Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2012 by Oksana Marafioti

All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by D&M Publishers, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marafioti, Oksana, 1974–
American Gypsy / Oksana Marafioti. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978- 0-374-10407- 8
1. Marafioti, Oksana, 1974– 2. Romanies— United States— Biography.
3. Immigrants— United States— Biography. 4. Marafioti, Oksana, 1974– —
Childhood and youth. 5. Romanies— Soviet Union— Biography. I. Title.

DX127.M37 A3 2012
305.891'497073—dc23 2011047075

Designed by Abby Kagan

www.fsgbooks.com

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

To protect the privacy of certain individuals, the names and identifying characteristics of
several people have been changed and composite characters have been created.
 AMERICAN CHEESE

The woman on the other side of the desk scribbled in her files.
I studied her with interest: perfectly manicured nails, killer perm,
and a beige pantsuit with the American embassy ID clipped to
the left breast pocket. She warmed us now and then with one of
those smiles that make you want to ask its owner to be your
child’s godparent even if you’ve only just met. She didn’t look like
someone who held the fate of my family in her hands.
Before the interview that morning, Mom had instructed Dad
not to speak, for two reasons. First, he couldn’t complete a sentence
without swearing. And second, but more important, he always said
the wrong thing.
The woman looked up from her paperwork and turned to my
father. In a version of Russian that made me feel like I was teeter-
ing on a balance beam along with her, she said, “Mr. Kopylenko,
tell why you want exist in United States?”
I stared at Dad’s fedora, thankful that at least he had given up
his earrings for a day. Mom tightened her grip on her purse, and
my eight-year-old sister, Roxy, stopped swinging her legs.
Dad straightened, cleared his throat, and said in equally
 4 O K SA N A M A R A FI OT I

precarious English, “I want play with B.B. King. I great Gypsy

musician and he like me. When he hear me play, we be rich.
Here, I great musician, but nobody know. We live in 1980s, but
feel like 1880s. Russian peoples only like factory and tractor. I no
drive tractor. I play guitar. Her name Aphroditta. Also.” He lifted
his index finger to stress the importance of what was coming
next. “I super-good healer. I heal peoples. If you have hemor-
rhoid, I fix. I take tumor with bare hands. In Russia, I not free.
I go to jail, you understand?”
I was mortified, my eyes jumping between Dad, the awfully
quiet American, and my mom, who’d plastered on a smile like
a fresh Band-Aid.
“We want our girls to have a better future,” Mom said in Rus-
sian, after recouping from the awkward pause. “You understand.”
Years of managing a Roma performing ensemble had taught
my mother the schmooze side of business. She closed many
impossible deals over black caviar and bottles of Armenian co-
gnac, items she couldn’t bring to our interview, though not for
lack of trying. That day, November 18, 1989, Mom had put on a
periwinkle wool dress, a fox-fur coat—we had waited in line out-
side the embassy for three hours—a pair of Swedish-made boots,
and not a flicker of jewelry except for her wedding band. She had
made sure none of us looked too rich or too poor; it was impor-
tant to appear like the average Soviet family. This was tricky,
since, as far as Americans knew, the USSR did not have a middle
class and was not supposed to have an upper class, which we hap-
pened to belong to.
This wasn’t Mom’s first trip to the embassy. Her brother Arsen,
who had moved with his family—including two of my favorite
cousins, Nelly and Aida—to Los Angeles three years before, sent
us a visa that was short an important form: his agreement to spon-
sor us when we first arrived in the States. The visa might as well
 A M E R I CA N G Y P SY 5

have been blank without it. But Mom didn’t give up, even though
it took her years of networking, bribing, and entertaining in the
classiest restaurants to finally get our file going. This last family
interview was the key, quite literally, to freedom.
Thankfully Dad had kept quiet, and the American asked only
Mom questions from that point on. Soon the two women were
swapping locations of the best butcher shops in town. “On
Wednesdays, go to Komsomolskaya Ploshad. Ask for Borya. Tell
him I sent you,” Mom said, voice low as if the room were full of
strangers waiting to snatch her secret.
It still felt then as if we were bargaining like prisoners caught
between an unfair sentence and a pardon, but I could hear that
freedom. In my ears, bells were ringing, that huge music they
belted out from the towers of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.
The woman flipped the pages of our file and addressed my
mother in measured Russian: “I’d read here that you drink?” She
lifted an arm to her lips and curled her fingers around an imagi-
nary bottle. And a needle scratched across my sound track, exactly
the way you hear it in movies.
The four of us halted like toys unwound.
Mom drank often. This was after Dad had nearly died of alco-
hol poisoning and renounced booze as the religion of choice, and
before Mom started drinking every day. But what if Americans
didn’t drink? Ever. I hadn’t considered that possibility.
With a look of complete mortification the woman said, “Oh
goodness. Sometimes my pronunciation is bad. You sing, right?
You singer.”
All the Kopylenkos in the room showed signs of life for the
first time in at least fifteen seconds.
“Yes, yes, I do!” Mom laughed and we joined in, somewhat ma-
niacally, as I recall. In Russian, “drink” and “sing” are a letter apart.
At the end of the hour, the American finally stamped our
 6 O K SA N A M A R A FI OT I

