So he spent the rest of the year finishing up his classwork and passing his comprehensives. Then another year of groundwork research for his dissertation and it was late July of 1991, only six weeks before his ticket back to Kiev. Naturally, that was when he met Ruth Meyer.
She was the daughter of a doctor in Ithaca, a couple of lakes away in western New York. They met at a Presbyterian wedding - the groom was a friend of Ivan's from the track team in college, the bride a roommate of Ruth's. They reached for the same hors d'oeuvre on a plate and within a few minutes stood outside on the porch of the house, watching a thunderstorm come in from the southwest. By the time the rain came they were holding hands.
"Say something to me in Old Russian," she said.
Old Russian was too modern for him. In Old Church Slavonic, he said, "You are beautiful and wise and I intend to marry you."
She closed her eyes as if in ecstasy. "I love it that you speak a language to me that no other woman will ever hear from you."
"But you don't understand it," he pointed out.
"Yes I do," said Ruth, her eyes still closed.
He laughed; but what if she had understood? "What did I say?"
"You told me that you hoped I'd fall in love with you."
"No I didn't." But his embarrassed laugh was a confession that she had come rather close to the mark.
"Yes you did," she said, opening her eyes. "Everything you do says that."
After the wedding, Ivan came home to his mother and sat down across from her in the living room. After a few moments she looked up at him.
"Well?" he said. "Is it love, or is it nothing?"
Her expression solemn, Mother said, "It's definitely something."
"I'm going to marry her," he announced.
"Does she know this?"
"She knows everything," he said. "She knows what I think as I'm thinking it."
"If only she knew before you thought it, you'd never have to think again."
"I'm serious, Mother," he said.
"And I'm not?"
"Don't tease me. This is love."
By now Father was in the room; there's something about the mention of marriage that brings parents, no matter what they were doing. "What, you fall in love now, when you're about to leave the country for a year?"
"Maybe I can postpone the trip," said Ivan, knowing as he said it that it was a stupid idea.
"That's good, marry now when you don't have a doctor's degree," said Father. "Her father plans to support you?"
"I know, I have to go. But I hate waiting," said Ivan.
"Learn patience," said Father.
"In Russia you learn patience," said Ivan. "In America you learn action."
"So it's a good thing you're going to Russia," said Father. "Patience is useful much more often, and you especially need to learn it if you plan to have children."
Ivan laughed giddily at the idea. "I'm going to be such a good father!" he cried.
"And why not?" asked Mother. "You learned from the best."
"Of course I did," he said. "Both of you. You did the best you could with a strange kid like me."
"I'm glad you understand," said Mother. That wry smile. Was it possible she wasn't joking? That she had never been joking?
During the weeks before he flew to Kiev, he spent more time in Ithaca than in Tantalus. His mother seemed sad or worried whenever he saw her, which wasn't often. One time, concerned about her, he said, "You're not losing me, Mother. I'm in love."
"I never had you," she said, "not since you escaped from the womb." She looked away from him.
"What is it, then?"
"Have you told her your Jewish name?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Oh, right, Itzak Shlomo," he said. "It hasn't come up. Does it matter?"
"Don't do it," she said.
"Don't what? Tell her my Jewish name? Why would I? Why shouldn't I?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm such a fool. Now you will, because I asked you not to."
"When would it come up? Why does it matter? I haven't used the name since we came here. Our synagogue is Conservative, so is theirs, nobody cares if I have a gentile name."
Mother gripped his arms and spoke fiercely, for once without a smile. "You can't marry her," she said.
"What are you talking about? We're definitely not first cousins, if that's what you're worried about."
"You remember the story of the Sky, the Rat, and the Well?"
Of course he did. It was a tale she had told him as a child, and