The Language of Sisters Read online

  “She likes to win,” I said.

  “I love it when I know she’s prosecuting a case, because I know that guy’s going to the slammer,” Mikey said. “She gets all the lunatics, and those boys gotta get locked up. I got daughters and I can’t have them walking the streets with my girls around.”

  When a bullet blasted through the front window, I hit the sidewalk, Mikey on top of me, Laura to the side.

  “Well, dang it,” Laura said, calm, so calm, as if she’d lost at a game of cards. “I didn’t think this one was going to get ugly.”

  “Darn,” Mikey said. “And I’m off shift in an hour. I’m supposed to be at my grandma’s by three.”

  Mikey, Laura, and I scrambled to get behind the open door of a police cruiser, then Mikey and Laura moved behind a different car, closer up to the house, guns out. A second and third bullet rang out.

  Beside me a captain named Harriet Chance rushed in, crouched down. “Hello, Toni.”

  “Hey, Harriet.”

  “Stay down low. I’m coming to Svetlana’s with my new boyfriend tomorrow night. Is your mama ... uh ... stressed?”

  “I know what you’re asking, and no, she’s not stressed. Not today.”

  She seemed a little disappointed.

  “I do, know, however, that’s she’s making her beef stroganoff and homemade bread.”

  Her face lit up. “Really? I love her beef stroganoff. That’s the recipe from her mother, right? She calls it ‘My Mother’s Tasty Beef.’ ”

  Harriet stood, briefly, and aimed her gun at the house. Boom! Glass shattered, then silence. I covered my ears.

  There were no more shots that night.

  I saw Harriet and her new boyfriend at the restaurant the next night. She appeared to be savoring “My Mother’s Tasty Beef” and the home baked bread. She stood up and gave me a hug.

  “Nice shot,” I told her.

  “Thanks!”

  * * *

  When we arrived in Oregon, we were traumatized, exhausted, and broke. But three days later, after long nights of sleep and tears of relief, my parents went to work for Uncle Vladan at his landscape business. Two college professors, shoveling bark dust, planting trees and flowers. Yet they were grateful for the work.

  My father took on a second job as a janitor at a hospital three nights a week. They immediately started going to community center classes to learn English and started “Speaky the English” at home, which became our family’s motto: Speaky the English.

  My mother’s contribution to Uncle Vladan and Aunt Holly’s home was to cook for the family with Aunt Holly. My parents could not get over the food in the supermarket, the amount, the range, the prices, and no lines. My mother had always cooked, the best she could, with limited amounts of everything, but in her heart, she was a chef. Now, finally, for the first time in her life, she could truly cook, and she lit up that kitchen like a culinary firework.

  I had never tasted food like that before. Everyone loved my mother’s meals and treats. Aunt Holly, an enterprising American woman, encouraged her to sell her Easter cake with vanilla, cinnamon, and raisins and her baked cheesecake at a farmer’s market. They rented a stall, and my mother cooked all night. She and Holly brought the desserts in early in the morning, with help from my father and Uncle Vladan.

  They set out samples and sold out by eleven o’clock the first day. They sold out by ten o’clock the next week as word got around. They started making more. And more. They sold desserts and they sold dumplings, potato cakes, and all kinds of soups. They took private orders. Soon my mother made more money baking than she did working for Uncle Vladan.

  That was when the idea for the restaurant was born. My parents insisted on paying Uncle Vladan and Aunt Holly rent the first month we arrived, then they saved every penny they had to rent a space for a restaurant. After about a year of scrapping and saving, they found a place, put in used industrial-sized appliances that they bought for cheap from a restaurant that was going out of business, bought wood tables at Goodwill and garage sales, threw white tablecloths and candles down, and had a scene of St. Basil’s Cathedral painted on the wall by a local art student.

  They named it Svetlana’s Kitchen and opened up.

  They worked night and day, my father at the landscaping business during the day, then at the restaurant weekends and nights. My mother was at the restaurant full time. They were wiped out, but they were happier than I’d ever seen them. They loved the restaurant. My mother loved to cook. My father took care of the books, the hiring, the interior. The food was delicious, plentiful. The Russian vodka flowed from the bar. We were soon jammed.

