The Cosmopolitans (24 page)

When Yana pulled in the driveway, Pratik ran out the back
door, wearing her father’s barbecue apron, with the words Fire Chief
across the chest. Or rather, the words would have been across the
chest, but the apron was too large for Pratik and so they bestrode
his narrow hips: “ire chi.” She almost laughed, but he looked very
serious.

He rapped on her window like a traffic cop. “I have prepared a
surprise feast for our dinner,” and then he ran ahead of her, back into
the house.

“Kat?” she yelled upstairs, once she’d gotten inside, but Pratik
told her Katya was at the library again.

“Sit,” he said, and his voice sounded like hers at the beginning
of class, when she wasn’t sure whether the kids would obey. She
wanted him to sit, too, so she could tell him about some revisions to
the classroom gum policy she’d been considering, but apparently, this
meal required all the china in the house. He flew back and forth from
the kitchen. “Kheer is what we have for dessert on special occasions,
but alas, or, happily! It is ready before the kalia. So. We will first
have the dessert, and then have the meal, like Australians.”

“What’s this, pudding?” Yana said.

“Yes, it is exactly! It is rice pudding.” Pratik stirred his spoon
through his bowl. Yana ate a few bites without speaking; it was very
good. “Mmmm,” she managed, feeling suddenly exhausted, and
hoped that would suffice. The pudding reminded her of bedclothes,
of a beanbag in the corner of her classroom, she was so lucky that
people had designed all these soft, yielding things in which to
sleep.

Pratik’s mood was livelier. He jumped up every minute or
so, apron flapping, to check on the kalia. “You’re acting like Jean
Strauss,” Yana said.

“Ha, ha.” Pratik raced back to the kitchen, returned with the
kalia in a fish-shaped dish the Molochniks used for gefilte fish. “Ta-
da!”

“It looks good. Relax.” Yana dug in. He’d put a lot of peas into
it, remembering they were her favorite vegetable. She looked up
when she realized Pratik had had the same forkful of kalia suspended
before his mouth for some time.

“What is it?” she said.

In the silence, she knew. He was breaking up with her. It had
been a while, and she’d forgotten the signs. Given their situation,
he couldn’t merely mumble that he needed his key back, as the
professor had. He needed to live in this house with her and couldn’t
afford to piss her off. So he was going to buy her off instead, with a
meal. So he thought.

“Prepare to celebrate,” Pratik said. Very clever: he was taking
a feminist approach. Perhaps he would quote
Their Eyes Were
Watching God
. She pushed her plate away.

“Allow me to introduce you to the new Earthquake Preparedness
Coordinator for Bang-Aid!” Pratik finally took a bite.

“Let me guess: you’re leaving town.”

“Yes,” Pratik said. He didn’t have to sound so exhilarated, but
he probably no longer cared about her feelings, if he ever had. To
think of all the time she’d wasted, blathering about him to Katya,
when she should have been listening to her sister, helping her. She
wasn’t really at the library today, Yana knew that, and had known on
other days Katya had made the same excuse, but hadn’t bothered to
learn more. She was probably back with her old friends. Pratik was
talking on and on. “…feel I must return to my fatherland.”

“How patriarchal of you.” When she missed him later, she’d
remind herself how empty and conventional he could be.

“You know they will not let me stay here, even if I want. I’ve
applied to more than fifty companies, Yana, you know this, no one
wants to give me a visa.”

“My dad was right. You should have studied real engineering,
like him.”

Pratik’s chin retreated into his neck. “I am happy to return to
Bangladesh. Bangladesh can be a wonderful place for a family.”

“Fatherhood in the fatherland.”

“What?” he said, but didn’t bother to find out. Instead, he began
digging under his apron. He wouldn’t dare to ask her for a goodbye
fuck, would he? He pulled out a brochure. “Here, for example,
Chittagong.” When she wouldn’t take the brochure from his hand,
he pushed it across the table.

Bending her head so he wouldn’t see her face, Yana read aloud:
“‘This romantic city combines the busy hum of an active seaport with
the shooting quiet of a charming hill town.’ That’s great. Shooting
quiet. There’s nothing like a bullet to put the, the heart at ease.” She
wasn’t being as funny as she wanted.

