My Grandma’s Chevy
Translated by V. K. Carman
In
June I graduated from a two-year computer programming
class and got a delightful diploma printed in fancy
Gothic letters. It was just asking to be put high up on
the wall in a gold frame. Unlike six-month classes,
that produced “premature” computer guys, my longer-term
classes left me with a strong feeling of self-confidence
and unpaid loans for several thousand dollars. Inspired
by everything mentioned above, I became extremely active
and sent out a sheath of resumes thicker than “War and
Peace,” and as a result I had been offered a position in
Sears! Good-bye to my endless hours in the library,
midterm projects and papers, boring lectures, when I was
so sleepy that I had an urge to strangle the professor
just to shut him up and get some rest! Good-bye to
night shifts driving a taxicab and delivering pizza!
For
complete happiness, all I needed was only few business
suits and a car. My old Oldsmobile in a spooky red
color (it reminded me of D’Artanian’s horse) died at a
respectable age of twenty. It was impossible to
reanimate even for a magician like Yasha, who was a
Russian auto mechanic from Devon Street. Yasha was
sighing and scratching his head for a long time looking
at the chilling remains of my four-wheeled, two-doored,
past friend and then said with a meaningful look: “We
can try to change the axle. But in your place, I
wouldn’t bother. Throw it in a junkyard and buy
yourself a new car. You got a decent job! You can’t
drive a piece of garbage like this. My friend is a car
salesman. Call him, and he’ll give you a good deal. At
the end of summer when they are sending out new models,
you can get last year’s model for a suitable price.” I
never thought about buying a new car before, it never
entered my mind -- like an idea to marry a movie star.
A new horizon had been open for me.
I
walked on my feet out of the body shop, but felt the
wings behind my back, carefully stepping over the
puddles, covered with rainbow film that reminded me of
the color of a young peacock tail. My head was spinning
from the strong gasoline smell, intoxicating like French
perfume. I had to maneuver for a long time between cars
waiting for their turn to be repaired. There were cars
with sides covered with faint brown spots of rust, like
skin of a young deer; cars with delicate dents, like an
elephant or a whale had scratched it’s back against
them; cars with traces of red paint, reminiscent of
lipstick on a man’s shirt; cars with shiny varnish that
was scaling off the body, like the chipped enamel on a
whore’s nails; cars that had been scrupulously chewed by
giant monsters; cars with burned and shamelessly exposed
insides; cars with holes through which you can see the
asphalt. And over this mechanical cemetery, in hot
fumes of warming metal in my inner eyes I could see a
beautiful shining vision--the New Car.
I
followed Yasha’s advice and in an hour shook a hand
belonging to a young man with a bushy beard, lustrous
frank blue eyes and a shingle rash on his cheek.
“Vodovoz -- he introduced himself, -- Yefim Vodovoz.
This is my name. Remember how Mayakovsky said?” He
shifted his hairy thin arm forward and up and with
excitement recited:
“I
am a sewer man and a water carrier
Mobilized and called by the Revolution.
Went to the front right from the cozy gardens
Of the lady-poetry, fancy bitch...”
This
is about me. I am a professional in literature, critic,
author, essayist and poet in my soul. Intelligencia in
immigration has such a horrible fate!” He observed with
a melancholy glance the parking lot with unbearably
shining cars, mercilessly heated by the angry midwestern
sun. For a while we both were silent. When the fit of
an existential angst eased down a bit, Efim gave a sad
sigh and again stared directly at me with his
exaggeratedly honest blue eyes. He looked me up and
down, as if he was going to pick a suit for me. I
opened my mouth, but he lifted a finger, as a warning to
be quiet, like he was afraid that with some careless
word I could spoil this delicate process. In a minute
he said with a stoning self-confidence: “Don’t tell me
anything! I know better what kind of car do you need.
I am an excellent psychologist and psychic. It’s enough
for me just to look at the person, and I know who he is
and what he needs in life”.
Efim
grabbed my elbow and with some ceremony walked me down
to a brand new, shining like a lollipop, Japanese
Mazda. Her sides like round hips lustfully gleaming
with pearl enamel. There was something very feminine
and even erotic in the soft, smooth contours of the
car’s body. She evoked images of thin-armed, tanned
Japanese girls with seductive and mysterious smiles,
sunbathing on the beaches of gold sand, images of white
yachts, sailing in a turquoise sea...
