In Romania he was a horse—a muscular horse of great potential, white blaze on his forehead that translated as white from head to toe to his mama, who, in turn, made him believe he would one day have the run of the fields, the stables, the mares. She prepared her good black bread for him every week until she starved and nearly disappeared after Tata disappeared because he was a friend of Sasa’s and Sasa disappeared because he helped Ionid with a heist and the communists did not like this. A saddle was cinched on then, cinched on tight, and later a harness and blinders, carts of refuse to pull everyday, moldy hay and not much, and no good black bread, so that his blaze disappeared, his hair thinned and his patience. He lost a tooth in a brawl, lost his gaits—his canter, his lope, his gallop—bad hay made him fat, dimpled his hooves. A carrot was waved from a far fence, far beyond the acres of sunflowers he once grazed, and he married the American woman.
He was 29 and she was older. A white apron held her perfume which was flour, and if he still had an imagination he perhaps would’ve pictured a Reuben’s Madonna hiding under her starched cotton shirt, starched cotton pants, starched cotton apron that if he did still have an imagination, and the will to use it, might have shown him, his hands, patting the apron where it wrapped around his new wife’s hips, an aura of flour dust rising to surround them, wrapping them in a halo of fine powder, the scent of a basic element suspended about them that could, perhaps, if brought together with the right other elements, become very good. But he had used his imagination up when his tata taught him classical guitar, had used it up as he watched those beloved fingers fly across the strings, imagined his own creating the same magic out of vibrations leant to the air, realized those imaginings in time to lose them again hauling shit and his heavy heart through the Carpathian mountains and back again, imagining his tata still played, had never known Sasa and Sasa had never met Ionid. He had no imagination left when the carrot appeared.
His mama had placed the ad with his photo and accomplishments. His mama brokered the wedding with the American. He followed the lead of her reins like any well-broken horse would do. Yes, he would send money home; yes, he would send for her too, when he could, when he could he would do this for her.
A good son and always remembering the mama who had grown so thin he thought she would also disappear, he went to his wife’s bank, which was also his bank, every Monday that wasn’t a holiday and deposited short stacks of dollar bills and coin rolls packed firm with quarters, dimes, and nickels he had counted out in stacks from his tip jar. The tips sprinkled into his jar when he played his guitar for his wife’s bakery patrons.
On the first Monday of every month that wasn’t a holiday, he withdrew what he could in larger bills, usually twenties, but also sometimes a Ben Franklin, wrapped them in thick paper and sent them to his mama in Bucharest. He was good for his wife’s business. Even his first year there, in Pittsburgh, when he only swept the floors, washed a few cups, the accoutrements of a baker, he was good for the bakery and had asked for a small amount to send to Mama. His wife the baker had smiled in her fondness for him, and instead of the money, arranged to have his missing tooth replaced by the dentist who occupied a small office upstairs.
The second year, his wife him a son; the third year, a guitar. With the guitar he began to imagine his tiny mama’s thin fingers opening the long envelope and unfolding the thick paper to reveal what he would be able to send. He was still a horse, not white, and without a blaze on his forehead, but not hauling shit.
She was not unpleasant, his American wife. At night they would nicker in their shared stall, make small exchanges, and sometimes she would doze with her neck laid across his wide back. The fourth year she gave him a black leather coat. He wore it like a prize. The fifth year her sister gave him a daughter and the nickering stopped.
He did not blame himself, the sister, or her. If he thought about blame or fault, Sasa was somehow involved. But he didn’t. There had been the fresh sunflowers, that was all; only five, bought by the sister and brought in a bunch to his corner where he was tuning his guitar, that was all, for later, when his wife would unlock the front door and turn the Closed sign to Open. There had been the fresh sunflowers, that was all. No explanation of how they multiplied into field after field after field so that by the time he looked up from the five in her hands, held like a bridal bouquet and tipped toward him to share each wide open face, his eyes had filled with another country, another time, another space. There was no understanding the stems dropped and her hands pulling his face to her waist, or how they both dropped with the flowers onto the floor. If his wife had been behind her counter polishing the stainless steel, he would not have known, would not have stopped his headlong gallop into a place without fences, forgotten.
He knew the mother of his wife and of his lover was the first, beyond the secret he and his sister-in-law shared, to notice the similarity of her grandchildren, how particular the blue of their eyes, how widely spaced in their flat round faces. There had never been any mistaking the Slavic expanse of the boy’s face as that of his father’s; there was no mistaking the boy’s sister for anything other than his sister. His American mother-in-law had cocked her head at him briefly one Sunday, wiped her hands on her apron, shrugged, and settled into a soft chair where the little boy sat in her lap turning pages as she read and the baby girl studied her every movement from her resting place in the crook of her grandmother’s left arm. [more . . .]
