Chapter 17: Have No Further Care

June 26, 1988, Goshen, Ohio

"I'm really glad you called!" Nadiya said after we got into my car. "Where's Rachel?"

"In the custody of her grandmother," I chuckled. "I'd have needed to fight to get her away!"

"Was this a planned visit with your mom?"

"No. I went to church in Loveland this morning so I could visit with some friends, and decided to stop in to see my mom and her husband. I chatted with my stepdad a bit, then decided to see if you were available."

"As I said, I'm glad you did! What did you want to do next Saturday?"

"I have band practice in the morning, but that's finished at 10:00am. And then I have no specific plans before Sunday evening when I have dinner with a fellow medical student."

"Did you just invite me to stay the night?" Nadiya asked lightly.

"Sorry, I was just trying to say that I didn't have a curfew!"

"I wasn't offended! When do you pick up your daughter?"

"Anytime on Saturday or Sunday, depending on what else I'm doing."

"She spends a lot of time in daycare or with others."

"There really isn't much I can do about it given the demands of my medical training, as well as ensuring my in-laws have time with her, which I think is important. The same is true for my parents, though given what happened with Elizaveta, her mom has a strong emotional need to have her granddaughter with her."

"I'd suggest going to a Reds game, but I think they're out of town next weekend."

"They're not too bad this year," I said. "Though Pete Rose probably shouldn't have shoved Dave Palone."

"He claimed Palone poked him in the cheek and the TV seemed to show that he did, but it's hard to tell."

"Contact with an umpire is an automatic ejection, no matter what," I replied. "The Reds are out. And just a point, the earliest I could get to your house is around noon."

"How about the Cincinnati Zoo? We could have Skyline for lunch, if that works. And maybe see a movie? I'd like to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

"I've heard that's good, and if we did that, I'd need to arrange for my mom to watch Rachel while we went to the movies."

"The movie is playing at Eastgate, so it wouldn't be terrible to bring her to Goshen before we went to the movie."

"I'll arrange for that when I pick her up."

"Cool!" Nadiya exclaimed. "I've thought about what we said last time, and I'm curious about how serious you are about church."

"So am I," I replied. "Let's just say the past two years have been a serious spiritual struggle, and not just because of Elizaveta. One thing is certain, and that is I'll never be clergy again, which means I can totally control my involvement. As I think I said last time, my faith is important, and I'd want any kids baptized and I'd want to attend church as a family. Do you go to church regularly?"

"Most Sundays," Nadiya replied. "How different is your church from Lutheran?"

"There are significant differences in externals, and some basic disagreements on human nature and serious reverence for Mary. Basically, our services follow the same patterns — Liturgy of the Word followed by Liturgy of the Eucharist, to put it in terms with which I suspect you're familiar. Our externals are more elaborate and our churches have more elaborate decorations, but the basic pattern is the same."

"You don't follow the Pope, do you?"

"We dislike him theologically as much as I suspect you do," I chuckled. "I like his strong anti-Communism and have great respect for that. The short answer is that our bishops are independent and autonomous, and sit as equals on the Holy Synod, which is the governing council consisting of all bishops. We do have a Metropolitan, but his role is like that of the Chairman of the Board — he runs the meetings and holds the gavel, but he has just one vote."

"And Mary?"

"Luther had great reverence for her, and his objections had to do with Roman excesses. In his sermons, he said, among other things, 'The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart' and in his prayer book, he wrote 'She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin — something exceedingly great. For God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil'. He also believed she was a perpetual virgin and kept images of Mary in the churches."

"How do you know all of that?"

"I'm a catechist, and part of my training was to read non-Orthodox theology to understand the arguments. Something you might not know is that there was correspondence between early Lutherans and the Patriarch of Constantinople, in which quite a bit of common ground was found, though both sides found areas of disagreement, which, in the end, derailed the efforts as they couldn't be reconciled."

"Is there any room for negotiation there?" Nadiya asked.

"That depends on what you mean," I replied. "In terms of theology, I doubt it. If you mean in terms of how involved we'd be in church, and how often we'd attend services, and how closely we followed Orthodox praxis, then yes. In other words, I'm Orthodox and want to raise my kids Orthodox and worship as a family. How that plays out in practice is negotiable."

"And if I said I wanted to remain Lutheran?"

"To be honest, that would likely create conflicts we couldn't resolve. Is that something you want?"

"Let's say it was more a question to see how important it was to you."

"Very," I replied. "It's who I am, even if I'm a sinful man. It's as much a part of me as the calling to be a doctor. To be blunt, I come with quite a bit of baggage and some things which I can't, or won't, negotiate."

"That's not a good marketing tactic."

"Be that as it may, it's true, and the last thing I want to do is mislead you. I'm going to work sixty or more hours a week until next June, then work ninety hours a week, or more, for a year. After that, it'll relax a bit, but my training requires fairly intense hours for the next nine years. Add in Rachel and church, and it's a steep hill to climb."

"Not to be mercenary, but what's in it for me?" Nadiya asked.

"A supportive, devoted, loving, dedicated husband who believes marriage is for life and who would also be a devoted, loving, dedicated father."

