The Cosmopolitans by Nadia Kalman Read Free Book Online Page A

anything by it, Stalina told herself, as her daughter unclasped her hands to show a tiny engagement ring. “See, Mom, and you thought he’d never want to get married, you said, ‘he’s not even on five-year plan.’” She was giddy at the thought of having pleased her parents.
    Stalina tried to smile. Milla was trying to do the right thing, getting herself married when so many young people just wanted to be swinging in the trees with the other singles. Stalina, in turn, would make the sacrifice of not asking Malcolm whether he had a job, at least not in any obvious way.
    Osip’s exchange student, Pratik, timidly opened the front door. “I have brought nuts.” He put a wax bag on the coffee table.
    Stalina said, “So sit, Pratik, we’ll have nut party.”
    “I need to study, unfortunately,” he said, heading upstairs. His maroon backpack hit him at every step — what, in Bangladesh they didn’t have adjustable straps? “ Don’t let the Oriental distract you, ” the handkerchief admonished.
    Stalina said, “And so, you get married, it is very nice, and then…”
    “I want to have kids, I want to have, like, five kids,” Malcolm said.
    “Okay, big Jewish family, and in the morning you wake up, and eat balanced breakfast, and then…go to office, or just —” What was the slang? “Or hang?”
    Malcolm looked about to laugh.
    She said, “It is easy question about future.” The handkerchief disagreed: “ It is never easy to divine what will meet us on life’s winding, ” etc., and suggested they conjure upon a rooster.
    Osip escaped to the liquor cabinet and stood staring at its not very voluminous contents: Malibu, vodka, Manischewitz, and a few bottles of red wine. He patted the bottles, as if to comfort them.
    “Actually,” Malcolm said after a pause. He now looked as though Stalina’s question was exactly what he had been hoping she would ask. “I am trying to choose between these two careers I’ve been interested in for a long time: law and journalism. So on the law side, I’ve signed up for the LSAT, that’s the Law School —”
    “I know,” Stalina said. “My girlfriend Alla has niece who’s lawyer.”
    “Okay,” Malcolm said, leaning back. “I’ve also” — he seemed proud to be in possession of that also — “talked to a friend of my parents who’s going to give me an internship — he’s a civil rights lawyer. Should I open this?” He had Pratik’s bag of nuts in his hands.
    “Excuse for a minute,” Osip said, returning with wine glasses. “What is it mean ‘internship’?”
    Stalina answered in Russian: “ Like Yana had, at the children’s club, voluntyorstva for no pay. ” Osip sighed quietly.
    “This one is really prestigious,” Milla said. “It’s more of a fellowship.”
    “Anyway,” Malcolm said, picking out an almond, “journalism is another strong option. I don’t know if you guys remember, but sophomore year, I actually ran a newspaper —”
    “Yes,” Stalina said, beginning to feel nauseated. A two-page tabloid for street people — how do you make money on something like that?
    Malcolm nodded, drank some wine.
    “Okey-dokey,” Stalina said. “But before you tell us you want to be mathematician.”
    “Yeah, but that was before I took that class, and realized what math metamorphoses into after Calculus, it’s a hydra.” Malcolm laughed a how-silly-of-me laugh, the kind of laugh only very confident people could afford. If Stalina ever laughed like that at work, people would laugh along with her, thinking all the while: Of course, the woman with the accent made a mistake.
    ***
    After the children left, Stalina sat in the kitchen and let Osip cook some liver for dinner.
    “ He’s a nice boy from a very good family, ” she said.
    Osip nodded.
    “ Of course, if we were in Boston, we could bring ten, twenty nice boys to the house for Milla to choose from. But you moved us here, where there’s nothing but Leonid and Malcolm. So she picked