Vera (Age 9, The Baltic Sea)
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Excerpt from VERA by Gabrielle Glancy
Click to see Book Tralier
Chapter 2
The First Time I Saw Vera
We had agreed to meet at Cafe La Boheme.
We made the date for four o'clock on a Thursday. It was a chilly spring day.
Sitting at a table by the window was a handsome young man with blondish, wispy curls. He looked like a lanky, foreign angel. He was reading intently. Otherwise, the place was empty.
I crossed to the left side of this boy, who couldn't have been more than seventeen, and went to the counter to order. I surveyed the room. I was looking for my 5'9" brown/brown unsociable, unpredictable, complicated, perverted, disbalanced, artistic, narcissistic Russian/Jewish pessimist -- that's how she had described herself in her ad. I ordered a tea. While the woman behind the counter was steaming out water, I tried to see what the boy was reading. The cover of his book was yellow. That was all I could see. He saw me looking at him, for an instant looked up at me, then looked down.
"Place is empty," I said to the cafe worker. She was a cute dark-haired girl, slim, straight short hair. I liked her smile.
"Is it always like this?" I was nervous.
"Yeah," she said, handing me a pot of tea over the counter. She smiled her sweet smile. "Gets busy around six."
I thanked her and went toward a table by the door. On my way, the boy lifted his eyes. I had the very conscious thought then, that he looked like the young boy from Death in Venice -- he had a most lovely face -- square jaw, soft eyes, blond curls.
I saw he was looking at me so I took a step closer. I saw the title of the book he was reading was in Russian.
"Vera?"
The boy nodded. I was startled, a little bewildered, as when you forget, sipping from your glass, that it’s wine and not water you ordered. I had been sure she was a boy.
"Would you like to move to this table here?" I asked.
The table was too large for the little corner in which it sat, boxed in by windows on three sides. I was embarrassed, somehow, blind date and all, to sit by the windows.
"What are you reading?" I said.
"Nabokov."
I tried to read the title, having recently learned the Cyrillic alphabet, but couldn’t make it out.
"Lolita,” she said.
"I know that one."
Vera lowered her eyes. She had large sad eyes that were more yellow than brown. She was very tall and I could see that under her sweater, she had high, firm, lovely breasts. They were exquisite, in fact. I took note of this and referred to it later. It was not until I dropped her back off at the cafe, however, after I took her to my house to show her my photographs of Natasha, my first Russian girlfriend, that, as she walked away from me, I realized I was in trouble. I could fall for that girl, I thought. And I was right.
So I tried to read the first line of the book. My Russian was rudimentary to say the least. I had started studying Russian after Natasha.
“You have good accent,” Vera said. She sounded surprised.
I explained to her that I had been raised by my Russian grandmother who had left Russia while there was still a Tsar. Vera laughed. We talked for a brief few minutes. Then I asked her if she wanted to go to my house.
At my house, that very first day, she sat in the chair by the fireplace. I sat on the couch.
She was quiet, timid. We sat for a long time in silence. I looked at her every once in a while, but mostly, we both looked at the plant, a false aurelia, on the other side of the room. She had a darkness to her, and a femininity that wound through her boyish curls. I thought to speak but it didn't seem appropriate. I was thinking. And listening, actually. I was listening to the silence between us.
Finally, she said, and it sounded like she was making a joke, "So what would you say you write about?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
She laughed.
Then I laughed.
Again we were quiet for a long time.
"You want to know what I write about?" I asked, shyly.
She nodded.
"Hmm. " I said. "That's a hard question."
I can't remember now exactly what I answered, but it was something kind of pompous, something like, "I write about the relationship between the visible and the invisible."
"The visible . . .?" she repeated.
I thought for a moment she didn't understand what the word meant, but then she piped up: "The relationship or the intersection?"
For someone with so heavy an accent, who had only been in this country for about two months, this seemed like a pretty sophisticated question.
"Both," I answered.
"On the plane of the vertical or the horizontal?" she said, sort of laughing.
"Both," I said again, coyly.
Now we both laughed. Then, for the briefest moment, we looked at each other. I mean really looked.
We sat for a long time that day. She told me she had to get back to that same cafe, that she was meeting friends at seven. It wasn't until later I found out she had another date.
I knew, as one often does, everything I needed to know about Vera at the moment of our first meeting -- it was all there, raw signs which time and interpretation would only obscure. Everything was right there out in the open, the end woven into the beginning, just like that, all of it, except, I suppose, the answer to the question I'm still asking: "Who was Vera?"
I returned her to the cafe. In the car, I blasted the heat and played the Russian music Natasha had sent me from Moscow.
At the corner of Mission and something street, I dropped her off.
