Pratik
“Your first Jewish wedding, huh?” Mrs. Rabinowitz said to
Pratik. He was seated at a table with nine Strausses, who had pulled
their chairs together to discuss someone’s son’s potential Jacuzzi,
and two Rabinowitzes.
“What a location, huh?” Mrs. Rabinowitz said to Pratik, pointing
to a display. “Look at them, fighting over a girl.”
“She means female moose,” Mr. Rabinowitz said.
“What, you’re a biologist now?”
Mr. Rabinowitz looked as though he were about to say something,
but only made a quiet sound, somewhere between a whistle and a
moan.
“In Bangladesh we have a museum like this, but no one ever
gets married in it,” Pratik said, watching Yana talk to the keyboard
player, a man with a shaved head and pleated neck — a turtle.
Mrs. Rabinowitz laughed, and then grew serious. “Osip told us
how you…came to be. Feel free to ask us anything you want. Even
if you think it sounds stupid, it’s okay.”
“Thank you.” What could Yana possibly have to say to that man?
Perhaps he was shirking his work, and she was reprimanding him.
Mrs. Rabinowitz said, “We were the ones who helped Osip
and Stalina when they first got here. We showed them where the
synagogue was, and how to use the supermarket —”
“— Not the supermarket, the laundromat —” Mr. Rabinowitz
said, chunks of risotto toppling from his fork.
“— And now we’re just really good friends.” Mrs. Rabinowitz
nodded at Pratik until he felt like he had to say something.
“What wonderful luck.” Pratik ate a forkful of grotesquely
overcooked rice. Yana had moved away from the keyboardist and
the band was playing a new song, more pop rock without singing.
Mrs. Rabinowitz wiped her mouth, re-applied lipstick, and kissed
the napkin. “I’ll start slow, okay? The chuppah is that canopy?” She
drew an arch in the air. Couples were coming onto the floor: Milla
and Malcolm, their college friends, Mr. Molochnik pretending to
drag Mrs. Molochnik by the hair.
“The friends decorate it. For my wedding, my friends hung
Snickers bars on it. I said, ‘You know I’m eating these, right?’”
Now Yana was half-sitting at the very edge of a chair with the
bridesmaids and a girl who looked almost like her, but not as pretty
— Katya, the youngest sister, probably, opposite a sloth skeleton.
Yana started to get up, and another one of the bridesmaids patted her
arm, said something that made her nod and sit all the way back in
her chair and take a drink of wine.
“Any questions? Am I going too fast?” Mrs. Rabinowitz said.
Pratik smiled and shook his head. He did have a question, but
it bore no relation to Judaism; at least, he hoped it did not. Why
didn’t anyone know how to dance? Even those guests who were
in time with the music had only four or five different movements.
Pratik had been only a peripheral member of the bhangra dance
group at university, but even he knew twenty-six individual steps
and motions. “You are being most illuminating.”
“See?” Mrs. Rabinowitz said to her husband, “I’m
illuminating
.”
She leaned closer to Pratik, “Repeat after me: kugel…”
Perhaps he could teach his dance steps to Yana. She would wear
a belt of gold coins and a red sari, she’d be sweating — but why
not ask her to dance now? He wasn’t his father, shrinking behind
doorways of consulates, waiting to be asked. Mr. Molochnik had
dragged Mrs. Molochnik out by the hair. Perhaps that was what they
liked in this family, a firm, manly approach.
Mrs. Rabinowitz said, “Sour cream, crushed cornflakes, cottage
cheese, cinnamon…”
However, in all of the dancing couples, the man was taller than
the woman, whereas Pratik was slightly shorter than Yana. Was it
just not done here, to have a minor size discrepancy in favor of the
woman? An absurd prejudice. Pratik’s own mother was a bit taller
than his father, and when they were together, they looked elegant,
cosmopolitan. Not that they ever danced.
“I usually serve it with pineapple,” Mrs. Rabinowitz said.
Yana was still at the table, alone with Katya. No one had invited
her to dance, probably because her combination of beauty and
intelligence was so intimidating. “All right, old boy,” he said to
himself, assuming a hearty British accent, like that of the grocer he
and his mother had visited in London.
