Porcupines, p.1
Porcupines, page 1
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To my mom, for believing I could,
and to Adam, for asking me to prove it.
If this is the best of all possible worlds, what then are the others?
VOLTAIRE, Candide
There’s been a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon.
GLEN CAMPBELL, “Rhinestone Cowboy”
PART I
Los Angeles, 1996
WHAT MILA’S MOTHER TELLS HER on the first day of school is different from what other mothers of children at Mount Washington Elementary School are saying at the very same time to their very own six-year-old children. This is almost certainly a fact. But it is not for Mila to know the difference. That will come later: at bars while forming new intimacies over tepid beer; at her therapist’s office, divulging childhood stories with little prompting; or perhaps in self-serious short stories sagging with the weight of too many metaphors. For now, though, she is unaware of any oddity in her mother’s behaviour. Sonia leans down and holds Mila’s shoulders as though afraid she might fall backwards from the burden of her backpack (a not entirely unfounded fear—children’s backpacks never do seem proportionate to their small frames).
She looks Mila in the eye and says, “Now, remember, Mila, we live about a five-minute drive away, your mother works at an office, and you’re not Russian, your mother just liked the sound of your name.”
Mila nods vigorously—a model pupil, for now, at least.
“Any follow-up questions, then what do we say?”
“Mind your own business.”
“That’s right.”
Sonia straightens up and takes out a mirror from the little purse hanging on her shoulder. She refreshes her lipstick with a satisfied smack and kisses Mila’s left cheek, leaving a perfectly formed imprint of herself on the child.
“Off you go,” she says to Mila with a wink, turning her towards the flat, terra-cotta bungalows of the school.
And so begins Mila’s instruction—or indoctrination, perhaps—in the American way of life. Soon she will be made aware of the market economy of the playground, where her measly Lunchables will provide paltry currency; she will realise the income inequality inherent in one’s possession or lack of crayons that smell of fruits; and, most important, she will come to understand that her place in the pecking order of this society in miniature was long decided by the mothers and fathers who dropped off their children at the gate and eyed Sonia with suspicion as she made her way to her car trailing the scent of lemongrass and foreignness.
Budapest, 1989
THE FIRST TIME IT OCCURRED to Szonja to go to the United States, tears streamed down her face while George H. W. Bush made a speech. It was July, and she was watching him on a small grey television set in her parents’ living room in the suburbs of Budapest.
“What in the world is so funny?” her father asked her, but Szonja’s breaths were coming in small hiccoughs as her shoulders shook—she tried to subdue her mirth, but it was proving to be obstinate. She knew he would work himself up into a sullen anger if she continued for long—her father did have a sense of humour, but it was mostly revealed in the moments immediately following his own witticisms—and yet she couldn’t help it.
The president of the United States had just arrived in Budapest and come straight to Kossuth Square to speak in front of a crowd that had awaited him patiently in the rain, their reward being the first glimpse of the American man. For him, this was a flyover visit, hastily tacked onto a more important one to Poland; for them, it was a sign of change, a little shard of light bouncing off a single sequin that made up the glittering West. For Szonja, it was the evening’s entertainment on a humid summer night, her only options being a half-hearted outing with friends or stewing in the quiet frustration of her parents’ waning marriage.
Szonja’s father was a retired diplomat, something she would eventually learn not to mention to new acquaintances—it created some confusion. The word diplomat arouses ideas of a glamourous cosmopolitanism in the minds of people outside the Eastern Bloc, and no amount of insistence that a diplomat in socialist Hungary could be an ordinary government position, underpaid and tedious like any other, will disabuse them of the notion. It was true that the Imre children were rich in education and experience, having lived in five different countries within fifteen years, but it was also true that when they returned home to Budapest, the money saved from a government salary over these years amounted only to a small deposit on a two-bed flat in the suburbs. Which is where Szonja still resided at the age of eighteen, recently released from the clutches of an indifferent high-school education, working odd jobs and saving up for a revolving door of life-changing schemes, all yet to be actualised.
On the screen Bush had just taken the podium after fifteen minutes of homilies by the Hungarian head of state, Brunó Straub. The American president dismissed an umbrella politely placed over his head and, with apparent disdain for all the bureaucrats standing around him, barked out, “Is anybody gonna translate this?” His attitude—so incongruous with the respectful officiousness surrounding him—was enough to set off Szonja’s laughter, but then, as though he were in the closing scene of one of his country’s great movies, he tore up the large white index cards of his speech and promised to speak only from the heart. The crowd cheered while, out of sight, some poor translator fumbled with his own notes, unprepared for this show of spontaneity. Bush called over to him, off-screen: “Tear that thing up!” Szonja’s English was good enough to understand the president’s slow, chewy American words, and the crowd could at least understand his Hollywood gestures—oh, but that poor, underpaid translator. He began to chase the president’s sentences like a clumsy echo.
