Read Mother Russia for Free Online

the guard asks me, “What are you waiting for, comrade?’ So what do I tell him? So what I tell him is: For the state to wither away is what I’m waiting for.’ “
    The cigarette holder balanced delicately between the fingers of one hand, the stem of a crystal wine glass pressed between the fingers of the other, Mother Russia shakes with laughter.
    “Don’t go away, there’s more,” Pravdin gasps. “When I say I’m waiting for the state to wither away, this old bat in front of me wags her gouty finger in my face and tells”—Pravdin can barely get the words out he is laughing so hard—“she tells me, “Don’t hold your breath!’”
    “Don’t hold your breath,” Mother Russia repeats, and she and Pravdin roar together.
    Nadezhda stands at the kitchen door looking from one to the other, not quite sure what to make of it all. Silence reaches out from her like a hand and touches Pravdin; the sound of laughter slips away and then the muscular spasms of the laughter, and he is left gasping for breath, staring at the girl with the tangled sun-bleached hair plaited into two braids that meet and twine into one another at the nape of her neck. She is wearing a sleeveless blue sweater and blue jeans and a broad-brimmed straw hat with dried wild flowers tucked into a blue band. She enters the room with a flowing motion of broad hips on soft flat soundless shoes, depositsher net avoska full of onions on the table, embraces Mother Russia.
    “Pravdin, Robespierre Isayevich,” Pravdin declares, leaping to his feet and clicking together the heels of his sneakers, “at your beck and call. I’m the new attic.”
    Nadezhda takes a pad from her pocket, writes on the top page, tears it off and hands it to Pravdin. On it she has written:
    “Oos, Nadezhda Victorovna. Hello to you.”
    “Hello back to you, little sister,” Pravdin answers uneasily, glancing at Mother Russia, holding the scrap of paper in his hand.
    A trace of a smile touches Nadezhda’s lips. She nods, turns back to Zoya and excitedly taps her briefcase; she has come home with a treasure. She scribbles the details on her pad. “Enormous line, joined naturally, waited forty minutes, no idea what was for sale till I came near the head. Oh Zoya, see what I found.”
    Nadezhda pulls from her briefcase a large glossy book of Hieronymus Bosch reproductions. “Look for God’s sake at this triptych,” exclaims Mother Russia, turning the pages. “What a delicious discovery. Feel the paper. Oh my God, it’s French or Swiss, absolutely no question about it. What did you pay?”
    Nadezhda flashes ten fingers four times.
    “Forty!” Pravdin marvels, his palm slapping against his forehead. “A steal is what it is. I can get you three times that with one phone call.”
    Nadezhda smiles and shakes her head, and Mother Russia says, “She would never sell such a thing.”
    Later, gathered around the table for dinner (lentil salad, fried mushrooms, an infusion made from red vine leaves), Mother Russia goes over her day for Nadezhda, “Another letter from Singer,” she reports. “This one wassigned by Mister Singer again. He’s not interested in the photographs and claims I have to get an import license before he can send me the part I need.” To Pravdin she explains: “Did you notice the old sewing machine in my room? It’s been hors de combat ever since I had it almost. A darling little repairman figured out which piece was broken, and I’ve been trying to get the Singer Sewing Machine Company to send it to me.”
    Nadezhda scribbles, “Show the letters.”
    But Mother Russia waves away the suggestion impatiently. “They wouldn’t interest him,” she insists. “Ha! I’ll tell you something funny about those Americans. I signed my first letter Volkova, Z.A., and Singer saluted me in his reply as ‘Dear Sir.’ Now I sign them ‘Mother Russia.’ But that’s another story.”
    “Little mother, don’t you get into trouble with all these letters?”