Will you marry me for several thousand dollars?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
(Proverb)
“No, God, no! Why??” I opened my eyes and saw a silhouette of Anna on the floor in the middle of my room. I jumped off the bed, went on my knees, stretched my hands towards her, afraid to touch her. “What happened?” I could hear my heart beat now. “Aaa hen djin geen” Anna’s red eyes were full of tears, her face was all wet and her mouth was stretched in a grim of sorrow. “What is going on?” Rape? Robbery? Violence?- flashed in my head. “He did it again! We just had sex in the car on the parking lot, and then told me he has a new girlfriend who lives with him and sleeps in our bed!” I went to the kitchen to get some Valerian root pills. I gave her three.
Anna came to the US from Russia 6 years ago for the summer to work as a nanny. She realized that she wants to stay in this country and the easiest way for her was to get married. “By the time you find a real husband, you may turn forty and I want my green card now”, she told me, that’s why she went for a “paper marriage” and her husband charged her 20 k, frequent sex and took her heart as an add-on. In order for the officer to believe them, they had to live together, which made them both happy for about a year, when after, as it always happens, their happiness was shattered by an everyday life. He started staying at work a little longer, she forgot when was the last time they went out together. Anna became paranoid: looking through their mutual bank account to see what he was doing, where he was spending time, read his e-mails and texts. Eventually she got her green card and soon is getting her passport. But was it worth it?
“What do you mean, he died?” screamed Svetlana in her phone. “-When did he die? Why nobody told me? What am I gonna do now?” She did not even ask why or how he died, she knew it was an overdose or death in prison- people of this kind do not have much of a choice, they all end up the same way.
Lack of work and her sick mother made her leave Russia and search for any job, so Svetlana became a go-go dancer in New York City. She was dreaming about a green card now, life in Russia did not seem to be a future for her, so she started looking for a husband. She realized soon that not only good husbands, but husbands in general are hard to find, and in her situation she was ready to marry whoever, even a bad guy, even to pay him to do that, and that was exactly what happened.
Igor was introduced to her by a mutual friend. She bought his black suit and a nice car. Later she bought their marriage. They started living together. A flow of shady people went through her apartment. Skinny, poorly dressed “friends” sneaked into his room and left with their eyes wild. “I dont know what drugs he was doing, but he was bad” she told me. “He was very aggressive, did not want to speak, did not show up on the interview for their green card and was stealing money from me. And then my hubby died.” She said she only got her papers because the officer saw everything she went through in her eyes and felt bad for her.
“What? You dont have a passport?” Victorias eyes rounded as red spots came out all over her face and neck. She felt like he was ruining her future she has been building all these years. “You went for a marriage to make me an American citizen and you have no passport?”
” I dont have money to get it, I dont work, you know.”
Victoria was so tired of working in restaurants that one day after she saved the required sum she married a guy she barely knew anything about. She saw him once before, he looked OK to her. Later she found out he never worked, does not have money to pay the rent, lives with his parents and multiple sisters, never got any degree, and those several thousand dollars she paid him was the biggest amount he ever had. And only for a couple of days.
“I hope he does not withdraw all the money from our mutual account” she told me once. “Ha ha ha, thats so fucking hilarious!” Tyrone was snorting and squealing on a couch with a huge pack of Cheetos and bright red Kool aid while watching Harlem Shake videos. “Does this kid even know what a bank account is?” went in my head.
This couple has not had their interview yet, but Victoria is doing everything possible for her dream to come true while Tyrone is playing video games and probably does not even remember her last name.
We always think its always better somewhere else, not where you are now. We think life is easier in a different country, but most of the times we are mistaken. The failure does not live in a particular country, it lives in you and it will follow you anywhere you run from it. Some choose to do anything to stay in America, obeying all religious and moral canons. And what are we left with? A green card and a future or a lie and a solitude? Is it better to marry a real man and start a family or a country where no one needs you? Its up to you.
To the reader:
I decided to place my cover letter here because I wanted you to read my essay first, without analyzing it, just to read it and feel if it flows.
I wanted to experiment a lot with dialogues (as we went over in class). In other classes I dont really use dialogues for my essays, so this was a good opportunity.
I also thought that comprising the big story out of three small extracts of the girls lives would be fun.
I used big spaces in between each and every story which made it easier to read.
All the stories are real, I just changed the names of people. To write this story I took interviews.I interviewed people to write on something else, but ended up writing this essay. I also used my own experience when describing some situations and some people as close to the original as I could.
I loved that I came up with such an interesting structure for my essay. Probably “Chimera” brought me here (since it consists of two different parts). I think it is always important to think about your reader first and not to get him bored.
What I did not like about my writing was the fact that writing itself takes me forever, I caught myself sitting down and staring on the wall for God knows how long in order just to plan my next move or go on writing. Also sometimes I had to translate sentences that I felt sounded good in Russian into English, which made it sound artificial.
I wanted to combine my journalistic skills with the writing skills given in this class, I hope this hybrid came out well. I realize that I am very creative and I love coming up with different topics. I also think my writing is interesting, well at least I hope it is. I started thinking more about all the advises given in class and from the book, many of them work fine for me, it just takes awhile to adjust them to my writing, but I love that my writing is being improved.
P.S. The grass is definitely always greener.
Zhanna,
I have a few mixed feelings about this essay. There are so many different elements to look at that I found myself a little confused when I got to the end. I think you tried a little too hard to incorporate as much as we discussed in class into this essay as possible, with some success though. It seems to me that, ignoring your last paragraph, your essay is more about the difficulties involved with green card marriages rather than life in one country compared to another.
Going along with the idea that your essay is about green card marriage life, the three stories you gave are excellent examples. I recognize the difficulty you had in some areas with word choice since you did have to translate from Russian to English from time to time, but the words you used were clear enough to deliver each experience appropriately. One complaint that I have though is that you were involved in the first and third story but not the second. This made the entire essay a little disconnected for me, because it felt inconsistent. I would recommend replacing the second story with one that involves you as an involved character, rather than an omniscient narrator; or you could flip that and replace the other two stories with ones that you are not directly involved in.
One sentence at the end of your essay bothers me to some extent, the one that reads, “The failure does not live in a particular country, it lives in you and it will follow you anywhere you run from it.” I don’t think this sentence has a place in your essay. What failure are you referring to? I didn’t see any mention of that in the three stories. You might want to either clarify the purpose of this sentence, show why it is important, if it is, or delete it entirely.
Overall, I think this essay would work more smoothly with a good revision and a clearer purpose. Whether you choose to revise along the route of difficulties in a green card marriage or proving that life is not always better in a new location is up to you. I look forward to seeing which direction you take.
Zhanna,
I loved your essay. Having the three separate stories that shared a common theme is a great idea and I really enjoyed reading it.
The structure of the stories also stood out to me. In the first two you started with dialogue amongst the characters and then gave them a backstory, which I think works very well. You strayed away from that a bit in the last story and focused more on the dialogue and I think it took away from the essay. If “I dont have money to get it, I dont work, you know.” was the last piece of dialogue in that story I think it would be more effective because it gives the reader more room to imagine what Tyrone is actually like. That may not necessarily be right but it’s just my thought.
The last paragraph I also liked. You chose to close it with questions which I think is very effective given the stories you told. My only concern about the closing paragraph is this sentence: “The failure does not live in a particular country, it lives in you and it will follow you anywhere you run from it.” I like the sentence but I don’t think there is any real context for it given anywhere else in the essay.
Overall I really enjoyed your essay and can’t wait to see the revision. Also if you think a sentence sounds better in Russian I think you should leave it in Russian in the essay and use context to convey what it means.