"And you want someone who is a stay-at-home mom?"

"I'm actually flexible about that," I replied. "Elizaveta had planned to be a stay-at-home mom, but I encouraged her to think about going to college at some point. Rachel is in daycare now, and I don't see that as a bad thing because she gets to be with other kids during the day. So, in a hypothetical future, I'm OK with whichever choice my wife would make."

"What about having kids? I mean, the timing?"

"That's something to discuss and find common ground. Elizaveta and I discussed it and we followed her plan on the timing, and we agreed we wanted two, and would discuss more once we had two. I want more kids, but I don't have any specific preference to number or timing. Sure, there might be a big gap between Rachel and a younger sibling or siblings, but I don't see that as forcing the issue."

I pulled into the parking lot of Friendly's from Route 28, parked, and we headed inside, where we were seated immediately.

"I'm curious," I said after we each ordered an ice cream sundae, "but did you have criteria for Mr. Right?"

"Kind, loving, generous, and faithful to me," Nadiya replied. "I'd have to believe he'd be a good dad, because in a normal situation, I wouldn't have any empirical evidence the way I do with you."

"I surmise that you wanting to see me again means I've at least made it past the first cut, so to speak."

"Obviously! It's just that your life is far more complicated than I expected would be true of the first guy I started dating after High School."

"The basic pattern of my life was set in fourth grade when I decided to become a doctor specializing in emergency medicine. I was already Orthodox, having been baptized as a baby, but it was when I made that decision in fourth grade that I started down a specific path from which almost no deviation is possible."

"Fourth grade?"

I nodded and related for her the playground story I'd told many times in the past.

"And you never wavered? Not even a little?"

"Never. I was completely focused on becoming a doctor to the exclusion of just about everything else until I arrived at Taft and my friends began working me over to turn me into a semblance of a complete person, rather than a medical automaton. I was basically so obsessed with becoming a doctor, I forgot to become a man. Between my friends and some personal drama, I found a reasonable balance, but medicine still rules all."

"Not your daughter?"

I smiled, "The Tsarina rules my life in all other areas."

"Too funny! How much Russian do you actually speak?"

"I can carry on conversation without too much trouble, so long as whomever I'm speaking to overlooks grammatical errors such as wrong cases when declining nouns, something we don't generally do in English. Well, we do for number, but not case, except for pronouns."

"What do you mean?" Nadiya asked.

"That in Russian noun endings or modifiers change with case. In English, you only usually find it with pronouns — he/him/his/himself, she/her/hers/herself, who/whom, and a few other pronouns and articles. For nouns, we've mostly dropped it except for a few gender-based words — actor/actress; host/hostess; waiter/waitress; steward/stewardess; prince/princess; duke/duchess. There are older forms which we've dropped completely, such as baker/baxter, for male and female bakers.

"There are also the -trix words — mediator/mediatrix; executor/executrix. Those are rarely used, except in specific instances, typically theological or legal treatises. And those forms change based on case and number as well, so it would be dominatrices, for example. But as I said, these are fairly uncommon, and some of the words I mentioned before are starting to fall out of use, either dropping the feminine form, or substituting 'waitstaff' or 'server' for waiter/waitress.

"The one exception, as I mentioned before, is number, where we add an 's' to words to show plural, and sometimes modify the final vowel. There are exceptions, of course, such as mouse/mice and sheep/sheep, and, of course, loanwords where in math we have radius/radii. And then there is the mess that is the plural of 'octopus' which, correctly, is 'octopuses' or alternatively 'octopodes', but never 'octopi'.

"Anyway, in Russian, you do those things for every noun, including proper names. So, if I say 'That's Michael's Car', it's «Это машина Михаила» (Eto mashina Mikhaila) but if I say 'My name is Michael' it's «Меня зовут Михаил» (Menya zovut Mikhail). Do you hear the difference of the «а» at the end of my name in that first sentence? That's declension for case. And nouns fall into one of three classes, plus neuter, which have different rules. And there are some nouns which cannot be declined.

"Let me give one example, there are six ways to say 'bath' depending on which case you are using. «баня» (banya) is nominative, «баню» (banyu) is accusative, «бани» (bani) is genitive, «бане» (bane) is prepositional or dative, and «баней» (baney) is instrumental. In English, it would just be 'bath'. And you have to know which nouns are declined which way. Verbs are similarly complex."

"And I thought French was difficult! Do you use Russian often?"

"Not really. My grandmother taught my sister and me when we were little. Liz hasn't spoken a word of Russian since she was about six. I've used it off and on with various people, and I used to swear exclusively in Russian. It was convenient because I could say just about anything and have little chance anyone knew what I actually said."

"Too funny!" Nadiya exclaimed.

"Until my mom heard me use the most vulgar of all Russian phrases, though it was only explaining it to a friend. I had my mouth washed out with soap for that one."

"Do people actually do that?"

"My mom did. It made the point, and I basically stopped swearing anywhere she might possibly hear!"

"So you don't use it at all now?"

