They settled into the pair of chairs on either side of the fire. Elena lit up a cig-
arette, sank back into the cushions, and growled. It was a soft growl, but Zack
braced himself for a question about Abbas and Daniel, a statement, a charge.
The two men had driven to Richmond this morning to catch a flight to
New York. They had been together all day. What were they doing now?
“You have wonderful children,” said Zack. “Lively but very well-behaved.”
He would not be the one to bring up their spouses.
“They are wonderful, aren’t they?” And Elena began to speak Russian, a
backward-running gobble of syllables with a soft cadence underneath. She
was quoting poetry.
“That sounded lovely,” said Zack. “Is that one of your poems?”
She nodded.
“What does it mean?”
“I do not translate well. But it means, roughly, you break my heart and I
break yours, but it does not matter, because one day you gave me two beauti-
ful roses.”
“Nice,” Zack said hesitantly. “I’m sure it’s even better in Russian. But it’s a
concentrated thought. Both sad and tender.”
Elena was gazing at the ceiling with her steel gray eyes, listening for her
son and daughter. The children had their father’s eyes, not hers.
“Do you miss Russia?” Zack asked.
She glanced down at him. “I miss the language but not the people. Russia
is no longer a land of poets. It is a land of gangsters. I have not only lost my
homeland but my homesickness.”
“Do you miss Europe?”
“Yes. Paris especially. Berlin a little. But I was young and wild in Berlin.
We are all fond of our wild times. Even though I was often unhappy there. I
was poor and lonely and always falling in love. I was thirty-two—not so
young—but making up for lost time.”
“You met Abbas in Berlin.”
She looked at Zack as if to say: Do we really want to talk about this? “Oh yes.
Une belle histoire. ” She took a gulp of wine. “We met at a gallery exhibit of his 1 5 4
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
paintings. In the Turkish quarter. It is the gay quarter, too, but I thought he was
Turkish. Except he spoke beautiful French. Much better than mine. I liked his
paintings and he liked me and we agreed to meet for coffee. He told me right
away that he liked girls and boys. I told him I was the same. He said he did not
know which he liked better, but boys were more plentiful in Berlin. He was see-
ing a boy at the time. We became good friends and saw each other often. I would
help with his letters and applications and catalogs. He would help with my
French. Meanwhile my heart was being hurt by girls and his by boys. We were a
safe house for each other. Until one cold October day, when he was miserable
over a pretty Dutch boy, we were walking in the Tiergarten and he said, ‘I want
to have children. Do you want children? My family will give me all the money I
need whenever I marry. Does this interest you?’ And it did. Very much.”
“His family has money?”
“Oh yes. They are rich. The parents are dead now, and Hassan, the big
brother, has gone back to Iran. He is a banker, but he works with the mullahs,
representing them overseas. He does not approve of Abbas’s art. But he still
sends the money that his father promised.”
Zack had suspected something like this. He wasn’t surprised about the
family money. He just wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Do I shock you?” said Elena. “I did not marry for the money.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“But the money made it possible. We were to be a white marriage. Un
mariage blanc? You know the phrase? But we did not stay white. Not only be-
cause we wanted children but because Abbas is often horny. He is ten years
younger than I. He doesn’t care who he screws, he will even screw his wife.
We still have sex, you know. Even now.”
“So I heard.”
“Oh yes. Little birds.” She smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Many little
birds. The town is full of little birds.” Her lips parted for a sigh. “As he grows
older he does not want the sex with me so much. Which is fine. I do not love
the sex. But I do love him, and I enjoy the sex as a coin of his affection. I never
fell in love, but one day I woke up and understood I loved him. Does this
sound crazy?”
“Not at all.”
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
1 5 5
“This love can be like pride. Like jealousy. It can be as bad as romantic
love. I want to have him to myself. I do very stupid things. What is happening
now is all my fault.”
“What’s your fault?”