American Gypsy (10 page)

“You girls okay?” he asked in Russian. “How's school?”

I cupped the phone with the palm of my hand. “Everything's fine.” He didn't need to know that although Roxy had been going to Marshall Elementary for the past month, I had refused to enroll in the local high school. “Where are you?” I asked.

“Are you coming home?” Roxy interrupted, sticking her face into the receiver and fighting to grab it as I pushed her away.

I hadn't asked him that question because I knew better. When I'd heard him tell Mom that he loved her that night in Moscow, I'd believed he'd always live by those words. Yet he'd walked away from us as if our family had been a temporary arrangement. Some part of me wanted him back, but the stubborn me refused to let him know that.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you on your birthday,” he said.

I wanted to tell him how he had ruined it for me. “No big deal,” I said.

I'd turned sixteen a month earlier, in October. Mom had made brownies from a box. We'd never heard of brownies before, and she wanted to surprise me with an authentic American dessert. She'd ended up burning the mix into the pan. After dinner we scraped the remains off the sides. They tasted like dried fertilizer, and my birthday wish was never to have to eat brownies again.

Dad cleared his throat. “Is your mother there?”

I turned to check and found Mom drilling holes in me with her eyes. “Who is that?” she asked, but the question sounded more like “It better not be who I think it is.”

Roxy jumped up and down in the middle of the living room. “It's Papa. It's Papa!”

Mom flew out of the kitchen, hair bouncing. She yanked the phone out of my hand, ordering us to leave the room, and shut the door.

Roxy and I ran to the bedroom and then listened with our ears pressed against the wall.

Growing up, I suffered from what I now call a split nationality disorder, never quite sure if I was Romani or Armenian. I was an impostor; a half-breed trapped between two vibrant cultures, never allowed a choice without guilt. My parents' breakup was feeling eerily familiar. I didn't know whose side to be on, and they made sure I couldn't choose both.

After some customary bickering my parents finally came to an agreement on the subject that was the reason for Dad's call: the holidays. The winter season ranked high for both sides of my family, and even the worst rivalries were often temporarily put off to celebrate it. Roxy and I would spend Christmas with Dad, and New Year's at home with Mom. A truce, however shaky.

The following day, Dad picked us up in a dark blue van with pictures of howling wolves on its sides. No surprise there. When I was nine, he'd painted eyelashes around the headlights of our Volkswagen Beetle and a tail in the back. Mom had refused to get in when she saw what he had done, but I'd thrown my arms around it and called it Sipsik, after my favorite stuffed toy.

It felt like years instead of months since I'd last seen Dad. He wore a leather jacket and pants, and had dyed his long hair to cover the gray. We managed a clumsy hug. Dad was never big on affection. Also, neither of us knew how broken families were supposed to act. Roxy, as always, had too much energy to be awkward. She jumped into Dad's arms and gave him two sloppy kisses on each cheek. “Papa, can I show you my George Michael book?” She reached out and grabbed a handful of Dad's ZZ Top beard.

Divorce was the new “empowered,” or so my mother had been trying to convince me. But the moment I saw him, it became clear that we'd been lying to ourselves. I was glad to see him and mad at myself for being glad. On the way to his West Hollywood house, Dad made conversation as if nothing weird had happened, and even though I felt betrayed by his actions, I was happy to have him back.

“Girls, I have great news,” he said. “I've got a few gigs booked for next year. What do you think of that, eh? Your old dad, back on top.”

“You bought new equipment?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he said, and I knew I shouldn't have asked that question. He grew quiet, shaking his head. “Remember my Gibson? Now, that was an instrument to befriend the Devil for. No other guitar had such a juicy sound, like a ripe watermelon in July. Scored it off a Finnish tennis player.”

“I know, Dad.” A twinge of sadness made me want to wrap my arms around his neck. Before leaving Russia, Dad had sold everything except for his father's guitar. He had moped around for days as if he'd lost his entire family. And now he had, by his own choice.

He slapped a hand on the wheel. “No matter. I found a way to make extra cash. It's a premium idea. If everything goes well, we'll be rich by spring. I had a dream.”

Here we go again, I thought. Dreams were my family's version of the
Farmer's Almanac
.

