JUST HAVING TOUCHED

I was eight the first time I performed onstage. I remember being in the wings of a theater somewhere in Russia, the waxy scent of old makeup with a hint of powder, violets, and roses teasing my nostrils. Dancers had rushed by me into the golden spotlights of center stage in a flurry of bright, ruffled skirts, women shining with jingling coin necklaces, men beating a rhythm with their tap shoes. I was so nervous that I froze on the spot. Then I saw my mother onstage, beckoning me to join her. It was enough. My skirt was midnight blue with sequined yellow flowers all over, and the blouse with slit sleeves was the color of honey. I remember holding up the edges of my skirt with both hands, letting the material fan out at my sides, and dashing into the spotlight, an open-winged sparrow.

It had been almost a year since I left the old country, and I was starting to miss the Romani of my childhood more than my one-page list could fit. I longed to hear their songs again and to feel the pulse of their performance beneath my feet.

At the end of the school year I signed up for my first recital, which also served as a rehearsal for the big year-end talent show that attracted talent scouts from all over L.A. I picked Mark Edwards’s “Just Having Touched,” your standard ballad heavy on cheesy heartbreak and sentimental lyrics.

Grandpa’s famous dancers, St. Petersburg, 1974

More than anything you do, having touched my life with you,

Just having touched your love will be enough for me.

I did what my parents had done so many times: I replayed the tape over and over and scribbled down the words. I learned the melody by ear, practicing in the music room during lunchtime. The recital was coming up fast, and I knew I had very little time to get back into shape. In Russia I had finished the preparatory music school and, had we stayed, most likely would have applied to a conservatory. As it was, though, neither Mom nor I mentioned continuing formal training in America. We were too busy surviving.

But now that there was no pressure to play, I began to actually crave it. As my fingers warmed up after such a long period of inactivity, I started playing all the time, frequently skipping lunches and classes. School was the only place I could practice, because Dad wouldn’t let me touch his keyboards. He’d set up a small home studio in the back of the house, but it was always locked. Inside, the walls were covered with posters. Bob Marley beamed from above the Roland synthesizers, next to Wynton Marsalis with his trumpet pressed to his heart in a shared secret. There was also a large cardboard image of an alien’s head with a pointy chin and enormous almond-shaped eyes. As soon as I decided on my song I asked Dad to use the room, but he waved me off. “Those are costly instruments for serious playing.” I’d heard this many times in the past, and, while frustrated, I wasn’t offended. Not even I could deny the seriousness of Dad’s instruments.

Maybe he’d have felt differently if I’d told him why I wanted to practice, but I didn’t want to take that chance. It was something I wanted to do completely on my own. Plus, if I bombed, I wanted my humiliation to remain a secret.

On the day of the recital, the usual crowd gathered inside the room outfitted as a theater.

I braved the stage with shaky legs. My heart hammered against the silence. But at the piano my doubts settled, calmed by the silky feel of the keys beneath my fingers. I was home.

It’s easy enough to forget hundreds of eyes probing you when your only worry is to keep your heavy Eastern European accent from making you sound like Count Dracula. I cringed on the inside every time I rolled my r’s and sang “hard” instead of “heart.”

I don’t remember finishing, only the applause. Pride burned my cheeks. Later, as students and teachers trickled out, I still didn’t trust my legs to carry me to my algebra class.

“That was a great performance,” an older man with a hearty smile said from the aisle next to me. His skin matched the dark chestnut of his suit. “I’m Mr. North, the school band leader.” We shook hands. “Are you a new transfer?”

“No. An ESL student.” I thought that explained everything, and expected him to nod politely and move on.

“Why aren’t you in the magnet program?”

“My English is not good.”

“Couldn’t tell from where I was sitting,” Mr. North said. He told me of the acceptance interviews for the next term, and that he expected to see me there.

I ran home after school to tell Mom. Coming up the stairs to our place, I could already hear her, and (lucky me) she sounded sober. Roxy was at the kitchen table, writing something on an envelope. Her lips and tongue pursed and curled, respectively, in concentration. Mom hovered over her shoulder, eyeing the slow progress of the pen. Her English was still so limited that she relied entirely on me and Roxy to communicate with anyone who wasn’t Rosa.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Power bill.” Mom’s voice was as grave as that of a doctor who had announced a life-threatening diagnosis to a patient. Suddenly she smacked Roxy over the top of her head. “Shto delaesh? Ny vsyo. Nesi novy konvert. (What are you doing? That’s it. Get a new envelope.)”

I read the address Roxy had scribbled in chunky print. “Apparently we live in Mos Angeles.”

“It’s one letter. I can fix it,” Roxy said, pressing her pen over the typo.

“The mailman will think we don’t know what we’re doing,” Mom said. “What if he throws it away?”

“Roxy’s right, Mom. No one will notice.”

Mom mumbled something dire about her luck and went to the counter, where she tied a bay leaf, a few twigs of dill and parsley, and some peppercorns in a cheesecloth pouch and dropped it into a pot of water bubbling on the stove. The aroma of boeuf à la russe promised a delicious dinner.

“Mom, I did something really great today.”

After I recounted my conversation with Mr. North, Mom wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and embraced me tightly.

“This teacher wants you to be in his special school?”

“Magnet school.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard in months.” She pressed me to her without asking why I hadn’t invited her to the concert, for which I was grateful.

Lowering the heat under the pot, Mom hurried out of the kitchen to get her telephone card. She dialed Aunt Siranoosh’s number in Kirovakan and shouted into the phone so loudly, her sister could’ve probably heard her voice across the ocean without the aid of modern technology.

“Akchi, asem ches havata (You won’t believe what I have to tell you)!” Before long, half of Armenia and Russia had heard the news that I was invited to join a school for the most gifted kids in America. Mom was so happy, I didn’t have the heart to correct her.

I told Dad, too, thrilled to share with him that I might soon be following in his footsteps.

“What is a performing school?” he said. “You’re a Kopylenko. You already know how to perform.”

“It’s not like I’d be joining the Communist Party,” I said.

“Same shit. A handful of cretins decide what’s good for you, and then they own you for the rest of your life, telling you what kinds of songs to play. You don’t need someone else’s approval.”

He was right, of course. But for someone who hadn’t been approved of all that often, I chased the possibility like a dog after a soup bone.