Irene
Weekly Rituals, Comforting Routines. Casualties courtesy of Covid.
She lumbered up my front walkway, a pastel green plastic tub in one hand and the tools of her trade in the other. A huge lipsticked grin spread across her pale face, grateful, relieved. Irene is only a year older than I am, but our years on Earth have been experienced quite differently. She told me I was lucky to be born in this country.
“I found you!” she squealed in her familiar lilt tinged with Russian inflections, the charming English that I’d heard evolve over time. I met this woman 28 years ago, having moved to suburban New Jersey while eight months pregnant with my first child, and she’d been there from the very beginning. The beginning of my life as a mother, when I was green, when I was alone. Irene spoke hardly any English then, and mostly listened across the table from me, her soft brown eyes warm and safe.
She’d only been in America for a few years then, having left Kiev when Mikhail Gorbachev instituted a policy of glasnost, enabling Russian Jews to finally emigrate after years on a list. Her husband, Alex, her then-4-year-old son, Eugene, and Irene were allowed to leave with two suitcases and $87 each. The three refugees arrived in the United States, via a stop in Italy, in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall came down. Only their names then, yet to be Anglicized, were Sasha, Yevgeny and Irina.
“Inside or outside?” Irene chirped before ascending the steps of my front porch.
“Inside,” I replied from the doorway. I had opened up every window in my kitchen. It was the day after Antonio’s, the salon where Irene worked, shut down in mid-March due to the virus, and apparently, I was the only one of her customers not too afraid, as yet, to entertain a house call. She nodded and took off her sunglasses. Her right eye was red, puffy and inflamed. I cringed and took a step backward.
“It’s not what you think,” she reassured me. “It’s an allergic reaction. I went to the allergist this morning. I’m fine.” The words came out quickly, to soothe, rather than to convince. I didn’t need convincing. I trust her.
These days are all about trust.
I nodded and stepped backward, admitting Irene into my house.
“I drove around the neighborhood a few times, but managed to find you,” she said.
“I knew you could do it.”
“I’m going first,” I announced. “My sister and my niece will go after me.” This trip would be worth her while, in that it would include not only my manicure, but two more mani-pedis. She settled herself at my kitchen table and arranged her clippers, emery boards, sudsy water and polishes on a towel covered with a piece of paper towel. I surveyed the familiar still life and smiled, a little dose of normalcy in these abnormal times.
I sat down and fanned 10 fingers the way I’d fanned them every week for the past three decades.
At first, having just moved to New Jersey, I presented my fingernails at La Mirage, a now-defunct local nail salon run by a heavily made-up, bleached blonde named Svetlana, a Russian immigrant who hired Irene straight out of beauty school. A university graduate in Russia, Irene humbled herself to acquire a skill in America that would help feed her family. Like most immigrants, she did what she had to do to get by. Her husband, Alex, an engineer by training, landed a job fixing TVs at St. Barnabas, a local hospital. Along with help from Jewish charities, they managed.
Irene may have swallowed her pride to work as a manicurist, but she retains more than her fair share of stubbornness and dignity. From the very beginning, she and Alex vowed never to take any money from the government, and they never have. Alex took secondary jobs delivering newspapers in the wee hours and Irene worked seven days a week, making house calls to clients on the days when the salon was closed. They spent nothing, saved everything.
I’m not the only one of Irene’s clients who’s been with her forever. Many of us have met, going before or after each other, waiting for our nails to dry safely before venturing out. Irene’s table is where we chat. Where we catch up. We’ve come to know one another’s cares and concerns, and share in one another’s joys. Eugene, Irene’s son, spent his childhood clothed in hand-me-downs from some clients, reading books donated from others. Irene never fails to express her appreciation, remembers every kindness. Another client I know bought Irene Matryoshka nesting dolls on a trip to Moscow years ago, and Irene still talks about it.
She listens to us, and we listen to her. In the beginning, I brought my baby in his carrier, praying he would be good. Irene delighted in his chubby cheeks, his chubby legs, his chubby chins. I told Irene about my struggles, how hard it was to make the transition to living in suburbia, to have this little being dependent on me 24/7, and how much I missed my former life, where I made good money and got a ton of external validation. Then, at a period when I had to learn how to derive satisfaction in a completely different way, Irene mostly listened, probably not understanding most of what I was saying, simply nodding and smiling, a touchstone to whom I returned every week. I remember looking forward to her twinkling, understanding gaze and her welcoming, soft hands. I still do.
When I think about that time, I realize how un-self-aware I was, so privileged to have the option of staying home with my child, not having to earn money, jabbering on about my challenges, especially juxtaposed against Irene’s harsh realities. It’s what I’ve come to know as my First World Problems. But it was Irene who eased my conscience.
“If I were you, I would do as you do,” she said. “There’s no one like a Mommy.” I feel sure she soothed and reassured her “working” clients as readily as she did her “nonworking” ones, yet I know now we were all “working,” just differently. Irene enabled all of us to feel seen, acknowledged and heard.
I followed Irene when she left La Mirage for Antonio’s, and wouldn’t hesitate to follow her again if necessary. She has been loyal to me, and I will be loyal to her. Hence her presence in my kitchen. I rationalized that the visit was more for Irene than it was for me, a chance to make sure my money made its way into Irene’s wallet, but it’s always been a symbiotic relationship. I get manicures far more because I want to see Irene than because I need to have my nails polished. Now, six weeks into the Pandemic, my no-nonsense fingernails are clipped short, my hands slightly chapped from all the cooking and housework I’ve been doing, despite nightly gobs of hand lotion, and I’m fine with that. I don’t miss my polished nails or perfect cuticles.