Every morning in Moscow, after Dad had dragged his feet into our kitchen, his hair Einstein-wild, he'd sit at the kitchen table, sigh, and complain about his insomnia, and then proceed to tell Mom about his dreams.

“I'm a spider,” he once said. “Inside that new restaurant on Arbatskaya. And I'm biting my legs off. Then I see Elvis. He's a spider, too, except instead of legs he has guitars. And he's calling me to follow him onstage. Now, what do you think it means?”

“You should cancel that gig,” Mom said, and then added as an afterthought, “Thank God you didn't listen to Elvis.” Everyone knew that if you followed the dead in a dream, you'd soon perish.

There in the van, I didn't know what to say. Both my parents had hatched their share of ingenious plans that often backfired. Like the time Dad convinced Mom to sell homemade
oladushki
(pancakes) on the side of the Medvedkovo metro station. At first Mom laughed. “Why would people pay extra for our
oladushki
when they can make their own?” “For convenience,” Dad said. We learned that Russians still preferred their own pancakes to those of strangers.

For this reason I didn't ask about Dad's latest scheme or the dream that had inspired it. Better not to encourage him, I thought. Roxy, on the other hand, began to list dozens of luxury items she would need Dad to buy with his millions. Even at a young age she knew that every courtship must begin with toys. Surely George Michael would not be able to resist a pink fairy bicycle with a matching helmet.

Immaculate houses lined both sides of Dad's street. This neighborhood was a galaxy away from ours.

“It's no Beverly Hills,” Dad said, “but it's all I can afford right now.”

On the outside, the house had a flat-roofed Spanish design, but once you stepped across the threshold, it resembled the interior of a traditional Romani wagon. Richly hued rugs swallowed every inch of the floor, some even continuing up the walls and to the ceiling. Everywhere I looked, I found yet more rugs and wall hangings. It would be very difficult for one to get hurt surrounded by so much wool. Red-and-gold shades predominated; there were burgundy-framed pictures, red statues of Hindu men on top of gold-colored elephants, and a number of bright-red pieces of furniture. I tried not to stare at the garish decor, but my eyes would not obey as they attempted to find a moment of peace.

Dad hadn't decorated on his own. One thing he couldn't stand was ethnic or folksy art on his walls. “Modern” was his motto. Our Moscow house had images of British flags painted on the bathroom walls, Miles Davis above the fireplace, and Japanese concubines in the kitchen. He had a style all his own. All signs pointed to one thing—my father's mistress was in the house—and before I had time to imagine myself charging at her with fists on the ready like a cocksure Irishman, she floated into the room to greet us.

“Girls, welcome. I am so happy you are here! Sit. Sit now, and I will make tea.” Her dress sparkled like a Vegas showgirl's. Threaded heavily with sequins, it fell to her feet. Golden hoop earrings clinked through a mass of long black wavy hair. When she grinned, two golden teeth winked out of her mouth. She hugged Roxy and me zealously, an assortment of golden bracelets jingling on her wrists.

People often comment on Gypsies' obsession with gold. Sometimes you can pick out Romani by the amount of jewelry they wear. This habit comes from a time when the wandering caravans didn't possess the freedom to settle anyplace long enough to grow roots, so wagons, forests, and riverbanks became their homes. But the wagons were often vandalized by outsiders, most of the forests belonged to uncharitable nobles, and the rivers were as unpredictable as the towns around them. The Romani learned to trust no one. They developed a tradition of carrying their wealth in the safest place they found—on themselves.

“How did you get here?” I blurted out, not expecting to see Olga, our old family acquaintance from Moscow, in my father's living room.

She flashed a diamond ring, and grinned. “We're married.”

“What?” Roxy and I shouted in unison. This was the woman my father had gone back to Russia for? Olga was eighteen years Dad's junior, and besides the fact that she was not our mother, her reputation didn't stand out as exemplary. Olga was one of those Romani women whom tourists are warned about before their overseas trips; the kind
we
were warned about by Grandpa Andrei all our lives. She told fortunes for a living and would do anything to rid people of their money short of actually digging in their pockets. You'd never find her losing sleep over an unpaid bill or planning for retirement. If she had money enough to invite twenty guests for dinner, she would, even if it meant that she would have to eat cheese sandwiches for the rest of the month. Many of my Romani relatives considered her attitude too risky for modern times. But Olga always said, “You can't plan life.” A street-reared Romani, she'd come from a family that practiced but one motto: “Survive the day by all means necessary and start over tomorrow.”