“English is not their language. Don’t worry about the language,
just look at the picture and tell me what you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking. Water, boat, restaurant. You could probably live
there until the next flood. Make sure your next girlfriend comes with
a flotation device. Silicon — ”

“Oh, no, Dove, that is to say —” He jumped from his chair and
knelt in front of her, the apron billowing around him like a tent,
burrowed under the apron again, pulled out a small box, opened it —
a ring. He was rocking back and forth, and the ring trembled on its
cotton bed. Yana threw the chair out from under her and plopped to
the floor next to him, partially under the table, which cast a shadow
over both of them, and reminded her of being little. As a child, she’d
longed to crawl underneath and surprise her elders, to grab a leg or
untie a shoe, but Milla had been too well-behaved to join her, and
Katya had been too small. She put a finger to his chapped lips. He
stilled. They stayed that way until they heard Stalina’s car in the
driveway, and then, Yana dropped the ring into her bra.

Osip

Stalina crossed her arms. Yana crossed her arms. They had only
to bend their knees, and they’d be dancing the Kozachok.

Pratik took a seat next to Osip on the couch. He was pale
and sweaty, which Osip appreciated. At least Pratik realized how
unwelcome his proposal was: I am here to beg that your daughter’s
hand travel with me to the Third World, where it will be chopped off
for committing an infraction of one of our many nonsensical laws.

“You want children Jewish or not Jewish?” Stalina said.

“We’re not going to say.” Yana squeezed her face into an
imitation of Stalina’s frown and shook her finger, “‘You have to go to
synagogue.’” When had Osip and Stalina ever forced the girls to go
to synagogue? Only to mark the anniversaries of their grandparents’
deaths — did Yana begrudge those visits?

Pratik raised his hands. “We are just meaning we do not want
to be like Ayatollah Khomeini, outlawing Baha’i. We will love our
children even if they are Baha’i.”

“
You hear that, Osya?
”

“
I hear it, what do you want me to say
?”

“English,” Yana said.

“In English, your papa and me are Ayatollah.” She crushed
her handkerchief in her fist, always a sign of trouble, and turned
on Osip. “
If we didn’t live here, v’ dikoi provinceeye, in the wild
provinces, if you’d let us move to Boston, your daughter would have
a chance to meet interesting boys. Now here she’s stuck with your
Arab experiment
.”

“Arab — ” Yana said, and Pratik looked up. She took a breath.
“You wanted another Malcolm? Another rich New York lazy-ass?”

“Malcolm is from good Jewish family, and they have good
Jewish baby Izzy.”

“Like that’s a big deal for us. Your dad was a Cosmopolitan,
hello?”

Stalina stepped back and almost out of her left shoe. Her bird chest
moved up and down. Osip stood. “Don’t ever,” she said. She stared
into the blank television. “Your grandfather was Internationalist. He
knew he was Jew. He was proud. He was a Cohen.” Stalina spread
her fingers in a vee shape.

“Was he a Dr. Spock?” Yana said under her breath.

“Not all Jews can do this. He was dreaming his grandchildren
are praying in Jerusalem, in temples where only Cohens allowed,
not running to Bangladesh.”

As if she were teaching schoolchildren new and difficult words,
Yana said, “We. Are. Getting. Married.” After a quick glance at both
of her parents, as if that was all she needed to see of them, she said,
“We don’t care what you think.”

“That’s it? You don’t care?” Osip said. He looked at Pratik,
whose fearful eyes perhaps mirrored his own. Osip put a hand to
his forehead and stared at the carpet. It was supposed to look like
a zebra’s skin. The stripes were at a twenty degree angle from the
fireplace.

“We would want your blessing —” Pratik said.

Yana lifted a hand. “The right to choose who I can marry —”

Stalina said, “What do we say to such a daughter?”

“Do you care or do you not care?” Osip said.

“She cares, Mr. Molochnik, of course, we both —” Pratik said.

“I don’t want you say it, I want she say it.” He sounded as if he
were still fifteen, trying to buy vodka with a breakable voice.

Yana said, “I’m a Care Bear.”

Osip ran from the room and out the back door.

It was raining, but he ran until he reached the red maple — his
own beautiful, exotic tree — behind the garage. Under its semi-
protective canopy, he could try to forget. He would stay until his
regular family had reclaimed the house. Osip had been the father
of three girls who jumped on him when he came home at night,
who loved his stories about computer programming and youthful
hooliganstvo
. Yana used to sit in that very tree, reading about her
crazy activists. Perhaps he should have talked to her back then, but
he’d thought that in America, children should be allowed to read any
kinds of books they liked. Why else had they come?