Saving Anna Karenina
Part 19
Start with Part 1, and read a short synopsis of the the original book.
SERYOZHA LEARNED TO WHISTLE from his classmates. It was only sometimes that the perfect whistle noise actually came out, but right now it was a true note. He couldn’t change notes yet mid-whistle. He was walking home from the subway stop. The teacher told him to take the bus from Church Street and he said okay. But he preferred to ride the subway. He passed the boys playing basketball. He hadn’t yet found the courage to try to play with them.
He knew how to throw the ball in the hoop. They played in school. But his classmates were strictly against Africans. When he first went to the school he told them where he lived and ate and they said he was a dirty black and they didn’t want to eat lunch with him so he ate by himself on the pavement for the first week. There were five boys in his class and none would talk to him. The second week they asked Seryozha how were his dirty black neighbors and finally he said he wouldn’t talk to any dirty black only a Russian and no Chechen, which is what they said. Then he could eat lunch with them. But two of the boys always punched him in the shoulder and he hadn’t figured out how to make this stop. Ilya was huge and he listened to music in class with his iPhone. Seryozha didn’t like Russian rock music. He liked rap the best.
He looked at his front stoop and felt scared to go into the house now so he walked around the block. He tried to whistle a different note. The whistle sound turned into no sound just breath. He was scared for Mama. She was waiting for Count Vronsky to bring them back to Russia. But Seryozha knew they weren’t going back to Russia, because Count Vronsky had another wife. Mama was always alone, and no one helped her. He worried about her. She was happy when he was good at English, and she liked the soup he brought. He tried to think of other things he could do to make her happy. He told his teacher she was alone, and his teacher gave him a book for Mama. His teacher said they should move to Brighton Beach and they could live with other Russians. He knew Mama wouldn’t like that. She always said she didn’t miss Russians, except for Vronsky.
Seryozha threw his coat on the rack and took off his boots and ran upstairs in his socks. The door was closed, and when he opened it he found his mother on the floor with her eyes closed. Her face was actually yellow and she was choking.
“Mama!” he shook her but her eyes stayed closed. He could hear fluid in her throat. She was trying to breathe. He ran downstairs to Elena. She was loading some clothes into a box in the wall and the baby was strapped into a chair.
“Mama! Mama!” said Seryozha, pointing upstairs with alarm. In his terror he forgot English. Elena’s eyes registered the urgency, and she climbed the stairs quickly with Seryozha. They entered the room and she saw Anna on the floor.
“Mama mia,” said Elena. She ended with a downward note, as if Anna was finished, down, like the last note on a sad scale. She knelt on the floor and lifted Anna’s torso. Her breath was mixed with vomit and rasping in her throat. Her eyes were still closed. “Hold her, like this! Do you understand?” She ran downstairs.
Seryozha held Anna’s body up. “Mama! Mama! Please wake up!” He wrapped his arms around her. “Mamaaaaaaaa, wake up Mamaaa.” His long eyelashes collected tears for the first time since he left Russia and became a big boy.
