The Cosmopolitans (2 page)

Osip stood at the table and watched his wife whip meringues.
“
It’s perfect
,” she said in her meticulously Muscovite Russian.
“
Milla’s an accounting major, and accounting is a little lower than
stock analyzing. So the woman is a little lower than the man, and the
man feels good, and they talk about business.
” Every few seconds,
she wiped the counter clean of batter, only to splatter it again, only to
wipe it again. This was completely contradictory to the Just-In-Time
manufacturing techniques Osip had just learned at work, which he
could resist sharing with her only because he had a more important
mission.

“
God loves the trinity
,” everyone had said when Katya was
born. Osip loved the trinity too, but he had always wanted a son,
for the sake of one important Jewish word: moderation. Many of
the Molochniks’ problems stemmed from the immoderate number
of girls in the house. A boy would tell Yana that Osip wasn’t
actually very patriarchal at all. A boy would address Katya in the
street language of modern youth: “Tell me the dealio with all those
earrings, and failing math, when you have a father to tutor you, yo,”
and she would explain herself, and then Osip would know what to
do. It wasn’t natural, him alone, battling all these forces.

Stalina called up the stairs, “
Yanka — are you waiting for
Pushkin to set the table? Get to it, girlie.
”

Yana said, “Why? So the prospective owner of Milla’s vagina
can think she’s tidy?” and clattered down in her steel-toed boots.

“You give me headache already,” Stalina said. Whenever anyone
spoke English to her, she took it as a dare.

“Shh, little girl, shh,” Yana said, “Your voice will never be
privileged.” She began tossing silverware onto the table.

“Katya,” Stalina called up the stairs. “
Nu
, come on.”

The Commish, Osip’s favorite television policeman, off the air
four years now, but never to be forgotten, would say now or never,
junior. “
You know that program at the Jewish Community Center,
‘Tolerance Now’?”

“No,” Stalina said, chopping an apple into a variety of abstract
shapes.

Osip deployed Zionism. “
It’s to benefit Israel. They send children
to Jerusalem, and bring other children here
.”

“
Children should stay where their parents put them.”
She
looked up from the apple battlefield.
“These other children, who
are they?
”

“
They’re Muslims, Stalinatchka, but from nice countries,
Bangladesh, Egypt, these are the ones who, if they see someone
making a bomb, they can say something like, ‘Look here, my fellow
Allah-enjoyer, I’ve lived with a few Jews myself, and they’re really
not so bad
.’” Stalina raised her flour-hoary eyebrows. “
He’ll say,
‘Did you know Jews invented the hologram?’ Because we’ll have
taught him things like that, veedish, see?
”

“
What is the Point of Stamford?”
Stalina said. Osip knew what
was coming: a speech she often gave to visiting Boston friends.
“
It’s provincial, yes, without question. However: have you noticed,
historically, that most blockades and suchlike happen only to large,
important cities? No one cares about Stamford, so it’s safe.
”

He grabbed her shoulder. “
And that’s exactly —”

“
But when you start bringing devils to these quiet waters
—”

“
Devils? Stalinatchka!”
he said, possibly overplaying his shock.
“People used to call
us
that
.”

Yana came back in and took some glasses from the cabinet. Stalina
asked about Katya; apparently, she remained in the bathroom.

“
Still? And Milla?
” Stalina said.

“
The hozaika vlagalishta, keeper of the vagina, is in my room.
”

Stalina said, “
When you’re done, tell Milla to get down here.
And get Katya out of the bathroom — Milla needs to make herself
up. And enough with trying to shock us with your feminist tricks.
That’s not even the word Russian people use — they say pipka, for
children, or zhenskiy organ, which is more polite, or pizda, to be
crude, right, Osya?
You think you can shock me?
” Stalina lifted
a ladle of meringue batter. “
When you and your sisters had full
diapers, guess who had to clean your pipkas?
”

Yana clattered back upstairs, muttering something about Stalina
being a rebel.

Osip said, “
The boy the JCC has for us is a graduate student,
in industrial engineering. Maybe Katya will let him tutor her in
math
.”

“
Katya doesn’t need a tutor, she needs to listen to her mother
and learn some manners. Like you, why are you just standing there
like a prince? Finish the salad.
”

“
Of course, zaychik.
”

“
And don’t call me zaychik. I’m a big fat woman, not a little
bunny rabbit.
”

Quick as a fox, he got three cucumbers, a bag of spinach, and
four tomatoes from the refrigerator, laid them on the counter as a
symbol of good faith, and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist.
“
You, big and fat? I can put my hands around you, practically.
”

“
What’s this ‘practically’ supposed to mean?
”

“
It means you’re tiny, all bones, come kiss me, my little bone-
bag.
” Osip’s kiss scattered the flour, exposing purple rouge. “
And
you know, it doesn’t look like Lev’s ever moving into that extra room,
he lives the bachelor life now.
”

“
What life
?” Stalina was beginning her Lev lecture. It was time
for Osip to deploy his most powerful weapon.

“
Do you know, there are no Russian host families on the list
right now? We don’t want those JCC people to think only Americans
can be generous.
” He paused to let it sink in. “
They’ll say, those
Russians just come to take our charity, never give anything back.”

A tornado rose in the mixing bowl. “
The terroristnik will be
your responsibility, understand?
”

“
Yes, zaychik, let me kiss your pink nose…
” Osip was saying,
when Milla slouched into the room. Osip tried to smile at her, but
she didn’t notice.

Stalina said, “
Sit down, Millatchka. What are all these tears?
Osya, what are you doing? We have forty-five minutes exactly.
Will you be able to find it within yourself to cut a cucumber before
then?
”

Eyes on the floor, Milla said, “You know what’s wrong.”

“What, Malcolm? But Milla,
bood’ milloi
, be kind, like your
name, like your mama is asking, Chaikins will be here in forty-four
minutes, what you want for them to do? Cry with you for boy you’ve
known a few months?”

“Seven months.”

“Seven months.”

“You’re right, seven months, who cares? Let’s party.”

Osip tried to hand Milla a new tissue, but she seemed to be
reading a secret message on her sweatpants.

“I don’t know why you get ironical,” Stalina said. “Leonid is
stock analyst.” She put down her whisk: what more was there to
say?

Milla said, “I just want to be with Malcolm. I don’t know why
you forced me into this setup.”

“Ah, and I force you also to tell Malcolm?” Milla rolled the
tissue between her hands until it resembled a cigarette.

“
Milla, bood’ milloi, listen to me,
” Stalina said in a softer voice,
and in Russian. “
You don’t want to be an old maid like I was, until I
met your father, everyone laughing about you, the husbands of your
colleagues thinking they can kiss you. You’re in college; it’s the right
time to meet the right man
.”

“
Malcolm was the right man.
”

“
If Malcolm were the right man, he would hear about Leonid
and hustle down here and propose. But no. Malcolm is the kind
of man who will maybe marry someone when he’s forty and she’s
pregnant.
”

“
You don’t know, you only met him like once.”

“
And where did you first meet him? In the park, like pigeons. He
should be studying and not running to the park. Milla. Did you ever
put on a miniskirt, like I told you to, and sit outside the hospital?
”