My wife sent me a text: “Molly is going to call you with news. Be happy.”
The call came, and the news: Our older daughter, Molly Jane, 26, who has lived in Russia since she went to graduate school there four years ago, was engaged to marry her current boyfriend, Pavel Shushkov, known as Pasha, whom she had been dating for a little over a year and a half. The wedding was set for the Fourth of July in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Was I happy?
Now, in my completely objective opinion, Molly, who works as an editor for an online news service that covers cryptocurrency, is brilliant and beautiful and generally wonderful in all ways (as is — odd coincidence — her sister) and has delighted me and enriched my life since the day she was born. It had occasionally crossed my mind that my daughters might someday marry, but who would be worthy of them? A Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist? A Google millionaire genius? Doubtful. Somehow, it had never occurred to me to put “32-year-old Russian pet-food wholesaler” on the list.
We had met Pasha. He was slim and handsome and friendly and seemed like a very nice guy, although I expected we could determine that for sure if he ever learned to speak English. Which he doesn’t. (Molly speaks Russian.)
Then, over the Christmas break last year, we spent a week with Molly and Pasha in France, and my wife observed, and pointed out to me, that he was kind, and that he was not only good to Molly, he was also good for Molly (gently calming her when she got impatient with her annoying parents). I listened and acknowledged the importance of all that, and, of course, no one cared what I thought anyway.So I started to prepare for the wedding. I renewed my Russian visa, and bought plane tickets to St. Petersburg, and signed up for a night-school Russian class. I had actually taken one high school semester of Russian in 1966, but all I remembered how to say in Russian was “notebook,” “thank you,” and “I do not understand Russian.” My night school classmates included several people who were engaged or married to Russians, plus a female Buddhist monk with a shaved head and a surprisingly assertive attitude for a Buddhist monk. We were all making progress, and I was learning essential words. “Hello, everybody.” “My name is Edward.” And the one-letter symbols for men’s and women’s bathrooms.Molly, of course, was preparing as well, entering the twilight zone of Russian bureaucracy — compiling, translating and submitting a library of required documents, which at one point required a 900-mile round trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg, and, at the last minute, a frantic dash between the migration service and the migration police. Less stressful activities included booking a time slot in a grand pre-Soviet building that houses a branch of ZAGS, the government agency that performs all Russian marriages. Then she booked an old imperial palace for the wedding party, and hired her favorite band, and started thinking about her hair and her dress.
And then the virus hit.
Which was almost a catastrophe, as she and Pasha were in the country of Georgia when Russia announced that its borders were about to close to noncitizens. Molly would have flown back immediately to St. Petersburg, but there are no flights between Russia and Georgia (the two countries have a hostile relationship owing to Russian support for two secessionist Georgian regions). Molly scrambled to catch a 6 a.m. flight from Tbilisi to Istanbul and then a flight from Istanbul to St. Petersburg that landed a few hours before the border was closed. Pasha traveled overland, which entailed a mileslong hike on a snowy mountain road between the Georgian border post (beyond which his Georgian taxi would not drive) and the Russian border, and he and Molly managed to reunite in St. Petersburg in the apartment they already shared.But what about us? I kept thinking the pandemic would abate. It did not. I kept hoping flights from New York to Russia would resume and I could take my chances. They did not. I considered and abandoned a backup plan of flying to Helsinki and swimming from there.We kept in touch with Molly and Pasha via Zoom and FaceTime. One occasion was an online birthday party for our younger daughter, who lives in Chicago. For birthday décor, my wife and I had a picture of a balloon she had drawn on a piece of printer paper with a Sharpie. Pasha and Molly, quarantined in their apartment, had festooned it with banners and actual balloons. Pasha, wearing a goofy party hat, said hello and a few more words in English (he’s learning). Then he pulled out a ukulele and sang a soulful birthday song originated by an animated crocodile in a Soviet-era children’s show. It was ridiculous, and he looked ridiculous, but he was warmhearted and wholehearted and entirely un-self-conscious, making every effort to make a real party of it for his fiancée’s sister.
And I was happy. This guy just might be good enough.
The wedding — or, at least, the marriage — was still set for July 4. There would be no party, nothing beyond the civil ceremony. Witnesses would be two friends and Pasha’s immediate family. The appointment was for noon, which is 5 a.m. in New York. We were up at 4:30 and glued to Zoom.
Molly was gorgeous, of course, in a flowing white dress. Pasha wore a pink suit with a checked vest and a lacy white cravat that complemented Molly’s arm veils. The bride and groom both wore white sneakers and masks as they assembled with their group outside the wedding venue.Called inside, they walked down an arched stairway into a large ballroom with white-trimmed pale green walls and massive chandeliers. They stood, socially distanced, from a dark-haired woman in a white dress. As classical music played from unseen speakers, she spoke at some length in a melodious voice. Sitting more than 4,000 miles away in our pajamas, my wife and I did not understand a word she was saying, although I did catch her say Molly’s name, and I clearly heard Molly and Pasha both saying one crucial word in response to a question: “Da.”
Then they embraced, and signed another document, and everyone stood for the playing of “The Hymn of St. Petersburg,” which is apparently required, post-wedding, in St. Petersburg.The next day, the newlyweds drove for seven hours to Pasha’s grandparents’ dacha. When the plague recedes, there will be another wedding with all that we missed this time — friends and family, me walking my daughter down an aisle, a rabbi (Pasha is believed to have some Jewish ancestry and he is taking conversion classes), a feast, an open bar. When the time comes, I will deliver a toast, in Russian, that I prepared with the aid of my night school Russian instructor. Here is the translation of that toast:
“More than 100 years ago, my grandparents moved from Eastern Europe to America in search of a better life. They would be surprised to learn that their great-granddaughter, Molly Jane, moved back. We are very glad that she found happiness in Russia. And we welcome Pasha into our family.
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