Yom Kippur in Amsterdam: Stories

Sonetchka

48 Sonetchka Sonetchk a’s e-mail came on April 12, the old Soviet Cosmonautics Day. It displayed an economy of words: “I’ve moved to Conn., a systems admin. job. The rest when I see you. SM.” Simon called Sonetchka and drove down from Providence to see her three days later, on a sunny Saturday morning. She was living in a condo in West Hartford, an affluent and conspicuously Jewish area. After getting off the highway, he passed two synagogues on the way to her place. Groups of Orthodox Jews were walking to shul. Women and young girls wore ankle-length skirts. Men in fedoras or derbies carried embroidered pillows under their arms. Driving through Sonetchka’s new neighborhood, Simon thought of a life of stability and tradition. He parked his beat-up Toyota in front of Sonetchka’s condo compound and walked up to the front door. Her gendered Slavic name, “Mironova,” looked foreign amid the wreath of markedly Jewish names such as “Goldstein” and “Rubin.” He pressed the buzzer, and almost immediately he heard her voice, small and a bit husky, sounding as though it came from across the Atlantic Ocean. “Syoma, eto ty?” (She called Simon by a diminutive of “Semyon,” his Russian name.) “Yes, Sonetchka, it’s me.” “Come on up.” He ran up a carpeted staircase to the third floor. Sonetchka was standing in the doorway, resting her head and left shoulder against Sonetchk a | 49 the half-opened wooden door that she was holding with her right hand. She was smiling, a fretful smile. Her wheaten hair was long and straight, and both her eye shadow and lipstick were of the same opaque, red brick color. Wearing a ribbed beige turtleneck, a pair of black stretchy pants, and suede penny loafers, she looked un-Russian , like a self-confident yuppie with a dash of prep. And yet there was something ethereal about Sonetchka, as though the forces of gravity didn’t have a firm grip on her slender frame. Simon and Sonetchka kissed and hugged each other. A wave of her perfumed hair washed against his cheek. Her fingers ran down his spine like a pianist’s over a keyboard. “Well, well, Sonetchka. How long has it been?” “Almost nine years. Come in. I made good coffee.” She led him through the foyer into a bright living room, furnished with light beech furniture that made the space look bigger and more airy. A white leather couch and a matching armchair stood near the window. He saw a cobalt blue coffee set on a low table, and a large, overflowing ashtray in the shape of a flatfish. Sonetchka went to the kitchen and brought in a carafe of coffee. They sat down on the sofa. “I want to hear all about you.” “You will,” Sonetchka said. “But first, I wanted to tell you that I read your essay in Harper’s. I was in the local bookstore browsing in the magazine section and saw your name on the cover.” “The one about Felix Kron?” “Yes, the Jewish writer from Prague. I hadn’t heard of him.” “He’s my big thing,” Simon said and nodded with contentment. “You’ve come a long way, Simon B. Finn,” Sonetchka said without irony in her voice. “Writing in English. Ivy League universities. When you’re a famous professor, I’m going to tell everyone that I knew you at tender eighteen.” “We’ll see. With this job market, let’s hope I become a professor at all.” 50 | Yom Kippur in Amsterdam “You will, you’ve always known what you wanted from life. People like you always get what they deserve.” The last sentence sounded bitter, but Simon knew Sonetchka didn’t mean it like that. She put a piece of crumbly blueberry cake on his plate. “I baked it last night. I’ve only started to cook again since I moved up here from New York. It’s a strange feeling to be cooking just for yourself.” “I know,” Simon said. “I’ve been doing it since I started graduate school. Now tell me about coming to America. What happened to you guys?” “Where do I start?” She lit a thin brown cigarette. “You probably heard from good old Misha Martov and various others how Igor and I got married.” “I heard some things and had to reconstruct the rest.” “I don’t expect...