Rus Like Everyone Else (35 page)

Glenn picked up his mother's purse, which stood next to the couch, and opened it. It was filled with tiny folded papers: shopping lists, addresses, reminders. Glenn looked around the living room. Only now he noticed that there were yellow Post-its stuck on almost everything. He bent over to read the Post-it on the telephone. “Doctor,” it read, and a telephone number. There was a Post-it on the stove, which said “switch off”; there was a Post-it on the heating, which said “20 degrees”; there were Post-its on the door that read: “gloves” and “hand cream?” and “5470.”

He opened one of the drawers of his mother's bedroom cabinet. It was filled with jars of hand cream, rows and rows of it. Glenn sat down on the chair. He pressed his hands against his face. His throat tightened.

I should have been here more. The thought went through Glenn's mind and he suppressed it, but it came up again. He pressed his
hand to his mouth and closed his eyes. He reminded himself of how she hardly ever responded to his calls and his letters. How she would not come over to America because she had to watch her soap opera every day. He sat down on the sofa in front of the television. The Post-it on the remote control read: “11 and 5 o'clock, channel 7.” The clock above the dining table cuckooed. He switched on the television. A smiling television presenter appeared. “Good news for all you
Change of Heart
fans out there. The show is back! And there are some new developments that you don't want to miss!”

LAURA

Feeling the wind blow over her skin, the tiny hairs on her arms standing up, the secretary lay on a towel by the pool. There were voices and echoes, drumming of feet on the ground, and clouds packing together above her head.

Next to her, Ashraf was lying on a towel. He had come to her apartment in the morning. His boss had given him a day off. Together they had gone to his mother's house, where he picked up his swim shorts and a towel. She remembered how he'd asked her to wait in the hallway when he went into his room.

“I still share it with my brother,” he said embarrassedly. His mother had gone up to her and squeezed her hand while she waited by the door.

“It's been ages since I've been to the pool,” Ashraf said, looking up to the sky.

“For me too,” she said.

Above them the clouds were moving fast.

Ashraf turned to his side. “I like it here,” he said. “Thank you for bringing me.” He tapped lightly with his finger on her hand and smiled. “Laura.”

Then a woman's voice shrieked. There was a rumble in the distance and the first drops came down, one by one splashing open on the grass and the tiles, making ripples in the surface of the pool. Around them people started collecting their things, their footsteps drumming on the ground as they ran to their cars. The kids in the pool laughed, diving underwater to hide from the rain. Laura felt
each raindrop hit her as she lay on her back on the towel, tick on her thigh, tick on her rib cage, tick on her forearm, tick on her chin,
tick, tick, tick.

“I'm going in,” she said to Ashraf, who was hiding under his towel, laughing. She got up and walked to the pool through the rain, the rain making a film of water on her skin. The wind whistled softly in her ears, grass stems bent under her weight and stuck out between her toes. The kids in the pool shouted, pushing one another's heads down. The metal stairs were cold under her feet as she climbed up to the diving board. There were holes in the steps, making round shapes in the soles of her feet. When she jumped the wind swished around her body. She fell through the air and hit the water feetfirst. Then she was swallowed by it, sliding underwater, her legs going upward as she sank. She opened her eyes underwater. She could see the sun shimmering on the surface, and she saw the bodies around her, the legs kicking to stay up. When she came up again, sound poured into her ears like syrup and air into her lungs.

“Laura, Laura,” the world said to her, the wind touching her skin, the clouds floating over, and the people's legs gliding past hers. “Yes,” she answered, and she stretched her arms and her legs out as she floated, the wind cooling the water in her belly button, the sun shining yellow on the rims of her eyes. “Yes, I am Laura. I am here.”

AIRPLANES

Rus was sitting on the ground next to the ATM. Every few minutes he got up and put the debit card in the machine. “No,” the machine said, “you cannot withdraw any money, no, no, there is nothing on there, no, still nothing, no.” He sat on the pavement with his plastic bag between his feet, and he stared at the straight skyline where his house used to be. The clouds were moving fast in the dark gray sky, like it was about to rain. In the old days Rus would have found importance and pleasure in watching them, analyzing their shape and their speed, but the joy he had in those things was taken from him.

A girl with a bike stopped in front of him.