Although Olga danced fairly well, my grandfather had refused to have her in his shows, claiming she reinforced the stereotypes he'd worked to eradicate. So how did my father end up married to her?

It was about five years after my parents' divorce that I learned their affair had gone on for years before our move to the States. When Mom found out, just months before coming to America, Dad promised to stop seeing Olga. Turned out he'd been planning to bring her over all along and had waited until after the move to ditch us and send Olga a tourist visa. The marriage my mother was hoping to save was the furthest thing from his mind. Of course Olga had no intention of going back to Russia, but long-term resident visas were almost impossible to get. With a tourist visa Olga had a chance to come to America and get lost in the system.

My own father, an adulterer. In the past, every time Mom had accused Dad of sleeping around, I hadn't wanted to believe it. But the reality, I knew, was that many women thought of him as a catch. He was not only good-looking but also rich (at least in terms of Soviet-era Russians) by way of his parents.

*   *   *

Sitting around the kitchen table, Dad, Roxy, Olga, and I were soon drinking black tea together as if this were the natural order of things. On the outside, I was doing my best impression of a girl with manners. On the inside, I was a hunter with a fresh kill. I was dragging Olga by her hair out of the kitchen, across the scratchy living-room carpet, into the front yard, where I could skin her with my curved dagger. This Oksana was uncharacteristically ruthless, and I almost felt remorse until my mother's face came to mind. For Mom I was ready not only to mount Olga's head above a fireplace but to do so with Dad watching.

Olga had arrived in Los Angeles a few weeks earlier but had already come to the conclusion that Hollywood was a place with broken hearts galore. Plenty of immigrants meant great business potential. The woman never changed her ways—you could drop her in the middle of the Bible Belt, and she would not only find a way out but inevitably make cash doing so.

“I have already placed an ad in the local Russian paper,” she told us through a cloud of Marlboro smoke. “‘Famous Gypsy fortune-teller Olga, with extraordinary abilities to predict the future, will help you in your quest for happiness. Call, and see your troubles fly away.'”

“It's coming out next week. It'll be premium,” Dad added, sitting between us and her at the head of the table. He bit into an open-faced salami sandwich, a trail of bread crumbs in his beard. Then he smiled at Olga. “You did a great job, my little sparrow.”

They exchanged sweet looks. I was speechless and a little sick to my stomach. My father had never spoken a word of lovey-doveyness before.

“Ah, I can't wait to begin,” Olga said.

I wasn't sure if she was exuding such enthusiasm for our father's benefit or ours. I had heard that she lived and breathed everything occult, as much at ease channeling spirits as she was shopping for shoes.

“But it's the holidays,” I protested.

“Exactly. The best time for hooking the shunned, the desperate, the hopeful, and all the rest of the assholes who want miracles for pennies. Plus, the nights are more favorable for séances around Christmas and New Year's—you know that.”

“But you were going to start playing again, Dad. You said you were buying equipment.”

He shrugged. “Too many musicians in L.A. We're like rats scampering after a crumb of cheese. Remember my plan? This is it. I've got three gigs booked in February, and I need my instruments before that. But I can see already that no matter how many gigs you have, you can't make a decent living playing
gadjen
weddings in L.A. In this city, you need serious money to survive.”

“But, Dad…” I said, still uncomfortable with the idea of Olga's psychic business. In the Soviet Union, practicing occultism or paganism was against the law.

Occultism might have persisted more in Russia than in the rest of Europe because we never truly experienced the Renaissance or the Enlightenment. If it weren't for Peter the Great introducing French culture to his country, ordering his ministers to shave off their “heathen beards” to appear more civilized, Russia might not have discovered progress for centuries to come. But Russians are stubborn people. Two hundred years after Peter, many still followed their ancestors' traditions steeped in thousands of years of superstition. Some believed in both Christianity and paganism, the practice called
dvoeverie
(two faiths), and I first encountered it when I was thirteen. Mom used to go to this ancient woman for readings, and if I insisted enough, she'd take me along.