Los Angeles Noir

smiled and glanced at him as if she was a guest in their living room.

The apartment was dark except for the flicker of the screen. He knew he was home, but it wasn’t quite right. He put on his slippers and silently shuffled behind Sofia Arkadievna to the bedroom. He didn’t want to break the spell, still hoping to return to the frosted winter day in his dream and the hated frozen cod. He yearned to follow the icy street past the familiar tram stop, across the rails and through the arch into the dirty Moscow yard, past the elderly ladies gossiping on the bench, and up the broken stairs that reeked of fried fish.

He resented that Sofia Arkadievna had interrupted his dream. Lying on his back, listening to her scratchy snoring, he stared at the trees outside through the tulle curtains. The constant summer of Southern California was gentle on his bones, but turned his heart inside out. This country gave him everything that he could dream of, except he never dreamed of it. His eyes skipped across the white-and-gold lacquer bedroom that Sofia Arkadievna bought on a layaway plan from a neighborhood store. They didn’t have to wait or get permission to buy the furniture. Just went and bought it, and it was delivered a few weeks later. Same thing with the furniture in the living room. Their daughter Sveta and her husband Alex, that red-haired putz with an idiotic smile, bought it for them when they finally moved to their government-subsidized apartment. Nothing had any history of his life imprinted on it; nothing held memory for him. It was all new and alien, and still smelled of fresh composition board. What was there to say?

He had grown into a pattern of sleeping during the day and staying awake at night, lying in bed and remembering things. It was as if he was trying to live on Moscow time. Sofia Arkadievna was mad, and Ivan wanted to go back to normal, but somehow couldn’t. Sveta said he was depressed and should see a doctor, get one of those depression pills. To hell with that. He was not taking any brain pills. What if he wouldn’t be able to remember anything? Oh no. No pills would help him with his condition. And then, who said people had to be happy all the time? How would they even know they were happy if there was no difference from one day to another? Come to think of it, being happy all the time would be just as tiring as being unhappy.

Sofia Arkadievna turned on her side and made him conform. Her soft breasts and belly cushioned and heated his aching back, the only things that were comforting and familiar in his life. He put his hands under his cheek and drifted into a restless sleep.

In the morning, Ivan Denisovich took a shower, flexing his biceps as he rinsed off the soap. His skin was sagging in a rippling sack under the arm, but his muscles beneath were still firm. Satisfied, he turned off the hot water and stood under the ice-cold jet, as he had done for fifty years, until his whole body burned in a tingle.

The sweet yeasty smell of blinis and smoldering butter wafted from the kitchen. He could hear Sofia Arkadievna bang pots, pans, and dishes in her usual morning whirlwind of activity. She was plump but not fat, and although she had changed through the years-her cheeks drooped, and her skin and eyes had lost their luster-she had not slowed down, and she kept her commanding attitude and agile walk.

“Stop admiring yourself. Breakfast is getting cold!” yelled Sofia Arkadievna through the door.

“Coming.” Ivan Denisovich looked at his stupefied face in the foggy mirror. His nose had become longer and fleshier, even bulbous. His jaw had lost definition, and jowls flapped under his mouth on both sides, reminding him of catfish whiskers. A sorry sight. He shrugged, splashed Grey Flannel over his flushed cheeks, and pulled on the blue Adidas jogging suit.

The TV was already on, Russian programming delivered via satellite right to their Southern California home.

“A nightmare!” said Sofia Arkadievna, rolling blinis onto her plate. “Look what those blood-thirsty Chechens are doing again! There’s no end to it… Sour cream or jam?”

“I’ll take the Nutella,” replied Ivan Denisovich, sitting down.

The screen flashed scenes from Grozny, where another car had been blown up and charred corpses were strewn across the pavement. Women in flowery babushkas wept, wiping away tears with dirty rags.

“Beasts. They are not human!” exclaimed Sofia Arkadievna, and sauntered over to the refrigerator. “How can they live like that?”

“It’s their home.”

“You want some juice?” She ignored his remark.

