"Dimitri, no!" Lara quickly swept the three-year-old into her arms.  "Touching Mama's lamp is a no-no, sweetie!"

Papers were scattered across the floor, some crumpled, some with large "x"s across them.  Mikhail was having some -- he didn’t like to admit it, of course -- but trouble with his creativity today.  He was trapped in the cruel walls of artistic limit.  Maybe it was his current concerns that kept his mind so occupied he was unable to draw what he urged too.  How would they make the rent meet this month?  Would the authorities decide to purge the town of the Jews?

And, of course, the upcoming anniversary gift.

Dimitri pouted, swinging his feet to lower himself out of his mother's arms.  "But Mama!  The kitty!  The kitty!"

"The kitty doesn't want to see you right now," Lara said firmly.  "You pulled his tail yesterday and he still hasn't forgiving you.  Have you, Mikitty?"

The sleek black cat looked up from his grooming, his bright copper eyes reflecting the midday sun.  He rubbed against Lara's legs, purring his agreement.

"Come here," Mikhail laughed, taking Dimitri from Lara.  He needed to get his mind off of his dilemmas for a few minutes.  "Want to play train?"

Dimitri nodded, wrapping his arms around his father's neck.  "The train, Daddy!"

Mikhail laughed, lowering his son to the ground, then getting on all fours.  Dimitri eagerly crawled on his back.

"Choo-choo!  Daddy, Daddy, choo-choo!"

"Mmhmm, choo-choo!" Mikky said as he crawled along, only a tint of pain in his voice as Dimitri pulled his hair to 'drive' the train.  It was much better than the time he had kneed him in the stomach, for sure.

Dimitri's young laughs filled the flat.  "Look, Mama, I'm riding the train!  The Daddy train!"  He clapped his hands happily.  "Choo-choo!  Across St. Petersburg!"

"Across Russia!"

Lara pursed her lips teasingly.  "Mr. Conductor, can you give the train a special message from me?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Tell him that it's almost dinnertime and that unless both of you wash up, you won't be served."

“Papa, it’s al --”

Mikhail quickly rolled on his back to prevent Dimitri from falling, then jumped to his feet, the boy in his arms.

"All right, all right, to the bathroom we go!"

"Good," Lara laughed.  "I'm glad we see eye to eye on this issue."

"All I'm seeing is eye to gribnoy sup."

"Yuck, gribnoy sup!"  Dimitri grimaced.  "I don't like mushroom soup!"

"It's an acquired taste," Mikhail agreed.  He leaned forehead to forehead with his young son.  "And don't EVER acquire it, Mitri."

"Mikhail!" Lara playfully hit his shoulder.  "You tell him anything ELSE like that, and you most certainly won't be served!"

"It's not the mushrooms...it's Mama's cooking, I think," Dimitri whispered as Mikky shut the bathroom door firmly behind them.

“I think you’re right.”

There was a small pound on the other side.  “I can hear you in there, you know!”

Mikhail grimaced.  “Damn thin walls,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Uh oh, Daddy, you said a ’no-no’ word!” Dimitri scolded as he stood on the edge of the bathtub.  “You know what Mama says about bad words.  She said she’d clean our mouths out with...with...the yucky stuff!  Soap!”

“We’ll just keep quiet,” Mikky said with a wink.  He scooped his son into his arms.

They all sat down to dinner soon, the gribnoy sup steaming from its shallow bowls.  Lara made sure the mushroom particles were cut well enough for Dimitri while Mikhail tried casually to dump his into the nearest plant.

“Guess what, Mama?” Dimitri said between slurps of soup.  “Daddy said ‘damn’!  What does ‘damn‘ mean?  Is that a ‘no-no‘ word?”

Mikhail’s eyes widened.

“Ahum.  Teaching Mitri some bad words, Mikky?”  Lara raised an eyebrow, pointing her soupspoon towards her husband with an accusing flair.

“Well...it slipped, Larey!”

