Boomerang of Happiness - 11

While the guests of the wedding party continued to eat and drink, the newlywed couples returned to Alma-Ata for their first night together as a husband and wife. Leo and Anna stayed at the neighbors’ apartment, and Alex and Anna spent the night at his parents’.

Daria and Maria put a lot of effort into preparing the bedroom for the newlyweds. It was beautifully decorated with flowers and candles, and the bed was made up with new white and pink silky sheets. Alex put on a romantic vinyl record and slow-danced with his bride, exchanging long passionate kisses. Soon, they started to undress each other. Both Alex and Anna were quite drunk from the wedding, and Alex thought it must have uninhibited Anna. He had never expected her to be so adventurous and curious in bed. She gave herself to him fully, making love as if it was for the first and last time in her life, shyly at first, but then opening up to him with every single molecule of her body.

They did not talk much, which Alex did not even register in his mind that night. He was completely enveloped in Anna’s seemingly limitless sexual energy. At the highest moments of passion, Anna looked at him, her eyes half-closed with her long eyelashes, and Alex could see the crazy sparks of candle light dancing in them, making Anna’s eyes so dark and deep that he felt completely lost and drowned in them. They made love all night, taking breaks to drink champaign and eat the heavenly fruit from Tashkent and chocolate candy. Alex was so taken in by Anna’s passion that in the morning when he woke up he was surprised to have realized that he had not remembered Irina once during that night. Neither did he compare Anna to Irina in his mind. He felt so happy he decided his resolve for the second chance at life with a new love was already producing its first results.

When they got to the village for the second day of the wedding, Anna’s parents were waiting for them at the gate of the house’s front yard, with their car parked outside. Anna came out of the taxi and rushed to them, “Mom, dad, why are you here? Did something happen?”

“Oh, no, darling, nothing special,” her mother replied, “It’s just that we need to leave and we didn’t want to do so without saying good-bye.”

“But whyyyyy?” Anna started to whine. “I want you to stay, the wedding is not over yet!”

Alex’s sister Daria, who happened to pass by at that moment, stopped to observe the scene. She looked at Anna’s father Boris, who was standing next to Anna’s mother like an obedient soldier waiting for an order, and their eyes met. Boris awkwardly smiled at Daria.

“I know, honey, but we really need to go, your father has been called back to work,” her mother sad.

It didn’t compute for Alex: There were no cell phones at that time, and his grandparents didn’t even have a landline phone in the house. The only way for anyone from Novosibirsk to reach them in the village would have been by a telegram, and Alex doubted his parents-in-law knew the house address to provide for the emergency contact. However, he said or asked nothing, not to embarrass them. Anna looked at her father and he just shrugged his shoulders, as if saying, “Don’t ask me, it’s your mother’s idea.”

Alex chimed in, “But the second day is the most fun, our friends and family worked a lot to make it entertaining.”

“I know,” Anna’s mother said, “But we really have to go. Boris has been called back to work, and it’s a long drive back.”

Alex looked at Boris, whom just the night before he called “Dad” for the first time. He wondered if Boris even remembered that, because he was so drunk. Now, Boris was just standing there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, which Alex by now knew was the sign of discomfort. At the same time, Alex was amazed by how well and sober his father-in-law looked, given the amount of everything he drank the night before.

“But daaaad,” Anna whined directly at her father, “Could you please stay at least until noon? You can leave in the afternoon, if it’s really so urgent.”

“Tanya, perhaps we could stay a little? I promise I won’t drink, and you know I can drive fast, so we won’t be late.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” his wife replied. “Your fast driving. If traffic patrol stops us for speeding and they smell your breath you’ll definitely go to jail for drunk driving.”

“Well, I doubt they’d send me to jail with my red cover,” Boris replied. All high-ranking Party officials proudly carried a red-covered ID that opened a lot of doors and got them out of troublesome situations. “But I’ll try not to get stopped. So, can we stay and leave in the afternoon?”

“Yes, please, please, please, Mom!” Anna cried, jumping and trembling like a little kid.

“Well, I guess,” Anna’s mother replied, “But we’ll definitely have to leave early in the afternoon.”

“Thank you, Mom!” Anna said and kissed both her parents on the cheeks.

Alex was happy they decided to stay, but he had an uneasy feeling that there was something else behind it, he just was not sure what. As they all were heading to the back yard, he caught up with Daria, and mumbled so that only she could hear, “I wonder what all that was about.”

“Tanya hated everything here,” Daria replied right away, as if she waited for the question.

“Why do you think so?” Alex asked, struck by the idea. They both stopped.

“I have my eyes, little brother. They never went inside this Kazakh house,” Daria said, putting air quotes around the word ‘Kazakh,’ “She hardly touched any Kazakh food, did not drink much, never danced or talked to anyone, just sat there sullen and annoyed at her husband because he was having a good time. I’m pretty sure it was her idea to go back earlier.”

