Jean looked over at them and Stalina gave her best American
check-my-back-teeth smile. Were those really shorts on Jean’s
chicken legs? It was either in terrible taste or too avant-garde for
even Stalina to understand.
“
Trapped by your ignorance of Western ways,
” the handkerchief
suggested.
The rabbi said he’d known and loved the entire Strauss family
for years. He was honored to have in his synagogue descendents of
Oscar Solomon Straus, the first Jewish cabinet member in American
history. This new generation of Strausses was also one of trailblazers,
Jean having been one of only twenty women in her law school class,
and Bobby having convinced the board of Temple Beth El that the
conference room should be repainted not in white, as it had always
been, but in turquoise. “Many of our members thought turquoise
was too bold, but Bobby said, ‘Well, we’re a bold congregation.’”
The Molochniks were less familiar to him, and indeed, less
familiar to many of the guests, “strangers in a strange land.”
Stalina eyed Osip to make sure he wouldn’t make a joke about the
science fiction book of that title, but he was calmer now that he’d
commandeered the pole.
A movement at the back — a new arrival — no, not Katya. It
was Osip’s most recent boss, a bony woman not beloved by any of
the Molochniks. Yana had promised that Katya would come.
It was Milla’s turn to say the vows. Osip strained forward to
hear her, pulling the chuppah off balance. “
A beautiful bride,
” the
handkerchief said, “
like a porcelain doll.
” Stalina squeezed it but
could not make it get quiet.
She could barely hear Milla.
“Will
marriage place her high on a proud mahogany bookcase, or will
marriage break her into delicate shards, too fine for even a mother to
repair, or will marriage melt her, as the heat released by a hydrogen
bomb melts even the sturdiest china? Ah!
” Milla walked around
Malcolm seven times, as the tradition said she should. She was so
gawky. How could she get married if she didn’t even know how to
walk gracefully in a dress?
However, Milla finished, smiled a little, and now it was time
to sign the contract. Malcolm had to put in writing that he would
take care of Milla. His parents were lawyers, so he would take it
seriously.
As Arkady Chaikin and a member of the mayor’s administration
came forward to witness the contract, the Russian Soul did its worst:
it sang a song Stalina had learned at Young Pioneer camp. She’d
had a boyfriend and he hadn’t cared that she was Jewish and he
was not. Soon, no one would even remember what the word “Jew”
meant, was their opinion. They sat at the campfire, holding hands,
and joined everyone in singing:
Crumbs of stars
I’ll give to you
Instead of a crown
A gentle song
“
And
did you find that gentle love you dreamed of?
” the
handkerchief said. “
Or did you ruin yourself for the sake of the old
bitch Adventure?”
Milla was staring at her with round, red-veined eyes. “You have
to drink the wine now,” Milla said.
Katya
In the airplane bathroom, the lights were blessedly dim, and
the mirror smudged her into any regular girl. Katya had missed her
first plane, and so had missed the ceremony, but should make it to
the reception, Yana had said, it would be extremely hard even for
Katya to miss the reception. Katya wasn’t worried, because she’d
taken a few pills.
She put on her bridesmaid’s dress. It came with a scarf, which
she tied in a bow at the front of her neck. It was like her head was
her wedding present.
As she returned to her seat, she felt calm and immense, and
also she wanted to die inside the dress. It was a dark pond and to
sink into it she took a few more pills. She fell asleep, and when she
awoke, she couldn’t remember how many pills she’d taken before,
so she took one more, and another in the taxi, to be safe.
The museum had three doors, but no people, and she chose the
door decorated with violets, and Yana was there. Katya had been
right about the doors. She wanted to tell Yana, but Yana spoke too
quickly: “Finally. Malcolm’s parents showed this movie they had
professionally made, called Legally Strauss, I was throwing up,
basically, but Mom was crying in the bathroom about how our
family was just as good, so can you sing ‘We Are Family’? Like
you did in that talent show, but without the weird man-voice? It’s
not the crowd for that. Do you remember the words? Say hi to
Milla — they’re carrying her on chairs again, with her consent or
not, I have no idea.” She stopped talking. “You’re on something.
Right?”
“Okay,” Katya said.
