The rest of the details of the trip are a fog. The bus route, the clothing I was wearing, what the weather was like… all are a memory blur. A theatrical background view from a thousand miles away. I don’t recall the season, though it could not have been winter, I don’t recall anything else about the day. I only recall the final destination and the shocking interlude on a crowded bus which all these years later I’ve come to connect with the beginning of the realization that not all is what it seems and not everyone is who they seem to be.

Our destination was the pivnetza, a beer hall, though I did not know it at the onset of the excursion. Once we got there I looked up to see my father standing with other men at a high top table. The smell of beer was all around. Fresh beer brimming with foam poured into thick heavy glasses. Some glasses had handles but the smaller ones were thinner and sans handle. The smaller glasses reminded me of the soda machines which dotted Kiev in the 70s. The soda dispensing machines produced two types of carbonated beverage. The first, for 5 kopeks, was a plain soda water, the second , for 10 kopeks, dispensed a very light carmel colored sweet soda water. I don’t remember the taste, maybe artificial vanilla, or perhaps just some sugar added to the carbonated water. ( It reminded me of the “Berozniy Sok” ( Birch Juice) sold by the glass in the local market, whose secret formula, as disclosed by my cousin Misha, was water and sugar. This disclosure ruined the romance of drinking the juice of my beloved white birch tree. )

As a child I always begged mama for a glass of the carbonated sugary beverage when we came across one of these machines. I always wanted to put the coin in and watch the bubbly beverage dispense with a “BLURP whoosh. “ More often than not, the communal glass, which by any modern standards of hygiene or public health would be anathema, was missing. This was always a giant frustration to me. Why on earth would anyone steal the communal glass from the public soda machine? This struck me, a child of 6 or 7 as a serious crime. The perpetrators of which clearly had no decency. It had never occurred to me at the time that the real crime was having millions of people share the same glass.

The other smells : rotting staleness of the beer spilled long ago, more than faint body odor of Russian men who are not seduced by western ideas of RightGuard scented masculinity, and the salty deliciousness of taranka. Taranka, a salted and dried fish, beloved as a snack by Russian people, old and young. It is the perfect salty accompaniment to the pilsner style beer of the Soviet Republics and a delicacy prized by me above all others, save for the occasional piece of chewing gum my mother brought back from her periodic trips to Bulgaria. Gum which was chewed far past its ability to produce flavor.

I stood next to my father trying to pretend that the language used by the men with whom he was speaking was not embarrassing to me. I knew the worlds ‘ Bliat, huy, padlo, pizda.” I knew these words were bad. They were never used when my mother was near. I also knew I was not supposed to repeat them. I learned they were bad not just by the absence of these words in our home. I knew they were bad words because I had learned them all the previous summer in a hospital room, which was my home for a month as I recuperated from meningitis. My roommate, who’s name is lost to memory though my brain screams Seryozha, was on older boy of 10 or 12 who educated the other 2 boys and I sharing the room on the nuances and particulars of the colorful Russian lexicon of the streets. When I returned home after the hospital stay and announced to a room full of my adult relatives and friends in my most adult voice that I loved the “ ебаный салат оливье / Fucking potato salad” my mom made for my return home. It was “ pizdets / the shit”… After the laughter subsided I was told that “you are never to use those words again.” I thought this odd as they were, at that point and to all appearances, the funniest words I had ever uttered in public.

The language my father used with the men was shocking but a welcome distraction to the only other thing I remember from that day. My father and I boarded a bus to take us to the pivnetza. I held his hand as we walked onto the bus and headed towards the rear. The bus was full but not over crowded and we sat towards the rear of the bus. At the next stop a young woman boarded. She wore a dark jacket or dress. There was nothing particular about this woman which comes to mind other than she was young and had long silky hair. ( Young children are notorious for mis-aging people. To the best of my recollection she was somewhere between 15 and 85.) She sat in the seat in front of us and her long dark straight hair draped the back of her seat. As I looked forward I saw my fathers hand gently touch her hair. Without her knowing or suspecting, he thumbed her shiny, silken hair between his fingers, lovingly caressed it with his forefinger and thumb.

The only time in my life I had ever seen my father’s rough electricians hands exhibit any kind of tenderness, especially with the magnitude and intimacy bestowed on this strange woman’s hair, was when he begged my mother to put on a robe as they fought on the balcony of our apartment one freezing night when they thought I was sleeping through one of their endless rows. That gentleness, i knew, even at my young age, was born of guilt. This was not guilt. This was something else. I looked up to see my fathers eyes focused on the woman’s hair. I was an observer, an intruder, to a private moment I could not understand. Not even now as an adult.

