Trafika Europe 12 - French Bon-Bons

Marat Baskin

English was even worse than her Russian. We didn’t know German. We tried mmm and ahhh but didn’t get anywhere. And why should she have waited for us?What sort of relatives were we? Even our very own Jewish daughters-in-law look at their husband’s relatives the way crystal looks at glass. And in this country--forget it, we are not even glass, we’re no more than a paper cup. A throw-away paper cup. But, thank God, we survived here. We went through it all: the bad and the good. But as my mother told me--look into your son’s eyes more often because in his eyes you will read the answer to this question: Did you do the right thing by going off to America? And let me tell you, Mr. Baskin, I’ve seen all sorts of things. Our first few years here we counted every dollar, and let me tell you what happened one time when I went with my son on a class trip to a farm. The school took care of his school fees, so everything was free of charge for us. But on the farm children have been offered horseback riding-- for one dollar! And I did not have a single dollar. I asked my son: “Do you want a ride?” “No,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. Yet I have also seen joy in his eyes when he went to Harvard. Back in our old life, when a friend’s daughter was admitted to the Moscow State University, the whole Krasnopole talked about it for a year. And now--this:

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