Ear-cupped Ed was about to launch into a dense and heartfelt soliloquy on the subject of journeys, when Senderovsky noisily pulled back his rustic chair and stood before the diners with his dressing gown and his glass of red.
“Oh, no,” Karen said. “He’s going to speak.”
“Daddy used to be a teacher before I was born!” Nat said.
“That’s right, and I was his student,” Dee said.
“I think a really dumb person could learn a lot from Daddy!” Nat said.
Everyone laughed, Senderovsky wondering if the remark colored his daughter as too strange or too clever. “Even though we’re technically outside, we use our inside voice,” Masha instructed Nat. “And we think before we speak”—in Russian—“so that we don’t hurt people’s feelings.”
Sasha surveyed his guests. Ed was studiously not looking at Dee. Dee was looking at Senderovsky as if her grade depended on it. Masha was breathing along with the girl on her lap, hoping, as ever, to meld her mind with her daughter’s. Karen was sticking out her tongue at Senderovsky, which made Nat laugh, which made Karen laugh more.
Karen only ever dressed like she had just gotten out of a time machine, today a Salvation Army bateau shirt and thin-wale corduroys. （She had taken off her Bundeswehr army jacket because of the stove’s warmth, or maybe Vinod’s.） She looked better when she left the city, calmer. They all did.
“My dear ones,” he said. “Welcome to the House of People’s Friendship, as we used to call it back in the Union of Soviets. This is a scary time.” Masha pointed to Nat and pressed a finger to her lips. He had forgotten his daughter’s generalized anxiety disorder, though she was now mostly busy playing marbles with her olive pits and not really listening to him. “A scary time, but also a fun time,” Senderovsky amended. “We have abandoned our city for each other’s company, and we may feel guilty for leaving people behind who may get very sick.” Again, Masha pointed to their daughter and her behavioral profile. “But not too guilty and not too sick, because we’re all good people and we’re here to keep each other safe. Now, I’ve known each of you…”
Senderovsky may have uttered some still-more-passionate sentences here and he may have felt tears building along his lower eyelids as he did so, but no one heard his words or felt stirred by the hot liquid sluicing gently from his orbs.
A tiny red car was crunching up the gravel. It stopped at the toppled branches, as if examining them, critically, and then continued along. Senderovsky thought it looked like the little vehicles that had been given out to invalids of the Great Patriotic War. Ed correctly surmised it was a Lancia.
“It’s him,” Masha said.
“Who?” Nat asked.
But no one answered.
6
The Actor stepped out of the car. He was immediately aware of an audience readying their lorgnettes. He was in no mood. The scenic drive had been endless, and most of it had been spent arguing with his girlfriend on the phone. She had been unusually Glaswegian, so it was hard to tell exactly what she was saying, but the fight appeared to be about the timing of the Actor’s visit to the countryside, and now it had lodged itself firmly in a space usually reserved for nasal headaches. Senderovsky was rushing toward him in what looked like Hasidic dress, his lips wine purple, the remaining tufts of his untrimmed hair leaning oddly to the side like a stegosaurus at rest. “You’re here!” he said to the last of his guests. “I was so worried you wouldn’t come. Because of your many messages.” The Actor tilted his head and looked far away as if to say: Messages? There were messages? “I was just delivering a toast, but now I’ll start all over again. But first, we go to your bungalow, no?”
“You tell me.” Senderovsky’s smile melted in the heat of his guest’s indifference.
“Is that all your luggage?” the landowner asked. The Actor had slung a duffel bag inscribed with the name of a California winery and resort Ed despised.
“Only here for a few days.”
“Of course, of course.” They went up the path past the silent porch with its many eyes. Masha could hear Senderovsky’s obedient blather and it made her sad. “The idea behind this whole property, the mad idea, I should say, was to create the bungalows on an even plane with the main house. The bungalows are between five hundred and eight hundred square feet each, the largest one meant to accommodate a small family, and the main house has bedroom quarters of about the same space meant for three people, myself, my wife, and my daughter. You’ll get to meet them in a second, my wife is a huge fan. In addition, there’s a kitchen, dining room, and living room with a grand piano that all residents can share. （I believe I’ve heard you play onstage.） While we’re here there are no social ranks. Everything’s a bit communitarian. Add to the number of people staying at any one time one other entity, which is our little society as a whole. When I was a child my happiest memories were of a bungalow colony on the other side of the river catering to Russian immigrants, cheap but tidy lodgings, wonderful people, such warmth! And here we are.”