Red Ticket: My Second Mother
“I am an efficient housewife,” I wrote again and again, “I do not throw things away.”
Every weekend we serialize Red Ticket, Robin Whetstone’s memoir of her time in Moscow in the early ‘90s. Today, Robin watches a telenovela with her boyfriend’s mother. If you need to catch up, go back and read chapters 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6, 7, 8-9, 10-11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19.
Chapter 20:
by Robin Whetstone
Things at home had improved since the publication of my article in the Guardian. Lyosha’s mother had been a chef for Communist potentates before the collapse two years earlier, and considered herself a patriotic Soviet. She was flattered that I was writing magazine articles about her culture and told everyone to leave me alone because my work was important. She started calling me “Robinkaya” instead of “the American” when she gossiped about me to her friends on the phone, and refilled my teacup while I wrote at the dinette. She allowed me to join the family at the table for dinners of raw beets with sour cream, breakfasts of pickled herring in mayonnaise, and, always, cheese toast. I was also invited to sit with Valentina Fedorovna while she watched “My Second Mother,” her favorite television show.
“My Second Mother” — Mi Segunda Madre in the original Spanish — was a Mexican soap opera that was clumsily overdubbed in Russian. The episodes I saw focused on the exploits of Ramon, a scalawag if there ever was one, and featured an improbable number of heavily made-up women falling down staircases. The contrast of the visual hysteria on the screen with the dry, sexless voices of the Russian overdub actors made this show highly watchable. Ramon taught me a lot of useful Russian, but more than that, he gave Valentina and me a way to connect.
Each time Ramon poured a drink for the maid, pulled a dagger from his billowy shirt, or fixed a convent novitiate with a piercing gaze, Valentina would shake her head and mutter. “Akh,” she’d say, “Ramon.”
I decided to castigate Ramon as well. A variety of phrases were yelled at me each day by old ladies who were furious that I was sitting on a stone wall, going out with my long hair down, smoking in public, and wearing those awful boots. I decided to try them out.
“Akh, bednaya jeezn,” I said as Ramon burned the letter establishing his paternity. Oh, terrible life.
“Da, da,” nodded Valentina.
“Kak chernoye dyen!” I said, watching Ramon flee the scene of the accident. Such a black day!
“Agreed,” said Valentina, twining her fingers together. On the TV, a policeman shook his head. No one survived, he said, as Ramon cried his crocodile tears.
“Kashmor!” I yelled. Nightmare!
“Exactly!” said Valentina, as the credits rolled.
I was grateful for the détente between Valentina and me, but our new friendship came at a cost. Valentina didn’t blame me for my lack of domestic skills; after all, I came from America, a place so barely functional that no one knew how much a bushel was supposed to weigh and the chickens lay around in the fields all day, limp and boneless. Now that I was here, though, Valentina would teach me to be a proper lady with frequent housekeeping and deportment lessons that lasted forever and occurred whenever she felt like it.
One afternoon, I was lying on my bed reading Cold Sassy Tree when there was a soft knock on the door. Before I could respond, Valentina poked her head in and said, “Robinkaya, could I ask you a question if it does not offend you?”
“Da,” I said, “Of course.” My heart sped up, as it always did whenever Valentina was around. What had I done now? What could she want? My anxiety over what was going to happen next pushed the ability to understand Valentina’s question straight out of my head.
“Robinkaya, could I ask you a question if it does not offend you?”
“Da,” I said, “Of course.” My heart sped up, as it always did whenever Valentina was around. What had I done now?
“Why did you blah blah that big bag of blahdy blah?”
I looked around for clues while Valentina stared at me, waiting for an answer. “Big bag,” I thought. “She’s talking about me doing something with a big bag. What big bag is there?”
My eye fell on my suitcase, and suddenly I knew. Valentina had come in my room while I was out, looked in my suitcase, and found the big bag of condoms that I still had with me. Of course Valentina, with her strong opinions about appropriate behavior, would want to know why her son’s girlfriend’s suitcase was mostly filled with condoms. Just what was I planning, exactly? I decided to answer her question as plainly and confidently as possible. Maybe if I just put it to her straight she’d accept it and go away. “Yes, they’re condoms. I brought them with me from America because I heard they’re hard to find here. I’m going to trade them.”
Valentina blinked. “What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“Condoms,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
Valentina left the room, shaking her head, and returned moments later with a big bag of dates. I had purchased these dates back at 66 Sukharevskaya and had just that morning finally accepted that I did not at all like dates. Unable to figure out what else to do with a half-rotten bag of fruit, I’d thrown it away.
“Dates,” said Valentina. “I found this big bag of dates in the trash can. Why did you throw them away?”
“Oh. They were bad.” I was relieved. She hadn’t found the condoms after all.
“What condoms?” she said, looking around at the ceiling as if the condoms were bats that were about to become entangled in her hair.
“No,” I replied as firmly as possible, shaking my head. “No condoms.” Maybe she’d think she’d misunderstood me. Maybe she’d think one of us had had a stroke.
“Robin,” said Valentina, “Get up and come with me.”
I followed her into the kitchen and sat where she pointed, at the dinette. She leaned over the table, writing something at the top of a piece of typing paper. After a minute she put the paper down in front of me and handed me the pencil. “Copy it,” she said. I looked at the two sentences she’d written, which I didn’t completely understand. I reached for the dictionary I kept on the windowsill next to the telephone. When I’d deciphered the meaning of the sentences she’d written, I looked up at Valentina.
“Seriozjno? You seriously want me to write this?”
“Da,” she replied. “Both sides.” She crossed her arms and looked at me with no expression. It was clear that she would stand there until I did what she said, plus I was afraid that if I fussed too much she’d start asking questions about condoms again. So I took up the pencil and copied her spidery writing.
“I am an efficient housewife,” I wrote again and again, “I do not throw things away.”
Click here to read Chapter 21.
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