Issue 42 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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mother was an academic over there and now works at Nails Nails Nails. She taught her daughter first-class English. Ziva likes to talk about the blizzards of St. Petersburg, and how as a girl she skated the frozen Neva, ice cocooning the 60 rivers and canals. She talks about 30-below-zero temperatures as she paints tiny stars on inchlong fingernails. Hannah inherited her mother's love of winter. Fat snow, not the pitiful stringy snow we have here. I remember snow like that from when I was little little and my father carrying me. "1 hope your father has those maple cookies." "It's Kim. Remeinber that, Hannah." Daddy opens the door in a peach-colored satin robe and hugs and kisses me, the towel around his neck smelling of lavender. "Happy Valentine's We used to go to Central Park to watch the swans but lately Hannah's been spending every minute with her lipstick. Day." Then he takes Hannah's hands and pulls her inside for a hug. "Happy Cupid to you too." At first I don't look at him because I'm afraid. When he had his chin surgery he went battered-woman black and blue for weeks and when he reduced his Adam's apple, his voice changed. "Guys, what's different?" he asks in his whisper, pivoting for us in the foyer. His robe clings to his breasts, and they're a set of perfect tennis balls. He must have had the gummy bear implants. He hasn't said anything about mine that finally are budding like the green tomatoes Mrs. Hertzberg grows in her classroom. "From the towel around your neck I gather you're about to take a shower in the afternoon," I say, knowing what he wants me to notice. "When you lived at home, you took showers in the morning.'.' He places his hands on his hips. "I'm going to a party tonIght. Something else has changed." "You're growing your hair out, Mrs. Cadorine?" Hannah says. She is smart and can blab about Pavlova, Nijinsky, and the ballet. But mostly it's lip liner and short or long strokes and how to apply foundation to blend and conceal. She's set on becoming a make-up artist for TV. "Daddy wants to be called Kiln," I reinind her. "Even Grandma calls him that. He's going to a clinic where they sew hair plugs into your scalp." "Hair is hard," he says, his mouth losing its smile for an instant. His hair is strawberry blond and long thin wisps of it are arranged over the top of his head. Not even estrogen helps, and the hair plugs are a money tar pit. I remember when Daddy lived at home his hair would fall out and stick to the sides of the tub like slivery goldfish, and Mommy would laugh. His skin is ultra-smooth from electrolysis. Hannah told me about the white nights back home where dusk and dawn meet in summer skies. That's what Daddy's face reminds me of, or a mute swan whose plumage is gone. He turns, pulling his robe tighter, sucking in his stomach, raising his chin. "The results were very pleasing." "You've grown a chest for the party," I blurt out. "You've had the gummy bears." Daddy grins. "That's right, but for more than just the party. For forever." "Can we go with you to the party?" Hannah asks. "Chairman Mao wouldn't want that, Hannah. You know how Dalloway's mother is. Her brain might appear to be tofu and eggplant but she manages to find out everything." "Oh, please," Hannah begs. I wonder how many potential customers she thinks she might meet. Hannah is taking an Internet cosmetology course. This week's lesson is brow makeover make-up tips. Nothing at Bronx Science interests her as much. We used to go to Central Park to watch the swans, but lately Hannah's been spending every minute with her lipsticks. I used to fill notebooks about migrating birds. The birds are confused. They don't know summer from winter and they're not sure when to fly. The trees are just as bewildered when green buds appear in February. I think I'm the only one who's worried about the birds. "Dalloway and parties don't mix," Daddy explains, ushering us into the dining area where the table is decked out and waiting. "It wouldn't be any fun for you guys. It's an adult Valentine gala." Daddy shouldn't have said gala, now she will want more than ever to go. He's practicing his feminization walk: use hips not whole body, foot, thigh, leg. "Let me show you the dessert course. You can have your own soiree right here." Hannah's lips turn down. "Sounds great to me," 1 say, following Daddy into the dining area. On the table, maroon napkins are folded like sails of yachts, spoons and forks rest against the silver moon of the chafing dish, which is filled with Godiva foil-wrapped Valentines. Fresh cut flowers sprout from a vase, leaves like red pepper rinds that have been shined. "Dutch apple and strawberry rhubarb pies. Maple cookies with an