"I'm going to want to see you again," I said.
She didn't answer. Then, after a long pause:
"I think it's my grandmother you remind me of."
I was a little startled, but I pressed on. "Do you think you'll want to see me?"
"But you look like my mother. Yes," she said. "My mother's family."
I realized I was not going to get a straight answer from her. In any case, this was more than she had said all afternoon. At the time, I found the non-sequiturs charming.
When I looked over at her, I could see she was looking at the floor of the car.
"Well, take good care," I said.
She nodded.
"Can I call you?"
She nodded.
Then I nodded, as if to say, "Okay, now you may go."
Vera got out of the car and walked back to the cafe.
"You will call me when you come home?" she had said when I phoned her from the airport in New York just before I boarded the plane. But when, just a few days later I went looking for her, I found her gone: her phone disconnected, her apartment vacant. Kind, but completely disinterested, her landlord, a ruddy carpenter-type, held the door open for me as I ran my eyes over every inch of empty space where once the aura, the spirit, the scent of Vera had presided. He was no help at all in answering my questions.
I knew how it would end and I didn't.
In any case, on this particular day, the day I met Vera for the first time, I very consciously watched her walk away from me. I watched her deliberate sway, her slim, full buttocks. I thought to myself looking at her --I could do that -- meaning I could be with her, she could be my girl.
What can I say? She was beautiful.
I wanted to see her again. That much was clear.
Chapter 3
My Business is Not Circumference
In the middle of my work day, convinced she was telling me something I didn’t already know, my dear friend Alison sent me this passage from Herbert London’s book, Decade of Denial: A Snapshot of America in the 1990’s:
When so-called postmodernists visit my ninth-floor office, I always ask them to leave by the window. If truth does exist, they should certainly be able to defy the laws of gravity. No one, of course, takes me up on this suggestion. They know, as we all know, that there are truths by which we must abide. They know as well that although truth is elusive, the search for it is the essence of academic pursuits.
“Reminded me of VERA,” she said. “Stuck somewhere between AIDS and 911.”
“Very funny,” I texted her. “A good reminder.”
But actually I was kind of insulted.
I just want to be clear. That’s now how I roll. I won’t be saying, I didn’t have sex with that woman. I did have sex with that woman. And I aim to rise out of the ashes of half-truths and self-serving lies and revise Dickinson’s words to my own twenty-first century standards: My business is facts.
Excerpt from VERA by Gabrielle Glancy
Click to see Book Tralier
Chapter 2
The First Time I Saw Vera
We had agreed to meet at Cafe La Boheme.
We made the date for four o'clock on a Thursday. It was a chilly spring day.
Sitting at a table by the window was a handsome young man with blondish, wispy curls. He looked like a lanky, foreign angel. He was reading intently. Otherwise, the place was empty.
I crossed to the left side of this boy, who couldn't have been more than seventeen, and went to the counter to order. I surveyed the room. I was looking for my 5'9" brown/brown unsociable, unpredictable, complicated, perverted, disbalanced, artistic, narcissistic Russian/Jewish pessimist -- that's how she had described herself in her ad. I ordered a tea. While the woman behind the counter was steaming out water, I tried to see what the boy was reading. The cover of his book was yellow. That was all I could see. He saw me looking at him, for an instant looked up at me, then looked down.
"Place is empty," I said to the cafe worker. She was a cute dark-haired girl, slim, straight short hair. I liked her smile.
"Is it always like this?" I was nervous.
"Yeah," she said, handing me a pot of tea over the counter. She smiled her sweet smile. "Gets busy around six."
I thanked her and went toward a table by the door. On my way, the boy lifted his eyes. I had the very conscious thought then, that he looked like the young boy from Death in Venice -- he had a most lovely face -- square jaw, soft eyes, blond curls.
I saw he was looking at me so I took a step closer. I saw the title of the book he was reading was in Russian.
"Vera?"
The boy nodded. I was startled, a little bewildered, as when you forget, sipping from your glass, that it’s wine and not water you ordered. I had been sure she was a boy.
"Would you like to move to this table here?" I asked.
The table was too large for the little corner in which it sat, boxed in by windows on three sides. I was embarrassed, somehow, blind date and all, to sit by the windows.
"What are you reading?" I said.
"Nabokov."
I tried to read the title, having recently learned the Cyrillic alphabet, but couldn’t make it out.
"Lolita,” she said.
"I know that one."
Vera lowered her eyes. She had large sad eyes that were more yellow than brown. She was very tall and I could see that under her sweater, she had high, firm, lovely breasts. They were exquisite, in fact. I took note of this and referred to it later. It was not until I dropped her back off at the cafe, however, after I took her to my house to show her my photographs of Natasha, my first Russian girlfriend, that, as she walked away from me, I realized I was in trouble. I could fall for that girl, I thought. And I was right.
