The Cosmopolitans by Nadia Kalman Page B

drugs.”
    Who was this potential wife-beater and anti-Asian bigot to lecture her sister? “Thanks. We’re good.” He didn’t seem to understand. Yana took Katya’s hand out of his and tucked it into the crook of her arm.
     
     
     
     
    Stalina
     
     
    Stalina had a stomachache. Osip made jokes, her mother posited seventeen terrifying diseases in the space of a minute, and the Russian Soul extolled mustard plasters.
    It worsened as she walked to the bathroom — a terrible dizzy nausea. Osip’s aunt Anastasia Arkadeyevna blocked her path, but, as usual, just saying her name, in this respectful form, with an enormous smile, gained Stalina free passage. Anastasia Arkadeyevna called banalities after her, and she nodded without turning her head. She wanted badly to lean against the wall, but kept her distance so as not to be tempted. Her hand was damp, and slipped on the metal bathroom door as she pushed it open.
    Yana, without her gorgeous scarf, held Katya’s hair back over the sink. Washing her face in the middle of a wedding? Katya stood, and the handkerchief said, “ Takae blednay, takae bednay ” — so pale, so poor. Those words were close together in Russian, and now she saw why.
    “ What happened? ” she said, jerking Yana’s shoulder, her stomach lurching with the movement.
    “She’s okay,” Yana said. “She just felt a little sick.”
    Katya said. “I can sing the song again, if you want.”
    “She’s okay now,” Yana said. “Mom, she always ends up okay.”
    Stalina said, “Why, Katyenok, at your sister’s wedding, a beautiful occasion, a time for the whole family…” Most of her words came from Anastasia Arkadeyevna, but Stalina didn’t know what else to say. There was no point in asking why.
    “ An innocent mother would ask ,” the handkerchief murmured.
    “We are leopard seals,” Katya said. Her lips were beige, a color for a couch, not a mouth.
    “Is it your classes? Bad grades? Yana, what’s that look you’re giving me?”
    “Nothing.” Yana began washing her hands.
    “I don’t like that look. Katyenok, I’d be so happy to help you with your math…” Stalina bent over and put her hands on her knees — no time to run into a stall to vomit. Nothing came. Instead, the handkerchief, quoting both Reagan and Stalina’s father: “ Doveryay, no proveryay,” trust, but verify.

     
     
     
     
    Katya
     
     
    They were taking her back to the airport, but she was three, she had made a mistake, her father would be traveling with her. She stretched her arms up, but he backed away. She was too old. She hid her face in her hands. She was back in her childhood house, and he was carrying her after all, stooping under the stairs so she wouldn’t hit her head.
    She awoke in the middle of the night and her mother was scrabbling through her backpack, robbing her. Katya told her she would give her the money if she just asked, not that she had much, but she had her return ticket. Her mother could sell it, she guessed. Her mother crawled up to the bed and tore up the ticket in front of Katya’s face. It was ungrateful and mean. She needed another pill, but fell asleep before she could find it. Cold water on her face. Was she back at camp? Was she sleeping in the park? It was still dark, and her mother was back. She tried to explain that her mother should let her alone until she calmed down and got another pill. She was still mad about the stealing. Her mother watered her with her mermaid watering can. Katya rolled onto the floor. There was her backpack, unzipped, but no, maybe her pocket? Where were her jeans? She’d told her mother to leave, she’d told her nicely.
     
     
     
     
    Pratik
     
     
    A week after the wedding, Pratik heard a brass-knuckled knock on his bedroom door and opened it to Yana. She said:
    Why did you come here?
    What are you studying?
    Isn’t industrial engineering just another way for the rich to plant their boots on the necks of the poor?
    When were you