inch of frosting. This way for main courses and appetizers," he says, whipping open the refrigerator to show off individual tins from Good-N-Plenty. "Chicken tenders, vegetable pot pies and empanadas. You could snack and have a movie marathon. I got three Hitchcocks! Dalloway's favorites." It would be heaven to sit with a Dutch apple pie between my knees and watch Vertigo, to pick apart the walnuts and brown sugar while Jimmy Stewart hangs by his fingertips from the edge of a building, to crunch pieces of crust and pluck out syrupy apples as Kim Novak drifts like humidity at the florists around the peonies and lilies. Hitchcock doesn't show, but suggests, the gnats halfheartedly circling the blooms. To be back in time with basically a whole pie and no school the next day. What could be better? I drop my overnight bag and go for a fork and plate, the glass ones in the shape of sunfish. "Do you want rhubarb or apple, Hannah?" "Both," Hannah says. "Me too." I stab the rhubarb with a pie cutter. "What about you, Daddy?" I've always loved Daddy's sweet tooth. "I can't, Dalloway, I have to watch my waist." "I miss seeing your love handles," I say, balancing a heaping slice of apple pie on the prongs of my fork. "Hannah, he used to have a hula-hoop of fat right above his belt and when I was a little girl I grabbed onto it thinking it was his hand." "Hula-hoop, what is that?" she asks. "It was a plastic hoop that you threw your hips around inside of." "Throw your hips, how?" Daddy gets himself a glass of water from the sink and pulls out a drawer. Both of us automatically close in. The drawer is full of punch-out pill cards, samples, the kind doctors give away. I pick up a pill card. Under plastic in neat rows are purplish tablets the color of vitamin B-12. Two of them are missing. He snatches the card back. "What's all this, Mrs. Cadorine?" Hannah asks. At first, he doesn't answer. Then he pushes another tablet from the punch-out card and pops it into his mouth. "It's Kim, remember? These are hormones." Hannah dislikes drugs. She saw her father make syringes out of sewing needles and ballpoint pens, inject over-the-counter cough syrup directly into a muscle. Near the end, her father lived in a packing box with a mongrel and when he begged on the street his sign read, "Please help me buy food for my dog. ff Hannah said Russians love animals much more than people. Daddy washes down what was in his mouth. "Are they making you a woman?" I ask. He nods. Hannah licks at her new hyper-shine lipstick. The teentastics at school are leery of her, as if one of their eyes might go blind if they hung around her. Daddy takes another drink of water, and then holds out the glass like he's toasting Hannah. "What I wouldn't give to look like you." "If I can make you look like me will you take us to your party?" she asks Daddy. I want to kick her. A smile spreads across his face. "Let me think about it while I shower," he says, heading toward the bathroom. "Dalloway, go check out the guest room. There's another surprise." In the spare bedroom Daddy has his roll-top desk, his kite and windsock collection, all his research and development orange juice containers, his hydroponics files, and now he's set up the igloo tent. Inside are maroon sleeping bags, and on each pillow is a package wrapped in shiny red paper and tied with silver ribbon. I feel tears growing in my eyes like weeds. I crawl into the tent and fetch the packages. "Here, Hannah, this one's for you." I rip mine open, but Hannah uses her fingernail to loosen the tape making sure she doesn't tear the paper. "This is beautiful," she says, holding up the cowhide shoulder bag, petting the swirls of brown and cream-colored hair. "I hope no anhnal had to die to make that stupid purse," I say, peering inside. "Hey, there's a $50 bill and a key. I bet it's the key to this apartment." I stuff the fifty and key into the pocket of my jacket, throwing the purse on top my day pack. "Dalloway, I got a $50 bill too. I can't believe it." "But no key?" I ask with a catch in my throat. I'm the daughter. "No key." Then she folds the foil gift wrap and slips it inside the purse, a solemn expression on her face like she's thinking of her father who is buried in Russia. I sit at the roll-top, tugging out the drawers. The bottom drawer is hard to pull, and no wonder - it's filled with envelopes, the flowerprinted stationery kind, not the business ones. There must be hundreds of love letters. Hannah grabs Vogue from the entertainlnent shelf and plops into the beanbag chair. I lift a packet of envelopes, smelling perfume. Letter after letter I slip under my nose like a fading drug
Page 4 and 5: SO m e f e a S t FICTION - SAMANTHA
Page 6 and 7: ART II ANTHONY GOICOLEA ii Pool Pus
Page 10: were my own, a strange turn of phra
Page 16 and 17: They wore sweaters and knit wool ca
Page 19 and 20: y Allen Grossman Winter at the Sea
Page 21 and 22: y Peter Trachtenberg 5 0 m e f e a
Page 24: itself," Athanasie told me. "True j
Page 31: paintings. Hannah offers to do his
Page 35 and 36: New Year's Day: Looking for aSign F
Page 38: Something about the light does this
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Page 45 and 46: trunk alone tree. It was the fuller
Page 47 and 48: that she placed in each bowl of owl
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Page 55: GOU"tpcy 'H) (IIJ' PoslrnaslfH'S Ne
Page 58 and 59: mixod media 58,;)f"x7()"'''''x54';'
Page 60: New York City Outside the window Bu
Page 63 and 64: y Erin Belieu 3. I'm a borscht-belt
Page 66 and 67: the thick metal support posts, I st
Page 68 and 69: that caught the rats that sought to
Page 70 and 71: fiction. It's our world, as long as
Page 72: c: How did that last transition occ
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Page 86 and 87:
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Page 91 and 92:
assortment of needles, catheters, t
Page 93 and 94:
etween cement and concrete. I worke
Page 96 and 97:
The New Yorker, TriQuarterly, Bomb,
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Issue 42 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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