"Other than addressing my grandfather as «Дедушка» (dedushka), only rarely except for a few prayers, hymns, or responses, but the parishes where I attend services have mostly phased that out compared to when I was little when there was more Russian and Church Slavonic, which is to modern Russian as Chaucer's Middle English is to modern English."

"Can you read Chaucer?"

"Reasonably well, yes. Bēowulf is a different story altogether! Old English is nearly impossible for me to read."

"I had enough trouble with Shakespeare!"

"That's more of a vocabulary problem than anything," I replied. "Word meanings have changed since Shakespeare's day."

The waitress brought us our sundaes and after saying a silent blessing, I began eating.

"Did you pray?" Nadiya asked.

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"No, just curious because your expression changed a bit, and you paused before you picked up your spoon. Do you pray before every meal?"

"Yes, and normally aloud, but we hadn't discussed it, so I simply said my prayer silently."

"I should introduce you to one of my friends who goes to a Bible church who makes a big deal about praying out loud, no matter what."

"'But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you'. That's Matthew 6:6 and is something I've been taught my entire life."

"But you do pray aloud at home?"

"Yes, or when with a group of Orthodox Christians, or with someone who knows I prefer to pray before meals, but it's always done quietly, and for the group, without any ostentatious emoting. It's a simple prayer, too — 'O Lord, bless the food and drink of Thy servants, for Thou art holy unto the ages of ages. Amen'."

"Do you pray other times?"

"Every morning and evening I say the appointed prayers with Rachel if possible. If I'm on shift and don't have access to the daily material, I'll say the Trisagion prayers and the appointed Psalms from memory. I pray silently for every patient as well."

"Rachel tolerates saying prayers?"

"Orthodox kids are used to it," I replied. "She's calm, quiet, and happy being in church all morning on Sundays."

"All morning?"

"If we attend Matins and the Divine Liturgy, it's between three and four hours, usually close to four."

"OK, that's craz ... sorry. That's a long time!"

"It's OK to say 'crazy'," I chuckled. "I've never claimed to be sane in my entire life!"

"Our services last about an hour, though it can be a bit more with a longer sermon."

"Our priests usually only give ten-minute homilies; the rest is prayers, hymns, and scripture readings."

"I think I'm going to have to attend one of your services," Nadiya said.

"I think we can arrange that. We could visit Saint Athanasius in Norwood."

"Not the church you go to?"

"It's complicated," I replied.

"What about you isn't?" Nadiya asked mirthfully.

"True," I agreed. "Also, my best friend Clarissa would like to meet you."

"A female best friend?"

"That's always been the case for me. My best friend from kindergarten through graduation was a girl. Our relationship was wrecked by an auto accident and the aftermath. She survived, but our friendship didn't. We've put it back together, but it's not the same. Then at Taft I met Clarissa, and we became best friends and really close."

"I have to ask — why not date her?"

I smiled, "Because her girlfriend would object!"

"Oops!" Nadiya said with a soft laugh. "It's OK, I mean, I was just saying I'd made a wrong assumption."

"It's OK. I actually asked her to marry me, despite her orientation, because we're soulmates. She wisely declined because that would have been a nightmare."

"Then why ask?"

"I couldn't not," I replied. "Would you pass up a chance to marry your soulmate without even trying?"

"Probably not. That sucks, though. To find the perfect person but not be able to marry them."

"Twice," I replied.

"Twice?"

"My friend Angie and I were on the course to marry from Freshman year at Taft until she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and deemed by the State of Ohio to be unable to consent to any kind of intimate relationship."

"That stinks."

"It does. More for her than for me, as I found Elizaveta; well, Elizaveta found me. Angie can never do the things most important to her — have a husband and children."

"That's horrible."

"It is."

We finished our ice cream and decided to take a short walk before I took Nadiya home.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"It's a totally strange situation," Nadiya replied. "Despite all the, well, craziness, I feel a strange connection to you that I can't explain. I want to see you next weekend as we planned."

"Then that's what we'll do."

June 26, 1988, McKinley, Ohio

"I spoke with Matta in Chicago," Maryam said when she arrived at the house at 5:00pm. "He'll be here on July 10th. I think it best we make a week from today our last night together."

"I think that's probably wise. I have no doubt he's going to be interested in the intelligent, devout, sexy Syrian doctor!"

"Not a doctor yet!" Maryam replied mirthfully. "But I know what you mean."

"If there's something special you want to do together, please let me know."

"An all-night sex marathon?" Maryam teased. "But I know we need to be up early for our rotations, so that's out."

"Why don't you come over right after church next Sunday?" I asked. "We'll have an extra six hours for whatever it is you want to do."

"I'll have to think about that!" Maryam said impishly.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll be content!"

"Men are easy to please," Maryam said with a sly smile. "A soft mouth and a tight «المهبل» (almihbal) is all it takes!"

I laughed, "I'm going to assume that word means 'vagina', and not something earthier."

"Correct!"

"Why use Arabic?" I asked.

"Because I knew you'd find it amusing! And I used the technical term, though I do know the earthier terms, just as I know them in English. I bet you know them in Russian."