“I can get you water. Or coffee.” Yana pulled Katya’s hair back
from her forehead. “If we put you in a ponytail, you’ll look more
normal. Jesus Christ.”
Her father came up and said, arms spread, “We thought you’d
crashed plane!”
That wasn’t funny. Her family shouldn’t always be expecting
her to crash things.
Osip
Osip waited as Bobby Strauss, in a “morning suit” that matched
his own (Osip had never heard of grown men dressing like twins
before this wedding), finished his speech. “Here we are in the Hall
of Advanced Mammals, and I have to say — I’m feeling like a
dinosaur.” The Strausses laughed. Osip laughed, too, because he was
representing the Molochniks on stage. Stalina smiled her approval.
She was so much happier now that Katya was here.
Bobby Strauss was talking about September 11. “When all of us
felt as though we had lost our innocence, our children made the most
innocent decision of all…” Osip couldn’t be expected to come up
with something about September 11 on the spot, could he? Bobby
Strauss, in the meantime, had finished with terrorism and moved on
to Judaism, providing an English translation of the wedding contract,
explaining why it was a model legal document, pronouncing the
word “Ketubah” in what seemed to Osip like an excessively Hebraic
accent. He finished: “I hope this marriage endures as long as the
eighteenth-century Lodz Torah Milla carried up the aisle.” Colossal
applause, standing ovations, whistles and a few weeping faces. The
Russians tried to clap in rhythm, but broke down in the face of the
Americans’ chaotic onslaught.
Osip fixed his gaze on some small, smooth-featured horses
trotting across a mural. They, at least, looked friendly, expectant
of evolution but not impatient for it. “We are so happy Milla is
marrying a boy from such a large and —” Stalina mouthed the
word
culturnaya
— he remembered — “cultured family. Malcolm,
you are like son to me. Milla, you are like daughter.” A few people
laughed, Strausses, yet.
“Our great Russian bard Bulat Okudjava said about people in
love, they are ‘
Kracivie i mudriye kak bogi, schastliviye kak jiteli
zemli
.’ In English: ‘Beautiful and wise as gods, happy as Earthlings.’
This is what I see in Malcolm and Milla, and it makes me happy,
also.” A few people applauded.
He could stop here, but Bobby Strauss’s speech had been very
long, with symbolism. Osip could be symbolic. “My company
makes surgical staples.” The audience looked impressed, or, perhaps,
confused. “If you are stapled with our staple, it will be in you until
you die. From another cause, not rupture.” He turned his head, so as
not to see Stalina’s expression, and found himself face-to-face with
a Strauss grandfather, who was smiling. He was also drooling. Still,
Osip felt a little bit encouraged, a little bit understood. “So I hope,
my daughter and son, that your marriage is joined with very strong
staple. How? You must be design engineer.” Of marriage, but also
of staples for the marriage, no? He massaged his forehead, trying to
organize his thoughts. “You choose a good metal and the shape you
want. Then you see if works. If it doesn’t, fine, change.” What was
he saying?
He’d spent so much time telling Stalina it would all be all right.
Milla still had her eleven-year-old face. “We should now drink
to newlyweds.” Everyone drank — almost everyone. Roman, the
Chaikin nephew, had his arms crossed and was looking at the guests
as if he were about to report them.
Edward Nudel, that show-off, started the chanting: “
Gor’ka,
Gor’ka, Gor’ka
!” Bitter, bitter, bitter, the Russians shouted, first the
large, rowdy Boston contingent, then the smaller Stamford group.
Polya, Stalina’s cousin with all the problems, stood on a chair and
scratched her arms in time to the chanting. Milla, smart girl, kissed
Malcolm on the lips. The American guests looked so confused that
Osip, who’d been leaving the stage, returned to the microphone in
a pedagogical capacity. “
Gor’ka
means bitter,” he whispered over
the chanting. “The married young couple must kiss to make our
shampanskoye
sweet.
Shampanskoye
is champagne.”
The Russians smiled at one another, bolstered by Osip’s
explanation, and returned to the chant with renewed gusto. “
Gor’ka,
gor’ka, gor’ka, gor’ka, gor’ka, gor’ka, gor’ka!
” Milla kissed
Malcolm again and again.