“I am angry, Mom. It’s not my eyebrows.”
“Yes I know, darling, you keep saying that. But they give you a sullen look, like a sulky little boy. You would be so much more attractive without it. Don’t you think, Selin?”
I knew the look she meant, it was at a certain angle when she looked down, and it was dear to me. “I like Svetlana’s eyebrows,” I said.
“Ah!” She sighed. “You girls are so young.”
“I don’t feel young,” Svetlana said. “This day has aged me a thousand years. You cannot imagine, Selin, what a tiring day this has been. Arguing endlessly since seven in the morning about how Sasha fucked up my childhood.”
“Well, you know darling, it wasn’t arguing, since I agree with you completely. I was monstrous. Monstrous. But what’s the point of dwelling on all that now? Who cares? Now we can move on. Am I correct?”
Svetlana didn’t say anything but seemed to simmer almost audibly like the coconut milk in the little pot.
“You turned out great,” I said, and put my hand on hers. “I mean, just look at you!”
“That is not the point!” exclaimed Svetlana’s mother, rapping the table with her ring. “Even if she was monstrous, we’d simply have to work with what we had. There would be no point arguing.”
SPRING
On the first day of the semester, we learned some irregular Russian nouns that looked feminine but took masculine case endings. They were good nouns: “calendar,” “dictionary,” “briefcase,” “bear.” Ivan came late, and sat directly behind me. In his physical presence it was impossible to believe that he had written me those emails.
Because we were sitting close to each other, Ivan and I ended up being partners in a drill on the instrumental case. You had to ask each other what you wanted to “become” after the university. Whatever that thing was, it had to go in the instrumental case. Ivan said he wanted to become a mathematician. I said I wanted to become a writer.
“What do you want to write? Histories, essays, poems?”
“No, novels.”
“Interesting,” said Ivan. “In my opinion, you can write a good novel.”
“Thanks,” I said. “In my opinion, you can become a good mathematician.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“I don’t know. I’m polite.”
“Aha, I see.”
That seemed to do it for our conversation. I looked around at the rest of the class. They were all still talking, laboriously, like seals.
“Where do you want to live after the university?” I asked, though it wasn’t part of the exercise, and didn’t use the instrumental case.
“After the university here?” Ivan pointed at the floor. “Here, at Harvard?”
“After the university, here at Harvard.”
“I want to live in Berkeley.”
I tried to remember what Berkeley was. “In . . . California?”
Ivan nodded. “I want to go to graduate school at Berkeley in California.”
I had never been to or thought about California.
Varvara handed out the last installment of “Nina in Siberia.” It used all six grammatical cases. Ivan and I took the stairs together.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked. It sounded existential.
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep up.
He slowed down. “Are you going to a class?”
“Not for another hour,” I said. “What are you going to do now?”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I’m going to a class.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t really want to go.”
So don’t go, I tried to say. He held the door for me—a heavy fire door. I didn’t like to walk ahead of him. I didn’t like him to leave my field of vision, and I didn’t like that he could see my back. I went through the door. We said goodbye and I went to the student center, where I bought a coffee and sat down to read about Nina.
7. The Eclipse
That spring, there was a solar eclipse. Nina and Leonid went to a conference in the city of Ulan-Ude, in the Buryat Republic in Eastern Siberia: the best place in the world to observe the eclipse.
Nina’s presentation was a great success. Everyone agreed that it was “the latest word in physics.” Afterward, there was a big dinner. The physicists ate sturgeon, drank vodka, chatted, and told anecdotes until late at night.
“Good evening,” said a stranger. Nina and Leonid turned and saw—a shaman. “For only two rubles, I will tell your fortune,” said the shaman.
Leonid gave the shaman two rubles. The shaman looked for a long time at Nina’s palm. “You’re starting a new life,” he said finally. “It seems to me you will be married soon.”
Leonid gave the shaman five more rubles.
?
The next morning, Nina woke at dawn and dressed in her warmest clothes. She put on her fur hat from the “Siberian Spark.” She and Leonid went to the observation site. There were many physicists there.
Suddenly Nina heard a familiar voice. “Nina!”
She turned and saw Ivan.
“Nina,” Ivan said. “Congratulations on yesterday’s brilliant presentation. How glad I am to see you! Tell me, how is life?”
“Ivan!” said Nina. “Life is very good.”
“Hello, Ivan,” said Leonid.
“Hello, Leonid,” said Ivan.
The three students fell silent.
“Nina. Leonid. Listen,” Ivan said finally. “I want you to finally know the truth about me. In Moscow, Nina was my friend, and I thought that I loved her. But last summer I met Galina and fell in love. Galina lived in Siberia and planned to marry Leonid. I lived in Moscow and planned to marry Nina. Galina and I simply decided to forget about each other. But then I received a letter from my uncle. He invited me to work in his laboratory in Novosibirsk. I understood then: this was fate.”
“Fate?” repeated Nina.
“I decided to go to Novosibirsk, but I was afraid to tell you, Nina. Somehow it seemed to me that you would understand that everything was over between us. Later, when I learned that you had come to Siberia, I understood how stupid and cowardly I had been. I started to write you a letter, but I couldn’t find the words. Nina, forgive me if you can.”
“Forgive you, Ivan?” said Nina. “But I’m grateful to you! If you had stayed in Moscow, I wouldn’t have come to Siberia. If I hadn’t come to Siberia, I wouldn’t have met Leonid.”
“Kids!” someone shouted. “The eclipse is starting!”