An Apartment Story
Brina Novogrebelsky
She was wearing “bohemian style” pants with elephants on them, and a seven-year-old hoodie she hadn’t washed in a month-and-a-half when she garnered the energy to get in the elevator and take her trash out. She wondered if people who lived in ranch houses ever threw their trash bags out their windows. From the comfort of their living rooms, they could hope the bags landed in the green cans they sprayed with bleach to keep their neighbors—the bears—from thrifting some dinner. Banana peels and eggshells and expired milk. She never got rid of her expired milk. More to make kefir with, as her mother would say. Her thoughts were interrupted by the abrasive voice of her neighbor Mila entering the vertical steel carriage.
Anyusha! How are you, sunshine?! We haven’t seen each other in so long!
Unfortunately Mila was not a bear, and could not be deterred by a sudden loud noise. Or bleach.
Privet Mila. Yeah, a while. I’m good, how are you?
Nu, cleaning, as usual. Are you going to the basement? Mila squeezed the wrist that was attached to the hand that was holding Anna’s banana peels and eggshells and string cheese wrappers. She was wearing a faded, pink nightgown with embroidered yellow tulips. The tulips reminded Anna of her mother.
It looks like you’re going to the basement. Me, too, I’m getting my laundry.
Anna was saved by the carriage door sliding open again. It was Mariam, with her burgundy lipstick and entirely black outfit. Anna had been jealous of Mariam’s dramatic black eyebrows from the moment the two met. Anna was fifteen years old when Mariam and her family immigrated into the building from Tbilisi; Mariam was aged anywhere between twenty and thirty-one. She was most likely on the older side because she got by in Russian fairly well. She and her husband got divorced two years later—they never had kids. Even now, as a thirty- to forty-year-old woman, Mariam remained single. She didn’t even have an overweight cat to hold her at night. And her mother died four years ago. Anna was twenty-two when her mother died within the same month.
Mariam smiled at the pair, First, please. Mila was quick to react. She practically jumped to press that dubious button. The button was supposed to have a glowing orange orb around its perimeter signifying to riders that they were indeed on their way to their desired floor. But the 1st floor button had stopped glowing about sixteen years ago. There was a faint shimmer, but it was only recognizable to Anna’s youthful 20/20 vision. Mariam, of course, had never seen this neon orange. She couldn’t have known she wouldn’t get out the door that day, even if she did recognize the lack of glow.
Anna generally tried her best not to be judgmental. She did take note that Mariam did not say “Hello” when she entered the vertical vehicle, though. Anna’s grandmother’s shpiel rang in her head.
Prosta sovostiy nyet. Americans in this building never share a greeting. I don’t understand, is it that hard to hold the door and say hi?
But Mariam wasn’t American, and Anna was, technically speaking. Technically technically speaking, they both were. All three women were American, constitutionally speaking.
At first glance, the trio had nothing in common. Mila, a sexless woman pushing seventy, preoccupied with her demented adult son who had a penchant for throwing toilet paper and empty beer bottles from his fifth-floor window. Mariam, the best dressed of them all, with an ageless, Eastern sort of femininity that Anna was too acculturated for. A woman whose shiny hair helped her evade the taboos of being a childless divorcee. Lastly, Anna, whose neighbors quietly whispered about her, a twenty-six-year-old orphan. Anna never moved out of the apartment she grew up in. She begrudgingly attended Brooklyn College, swallowing her disappointment, and replacing it with guilt instead. Her mother Yulya never outwardly asked Anna to stay nearby for college. Rather, she communicated with deep sighs and shakes of her head and the raises of a single left eyebrow whenever the topic of FAFSA came up. What Yulya did explicitly express was her discontentment with her daughter’s appearance. Anna was eleven the first time Yulya brought her to get her unibrow fixed in the basement of the hair salon she owned. It wouldn’t be long before her first laser hair removal appointment.
Understandably, Anna was much closer with her grandmother Vera than Yulya. Vera barely ever voiced her opinions on such shallow matters as hair and dress, gait and the crossing of legs while seated. Vera lived in the apartment two doors down from Anna. They had a nice little corner community in their hallway. All four apartments in the section were Jewish, and not just in the sense that there were standard mezuzahs that their landlord installed. Of course, none of the mezuzahs had Torah scrolls in them. And none of the renters kissed the empty Judaica as they entered their homes. They were Jewish in the sense that they all took their dusty, plastic “Christmas” trees out at the end of every Gregorian year. They joked about pork not being kosher as they ate their kalbasa. On Saturdays, while driving to NetCost, they silently envied their neighbors who knew how to pray. Every Passover, when they took a break from eating their buttered bread with caviar, they toasted to freedom. Comparing the Hebrews’ plight in Egypt to theirs in the Soviet Union. Their Promised Land not Judea, but Brooklyn. No Haggadah to reference, only anecdotes and contemporary history.