“And when Dimitri starts running around talking like a sailor, we’ll just say it slipped too!”

“I don’t think I want to be a sailor, Mama.  I want to be a...a...a...”

“Artist,” Mikhail whispered.

“Artist!”  Dimitri paused.  “Mama, what’s an artist?”

“It’s someone who draws, like the pretty pictures your Papa does.”

“Oooooooooooooooooh!”

Mikky messed up Dimitri’s hair playfully.  “You’re going to have the artistic talent of the best master painters in the world!”  He swept his hand out in front of him, trying to let Dimitri understand, unsuccessfully, the abilities he’d inherit.

“You’ll be just like your Daddy!” Lara chimed in, gently cleaning the mushroom soup from her son’s mouth.  The love for their child was evident in both of them.

“With the planning of your mother.”

“And the humor of your father!”

“And the singing ability of your great-grandfather!”

Lara laughed.  “His great-grandfather?”

Mikhail picked up Dimitri.  “Grandfather Matityah was a wonderful singer.  The gene passed on to me.”

His wife crossed her arms and leaned forward teasingly. “Oh did it?”

“Of course!” He began to dance with Dimitri across the flat, dodging their sparse furnishings, and stepping on the cat’s tail a time or two.

“Sing, Daddy, sing!”

“With pleasure!”

Mikhail swung around with Dimitri a few times as he tried his hand at singing.

“Oy, oy, oy -- Belz, mayn shtetele Belz!  Mayn heymele dort, vu ikh hob mayne kindersche yorn farbracht.  Zayt ihr a mol geven in Belz, mayn shtetele Belz!  Mayn heymele dort, vu ikh hob mayne kindersche yorn farbracht!”

“That’s enough Daddy!!” Dimitri said quickly, both he and Lara trying desperately not to offend Mikhail, yet also cover their ears.

“What, what?”

Lara earnestly made an effort to keep from laughing.  “We’re just...shocked by how well you sing!  I never knew you had it in you!”

“I try not to sing TOO often,” Mikky said.  “Others might get a little, you know -- jealous.”  He placed Mitri on the ground.

“I don’t think so, Daddy.”

“And why not?”

“Because you --”

“Can never show anyone!”  Lara said, casually pulling Dimitri into her arms.  “You know how others are.  Just like you said.  So jealous.”

Lara expected to only smooth Mikhail’s pride over a little, not send him into a tizzy of singing.

Unfortunately, the latter happened.

“I know lots of Yiddish songs!  Here’s one my mother used to sing to me as a child.  Ahum: In dem beys hamikdash, in a vinkl kheyder...”

“Mikky!!” Lara put her hand over his mouth hastily.  “You’re singing is...well...it’s...” Had she ever HEARD so many off-key notes?

“Zitzt di almone Bas Sheva aleyn, ir ben yokhidl Yidele...”

“Okay, Mikky, that’s really enough.”

“But I’m just getting started!”

“You need too...too...” Lara’s mind raced, trying to think of an appropriate task for her husband to undertake.  “Put Dimitri to bed!”  She placed their child in his arms.

“I can sing him a lullaby!”

“Okay, new plan!” She swiftly grabbed Dimitri back.  “You take out the trash and I’LL put Dimitri to bed.”

Mikhail seemed agreeable to this, and Lara and Dimitri got a few precious moments of silence.

Dimitri was soon fast asleep.  Mikky stood by the bedside, his arm around his wife.

“He always looks so adorable when he’s asleep...so QUIET for a change.”

“He can talk anyone’s ear off.”

Mikky kissed her cheek tenderly.  “Wonder where he got THAT from.”

They both plopped down on the couch.  Mikhail lazily tossed a few of his discarded sketches into -- well, at least they fell NEAR -- the trashcan, while Lara cuddled up against him.

“Is it possible to be too happy?”

“Now you’re getting mushy on me.”

She laughed.  “You know I love too.”

He laid against the side of the sofa, his head leaning back with his eyes closed.  He was fully aware of the childish grin across his face.  “You’re so melodramatic.”