  At the end of the second year, my parents had saved enough for a down payment on a house in a neighborhood within a ten-minute walk of the restaurant. It was a rambling 1930s home, two stories, white, and needed a ton of work, but we loved it. We could not believe the amount of space. We could not believe that we each had our own bedroom. We still couldn’t quite grasp that we could adjust our own heat, that the government didn’t own our home, that the stove and the refrigerator always worked, and hot water would always flow when you turned the knob.

  In the Soviet Union, we knew not to trust our neighbors unless we knew them well and were close friends. That’s why curtains were always shut and why people whispered. But here, in America, we learned that neighbors were different. Uncle Vladan and Aunt Holly got along well with all of their neighbors, and they kept their curtains wide open. “We not hide anything,” Uncle Vladan said.

  My parents kept the curtains in front of our home open, too. “I no want people think I hiding a dead body,” my mother said.

  My parents were afraid we would not be accepted in our neighborhood because we were Russian. To not have friends around us, in this new American land where you could trust your neighbors, was unacceptable, so my mother made oreshki for all of our neighbors when we moved in and brought it to their homes herself, in a pink box with a pink ribbon.

  The walnut-shaped cookies with a dulce de leche cream inside were all they needed.

  They invited my mother in, my father, us.

  We were welcomed. We played with their kids. We chatted with their parents. We knew our friends’ grandparents.

  And they all came to Svetlana’s Kitchen.

  * * *

  My father eventually quit the landscaping business, my uncle Vladan cried because he would miss him, and my parents both worked full time at the restaurant. They started renting the second floor, too, and then they bought the whole building.

  My mother kept cooking.

  * * *

  “Oh. My. I can’t believe this.”

  I held the phone away from my ear as my cousin JJ yelled into it as soon as I said hello. I was practicing the art of Keeping The Monsters At Bay: Shopping Defensive Strategies, which meant I was at my favorite store. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m calling about Anya.”

  “What about Anya?”

  “She wants to give the bridal shower for Ellie.” The tone was accusatory, as if Anya had robbed a bank, then firebombed a car, all while kidnapping an entire city, and she, JJ, crusader of righting wrongs, was reporting back on that heathen.

  “Okay.” I studied the beige pencil skirt in my hand with black cutouts down the side and a black, lacy sleeveless shirt.

  “I want to, Toni.” Stubborn tone. “I want to.”

  “You do? But you’re so busy with the salon and the kids.”

  “So is Anya! She’s rehearsing for that play right now. I would be better at giving the shower. I have heaps of stuff in the back room, shampoos and rinses and crap like that, that I can give the ladies as bridal shower gifts. Plus, I’m going to bring two of my girls and we’re going to do everyone’s hair. Wouldn’t that twirl your skirt up? It would mine.

  “Anyhow, tell Ellie I want to do it. And are you using the curling iron to make a few curls like I showed you? You’re not. I know you’re not. I don’t want to see your hair like it was at t
he restaurant a few nights ago. It’s bad advertising for me.

  “Also, Chelsea keeps sneaking out at night. She keeps getting piercings, too. She is a rebellious, out of control, horny rabbit. Hope, on the other hand, is an angel. I have to go. My client is here. Devil Dee Dee coming in. The woman can talk for an hour about her manicure. If I started talking about how my leg had fallen off, within twenty seconds we’d somehow be talking about her again. Ugh. I’m doing the shower. I love you, Toni. Bye.”

  I bought the beige pencil skirt. New clothing armor.

  * * *

  I was called again in five minutes.

  “Toni,” Anya said, breathing hard. “I’m in rehearsal, have to be back up on stage in minutes here, and my eyelashes are falling off and my bladder is full.”

  “Why are you calling me? Shouldn’t you be in Zen mode or practicing your lines or something?”

  “Because I need to talk to you.” Anya lowered her voice, still panting. I recognized the pant. It was the hypochondriac pant. “About a slight medical issue I’m having. I have an itch. Under my left arm. Do you ever get itches only under one arm, not the other?”

