Rollercoaster Ride

Polina never liked the rollercoaster as a child. She went on it once as a teenager, and felt sick. Now, sitting in the passenger seat next to her husband of a few months, Polina had the rollercoaster feeling again. It was one A.M. The car was going 95 mph. Bar-hopping on the beach was his idea of romance.

“Fedia, please slow down, the cops might be around the corner.”

“There is nothing like the thrill of danger on the road, next to the love of your life. I am Ted now, don’t call me Fedia.”

This is how it is going to end, thought Polina. After all I went through to get us together; we will both die in a DUI accident. The rollercoaster feeling intensified, with real fear. He doesn’t want me to call him by his name, she thought; another wall between us.

Tears rolled down Polina’s cheeks, but Fedia Zverev did not notice. He smiled, blasting his tape of prison-inspired Russian pop. As the car barely made the turn, the past year of Polina’s life rolled before her eyes as a collage of events and images.

She saw his kind smiling face when he first met her in London; saw their intertwined fingers while they visited the sights. He looked so happy to finally see her in person. He couldn’t stay away from her. She recalled almost physically, her first kiss when he made her dizzy with a skill of a man accustomed to receiving pleasure from women.

Then Polina saw herself smiling in a large mirror on the wall, throwing her wedding bouquet. The pages of their wedding album turned before her eyes, ending with the memory of her eight year old nephew, whose grown up tie came down to his knees.

With a screeching halt the car stopped at a red light, and the memories changed. She saw the DMV, the Social Security and Immigration offices, and countless uniformed clerks. Many tedious conversations about the Fiancé Visa rolled into one.

All the subtle hints about his questionable past, which seemed so insignificant before, hit her at once. They certainly did not matter in the bedroom, where he compared her to Titian’s Madonna, as the world spun around them. Polina felt safe and complete in his embrace. At those moments she thought she could forgive them as long as the feeling would not go away.

Well, here is the big picture now, she thought - I married a man who has nothing in common with me, aside from a first language. I married a man to get him into the country and out of a war zone. I married a man, because I got tired of waiting for the right one.

The car stopped on the edge of a dune, so close to the ocean that Polina thought it would dive in. She wiped her eyes as he came around to open her door. They visited a few bars, even though he was already drunk, and he whispered about his manly desires, kissing and hugging her in public. Even then, his words were about his needs, never really about her.

Polina responded mechanically, hiding her distress in a carton of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby.

On the way home, almost at dawn, she could no longer pretend.

“We have to talk”, she said, pulling his hands away from her chocolate stained blouse.

“I am having trouble concentrating at work after you come home at two A.M. My life can not just revolve around you.”

“I told you I want you to do what you always did, instead of waiting for me!” Fedia was getting angry, which always scared her, but she persisted.

“All I can think about are the financial problems that this relationship has left me with.”

Fedia banged his fist on the windshield. “All you care about is money! This isn’t easy for me either. I have no relatives or friends here, and I do the best I can.” He looked Polina in the face, and she saw a stranger.

‘’I didn’t want to say this so soon”, he breathed, “but I don’t think marriage is right for me.”

“What?!” Polina trembled, feeling her life shatter.

“I am a wild animal, I need my freedom, and I am not used to so many rules. I hate this place.” Realization spilled on Polina like a bucket of ice. She saw a criminal, not brilliant enough to go through with a complicated con.

“I am used to paying on the spot for what I want”, he hissed in contempt. “Here everyone thinks like an old man, saving for his funeral.”

“Yes, it is so much better in ‘No Man’s land’, with no bills to pay.” Polina snapped bitterly, “I just want to know if you ever cared for me, or if it was all an act.”

“I loved you!” He yelled, “I still do, but we want different things in life. I’ll stay with you for three years, until I am a citizen, I’ll pay my debts, and then I will leave. Don’t worry”, Fedia snickered, “now that you are good in bed, you will find the right man.”

Polina couldn’t believe her ears – her husband actually just proposed a “green card” marriage to her, not to mention the insult.

“You vowed - you married me,” she whispered in tears. “And what now? Do you actually expect to return to my bed every night after this death sentence of three years?” Polina felt like someone just hit her in the stomach.

“If you wish, - I never cheated on you, and no other women ever pleased me like you. Just give me freedom to act, so I can do it my way.”

His way meant party through the nights with illegal aliens, but what shocked her, was that he addressed her like a prostitute. Those hideous words were followed by a kiss, which was in his view enough compensation. It was the same mind numbing kiss that caused Polina to obey him so blindly for so long.

“Not for another three years!!” She screamed as they pulled into the garage. “You are not getting your green card; you are not living on my paychecks, and you are not staying in my bed!”

Fedia yawned. He pretended he did not hear her, but the words rang clear when he found his few possessions on the front lawn the next afternoon.

The ride was over, and Polina stepped off the rollercoaster for the last time, determined to get her life back.

04.2006