He could have also been a roofer, but there wasn’t much new construction in Moscow—“not yet,” Harold would say, “but very very soon.” He could have been a road builder, but there wasn’t much road building or repairing in Moscow—“not yet, but very very soon.”
Alexander’s mother followed his father’s cues; she endured everything—except the shabbiness of the facilities. Alexander teased her (“Dad, do you approve of Mom’s scrubbing out the smell of the proletariat? Mom, Dad doesn’t approve, stop cleaning.”), but Jane would nonetheless spend an hour scrubbing the communal bathtub before she could get in it. She would clean the toilet every day after work—before she made dinner. Alexander and his father waited for their food.
“Alexander, I hope you wash your hands every time you leave that bathroom—”
“Mom, I’m not a child,” said Alexander. “I know to wash my hands.” He would take a long sniff. “Oh, l’eau de communism. So pungent, so strong, so—”
“Stop it. And in school, too. Wash your hands everywhere.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Shrugging, she said, “You know, no matter how bad things smell around here they’re not as bad as down the hall. Have you smelled Marta’s room?”
“How could you not? The new Soviet order is especially strong in there.”
“Do you know why it’s so bad? She and her two sons live in there. Oh, the filth, the stench.”
“I didn’t know she had two sons.”
“Oh, yes. They came from Leningrad to visit her last month and stayed for good.”
Alexander grinned. “Are you saying they’re stinking up the place?”
“Not them,” Jane replied with a repugnant sneer. “The whores they bring with them from the Leningrad rail station. Every other night they have a new harlot in there with them. And they do stink up the place.”
“Mom, you’re so judgmental. Not everyone is able to buy Chanel perfume as they pass through Paris. Maybe you should offer the whores some—for French cleansing.” Alexander was pleased at his own joke.
“I’m going to tell your father on you.”
Father, who was right there, said, “Maybe if you stop talking to our eleven-year-old son about whores, all would be well.”
“Alexander, darling, Merry Christmas Eve.” Having changed the subject, Jane smiled wistfully. “Dad doesn’t like us to remember the meaningless rituals—”
“It’s not that I don’t like to,” interjected Harold. “I just want them placed in their proper perspective—past and gone and unnecessary.”
“And I agree with him completely,” Jane calmly continued, “but it does get you in the chest once in a while, doesn’t it?”
“Particularly today,” said Alexander.
“Yes. Well, that’s all right. We had a nice dinner. You’ll get a present on New Year’s like all the other Soviet boys.” She paused. “Not from Father Christmas, from us.” Another pause. “You don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore, do you, son?”
“No, Mom,” Alexander said slowly, not looking at his mother.
“Since when?”
“Since just now,” he replied, standing up and gathering the plates off the table.
Jane Barrington found work lending books at a university library but after a few months was transferred to the reference section, then to the maps, then to serving lunch in the university cafeteria. Every night, after cleaning the toilets, she cooked a Russian dinner for her family, once in a while lamenting the lack of mozzarella cheese, the absence of olive oil to make good spaghetti sauce, or of fresh basil, but Harold and Alexander didn’t care. They ate the cabbage and the sausage and the potatoes and the mushrooms, and black bread rubbed with salt, and Harold requested that Jane learn how to make a thick beef borscht in the tradition of good Russian women.
Alexander was asleep when his mother’s shouting woke him. He reluctantly got out of his bed and came into the hall. His mother in her white nightgown was yelling obscenities at one of Marta’s sons, who was skulking down the hall not turning around. In her hands, Jane held a pot.
“What’s going on?” said Alexander. Harold had not gotten up.
“There I was, going to the bathroom, and I thought, let me go get a drink of water. It’s the middle of the night, mind you, what could be the problem with that? And what did I find in the kitchen but that hound, that filthy animal, with his disgusting paw in my borscht, digging out the meat and eating it! My meat! My borscht! Right out of the pot! Filth!” she called down the hall. “Filth and slime! No respect for people’s property!”
Alexander stood and listened to his mother, who kept on for a few more minutes and then, with angry relish, threw the entire pot of recently cooked soup into the sink. “To think that I would eat anything after that animal’s hands were in it,” she said.
Alexander went back to bed.
The next morning Jane was still talking about it. And the next afternoon, when Alexander came home from school. And the next dinner—which was not delicious borscht but something meatless and stewed that he did not like. Alexander realized he preferred meat to no meat. Meat filled him up like few other things did. His growing body confounded him, but he needed to feed it. Chicken, beef, pork. Fish if there was some. He didn’t care much for an all vegetable dinner.
Harold said to Jane, “Calm down. You’re really getting yourself worked up.”
“How could I not? Let me ask you, do you think that scum washed his hands after he pawed the whore from the train station that was with fifty other filthy scum just like him?”
“You threw the soup out. Why such a fuss?” said Harold.
Alexander tried to keep a serious face. He and his father exchanged a look. When his father didn’t speak, Alexander cleared his throat and said, “Mom, um, may I point out that this is not very socialist of you. Marta’s son has every right to your soup. Just as you have every right to his whore. Not that you would want her, of course. But you would be entitled to her. As you are to his butter. Would you like some of his butter? I’ll go and get some for you.”
Harold and Jane stared at Alexander cheerlessly.
“Alexander, have you lost your mind? Why would I want anything that belongs to that man?”
“That’s my point, Mom. Nothing belongs to him. It’s yours. And nothing belongs to you, either. It’s his. He had every right to rummage in your borscht. That’s what you’ve been teaching me. That’s what the Moscow school teaches me. We are all better for it. That’s why we live like this. To prosper in each other’s prosperity. To rejoice and reap benefit from each other’s accomplishment. Personally, I don’t know why you made so little borscht. Do you know that Nastia down the hall hasn’t had meat in her borscht since last year?” Brightly Alexander looked at his parents.
His mother said, “What in the name of the Lord has gotten into you?”
Alexander finished his cabbagy, oniony dinner and said to his father, “Hey, when’s the next Party meeting? I can’t wait to go.”
“You know what? I think no more meetings for you, son,”