Page 28 - WTP Vol.X#1

Pie Crust Promises (continued from preceding page)
tion; there were so many documents to wrangle, and Slava needed to write an essay. I needed to come up with a research project that he could help me with, but I was good at building those kinds of castles in the air. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been here.
I figured, as long as we were working on it, I’d keep seeing him, and he’d recognize that the benefits of running away were less than those of staying close by. I’d been mostly right, too, until he dropped off the eggs and didn’t turn up again for a week. I was start- ing to get concerned when he turned up again, knock- ing more gently on the metal door of my apartment around dinner time.
“You didn’t bring me anything?” I said, mostly jok- ing. He was empty handed and seemed a little dejected, his slight shoulders slumped under his brown leather jacket.
“Tough times,” he said, and turned his palms up to- ward me, and I led him into the apartment.
“Does this mean that you’re finally going to let me take you to my place down the street?”
“This is the Chinese restaurant?” he asked. Before Slava started coming by, I’d eat there at least once a day, ordering by pointing at the polaroids of different dishes they placed beside the handwritten descrip- tions in the menu. It was weird to admit it but it was a little taste of home to eat there. Slava sighed, but he didn’t stop me from putting on my coat and leading him down the stairs.
“What happened to you the other day?” I asked him.
“It was nothing,” Slava said, and looked over his shoulders as we walked down the block to the restau- rant. “You know, these people here, they think you’re sad. The only one who eats in restaurant is someone with no friends or family to eat with him at home.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, and waved at the young man beside the cash register and sat at my favorite table. “I think they recognize that we’re all outsiders here, in your country, and that we need to stick together, to support each other.”
“Outsiders?” Slava said. “They have been here hun- dreds of years. Longer even than my family. They are not the same outsiders as you are.” The young man from the cash register came over with a ceramic pot wrapped in a towel and poured tea into the cups on our table. Slava said something to him, and the man walked away, into the kitchen. “I ordered for us,” he
said. “I hope you don’t mind, but some stuff I can’t eat. My stomach doesn’t allow it.”
So when the waiter bought the food out to our table, instead of seasoned moo shoo pork, it was banosh, corn meal mush. It came in the usual carved bowls but with a distinctly woody smell. Slava said a cou- ple more words to our waiter, and he left the cash register and walked back into the kitchen. I took the bowl of chili from the table top and spooned it over my banosh.
“We were talking about access,” Slava said, tucking into his bland dough balls. “I need your help talking to some people. It’s about the items I brought to your apartment that time.”
“You know, I still need a new toilet seat. I’ve been hovering for a week.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll get you one, no problem. You like gold? You want fur?” he gave a bold smile. “I just need you to help me meet these people.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” I said. “I get it, some of the things you have to do, I might not agree with them and that’s cool. But actually helping you, I don’t know.”
“It’s what I need, though,” Slava said, shaking his head. “It’s so easy for you, you can go anywhere, do whatever you need to do and it’s cool. It’s not like that for me.”
“Come on,” I said. “I don’t even speak the language. I wouldn’t last a day on my own.”
“You’d be fine,” Slava said. “You and that blue pass- port.” He shook his head and stared into his bowl
of mush for a second. He took a breath and looked back up at me. “It’s cool. You don’t need to help me.
I wouldn’t have even asked if I wasn’t in a jam. If it bothers you, I’ll take back the stuff I left with you and find someplace else to put it.” He dipped his spoon into the broth and brought it to his mouth. It was probably hot tap water. “You know it’s town day com- ing up? You want to celebrate? I can show you some secrets we don’t show the world.”
“That sounds fun,” I said, and tried to choke down the last of my dumplings. “Can you ask them if they’ve got any fried wontons back there?” Slava got up and walked back into the kitchen. Two minutes later, I had a bowl of wontons in front of me, still hot from the fryer.
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