The burning in the lowest part of my intestines began to crawl up through my stomach and rested deeply in my solar plexus. It was the burning of hatred, of confusion, of betrayal. It burned because he never touched my mothers hair like that. What did this mean? Why was he doing it? You didn’t touch strangers, certainly not like that. And what about mama… this woman was not mama…was he trying to make her my mama? I don’t want another mama. I have one. A beautiful one. One that everyone loves. The one that I love. Maybe she has curlier courser hair but she is my mama. This was some stranger, a random person on the bus. Did he love this woman? More than mama? I wish he’d die. I wish the hair would wrap itself around his hand and cut it off.. who’s hands are those? My papa never touched anything or anyone like that… maybe the Zaparozhets ( car) he bought after waiting for years or a new set of pliers in his tool box, but never a human being… even Asta, our black Alsatian, got a coarser petting.

Our stop. He let go of her hair and reached for my hand. That filthy betrayers hand grabbed mine and set my arm on fire. I was glad to be getting off that bus. I wanted to be in the open air, I was happy not to watch that hand touch a stranger as if they were lovers. But I did not want that hand on me….I wanted to breathe but could not….
“Everything in order? / Все в порядке”
“Yes”
“Good, lets go. / хорошо, поехали.”
And we walked into the pivnetza. Where I was finally able to inhale . The scent of beer freshly poured from the tap, rotten beer sitting on the floor for an eternity, the sweat of a hundred million drunk Russian men, and the faint familiarity of my favorite taranka..

I stood there listening to my father speak words we were not supposed to say and I hated every thing about him. He was a stranger. Just as much a stranger as the woman who’s hair he caressed with such intimacy and gentleness. I became as estranged and unmoored from him in that moment as any child could be from a parent. I hated him more than then when he made me walk home scared and alone after a devastating car accident because he had to “deal with the car.” I hated him more than when at the age of 10 I read my first short story to my parents only to be mocked as a writing sissy. I hated him more than the day after a deluge of his name calling I wrote “Я хороший / I am good” on the only small personal space in our apartment, the back of the closet where I kept my few personal belongings, just to feel an ounce of self worth. I hated him more then than when rushed me out of my own high school graduation because he wanted to beat traffic. I hated him even more than when, at 17, I found out that he threw away the love letters from my teenage love, the woman who 30 years later would change my life and open my eyes to the peace only her love could bring. I loathed him in that moment…. until he bent down, gave me a small piece taranka… He leaned in, brought the foamy glass of fragrant hoppy yellow colored beer close to my face… as I chewed on the dried salty fish he said “Don’t tell mama” and he let me sip the smallest sip. With that sip all my hatred turned inwards, and I hated myself for accepting my initiation into the silence of Pivnitza.

In some cultures escaping the long shadow of your fathers failings is easier than in others. For Russians this escape is made more difficult by the use of naming conventions, namely “отчество” or patronymics. Unlike in the United States where a middle name is decorative at worst and can be dispensed with, In Russia ( at least the one I grew up in) middle names do not exist. Rather you are known in all but the most intimate of interactions by your name and your connection to your father. Most people, when introducing themselves officially, formally or referring to someone in a professional setting will use the naming convention; First Name, Patronymic, Surname. Gennady Aronavich Ortenberg. In an ongoing professional relationship or official setting you can drop surname name, Gennady Aronavich. In a more casual relationship you drop the patronymic, Gennady. In even more intimate friendships you can use the diminutive form, Gena. And finally in the most intimate and loving cases you get to a further diminutive Genotchka or Genckic/Genka ( little Gena.)
The sins of the father are always visited by on the son in this naming convention. A person is always reminded in any official, professional or generally respectful interaction that they are in fact the son of someone. The naming convention never asks you if you wish to be reminded of your most direct progenitor. I would have rather not been reminded of my father so often.

Papa had lots of names which he could have called me. Gennady Aronavich, Gennady, Gena, Genotcha, Genchik , Genka ( or the dozens of cutesy variations in the diminutive)… all ranging from the formal to the most intimate. He could have also called me any of the nicknames I had in my family. Being the youngest of all the cousins I was always referred to as малoй ( little one) or affectionately “longer loksh” yiddish meaning long noodle, as I was a head taller than anyone in my age range at any time and as skinny as a noodle. Instead my father had myriad names he called me instead. The least hurtful were болван,козел, баран (pick a barn yard animal of your choice associated with stupidity)….the most hurtful are best laid to rest in the darkness in which they were concieved.

In this, and many other respects, coming to America was a blessing. A blessing which, despite all his failings, my father gave to me. A blessing I repaid in full nursing him on his death bed. A blessing without which I could not be who I am today.

Here in America there were no patronymics. There were no situations where I was forced to acknowledge my father on official forms or by my teachers. Even more a blessing was the fact that through sheer chance within months of coming to the United States I was christened by the church of the rough Brooklyn streets as John. I had no middle name. No patronymic. I became John Ortenberg.. and soon a בן בית (Hebrew, son of the house/adoptive son) to another man, who despite his silence and harsh stoicism gave me something my father never could, an unshakable sense of right and wrong and a life saving sense of self worth.