With
trembling hands, I opened the door and got stroked with
the fabulous smell of a New Car: the soft scent of warm
leather, plastic and shampoo, the aroma of good luck and
wealth. The seats and even the steering wheel were
covered with transparent plastic. There were paper mats
on a light-beige floor, so it wouldn’t get dirty. With
a humble heart, I lowered myself in the seat, and the
New Car took me in her tender embrace. I wanted to
close my eyes, to fall asleep and to see a beautiful
dream about everything that never happened in my life,
but that I had always fantasized about.
Efim,
who offered to take a test drive, interrupted my
dreams. We drove around two blocks, turning only to
right. During the ride he was praising in a monotonous
voice the wonderful qualities of the car, her engine,
brakes and trunk. He said that he would sell this car
really cheap. I felt uncomfortable, as if he was
describing a woman in her presence. When we stopped, I
got out in a hurry. The ride left a sensation of
something sweet, luring and a bit obscene.
It
was cool inside the office, despite the crazy hot August
day. An icy wind was blowing from the air conditioner.
We sat at the table, and Efim directly approached the
topic of payment. He convinced me that it’s not a car
he is selling, but a dream, and he’ll loose money giving
it away like this, below the factory price. He wouldn’t
get a penny in commissions, if I’ll buy it at the price
he’s offering, and the owner of the dealership will go
bankrupt and become a pauper. But it’s his, Efim’s
nature -- he is ready to suffer for his friends. He was
calling me ‘Dodia,’ slapping me on the back; he twisted
my shirt button and breathed in my face. At the end of
his speech he shyly asked me for a hundred bucks under
the table for this exceptional deal and recited part of
his own poem that describes a sensitive poet’s soul and
a woman who doesn’t understand him. The final verses of
poem were strikingly emotional:
“You opened yourself like a bottle,
Chewing dark licorice of your curls.
You are the Roman Empress
From Russia and ancient Judea”.
I
started shivering. From my childhood I was disgusted
with lousy amateur lyrics, especially in combination
with such a delicate matter as buying a car. Therefore
with some effort I shook myself free from the clingy
hairy paws of “intelligent” Efim, and I promised to call
him later.
Before I fell to sleep that night, on a dreamy stage the
lovely vision of the new Mazda popped in my mind with
its luring shapes and pearly glittering. This vision
was so beautiful and realistic that sleep ran away. I
opened my eyes and looked around to see if SHE was
standing somewhere around. No, there were no Mazda.
But I saw the lame table, covered with the washed out,
vinyl tablecloth, the dresser that came from the garbage
alley, with drawers never closing or opening completely,
the lamp with no shade... I got up from the mattress,
which was lying on the floor and serving me as a bed for
the past three years, and walked to the window. A
garbage truck was howling outside. A little baby
desperately cried somewhere. The air carried the smell
of over-fried fish, Indian spices and dust. I remember
my grandma’s favorite saying: “Don’t try to jump above
your own head.” I realized that the New Car will never
be mine and will stay forever in the dreamland of white
yachts and golden beaches.
In
the morning I looked up ads for used cars in the local
newspaper and wrote down a few phone numbers. I got
lucky at once. “Exceptionally clean Chevy in excellent
condition and for a reasonable price” was for sale just
two blocks away from my house. When I came to the given
address, I realized that not only the Chevy was for sale
but also a cozy house covered with wild grapes vines up
to the roof and everything inside it. The garage door
was open and shamelessly exposed all the belongings to
anyone who passed by. In the flowerbed in front of the
house rusty-red lilies and purple bushes of dragon snaps
were drying sadly. I learned from the short spunky Jew
who was hosting the sale in the house and garage that
all the stuff belonged to his late grandmother, who died
last week at the age of ninety-seven. The agitated
grandson flew from Baltimore for only a few days to take
care of collecting his inheritance and to sell
everything possible.
The
Chevy was really very neat, tidy and in a great
condition for its age. It had a cute name, Caprice
Classic, and looked virtuous and respectable probably
like its honorable lady-owner did. The grandson proudly
mentioned to me that his Granny was driving only to
Synagogue, the Jewish community center and the closest
supermarket. He and his parents grew up in this house,
but he seemed not a bit upset about loosing his old
nest. I remember the communal apartment on Great
Zhitomirskaya Street in Kiev where I spent my
childhood. My Grandma lived there together with her
three sisters and four other families. In the kitchen,
there were five stoves making noise and spreading a
horrible smell of kerosene. There were five garbage
cans, five oddly shaped tables, but only one water
faucet. In the morning there was a long line to the
bathroom. Each family had its own electric switch and
meter. In the foyer, tin washing tubs were hanging from
the ceiling (because there was no bathtub or shower in
this apartment) and bicycles. I felt offended for some
reason by the grandson’s attitude.
