Natasha and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

Kornblum’s flyer, but I didn’t remember it. My mother noted the size of the house. Maybe three thousand square feet with a big yard. Also, it was fully detached. This was two substantial steps beyond our means. Between our apartment and a fully detached house loomed the intermediate town house and the semidetached house. A fully detached house was the ultimate accomplishment. Nobody we knew had even moved up to town house, though recently there had been plans and speculations.
    Three abreast, we went up Kornblum’s walk. My father was dressed in his blue Hungarian suit—veteran of international weightlifting competitions from Tallinn to Sochi. I had been put into a pair of gray trousers and a pressed white cotton shirt, with a silver Star of David on a silver chain not under but over the shirt. My mother wore a green wool dress that went nicely with her amber necklace, bracelet, and earrings. We were a sophisticated family—professional people with their straight-A-student son, future doctor or lawyer. With feigned confidence we strode up Kornblum’s nicely trimmed walk: three refugees and a warm apple cake.
    My father rang the bell. We heard footsteps. Then a man in slacks and a yellow sweater opened the door. The sweater had a little green alligator emblem on it. This was Kornblum. He was smiling broadly. He put a hand on my father’s shoulder and told us who we must be. My father must be Roman, my mother must be Bella, and I must be little Mark. He ushered us into the house. We followed him through the foyer and into the living room, where a table had been set. Six people were already seated around the table; three of the people were smiling like Kornblum. One of the smiling people was a woman who bustled over to my mother. Kornblum said this was his wife, Rhonda. Rhonda told us how nice it was that we could make it and relieved my mother of the apple cake. She told my mother she shouldn’t have and took the apple cake into the kitchen.
    Kornblum then introduced us to his good friends, the other two smiling people, Jerry Kogen and his wife, Shirley. Jerry and Shirley told us how wonderful it was to meet us. My mother said it was wonderful to meet them, too. My father nodded his head, smiled, and said thank you. He did this while glancing at the other three people at the table, the people who were not smiling like Kornblum, Rhonda, and their friends. A man, a woman, and a boy. Like us, they were overdressed.
    As Rhonda returned from the kitchen, Kornblum started to introduce us to the other family. Genady and Freda and their son, Simon, from Kharkov, wasn’t that right? Genady said it was right. His English was a little better than my father’s, but he had more gold teeth. In English, my mother told them how nice it was to meet them. In English, Freda thanked my mother. We were seated opposite them, and Jerry announced that Freda was also a medical professional—in Russia she had been a dentist. He himself was an eye doctor. Going around the table, they had most of the body covered. Eyes, teeth, Harvey with the bones, and Roman taking care of the muscles. What did that leave? Kornblum laughed and said he could think of a thing or two. Jerry laughed and Rhonda laughed and told Kornblum that he was too much. Genady and Freda laughed more than they needed to and so did my parents—though maybe a little less. Then Rhonda said a prayer and lit the candles.
    Over roast chicken Kornblum told my parents and Genady and Freda what an honor it was to have them at his house. He could only imagine what they had gone through. For years he and Rhonda had been involved with trying to help the Russian Jews. If it wasn’t too personal, he wanted to know how bad it really was. My mother said it was bad, that the anti-Semitism was very bad. Jerry said that Genady and Freda had been refuseniks, he wanted to know if we had also been refuseniks. My mother hesitated a moment and then admitted that we had not been refuseniks. She knew