  “Uh, not usually.”

  “Oh Lord. There’s something wrong with me, then. I’ll bet it’s an organ. One of my organs is sick and causing me to itch. You release cortisone when your body is fighting something, and that causes the itch. The other day I had a bump on my leg. It itched, too. What is that bump, I asked myself? I looked it up on the Internet. I determined it could be a tumor, a bunched-up vein, a bone that was broken that I didn’t know about, or the beginning of a benign growth that could grow up to six inches long.”

  “And what did it turn out to be?”

  “I rushed to the doctor and he said it was a spider bite.” Her volume rose. “Isn’t that awful? I asked, ‘What kind of spider bite?’ And he didn’t know. So I researched spider bites.” She rambled on about spiders and what type of nasty spider it could be, and the possible cataclysmic health problems that could ensue, now and in future.

  “Don’t you have to go onstage soon?”

  “What? Yes. One minute. So, tell Ellie I’m going to do her bridal shower. And watch out for spiders, Toni. I’m not kidding. I might have poisons in me right now, as I speak, that will cause me to become paralyzed, on stage. Shoot, someone’s yelling my name. Don’t forget, I’m doing the bridal shower. I’ll make first aid kits for all the ladies for gifts and add a huge bottle of hand sanitizer.”

  Anya hung up. She is an outstanding actress, and the Kozlovsky families all go to her plays. We would be going to this one, opening night, even though my uncle Vladan clutches his heart, his daughter an actress, and mutters, “Woe on my life. A actress. What? No husband? No babies? Why this happen to me? Woe on my life.”

  * * *

  The next day, Zoya and Tati called me. They were both on speakerphone.

  “How are ya, Toni?”

  “Tati and I want to do Ellie’s bridal shower, Toni,” Zoya said. “It’ll be a par-tay! We’re going to have a theme. Ready for it? Hang on to your bustier. The Stripper Shower. Like the sound of that? Tati thought of it, I can’t take credit. She thinks of everything. The other day she designed a nurse’s stripper outfit.” She screeched again. “It made me emotional.”

  “Thanks so much for offering.” Here we go. I took a breath and prepared to be peacekeeper for the bridal shower war. “There is a teeny problem. Anya and JJ want to do it, too, so I need to talk to Ellie.”

  “What?” What a shriek. Blew my ear out. Neither Tati or Zoya holds any emotion in. None.

  “No!” Tati said. “We’re going to do it. For bridal shower gifts for all the ladies we’re going to give them a stripper outfit. They’ll love it.”

  I pictured Aunt Polina and Aunt Holly and my mother in their stripper outfits. I laughed, then tried to pretend I was coughing. “Stripper outfits?”

  “Yes. Every woman needs to find the stripper within themselves.”

  “Even Aunt Polina?”

  They hesitated.

  “Yes. Uh. Yes, I think so. It’s in there somewhere. Deep down,” Zoya said.

  “With Aunt Polina it would be deep, deep, quite deep down,” Tati said, “but we could yank it out and dance with it and teach it to slither.”

  “You’re going to find a slithering stripper outfit for Aunt Polina?”

  “Uh, yes,” Tati said. “She might need some Russian vodka first... .”

  “Like a pint?”

  “Yes, but we’ll find that spiritual stripper. I feel a powerful pull toward it.”

  “So you’re going to give all the bridal shower guests something to wear that is short and tantalizing with Velcro?”

  Zoya said, in all sincerity, “Yes. We’re family. We’re the Kozlovskys. We want everyone to be together. I know that there will be other people there, too, but this is our bonding time. Kozlovsky time. When we’re all together.” She gasped on a sob.

  “Are you crying, Zoya?”

  “No.” She sobbed.

  “Yes, she is,” Tati said. “And now I’m crying! Quit crying, Zoya! But, think of it, Toni, this is a time for the Kozlovsky women.” Her voice wobbled. “Generations, as one, for a stripper bridal shower, holding hands, dancing. A pole. It’s making me feel. Love. Gratefulness for the family. I feel lust, too.”

  “Lust? Right now?”