I miss Hand-Holding.
I miss Normal.
I miss Irene.
Several weeks ago, I texted her, “I need your address.” She called me back that evening.
“We’re fine,” she told me.
“I need your address,” I insisted.
“I know why you’re calling, and I love you for it, but we’re fine. Alex is working.”
“How is Alex?”
“He’s working so hard at the hospital. He’s repairing all the ventilators.”
“You must be so proud of him,” I said.
“I am. I’m really proud that he’s doing what he can.”
Doing what he can. In the old country, Alex (“Sasha” in Russia), was a “big shot.” Ten years older than Irene (“Irina” in Russia), swashbuckling Sasha was super successful, a confident man who wooed and won teenaged Irina’s heart. The couple married, settled in their hometown of Kiev and quickly had a son. Sasha worked as a high-level engineer at Chernobyl, a nuclear facility not far away from Kiev. Everything seemed to be going well. Until…
I had finished Midnight at Chernobyl, a journalist’s painstaking account of the 1986 explosion of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, in February, when I was still getting manicures. I had heard snippets over the years from Irene, but never had fully appreciated the enormity of the disaster, the extent to which the government lied to its own people, or the dangers the event posed to the world, and more particularly, to the Russian people. Now, in light of the gathering storm in Wuhan, China, I discussed the book with Irene.
“I don’t need to read it,” Irene said when I offered to lend her the book. “I lived it.”
“But what about the lying? I never really appreciated how Communist governments lie to their people, and how they actually expect to get away with it.”
“They do get away with it. They always have,” Irene said with pursed lips.
“Not always. Chernobyl was too big. We had satellite photos. The radiation fallout affected not only Russia, but all of Europe.”
Irene shrugged.
“The Chinese government won’t get away with this either,” I said.
Irene shrugged again.
Now, as I think back, I wonder what Irene would do if I told her the Trump administration will never get away with its lying.
She’d probably shrug.
Irina didn’t recognize her husband. Along with the rest of the young children and their mothers, Irina and her 2-year-old, Yevgeny, had taken refuge months ago in the mountains far away from Kiev to escape the radiation. The confident young man Irina left was now slightly stooped, his strength diminished. His bright blue eyes looked tired, encircled by faint lines that she couldn’t remember seeing before. He was completely bald.
Two years later, the family left Kiev, and the life they knew, for a better life in America. When I think of President Trump’s incessant persecution of immigrants, the vilification and scapegoating of people like Sasha and Irina, I seethe. Until recently, I’ve been proud of my country’s welcoming ways, its embrace of hardworking immigrants who enable our economy to thrive, but no more. These days, I am ashamed.
In Russia, Irina studied accounting, but here, she paints nails and massages feet. In Russia, Sasha studied engineering, but here, his talents mostly go underutilized. Neither of them complain. They are mostly grateful for the opportunity to pursue the American Dream. After 10 years here, they became citizens, along with their son, Yevgeny (known in America as Eugene).
Eugene, not Yevgeny anymore. During the impeachment hearings, I discussed names with Irene.
“Did you know that Alexander Vindman, the colonel with the Purple Heart who’s testifying against Trump, is from the Soviet Union?” I asked. “His twin brother’s name, the military lawyer, is Yevgeny. Sasha and Yevgeny. That’s Alex and Eugene.”
Irene nodded and smiled.
“Our country owes them a great debt,” I insisted. “What courage!”
Irene looked away. “We’ll see what happens,” she said.
The day I watched the Vindman brothers being unceremoniously fired and escorted from their offices, I remembered her skepticism. Those honorable men had been here since childhood, just like Irene’s son — all three productive, taxpaying American citizens.
Like any Jewish mother, Irene revels in Eugene’s accomplishments. Over the years, I’ve listened to her regale me with his high school, college and post-college doings. I celebrated with her when Eugene got his MBA. I rejoiced with her when he got married and shared her delight when each of her two grandchildren was born. These days, she lives for those two munchkins, who call Irene “Babushka Ira.”
Irene knows everything about me, and I know everything about her. Who needs a therapist when I have Irene?
I share her joys, and I feel her pain. It has been far from easy being married to Alex. The man Irene lives with bears scant resemblance to the man she married. Alex is an extremely knowledgeable man, but that has not always translated into wisdom. He has read widely, acquiring more than a passing familiarity with Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Kafka, but he can’t always read other people. He deeply appreciates classical music, having amassed a fine collection of recordings of not only Russian composers like Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, and enjoying Mahler, Beethoven and Brahms, in particular, yet he doesn’t listen to Irene in the ways that he should.
Irina and Sasha have grown apart, yet they remain together. They share a son and grandchildren. They share a past. They have survived together, and continue to do so. All sorts of couples are experiencing challenges and strains on their relationships during the Pandemic’s lockdown, their unions never having been designed for the realities that social distancing demand.
The Pandemic has been tough on Irene. It’s been tough on me, too. Still, like good soldiers, we both manage to carry on. I got a call one April morning.
“It looks like the shop may be opening up next Friday,” Irene informed me after we caught each other up.
I looked down at my cuticles and surveyed my short, unvarnished fingernails. Over the past few weeks, I’d grown used to them.
“Keep me posted,” I urged her.
I don’t know whether I’ll be brave enough to go to Antonio’s, whatever the precautions the salon takes. But I may ask Irene to come to my house again, at least at first. Baby steps. I cannot imagine not having any more manicures and pedicures, as some of my friends are vowing in light of the virus.
Not because I feel the need for perfect nails. Those days are long gone.
Still, I feel the need to see Irene. To hear her voice. To feel her hands on mine.