We
came inside the house to finish the bargain. I liked
the rooms because of their old fashion coziness:
darkened furniture, plenty of old photos in the gilded
frames, vases with silk flowers and draperies. I felt
sorry that soon all this would disappear. The stubborn
grandson didn’t want to lower the price that was pretty
fair to begin with frankly speaking. But I continued to
negotiate out of principle. This vigorous balding
grandson irritated me with his careless way of
destroying this old family nest. Finally we made a
deal, and for two thousand I got, in addition to Chevy,
the aged rocking chair, the dusty bed with twisted posts
and the lady’s cherry wood bureau dated from the
beginning of the century, but slightly eaten by mice.
Also, I picked up a photo-portrait in the dark oak aged
frame of the young beauty from the same period (just for
the heck of it). I loaded all my new belongings into
the new-old Chevy, tied the rocking chair on a top of it
and drove home. Now my apartment borrowed part of the
old coziness from somebody else’s grandma’s house hidden
in grapevines. The portrait I hung by the bed.
Thanks to the grandma -- the Chevy was driving like a
dream, the only thing I couldn’t get right was turning
the radio on. I was twisting and pushing, but it
wouldn’t turn to the any station but the one with the
classical music. I planned to buy a new radio, but
never got to it.
Once
after work I gave a ride home to one of my colleagues,
an Irish girl. Something got broken in her red
Corvette, and I was more then happy to be at her
service. All the way to her apartment, red headed Jenny
was openly flirting with me, teasing me about my Russian
accent and making fun of my old Chevy. Before she got
out, Jenny asked me to take her to a bar the next
Saturday and gave me a kiss in the cheek, smearing me
with red lipstick. On my way home, I felt like I was in
seventh heaven. Even a traffic jam on the highway
didn’t spoil my excellent mood. I just turned on the
radio to pass the time. First, the normal classical
music came from the radio, then there was a cough and
some old lady’s voice said to me in a disapproving tone:
“Shlemazl,
why are you so happy? On Saturdays you have to go to
Synagogue, not to run from bar to bar. What do you need
this fake red headed shicksa
for? Aren’t there plenty of good Jewish girls from
decent families?” This voice reminded me an awfully lot
of my grandma’s voice. Out of habit, I started
justifying my behavior, but the old lady didn’t want to
listen to any of my reasoning. “What would your grandpa
said, if he had known what kind of friends yhou have?
He’d turn over in his grave. You are thirty, it’s time
to get settled and raise a family, and instead you are
hanging inrestaurants with goys.
And look what are you eating? Who will take care of
you, if you don’t care about your own health? When did
you have hot soup last time? You’ll develop an ulcer,
because you are not feeding yourself properly.” She
would have whined longer, but I stopped by my house and
turned off the engine.
The
next day I drove to the supermarket to do my grocery
shopping and on the way back turned on the radio out of
habit. The same voice (like it had never stopped)
continued to teach me how I should live my life. “Oiy-vay,
I’ll die! Look at him, what he bought! Pizza and pizza
again. You need fruits and vegetables. You are pale
like a death, and don’t have any vitamins in your body.
What are the crabs good for? It’s tripe. It’s not a
serious food. Get a good piece of chicken and make
chicken soup for yourself. Let your shicksa cook
for you something warm (I wish she had been burned in
hell before you met her). Is the only thing she knows
how to do is going to restaurants and dying her hair?
What are you talking about cholesterol? I raised my
children and grandchildren and fed them all chicken
soup, and thank God all of them are grown up now without
any cholesterol. It’s all in your imagination --
cholesterol-shmolesterol... Bad for you all the
things that you didn’t eat, but not the one you
did eat, those will make you only stronger. Look
at yourself -- exactly like a skeleton! You’ll soon
start loosing your pants.”
From
then on, I was under non-stop surveillance. Everything
I was buying was commented on, all my friends where
subjects of infinite criticizing. (Lucky for me that
those talks were only between the two of us.) When the
old lady wasn’t lecturing or criticizing me, she was
telling endless stories about the life of her long dead
relatives, friends and neighbors. At first they seemed
boring, but I got used to them step by step. Those
stories reminded me of endless soap operas with an
enormous quantity of different characters. And when I
learned more about their complex relations, it became
even interesting. Sometimes when the story was getting
nowhere and became too tiresome, I’d change the stream
with a leading question: “And what happened at this time
to Aunt Haya? Did she finally marry that Aaronchick
with two grown up kids?” And the story would flow in
the new direction. Especially I liked to listen when
driving the car for a long distance. An unexpected
twist in a story and her colorful language kept me awake
on the road.