So I tried to read the first line of the book. My Russian was rudimentary to say the least. I had started studying Russian after Natasha.
“You have good accent,” Vera said. She sounded surprised.
I explained to her that I had been raised by my Russian grandmother who had left Russia while there was still a Tsar. Vera laughed. We talked for a brief few minutes. Then I asked her if she wanted to go to my house.
At my house, that very first day, she sat in the chair by the fireplace. I sat on the couch.
She was quiet, timid. We sat for a long time in silence. I looked at her every once in a while, but mostly, we both looked at the plant, a false aurelia, on the other side of the room. She had a darkness to her, and a femininity that wound through her boyish curls. I thought to speak but it didn't seem appropriate. I was thinking. And listening, actually. I was listening to the silence between us.
Finally, she said, and it sounded like she was making a joke, "So what would you say you write about?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
She laughed.
Then I laughed.
Again we were quiet for a long time.
"You want to know what I write about?" I asked, shyly.
She nodded.
"Hmm. " I said. "That's a hard question."
I can't remember now exactly what I answered, but it was something kind of pompous, something like, "I write about the relationship between the visible and the invisible."
"The visible . . .?" she repeated.
I thought for a moment she didn't understand what the word meant, but then she piped up: "The relationship or the intersection?"
For someone with so heavy an accent, who had only been in this country for about two months, this seemed like a pretty sophisticated question.
"Both," I answered.
"On the plane of the vertical or the horizontal?" she said, sort of laughing.
"Both," I said again, coyly.
Now we both laughed. Then, for the briefest moment, we looked at each other. I mean really looked.
We sat for a long time that day. She told me she had to get back to that same cafe, that she was meeting friends at seven. It wasn't until later I found out she had another date.
I knew, as one often does, everything I needed to know about Vera at the moment of our first meeting -- it was all there, raw signs which time and interpretation would only obscure. Everything was right there out in the open, the end woven into the beginning, just like that, all of it, except, I suppose, the answer to the question I'm still asking: "Who was Vera?"
I returned her to the cafe. In the car, I blasted the heat and played the Russian music Natasha had sent me from Moscow.
At the corner of Mission and something street, I dropped her off.
"I'm going to want to see you again," I said.
She didn't answer. Then, after a long pause:
"I think it's my grandmother you remind me of."
I was a little startled, but I pressed on. "Do you think you'll want to see me?"
"But you look like my mother. Yes," she said. "My mother's family."
I realized I was not going to get a straight answer from her. In any case, this was more than she had said all afternoon. At the time, I found the non-sequiturs charming.
When I looked over at her, I could see she was looking at the floor of the car.
"Well, take good care," I said.
She nodded.
"Can I call you?"
She nodded.
Then I nodded, as if to say, "Okay, now you may go."
Vera got out of the car and walked back to the cafe.
"You will call me when you come home?" she had said when I phoned her from the airport in New York just before I boarded the plane. But when, just a few days later I went looking for her, I found her gone: her phone disconnected, her apartment vacant. Kind, but completely disinterested, her landlord, a ruddy carpenter-type, held the door open for me as I ran my eyes over every inch of empty space where once the aura, the spirit, the scent of Vera had presided. He was no help at all in answering my questions.
I knew how it would end and I didn't.
In any case, on this particular day, the day I met Vera for the first time, I very consciously watched her walk away from me. I watched her deliberate sway, her slim, full buttocks. I thought to myself looking at her --I could do that -- meaning I could be with her, she could be my girl.
What can I say? She was beautiful.
I wanted to see her again. That much was clear.
Chapter 3
My Business is Not Circumference
In the middle of my work day, convinced she was telling me something I didn’t already know, my dear friend Alison sent me this passage from Herbert London’s book, Decade of Denial: A Snapshot of America in the 1990’s:
When so-called postmodernists visit my ninth-floor office, I always ask them to leave by the window. If truth does exist, they should certainly be able to defy the laws of gravity. No one, of course, takes me up on this suggestion. They know, as we all know, that there are truths by which we must abide. They know as well that although truth is elusive, the search for it is the essence of academic pursuits.
“Reminded me of VERA,” she said. “Stuck somewhere between AIDS and 911.”
“Very funny,” I texted her. “A good reminder.”
But actually I was kind of insulted.
I just want to be clear. That’s now how I roll. I won’t be saying, I didn’t have sex with that woman. I did have sex with that woman. And I aim to rise out of the ashes of half-truths and self-serving lies and revise Dickinson’s words to my own twenty-first century standards: My business is facts.