  “Yes. But not for you,” Tati clarified. “I need a man. Wait! I have a new boyfriend. His name is Raoul. No, Randy.”

  “I’ll give him a week.”

  “Don’t be negative. He’s a month-er. Anyhow! Zoya and I want to do the shower. Pasties for all! Thongs for all! And we’re going to get boas, too, the feathery ones. Everyone in pink.” She sniffled. “We’re doing the shower.”

  “Yes,” Zoya said. “Us. The la la twins.”

  “La la,” Tati sang, then sniffled again.

  I had four warrior women relatives wanting to host Ellie’s shower.

  It was not going to be bonding time, it was going to be an epic battle.

  * * *

  “They all want to do my shower?” Ellie asked, stricken, when I called her to see if she had an opinion on who should give it.

  “Yes.”

  “What another nightmare.”

  “Another nightmare? You mean in addition to the nightmare of being engaged?”

  “Forget I said that.” Her voice petered out.

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. I’m in love.” Her breath caught, as if a hook had snatched it away.

  “If you were in love, you would be happy, excited, but calm, too.”

  “I’m happy,” she wailed. “I’m excited, damn it, so damn excited. And I’m calm!” she wailed again. “Can’t you tell I’m calm?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m calm!” Her volume went to high and hysterical. “So calm!”

  It became quite quiet on her end of the phone.

  Then I heard a bag inflate, deflate, inflate ...

  “I’m going to have to buy you more brown bags, Ellie.”

  Moscow, the Soviet Union

  The black rot in the Soviet Union, in Moscow, grew like tentacles, reaching out to strangle whom it could.

  It grew like the heavy clouds blanketing the city, the raindrops that drenched us, the winds that blew through, screaming a warning. It was a hard life, filled with deprivation, worry, endless work, and a soul-sucking government that would not tolerate dissent, or you would be labeled an “enemy of the people.” There was mass surveillance and a systematic oppression of anyone who spoke against the government, or for democracy, capitalism, Christianity.

  My father continued to lead us in prayer at every meal. My mother hid a Bible beneath the floorboards and read it to us. They taught us about God, Jesus, Mary, the disciples, the Old and New Testaments, the Apostle Paul, the stories of the Bible. They were careful, because of us.

  But my uncle Leonid, fun, bright, funny, was no
t being careful.

  “Leonid,” my mother whispered to my father one night, “is getting too loud, Alexei. He is writing articles for two underground newspapers now.”

  “I know, Svetlana. I talked to him. I told him to stop, to hide, to leave.”

  “Each week he gets more bold.”

  My father put his head in his hands.

  “What is it, Alexei?”

  “Svetlana.” He reached for her. “Leonid wrote an article yesterday where he said that the KGB is a band of thugs, dangerous and out of control, violent and protected by an invasive, inept government that stole from the people. He said they had infiltrated Russian life, turning father against son, daughter against mother, neighbor against neighbor.”

  My mother covered her mouth. “Oh, my Lord, protect him.”

  “He will need it. He will go to prison if he does not leave the Soviet Union.”

  My mother bowed her head to pray. “God, may Leonid’s enemies’ feet be infected by gangrene. May their ears be packed with worms. May you strike them in the head with a serpent. Bless you, Mary, mother of God, for your sacrifice and help us against our enemies. Keep the Kozlovskys safe. We are good people. Amen.”

  Even as a child I heard about the prisons in the Soviet Union, most of which were labor camps. Run by the devil, his boss Communism and the KGB. The prisoners, many of whom were not criminals but political protestors, worked all day in incredibly harsh conditions, some in Siberia. They were starved. They were beaten. If they did not get enough work done on one day, they were given less food the next day. The prisons were overcrowded, and the prisoners often turned on one another, the guards sadistically turning on the prisoners. They slept on wood planks, shivering through the night, their clothing nothing against the wind and pounding cold, their bodies withering.

  When Elvira’s friend Lena’s father was taken in the middle of the night, my father said to my mother, “We must make plans to leave. We will drag Leonid with us.”

  She nodded.

  When I spotted Lena’s father’s body floating down the Moskva River and I told my parents, the planning ramped up.