an administrator in the foyer, he was ushered into a dining hall where everyone looked dead. Forgotten captains of Bay Area industry and blue-haired stewards of archaic civic missions were gathered together over breast of chicken
served by, maybe, Inuits and Trinidadians. These old, forgotten Jews and their multicultural servants oppressed Ed’s consciousness: a man with sparse gray whiskers sprouting indecorously amid dewlaps loomed in his path, then a woman tarted up with rouge and a wig, a bric-a-brac brooch, and some sawdust geegaws. Ed worked past them. The smell of urine mingled with the smell of food. How, he thought, could these ghosts dream of eating? Impaled this way, he found Pop, greeted him with a shoulder squeeze, sat, and, with no choice, engaged his tablemates. The woman to his right was freshly widowed and transplanted of late from Skokie for the convenience of her son, a lawyer. Across from her, a pint-sized nebbish picked ineffectually at romaine leaves. In answer to Ed’s “How are you tonight?,” he said, “Tonight, like every night, I hope I die in my sleep,” to which Pop replied, with his mouth full of steamed corn, “Don’t say that.” “What,” replied the nebbish, “why shouldn’t I speak? At the very least, they shouldn’t get me up at eight.” A hired, in-house, cheery someone, he complained, came to his apartment at eight every morning and cajoled him toward the world of the living by goading him into fresh underpants and loading up his toothbrush. “Me, too,” said Pop. “But that’s life.”