“You’ve been out here in the rain for too long, but Barbara and I feel the warmth of this welcome.”
“Nevertheless the feeling of the warm—”
“And the rain doesn’t make a darn bit of difference. We feel at home right here in this great capital.”
“The rain doesn’t stop at all, in the love and the wel—”
“And I salute the leaders of Hungary, and I salute the reforms and the change that is taking place in this wonderful country.”
“I say hello to all the leaders, hello to all the people, and hello to all the reforms that are—”
“And I want you to know that I am here as president of the United States because we have in our country a special affection and feeling for the people of Hungary.”
“The reason I come here as president is that I have separate warm feelings—”
“So thank you very much for this welcome, you’ll have to listen to me again tomorrow, I’m sure at some dryer time and place.”
“Thank you for your welcome and I hope tomorrow you will hear of a dryer place—”
“Thank you. God bless you, and God bless your great country!”
By the end of it, Szonja’s mother had the giggles as well, though hers were more timid and as respectful as giggles could be.
“Don’t know what you two find so funny about this—for better or worse, it’s a historic moment, you’ll be glad to have witnessed it someday.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly happy to have witnessed it already,” Szonja said, flipping through a magazine lying between her legs on the floor. She tried to keep the tone light, careful not to prompt one of her father’s increasingly frequent bouts of quiet discontent, which, though muted, somehow still managed to fill the whole room. Mr. Imre had the diplomat’s habit of reticence; he would rarely give voice to his grievances, but privately he viewed with increasing discomfort his country turning, little by little, from all that he had been told to believe and uphold his entire life. There was a bitterness even to his silences now.
And then there were other, more private resentments. As she looked up at her parents, it occurred to Szonja how deftly the both of them skirted around what was on all of their minds—this vision from the West must surely have reminded them of Rina. Had she, after five years spent in America, adopted their outsized gestures? When her sister spoke English, was it with their voice, projected above all others? Did she share their president’s “special affection” for this forgotten chip off the Eastern Bloc?
* * *
Before Rina set her heart on marriage that heart belonged to something else entirely—something with a lot more synthesisers and simple chord progressions. At least that’s how Szonja saw it when she remembered their nights spent under the spell of the Pet Shop Boys, Boy George, George Michael (the word association between these artists was incidental yet somehow made their enjoyment feel inevitable). Side by side, they strained to hear the tinny sound of Rina’s secondhand cassette player and wrote out the lyrics in a notebook for closer scrutiny.
Szonja and Rina hadn’t always been friends as well as sisters—there was a six-year gap between them, which, depending on their respective ages, meant that they had either everything or nothing in common. When Rina was six and Szonja was a baby, one had newly joined the choir at school while the other was testing out her vocal cords in an entirely different way. W hen Rina was thirteen and Szonja was seven, they played together nicely, but only a few months later, puberty hit, and Szonja was left to hold up both sides of her dolls’ conversation (this particular skill would remain useful later on in life, when assaulted with tedious company). At twenty and fourteen, during the mild spring of their first months stationed in Washington, DC, they both briefly had the right combination of patience, enjoyment of popular music and interest in each other to spend hours in their shared bedroom talking and listening to their collection of tapes.
Now, as Szonja prepared to visit her sister in America, this was the place her thoughts lingered, despite the letters and occasional phone calls that had detailed moves, jobs, the birth of two daughters—a whole new image of her sister over the past five years—because it was the last time they had been close, sure, but also because it was the first time Szonja became conscious of her sister having a specific, distinct personality—one that was not simply defined as part of their family quartet, but in all the ways she stood in relief against them. Rina was studious, unlike Szonja; she was passionate, unlike their mother; and she was compassionate, unlike their father. And the more that Szonja had seen her sister as something separate from herself, the more she had wanted to join her on the other side of that difference—in her interests, her manners, her choice of words. And briefly, it seemed, Rina did not mind her mimicry.
Yet, like all their other fleeting moments of alliance, this was sure to end—Szonja had seen the signs when Rina met Aron, a young man more sombre and studious than Rina herself who had bent Rina’s interests just enough to be a branch out of reach for Szonja.
In the end it was Szonja who had stopped searching for Rina’s company, leaving her to long walks and murmured discussions with this boy they knew little of. It was always easier to be the one who left—she had learned this at the age of seven, sitting among a cluster of plastic friends, talking to herself.
Los Angeles, 2001
BETWEEN THE TACO FIESTA AND the Winchell’s Donut House at the far end of the Albertsons parking lot sits Mateo and his fruit cart. The modest locale doesn’t fool anyone—he is a master of the blades, slipping the skin off mangoes, slicing them up so fast that not a drop of their sweet juice leaves the flesh before it can make it to his customers.
“Con chile y limón, por favor.”
Mateo smiles without looking up—there’s no need to ask for it, but Sonia likes to practise her Spanish. It feels closer to her mother tongue than English, all the syllables sounded out without mystery. She asks for a bag of sliced, salted cucumbers as well, and she eats them slowly with a plastic fork as she sits sideways in the driver’s seat of the car, legs dangling towards the warm pavement.