She took an envelope out of her bag. “Your mail,” she said.

“No,” Rus said, covering his eyes with his hands. “I don't want any more envelopes. Keep them away from me.”

She left the envelope at Rus's feet, riding away from him and joining someone who was waiting at the corner. It started to rain. In the distance thunder rumbled. Rus opened the envelope. There was a note in it that read: “Dear Ma. Please use this. You can book any plane you want, at any hour. Just come. Glenn.” Attached to the note was a colored card that read “Gift Card” with airplanes drawn on it.

It started to rain heavily now. Someone threw a few coins at Rus's feet and there was a man who came up to him and shouted, “Go back where you came from!”

Rus nodded at him.

“I will,” he said, and he got up from the ground. He did not even notice he was leaving his plastic bag, his last possessions, behind. Above him a seagull circled and landed on the sign of the train station. Again Rus nodded, and as the train rattled out of his city, he squeezed the gift card in his pocket and kept his eyes on the silver airplanes ahead.

RUSSIA

“I need to go to Russia,” Rus said.

Around him people were rolling their suitcases over the tiles of the airport. Outside, planes were gliding over the landing strips.

He was at a counter again, this time talking to a man behind a window that read AIR RUSSIA.

“When?” the man said.

“Now,” Rus said.

“Passport,” the man said.

“Yes,” Rus said. “Here it is. My name is Rus Ordelman and my passport number is 3W456RR789.”

“Your name is Rus and you are going to Russia,” the man said.

“Yes,” Rus said.

“That is funny,” the man said. He turned to his computer and typed on the keyboard. “One way?” he asked.

“One way.” Rus's stomach tingled. He placed the gift card in the slot.

“You are lucky, Rus,” the man behind the computer said. He laughed. “Lucky Rus.”

“I am?” Rus asked, not expecting to be lucky all of the sudden. He expected forms and paperwork and having to shout like Wanda.

“There is a plane leaving tonight, and there is a free seat.”

The man took Rus's gift card. “You'll get twenty back from this.”

Rus's hands were shaking. For the first time in his life, he was making a grand decision, and he was making it himself. “Thank you,” Rus said as he took the money and the paper saying “Rus Ordelman. Seat 27A.”

“They say that when you're on the right track, everything suddenly goes very easily,” the man behind the window said. “They say that it feels like sliding down a waterslide.”

“Yes,” Rus said. He had been on the waterslide at the pool with Modu. He carefully took the ticket in his hands.

“I don't know if it's true though,” the man said. “It probably isn't.”

Right above the houses of our sleeping friends, who are all comfortable in their pajamas—except for Mrs. Blue, of course, and except for Glenn, who is looking at the framed clipping of Grace next to his mother's bed—there is a plane flying over. In that plane we find our Rus, his face pressed against the window as you would expect from him. You can probably picture him by now, can't you, how he presses his face against the window and eagerly reaches for the peanuts the flight attendant is handing out. He has never been out of the city, and now he is flying out of the country, with only a twenty and the coins that we gave to him when we passed by him at the debit machine.

The sky around the plane is getting dark, and Rus sees only his face in the window now. When he closes his eyes he sees his daddy, standing on the docks in Russia, spreading his arms for him, and he sees Francisco, drinking vodka in the belly of a large Russian submarine. The fact that he is emigrating has not really dawned on him yet. Sometimes big steps are made easily, especially when they go downhill.

Rus squeezes the armrests as the front of the plane starts pointing down and he leans forward in his seat.

HOME

“Thank you for flying with us,” a voice said to Rus, “you are now in Russia.”

The plane bumped on the ground and Rus was tossed in his chair. The people in the plane got up from their seats. Rus looked out the window. He saw white fields and a building with letters on it that he could not read. “I am in Russia,” he said to himself. “I am in Russia.”

“Are you ready to leave the plane, sir?” The flight attendant smiled at him. Rus did not feel ready to leave the plane for some reason, but he did do it. The air in the airport smelled strange, and there were signs with very strange letters. Rus stood with the other people from the plane by a rotating belt for a little while, but then suitcases came out and he didn't have any, so he followed another group of people to a desk where they showed their passports, and then to another desk, where they gave their money and got Russian rubles in return. Then Rus followed them into a large hallway, where they all went different ways.

