The Yalta Conference

Anatoly petrovich arrived in Yalta to try to bed my grandmother a fortnight into our trip. I was already going insane by that point, realizing my plan to take a break from the mess I left behind in California was a bust, feeling more annoyed by my grandmother than usual because I was love-sick. So when Baba's suitor arrived, I felt myself relaxing slightly, thinking the remaining half of my trip might be more bearable.

He joined us on our hotel's veranda, where we drank Georgian wine and watched the sun go down. As we opened our second bottle, a troupe of girls with daisy garlands in their hair walked past.

"Oh! Youth," said Anatoly Petrovich. "It makes the soul dance."

"What nonsense," my grandmother said. "One day, those children will be old and ugly, just like you and me. That goes for you, too, Oksana," she told me.

"Thanks for looking out for me," I said.

"You are neither old nor ugly, my duckling," Anatoly Petrovich said, squeezing Baba's hand. He lowered his voice and hovered his mouth near her ear. "Come on, Larachka, one night with me and you won't regret it."

"Who are you to know what I won't regret?" my grandmother said.

"Don't be that way, my rabbit …"

"Get out of here, you old toad. Before I regret talking to you at all," she said.

Anatoly Petrovich bowed and kissed her hand and then mine. "It has been a treat to see you again," he told me. "You're all grown up. You look just like your father."

"That's what people tell me," I said.

"Only a little," Baba said, tilting her head to study me. "Her nose is much bigger. And her father's eyes were as blue as the sea. Her eyes are the color of storm clouds, just like mine."

I hadn't seen Anatoly Petrovich since I was a kid, but he had known my father well.

He was the director of the Moscow Children's Choir when Papa was the lead soloist. As the story goes, Anatoly Petrovich fell for my grandmother when she brought a nine-year-old Papa to the choir audition. He knew the moment they locked eyes. After my grandfather died a few years later, her suitor took the train from Moscow to Kiev to see her, year after year, though she never gave in to him.

He left the veranda with his head held high. With his white whiskers, tailored suit, and formidable belly, he looked like an elegant walrus. He was staying at the Oreanda Hotel, which was named for the region of Yalta visited by the lovers in Chekhov's story, "The Lady with the Little Dog." The handsome hotel opened after Chekhov's death and was thus of little interest to me; I had already visited the namesake town—also picturesque—for research purposes.

Baba and I were staying at the thousand-room industrial monstrosity, the Hotel Yalta. It looked like a corporate office and the sheets smelled like ammonia, but Baba refused to stay anywhere else. Later, as we climbed into our twin beds, I saw she was exhausted. All the toughness she put on for her suitor had melted away. I tried giving her a look to show that I forgave her rude comments and knew how she felt; that I, too, was confused over matters of the heart; and that we were enduring this struggle together.

"Don't make that face," she said as she turned off the lights. "It's unattractive."

________

"Consider yourselves underground men", Dr. Vainberg said, rubbing his hands together. "Or women," he added, winking at me and the only other girl there, a mousy thing named Marnie.

I was in the crypt-like basement belonging to the Slavic Studies Department of UC Davis, at the orientation for first-year PhD students. As the department chair droned on, I tried to hide my despair. I chose Davis because I wanted to be as far away as possible from New York, but I was already bored out of my...