“Neh, my stomach is gurgly.” Ivan Denisovich glazed the inside of a blini with a generous layer of Nutella and slowly rolled it around the fork into a tube.

Home. What a strange word. Its meaning confused Ivan Denisovich. His mother died long ago, just before the war. And his father, after being liberated from Dachau, was sent directly to the Gulag, where he died after three months of hard labor. Funny how memory worked. The thought of home triggered the image of his exhausted father. Did he know that Ivan, then age fourteen, was also shipped to Siberia, as the son of a traitor of the people? It all seemed to have happened only yesterday, and at the same time in another life.

Ivan Denisovich remembered how after his release from the camps, he stood at a railroad station with a small backpack. The newspaper he had wrapped around his feet instead of puttees ripped inside his boots, but he was accustomed to the feeling. He had lived like that for two years, never fully warm. The sound of the approaching train pierced the Arctic silence. He bought a ticket to Kazakhstan, because it was hot, and ex- politicals were allowed to live there. He didn’t have any aspirations; he was sixteen but didn’t feel young, or excited at the long life ahead. He just wanted to be warm and have a place to sleep, any place, as long as it was only his, without cellmates.

Ivan Denisovich looked around the room, and it seemed eerie that he was sitting in Los Angeles, half the globe away from where he started.

“Ivan, where are you? I’ve been talking to you, and you’re like a zombie.” Sofia Arkadievna shook his shoulder. “What is it? Get out of your head, all I have to say. I have an assignment for you, dearie.” She pushed a piece of paper across the table. A little furry kitten with a pink bow stared at Ivan Denisovich from the top of the to-do list. Sofia Arkadievna would not allow him to sit in front of the television all day. He had what she called responsibilities. Canned tuna and oatmeal, that’s what his life had become.

“Later.” He stuffed the list into his pocket and walked over to the couch to watch TV.

“Pick up the phone, my hands are wet!” yelled Sofia Arkadievna from the kitchen. Ivan Denisovich must have dozed off again, because he didn’t hear the ring.

“Vanya?” Grigory Petrovich’s familiar baritone flowed benevolently through the receiver. “Are you decent? Davai, get down. I’m waiting. We’re going fishing in Santa Monica. My women are driving me crazy.”

Grigory Petrovich was Ivan Denisovich’s old school friend. He had a wife and a divorced daughter with two kids. They all lived together in a two-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood. Ivan Denisovich rarely visited him at night. The household was raucous, with children running and women yelling; besides, Sofia Arkadievna didn’t like Grigory’s wife, Valentina. She found her gaudy and low-class, not to mention ten years younger. Frankly, it was just as well, because Ivan Denisovich’s eyes weren’t what they used to be, and he preferred to stay home at night.

“Why fishing?” he whispered.

“Why not? Better than sitting in front of that talking box. Think: air, waves, the sun, and girls in bikinis.”

“You can’t eat that fish, the water’s polluted,” replied Ivan Denisovich, watching his wife clear the table, all the while figuring out how to escape without telling her he was going to the beach with Grigory.

“Hell you talking about? Who cares!” roared Grigory. “You hate fish anyway.”

“I was just saying.”

Grigory’s brown Oldsmobile had no air-conditioning. They kept the windows open, letting the breeze play with their messy wisps of gray hair. The oppressively hot day was unusual for January, but this year the whole winter was scorching, as if it were June. Sofia Arkadievna called it “earthquake weather.”

“Hooh, my heart goes crazy in this heat,” said Grigory Petrovich, patting his chest. He was wearing an old purple T-shirt with the yellow Lakers insignia, dark blue Adidas exercise pants, and sandals over striped socks. Round beads of sweat formed on his forehead and nose, and he wiped them off with a large crumpled handkerchief. “Live it up, Vanya. Eh, live it up! Vanya, Vanya, Vanya! What are we doing in Southern California anyway, my friend?”

Grigory pushed a cassette into the player and Gypsy music burst out the windows into the Fairfax midday