Rus looked at the money he was holding. The twenty note and the coins he gave at the currency counter had turned into a lot of Russian money. He had a whole pack of paper notes in his hand. A man with a mustache in the hallway caught Rus's eyes. He was looking at Rus and making a gesture that he should come over. The man was older than Rus, maybe twenty years older, and he had dark hair, just like Rus.

A tingle went down Rus's spine. The man opened his arms and walked toward him. Rus opened his arms too. “Daddy,” he said.

“Taxi,” the man replied. “Taxi to the city.”

The man took Rus by the arm and walked him out of the airport. Rus thought of the waterslide as the taxi raced out of the airport parking lot, driving over sidewalks and through red traffic lights. First they passed by vast snowy fields and pine trees, then past office buildings, and then into a city with apartment buildings and churches and statues. The taxi driver pointed at churches as they passed them by. “Look,” he said each time.

Rus looked at the churches and the people in the street, and the statues and the clouds passing over the city. A warm feeling came
over him. “I stop here.” The taxi driver turned around in his seat. “
Da?
”

“Yes,” Rus said. It was a perfect place.

“
Da
,” the taxi driver said, taking the notes from Rus's hand and counting them. He put most of the notes in his pocket and gave Rus back the rest.

“
Da
,” Rus practiced, waving after the disappearing taxi.

THE FUNERAL

Mrs. Blue's funeral was a small affair. Aside from Glenn there were two former neighbors, old ladies who said they remembered Glenn from when he was very young.

“It is always terrible when someone dies,” the funeral director said, “but she had a full life.” The words got lost in the wind a little bit. Aside from the wind it was a beautiful day. A blue sky, and no rain. Glenn stood up from his seat and unfolded the paper he'd written his notes on. He looked down at the casket.

“I want to read something that my mother would have liked.”

His voice quivered a little bit as he started reading.

“The heart is a restless thing,” he read, “where will it take us next? Welcome to the new episode of
Change of Hearts
.”

He read as loud and clear as possible, using a neutral voice for Rick and a higher voice for Grace.

“‘Where am I?' Grace asks as she wakes up in a hospital room. Someone standing in a dark corner of the room turns around and bends over her.

“‘You're suffering from memory loss,' this man tells her. ‘You were attacked by a burglar on our wedding day. I will do anything to find out who it was!'”

Glenn cleared his throat. The wind was pulling at the notes as he read on. The two old ladies were turning the wheels of their hearing aids, leaning forward.

“When she is alone Grace picks up the phone,” Glenn ended his notes on the episode. “‘Is this the police?' she whispers. ‘I want to report my fiancé.'”

Glenn nodded.

“That was it. Thank you.”

He folded the paper and sat down in his chair again. The two old ladies nodded approvingly. The casket was lowered into the ground and the body of Glenn's mother, Mrs. Blue, was under the soil now, waiting to decompose.

HOME IS WHERE

Now Rus was standing on a street corner with the brown jacket wrapped tightly around him. People walked past him, talking and laughing. The deep, thick sound of the language seeped slowly into Rus's ears. It felt like a warm language to him, full and welcoming, and although he never learned to speak Russian, he felt replies welling up in his throat. Yes, Rus felt the Russian language coming from within him, and without having any idea what he said, Rus shouted: “
Mi krisni, effusko lobna!
” He turned to the people who walked past him and held on to their elbows. “
Borovski?
”

No one answered him. The people he talked to walked away quickly.

“
Kalemno pah
,” Rus begged from the depth of his being, “
kalemno pah simiestie!
” but no one replied. The wind that was blowing through the street was very cold. Two girls giggled as they passed him by.

“
Borovski?
” Rus tapped on the shoulder of a man. He pointed at himself and asked again. “
Borovski?
” The man shrugged his shoulders and tapped on his forehead with his finger.

“
Nye panimay
,” he said.

“What?” Rus said. “What is that you say?” but the man walked on.

Rus looked helplessly at the people around him. So the Russian language did not come naturally to him. Maybe it was another language that he had spoken so suddenly and fluently, but it was not Russian, so it was of no use to him. The people passing him by in the street did not understand him, and he did not understand them. Rus lowered his arms. He suddenly saw the street signs around him, the words written in letters he could not understand.
, it read above one shop.
, above another.