A
special interest of the old lady was the girls I was
dating. After saying good-bye to a new girl and getting
back to my Chevy, I already knew what to expect.
Following long sighs and unrelated complaints, she’ll
ask in a cranky voice: “So why you are shining like a
beetle in May?” And then she began to trash my new date
and ask questions about her: “What kind of family she is
from? What her parents doing for a living? Can she
cook? What type of education does she have.” It didn’t
matter what answers she got, the old lady wasn’t
happy. She disliked something, the girl’s hairdo, or
the style of her clothes. (“Her hair looks like a
crow’s nest. Did you notice the hole in her stocking?
Do you really need a slob for a wife?”) She was
disappointed by the girl’s social position. (“What does
it mean -- her father is a dealer? Dealer is the same
as a salesman in a market, or even janitor. Do you want
to become related to a janitor?”) None of them was
“worth my shoelace” as she described it, they were all
“below me.”
One
after the other the tough old lady completely trashed
and dismissed dental assistant Svetlana (“Do you want to
have cross-eyed kids with crooked legs?”), university
student Carol, who was interested in psychoanalysis
(“It’s enough that your aunt on your grandfather’s side
was completely crazy!”), hairstylist Sabina (“Wow, she
is trying to pass as twenty-five years old? I’ll die
from laughing; she is at least forty something. Her
neck is all wrinkled, and she probably has five kids.”),
and many, many others. But if I’d come after a date in
a bad mood, grandma became restless and immediately
tried to comfort me. “If she doesn’t like you, you
don’t like her twice more... Who she thinks she is,
this tramp? She’ll regret it so much, she’ll be biting
her elbows, but too late... You wouldn’t even spit in
her direction.”
All
this was going on and on until I met Gloria. After
work, I noticed a nice girl in our office parking lot.
She reminded me very much of the portrait of the
Victorian beauty in my bedroom. The young lady was
desperately looking at her car. Her Mercedes had a
flat, and I offered my help. I spent about an hour,
trying to fix the spare, got dirty like the devil, cut
my trousers on the knee, but all in vain. Gloria
started laughing, looking at my soiled face then she
thanked me for the help anyway and said that she is
getting late for the theater, so she has to call a
taxi. I made a desperate gesture and offered her a
lift. She agreed.
When
I let Gloria out in front of the theater, it was the
first time grandma didn’t make any comments. But I, on
the contrary, wanted to talk about this new girl. I
asked a few leading questions, and the old lady, after a
brief silence, proclaimed that “this one is of high
rank,” but didn’t give any further explanations. After
that evening, I start seeing Gloria more and more
often. In six months, I confessed to grandma that I
proposed to Gloria. I expected an explosion, but
nothing terrible happened. The old lady let out a deep
sigh and asked what her parents are doing. When she
discover that Gloria’s father (who was a widower) owned
a midsize steel company and wanted us to live in his
house after the wedding, the old lady almost choked.
Then she said that it’s so obvious when a girl comes
from a good family. I whined a bit, that I didn’t want
to live with the father-in-law, but Gloria didn’t want
to leave her precious daddy, so I have to comply.
Grandma made a philosophical comment: “Some people are
crying over the thin soup and some -- over thin pearls.
Don’t worry dear, you’ll show them...” But I never
discovered what exactly I was supposed to show them,
because my battery died, and the radio made a hissing
noise and became silent.
As a
wedding present, Gloria’s father gave us a new sparkling
white Honda. My old Chevy is staying now shyly in a far
corner of the giant garage, and Gloria can’t understand
why I wouldn’t order to have it towed to the junkyard.
I make jokes that it will become a valuable antique in
ten years, and she smiles indulgently about this little
weakness. When I am getting sad, I often get inside
grandma’s Chevy and carry on a conversation with her in
my imagination. Sure, I can change the battery and
listen to her dear cranky voice with a typical Jewish
accent, but I don’t want to start the old car in the
garage late at night. Gloria might think that I am
crazy. Who wants to have a lunatic in the family? It’s
enough that my aunt on my grandfather’s side was
completely crazy!
V.LeGeza
OKHO Publishing
Company, L.L.C.
Telephone: 847-226-8349
www.OKHO.com
Email:
Legeza@aol.com