All of us, in times of danger, call forth the songs that make us
brave. Those about to be the Most Valiant Heroes of 1971 sang the
songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam. Pratik, too, possessed a talisman in lyric
form. He allowed his eyes to half close, and imagined Robert Plant
rocking, flinging about his curly locks (much like Yana’s), singing
of his quest to reach a place “Over the Hills and Far Away.” Just
thinking of the song’s ending, the screaming bravado of all those
oh’s, gave him the strength to excuse himself from the Rabinowitzes
and make his way over to where Yana sat. He needed to think through
Jimmy Page’s entire guitar riff before he was able to tap her on the
shoulder.
She turned around, and he noticed that some of her mascara had
leaked below her eyes. Had she been crying? Did weddings make
her sentimental?
He said, “This must be your younger sister, Katya? I am so
pleased to meet you.”
Katya’s eyes closed.
Yana mouthed something to him, “Can you believe it?” or “Can
you see it?” glanced at Katya again, and then said loudly, “Are you
having a good time?”
“It is a phenomenon of a wedding. And you, how do you like
it?”
“So far, it’s been more work than my worst student-teaching
day, and I don’t know what’s next. At least Katya finally got here,
right, Katya?” Katya opened her eyes and nodded. “Have more
coffee,” Yana said.
“Is she all right?” Pratik asked.
Yana shrugged.
“All right,” Pratik said, and just stood for a moment. “What were
you worrying over before?” It was hopeless: how could any of these
limp queries possibly lead to dancing?
“What, now?”
“Before I saw you, it looked like you wanted to stand up, and
then your friend eased your worry.” Pratik realized he was pretending
to pat Yana’s arm as her friend had done. His hand hovered above
her warm skin.
“You were watching me?”
“I was watching the room around, the exhibits are interested,
interesting.” How he hated whatever it was that made his English
abysmal just when he needed it most.
“Okay.” Yana looked back at her plate, which was almost
empty. Such a strong, healthy girl, so different from the sticks in his
graduate program.
Led Zeppelin had promised: many dreams come true.
“Perhaps after you’ve eaten, you will like to dance?”
Yana shook her head.
He sagged. “No problemo.”
“No, I was just surprised. Sure, if you want to dance, we can
dance. I’m not really a dancer.” Pratik bit his lip to prevent himself
from saying he already knew that, he had guessed, but he would
teach her, for hours if necessary. “I might have to go, like in the
middle of the dance, if there’s some emergency.”
“All right,” Pratik said, almost breaking into laughter, wanting
to dance right there, a courtship dance from the Bollywood movies
of which his father disapproved.
Yana stood: so it was going to happen that very moment. He
followed her, eyes on the slim trail of hairs at the back of her neck,
until they were in the very center of all the dead beasts.
She stood back, looking at him. The band began playing a fast
song, something Latin. Pratik had never danced to this kind of
music: perhaps the keyboardist was to blame. He didn’t know —
was he supposed to take her in his arms? Would a double kick-clap
be apropos?
Before he could decide, Yana said, “I took merengue for my
fascist Movement requirement.” She stepped forward, her lips at the
level of his eyes. “You step back.”
As she pushed him this way and that, his eyes told her lips that he
would always do what she said, even if it meant separating himself
from her, and pleaded that she never ask such a thing of him. The
dance sped up, and she breathed with her mouth: a smell of fresh
fish, beloved by both their cultures, poured forth like a promise.
Katya
Katya may have been out of it but she wasn’t too out of it to
know what she saw when she looked at her sister and that Indian
guy. The way he looked up at Yana was the way no one would ever
look up at Katya unless they were her children, and then it would
only be because they were hungry, her children would be hungry, of
course. Although it was a fast song, she was not happy like she had
been once in a while at raves. Which was a good thing, of course.
At least now Katya could drink some champagne. Before, Yana had
covered her glass when the waiters came by.
Her father was looking at her. She smiled and twirled her fingers
around the sides of her head like “pa-aarty,” but he frowned. She
rested her chin on her clasped hands like Audrey Hepburn as a
waiter filled her glass. If that didn’t reassure him, nothing would.
Who wouldn’t want Audrey Hepburn for a daughter?
Yana pinched her shoulder. She must have fallen asleep again.
“You’re up next,” Yana said. “All right?”
“Oh, I feel very restored now,” Katya said, because it was an
Audrey Hepburn thing to say, and because she did feel all right. She
mounted the stage, almost bumping into the cute, cute! keyboard
player. “Let’s go, boys.”
As the music began, Katya saw her mother, standing in a little
circle of her own, staring at Katya as if Katya were her Barbie Dream
House, her mansion. And when her mother saw that Katya saw, she
smiled and began shrugging her shoulders in jerky little motions.