“And you’re so tired.  You look exhausted.  You haven’t been getting enough sleep, have you?”

Mikky shrugged.  “I’m fine, I promise.  I just have a lot of things on my mind.  A little lack of sleep is a small price to pay.”

“Like what?”

“Like...”  He certainly didn’t want to worry her about any of the upcoming monetary -- or religious -- problems.  “This picture I’m drawing just can’t come out right.”

“Maybe you need to relax a little.”  She started to massage his shoulders gently.  “I’ve never seen you so tense.  I’M the one who’s supposed to be tense, remember?”

“We make a great team, you know.”  He wrapped his arm around her, bringing her closer to him.  He gently kissed her forehead, then let himself catch a whiff of her sweet smelling hair by nuzzling his face in it.  Lara leaned against him, reaching up and kissing his lips gently.

“I love you, Mikky.”

“I love you, too.”

“Ewwww!!!!!!”

The couple turned quickly from their seats on the sofa.  Mikhail switched the light on to reveal a disgusted Dimitri.

“EWWWW!  Mush!”

They exchanged a look.  It was hard to get a little privacy with a three-year-old.

“Come on, Mitri.”  Lara picked her son up gently in her arms.  “Beddy time.”

“But I’m not tired, Mama.  I took a nap!”

“Ohhh, did you?”

“Mmhmm, and I heard a big scary monster!”

Lara stroked Dimitri’s hair back gently.  “How about if Mama goes to bed too?  Would you like that?”

The little boy nodded eagerly.

Lara changed into her nightgown and crawled under the covers with Dimitri.  “Now you just think about good thoughts, because Mama and Papa are here to protect you.”

Mikhail smiled, watching the two whisper little secrets back and forth to one another.  He quietly walked over to the kitchen table and flipped a small light, hoping it wouldn’t shine too brightly in their eyes as he worked.

Bills, bills, and more bills.  He did a few calculations on some sheets of paper.

His figures turned to doodles, the doodles to sketches.  Little toy trucks, zooming across old wooden floors.  Long auburn hair swept into a beautiful bun.

What was he doing?  He didn’t have time for this.  Back to the bills.

He glanced at the calendar.  These were due in four days -- and his anniversary was in two.

Oh no!  He still didn’t have any IDEA what to give Lara.  Every time he asked, she told him that she already had what she wanted for her anniversary: he and Dimitri.

Mikhail wasn’t satisfied with that answer, especially since the Russian man he worked occasionally for made it known what he had gotten his wife -- a beautiful diamond studded bracelet and cameo set.  He had dreamt for weeks of how Lara would look with them on.  Much more beautiful than the real receiver of the gift.

It wasn’t like he could afford it anyway, even if he did bypass the bills.  Here he was, intelligent and hard working, scrambling for jobs because of his internal passport.

He pulled the small booklet out of his pocket.  Name, Age, Birth Date, so many routine things.

It was the star that wasn’t routine.  The little Star of David, printed next to the infamous word “Jewish”, had once been a symbol to him of all sorts of things.  Intertwined in it’s intricate history were tales of freedom and pride in his religion, stories that were often told to him by his mother before he’d fall asleep each night, leaving him to dream about his romanticized ancestors.

Now it symbolized nothing by captivity.  He was held captive by the meaning behind it.  The religion associated with it.

He had a hard time believing that just because they didn’t go along with the Orthadox views of the world the whole Jewish population was evil.  So few differences of such an idiotic amount.

Did God really hate them as much as the rest of the world said they did?  Did their traditions and devotions to Him mean nothing in his eyes because they were some sort of tainted race?

He shut the internal passport and tossed it across the table, letting it slide to the ground.  Who cared anymore?  He had important things to think about.

His eyes wandered to the peacefully sleeping Lara and Dimitri as he thought these words.

Much, much more important things.
 

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© 1999 - 2000 AnyaCI@aol.com