Sonia worries that this might be her favourite part of the week, sitting here after her grocery shopping, before school pickup. She loves the store too. It’s bright and spacious and she could spend hours leaning over her cart, looking up and down the infinite, colourful rows of shelves. There is something sturdy about it all, something that makes her think the world is bountiful, and she’s destined to take her share. And then, afterwards, there’s Mateo: his smile, his mangoes, chile y limón.
The sound of Sonia’s cell phone—one note at a time cutting through the air—interrupts their quietude. It’s Mila’s school, asking Sonia to come in.
* * *
Under the vivid midafternoon sun Sonia glides into the school parking lot. She can immediately spot her daughter—little frame perched on the thin slab of the curb, her legs pretzeled in front of her. She is looking resolutely ahead, a small sign of petulance Sonia has come to recognise in her of late. Mr. Alvarez, the vice principal, is hovering nearby, neither close enough nor far enough for comfort. He is the one who called Sonia into school a full hour before the kids are normally out.
“Here we go,” she says, sliding the station wagon between faded white paint, rolling her shoulders back and putting on a smile. As soon as Mila spots her, she gathers her little chopstick legs, makes for her mother and burrows into her midsection so that Sonia is immobilised.
“Rough day, Milosh?”
She tries to swivel the both of them back towards the car, but Mr. Alvarez calls out to her. “Just a moment, Ms. Imre!”
Despite the balmy ninety-six-degree weather, Mr. Alvarez is dressed as though he imagines himself to be teaching at a New England boarding school (in fact, he is currently accruing delay charges at Blockbuster for his late return of Dead Poets Society—$8.97 and counting) rather than a public school in the suburbs of Northeast Los Angeles. All three-piece suit and polished loafers, checked tie in brown hues.
“I must inform you of a little situation in Mila’s class today,” he begins, his mournful brown eyes glancing at Sonia from under heavy lids.
“You mean the reason my daughter is currently digging her way into my side?” she says, smiling sweetly. “Honey, go wait in the car, would you? I’ll be right there.”
After Mila is safely in the Buick, Mr. Alvarez clears his throat. “As you know, the children in the lower grades are preparing for the annual father-daughter picnic.” He looks at Sonia apologetically, but Sonia meets his gaze with an amused lift of the eyebrows. “Yes, well, it seems that Mila was reluctant to take part in the preparations. The children were making some artwork today: paintings, collages, macaroni portraits, that sort of thing.”
Poor Mr. Alvarez—to be possessed of a PhD in education and still have to use the term macaroni portrait on a regular basis.
“In short, it seems one of Mila’s classmates… er… pondered the question of Mila’s parentage aloud in class.”
“What a lovely, curious child.”
“Yes, well, it seems Mila’s answer was—and these are her words, of course—well, what she told her class was, in short, something along the lines of ‘My mother says my father was a good time.’ ”
It is probably true—Sonia has a vague memory of making such an offhand comment. If the Los Angeles sun does not make Mr. Alvarez regret his sartorial decisions today, this conversation certainly does—sweat is prickling at his starched white collar.
“I see,” she says with as much dignity as anyone can be expected to muster. “Still, I’m not sure what this has to do with my daughter being sent home early.”
“As you can imagine, Mrs. Flores was somewhat flustered by the… um… implications of the statement.”
“Yes, well, I’ve met Mr. Flores…”
Mr. Alvarez makes a curious noise then—“Ha-ah”—as though he is letting out a laugh in one breath and reeling it back in with the next.
“Mrs. Flores did her best to manage the situation. Of course, there are many single parents at Mount Washington Elementary School, and we don’t want to exclude anyone from class activities,” he says, slipping into the register of a flimsy guidance councillor pamphlet. “She told Mila to make her portrait of someone she considered a father figure. And now, this is very flattering, of course, but it seems she chose to make a portrait of me.”
Mr. Alvarez rifles through a folder replete with images of various men. A few paintings are quite accomplished; the ones rendered in complex carbohydrates less so. He finally presents Sonia with a piece of card stock—on it a clumsy but unmistakable replica of Mr. Alvarez collaged from the cut-up pieces of a colourful magazine. Underneath, in block letters that look vaguely like a ransom note, it reads My Daddy. He looks at Sonia uncertainly, as if to contemplate the possibility of this—never mind that the sum total of words exchanged between them has only recently doubled with their current conversation.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, taking the picture from him. “Did that make you uncomfortable?”
“Well, that part, really, is absolutely fine, and it’s actually quite normal for a child her age to see someone on the pedagogical staff as a sort of father figure, but I’m afraid it went a little further than that.”
Sonia looks over at the car, where Mila is now swaying her head gently to some music they can’t hear. “Did she ask you for pocket money?”