“Oh god, you are right!” Alex exclaimed, as if he had a revelation. “I wonder why?”

“You need to re-read Leo Tolstoy’s essay on great Russian chauvinism, little brother,” Daria said.

“Oh no!” Alex said in disbelief, rejecting the idea his parents-in-law were what in the Soviet Union was called “Russian nationalist,” a euphemism for supremacist.

“Yes,” Daria said. “I hate to burst your bubble, but did you tell them you were a Jew? I’d love to see her face when you do.”

“No, I didn’t. Never came up and I didn’t think it would matter. Besides, we are only half Jewish. Our father is Russian.”

“Like it would matter for them, half is more than enough. Tell them our mother’s maiden name and see what their reaction would be.”

“I so hope you are wrong. Boris is definitely not like that,” Alex said.

“C’mon, Alex, you know very well that all these high-ranking Party apparatchiks have an almost built-in disdain, if not hatred, for Jews. I’m pretty sure the only reason you’ve been promoted and supported so much at work is because you have our father’s, not mother’s, last name.”

“You know, I never really thought about it that way. I thought it was because of my smarts. Anyway, let’s go, they are waiting for us,” Alex said, noticing Anna waiving at him.

“Sometimes you can be just as naïve as dad,” Daria said, “But I love you any way.”

Daria’s words made Alex think. He really had never thought what his career trajectory would have been if he had his mother’s Jewish last name. Casual anti-Semitism was engraved into the Soviet culture and was alive and well even after the second World War. Officially, it was condemned and discouraged, but at the every-day level it still existed. Alex still remembered all those relentless jokes and anti-Semitic tropes kids circulated at school, and how he was afraid someone might find out his mother was Jewish. He was sure KGB and his military bosses knew who she was but it was probably just convenient for them to ignore this fact about him as his brain was a lot more valuable for the Party than the fact that he had a Jewish mother. Alex shook off his gloomy thoughts and returned to his bride for fun and games of the wedding’s second day.

Anna’s parents hardly sat through the funny second-day ritual involving a couple of “imposter newlyweds.” The imposters always flipped gender roles, with the bride played by a man and the groom – by a woman, and usurped the couples’ place at the table, demanding a ransom to give it up to the rightful couples. Usually, they would be satisfied with some singing and dancing by the newlyweds, but in this case they were particularly inventive, making Leo, Alex and Annas play various games, participate in silly contests, kiss and sing and dance in public. Finally, when the two couples were allowed back to their rightful places at the table, there was more toasting, drinking and eating. The guests started to leave only late in the evening, bidding good-bye and excusing themselves because they would have to go to work next day. But it was a really good double wedding, a lot of double fun, the partying guests kept saying, wishing them all double happiness. Overall, the wedding was quite a success, judging by the fact that only two bottles of vodka stayed unopened from the entire stack of crates.

Leo and Anna flew back to Moscow on Tuesday, one day after the wedding. Daria’s and Andrey’s families left on Wednesday. Alex and Anna stayed in the village for two more days, helping to clean up and put everything back in order. Then, they stayed for a couple of more days with Alex’s parents, spending time with his youngest brother Max and taking a break before heading to Tajikistan. Anna liked Alma-Ata. She was particularly impressed with the Medeo skating complex and the mountains around it. At the last family dinner together, Anna asked Alex to promise her they’d go back to Medeo in the winter to ski down the slopes. Alex looked at his mother and said, “I would be happy to come. Mom, what do you think about us coming here for the New Year’s?”

Alex’s mother looked at him quickly and said, “We’d be happy if you come, why do you even have to ask? But what about Anna’s parents? Wouldn’t they expect their only daughter and her new husband to come and celebrate the New Year’s with them?”

“I am sure they’d be all right if we come here instead,” Anna said. “They never question my decisions if they are good for me. I’ll explain everything to them myself.”

Alex still did not know how his mother really felt about Anna. Maria was polite and civil with her new daughter-in-law, but she definitely was not as warm with her as she was with Leo’s Anna. But then, Leo’s Anna has become everyone’s darling. She was so full of life it was almost contagious. Cute and friendly, kind and generous, she made people around her feeling good and no one could resist liking her. The whole family was amused when Andrey’s youngest son saw Leo’s Anna in her wedding dress and said, “When I grow up, I’ll steal you as my bride.” Everyone laughed then because when a small boy falls for a grown woman and promises to take her away, it says a lot about her genuine character. Besides, Anna and Leo were perfect for each other. Every time Alex looked at them, he remembered how happy he was with Irina before she disappeared. When he caught himself thinking that, he tried to shake the thought off and think of the wedding night with Anna.

In any case, Alex was happy with how the wedding turned out. He was ready to go to Tajikistan to start the new chapter of his life.

To Part 12

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