There was no trick or treating in the building, but Vera did receive a Paska bread every Orthodox Easter from the Ukrainians at the other end of the hall. They had their own little corner community but we don’t need to talk about that. The bread-cake concoction never tasted good. It was always dry and bland. But Anna did enjoy scraping the frosting off when she was a kid, and it was a kind gesture. She spent a lot of time as a child with her Baba Vera because Yulya was at the salon most evenings. Vera and Anna developed a routine that brought them both peace of mind. Anna learned to eat a small plate of cut bell peppers and cucumbers before dinner. Vera had a place to put her war stories. Together they made fun of the Russian newscasters on TV and discussed the week’s weather. They tsk’d at humidity, laughed when it wouldn’t stop pouring rain, and went on hours long walks, hand in hand, when the sun was out, no matter the temperature.
A piece of paper was taped on the elevator wall that read:
ATT. ALL RESIDENTS:
SUPER ON VACATION MARCH 17-24.
PLEASE CALL (718)444-8921 FOR ASSISTANCE.
ВНИМАНИЕ ВСЕХ ЖИТЕЛЕЙ:
СУПЕР НАХОДИТСЯ В ОТПУСКЕ 17-24 МАРТА.
ПОЖАЛУЙСТА ПОЗВОНИТЕ (718)444-8921 ЗАПОМОЩЬЮ.
Mari, your rings are so interesting, where do you buy such unique pieces?
Mariam stood still, unaffected by Mila’s grip on her hand. Or perhaps Mariam did not notice the zeal with which Mila surveyed her fingers. It’s all Anna thought about on their ride down. Although an unidentified but appropriate amount of time had passed, Anna could not shake off how cold Mila’s clench was. If she imagined it hard enough, Anna saw a glow circling around her wrist, like the blue-grey colorlessness of snow melting, unaware of an impending blizzard.
Despite Mila’s disregard for personal space, she was someone who had answers. You could go to her with any resident’s name, and she’d tell you their birthdate, how long they’ve lived in the building, and what passport they have. Mila, after all, was the local barber. Ten-dollar haircuts, any length or coil.
Anna tuned the local accoutrement talk out (apparently Mariam frequented the jewelry store on U, the one owned by the Armenian), and took a deep breath as she leaned against the wall. Her jumbo hair clip scraped against the super’s notice. She looked up and saw a crinkly brown leaf trapped in the vent. Anna was mesmerized by the consistent whirring. How long had that leaf been residing there? How long had she been in this steel carriage?
Before she could interrogate this thought, the leaf gracefully flew out of the vent, danced in the air for a moment with movements akin to Baryshnikov’s, and landed in one of her lime green NetCost trash bags.
Anna thought of her mother. Yulya, with her love for glamour and utmost femininity, could not stand the sight of flowers. International Woman’s Day was the worst; all the ladies at the salon got magnificent bouquets delivered to them. Gifts from their boyfriends and husbands, to make up for every other day of the year when the men came home from work to a hot meal, courtesy of their zhenshchitsy. Yulya never got a bouquet at the salon. She came home to Anna and Vera, sitting at the dinner table with a vibrant plate of fried tilapia and a tub of salat olivye. In the middle of the table was the vase Yulya and Vera had brought with them from Minsk, filled with lush green bamboos.
It was coming up, the yartzeit of Yulya’s death. Soon Anna and Baba Vera would get in a taxi—neither of them knew how to drive—and go to the cemetery in Queens. Vera would take her bag of little grey stones out of her beige purse and hand one to her granddaughter. They would silently place the stones on top of Yulya’s headstone at the same time, silently cry without acknowledging each other’s tears, and move on to the next family member’s grave. Vera’s cousin Yefim, husband Isak, Aunt Chaia, Anna’s father’s second cousin Sasha. Between family members they would read the names of strangers and guess who was an immigrant and who had been in America so long that they no longer knew what part of the Pale their family was from. This was based on first names and intuition and they were correct every time. Then Vera would return her bag of stones to her purse, they would use the cemetery’s bathroom, get back in the cab, tip the driver generously for waiting at the cemetery, and eat dinner at Vera’s apartment.
Neither Anna nor Vera cried at Yulya’s funeral until the reception at Restaurant Samarkand, when people got drunk and laughed weighted laughs. This was also when second and third cousins generally caught each other up on their lives. Anna cried to her second cousin Simon about being mean to her mom before she died. Simon called Yulya “a bitch, anyway” and Anna got offended. Then she started laughing and agreed, but the tears came back even harder because Anna knew she inherited Yulya’s bitchiness, her desire to be the most desirable. Simon was close to completing his engineering degree. Anna had just gotten her BA in literature. No, she wasn’t seeing anyone.
Anna requested that no one bring flowers to the funeral but of course all of her aunts and uncles and undistinguishable relatives did. Two flowers from each household. This infuriated her, but Vera had to remind her that traditions are hard to let go of. “You’re here to be Jewish, so stop being so Soviet for a damn minute.” Vera laughed and pet Anna’s hair so gently, it was as though she was a newborn baby and her keppe was sensitive, to be protected.
She thought of this as she looked down at the leaf newly in her possession. She observed its folds and lines, a new leaf swirled down from the vent and gut stuck to her hoodie, directly on her left breast. This one was yellow, not brown, and not nearly as crispy. She was disappointed at this, though, because she admired the crispiness. How futile it was, one crunch and the brown leaf could turn to dust, like a poorly-taken-care-of codex.