papers. She blushed while my parents took turns hugging her, all
three talking as if they were going to be neighbors once we
moved. Even when we walked out of the office I couldn’t breathe,
too afraid she would change her mind and rush out to take back
the good news.
Once we had our permission my parents didn’t waste time
packing. In their desperation to leave they didn’t pause to con-
sider the difficulties they might encounter across the ocean. They
just knew that everything would be better in America.
The days leading up to our departure seesawed between too
much activity and too little sleep. “We’re finally getting out of
this hellhole,” Dad told anyone willing to listen. He practiced his
guitar with frenzied dedication, for that fantasy meeting with
his hero, B.B. King. It never crossed his mind that maybe he
couldn’t walk up to any old music legend and dazzle him with
killer technique.
Mom sold or gave away most of our valuables because Soviet
customs employees weren’t shy about confiscating anything that
turned a profit on the black market. Even our house had to go.
According to Soviet law, we had to surrender all real estate before
emigrating. Mom’s relatives talked her into giving it to one of her
distant cousins. It was better than seeing it go to a stranger. My
parents had friends who put their names on waiting lists for years
for an opportunity to buy Moscow real estate. As connected as
Mom was, it had taken her two cases of cognac and fifteen thou-
sand rubles to bribe a housing authority official to bump up her
name for a fifty-year-old house with cracked shutters.
Our house was located near the city limits, where oak and
maple trees commanded the streets, making human structures
look insignificant and fragile.
Muscovites preferred the city high-rises, and I didn’t know
that only the old folks and the Gypsies still lived in those old
 A M E R I CA N G Y P SY 7

houses on the outskirts until one of my fourth-grade classmates

educated me.
“It’s like I read in my dad’s newspaper,” Nastya said, pushing
a mop around our classroom. We had floor duty every Tuesday
after school. “Our leaders built these new apartments for every-
one to live in. The old people got smart eventually. But the Gyp-
sies set up tents in the courtyards and said they liked to sleep and
pee outside. Can you imagine? If you ask me, I think they just
didn’t know what to do with all those walls and doors. Like, if
you bring a mouse inside, it’s always looking for a hole to jump
into.”
“What does that have to do with houses?” I asked Nastya,
taking care with my words. When I started first grade, my par-
ents, without much explanation, told me not to mention that
I was part Roma. To Nastya, I was Oksana Kopylenko the Ukrai-
nian, because all Soviet last names ending with nko traced their
roots to Ukraine.
She leaned on the mop’s tip and whispered, “They’re closer to
the dirt that way.”
After school I marched home and demanded to know if
Nastya’s story was true.
Dad was in the garage mixing paints—neon yellow and torch
red—to use on our car. Mom stood inside the doorway, eyes
fi xed on Dad, arms crossed like a pretzel high and tight over her
chest.
“It took those cretins five years to get all of the Roma off the
grounds,” Dad said. “They were so used to people obeying that
Gypsy insubordination was big news, headlines in all the papers.”
“It’s not true.” I was appalled. I had hoped Nastya had lied.
“Why wouldn’t they want to live in a house? It doesn’t make sense.”
My reaction sent Dad into a fit of laughter.
“You think everyone lives like us? Nice place with modern
 8 O K SA N A M A R A FI OT I

amenities? In some cities those charity apartments don’t even have

heating or water. You squat behind a tree and wipe your ass with
newspaper.”
My parents loved that house. They had put in parquet floors
throughout, except for the kitchen, where Mom preferred marble.
Both bedrooms had sleek Swedish furniture, while the living
room, the center of all gatherings, boasted curvy Queen Anne–
style couches and Persian rugs.
“We’ll buy a mansion in Los Angeles,” Mom assured every-
one who called to ask after her mental health. “And for dirt
cheap.”
Dad left a number of albums with his sister, Laura, for safe-
keeping. Featuring my grandparents’ beautiful voices, they were
produced during the height of Roma popularity with the Russian
public and signified an irreplaceable legacy. He wrapped them
with painstaking care in soft towels, laying them inside a small

Grandpa Andrei’s first Gypsy ensemble, 1936. Grandpa Andrei is

seated in the middle row, with Grandma Rose to his left
 A M E R I CA N G Y P SY 9

wooden chest. “It’s only for now,” he had told his sister. “I made
copies on these tapes in case you want to listen to them. The
needle scratches on that damn record player.”
My eight-year-old sister bragged to all her friends about the move.
She had recently developed a crush on George Michael and had
been making plans of her own, which included locating, ensnaring,
and eventually marrying the pop star.
I spent most of those last days in an emotional limbo, uncer-
tain of how I felt about the impending metamorphosis. Petrified
to part with the comfort of familiarity, I still couldn’t deny my
excitement at living in a place most of the world believed to be
paradise. A few years back, a drummer from our ensemble had
taken a trip to Las Vegas. When he came back, his eyes were as lit
up as the fabled Sin City billboards.
“You get free soap in all the hotel rooms,” Vova had exclaimed
in our kitchen. My parents, along with a few musician friends
who came to hear about the States, wrapped their ears around
Vova’s stories. Sometimes, like in the case of the free-soap claim,
they would burst into a debate. “I don’t believe it,” somebody
said. “Why should anyone need free soap in Vegas?” Another
added, “To wash their ass with, after they shit all the money
away.”
Roxy and I had lurked in the corners of the kitchen that
night, trying to stay undetected. But when Vova produced a piece
of something yellow covered in filmy plastic, we forgot about the
threat of bedtime.
“What is that?” Roxy asked.
“This”—Vova held the delicate sheet between his forefinger
and thumb—“is American cheese.”
Our cheese came in thick blocks, so heavy they could kill a
man. Even when sliced, it never turned out so thin.
My father, always the smart-ass, interrupted the momentary
 10 O K SA N A M A R A FI OT I

glorification of the cheese. “Are the Americans rationing food?

I thought the war was over.”
“No, man,” Vova said. “It’s like this on purpose. You put it be-
tween two slices of bread and cook it on a skillet until the cheese
melts.”
“What about the plastic?” I asked.
“Here.” Vova placed the cheese into my palm. “You pull this
edge up and remove the wrapper.”
A collective “Oh” went around the kitchen.
My father shook his head, still unimpressed. He turned to
Mom and said, “See? I told you. Anybody with half a brain can
become rich in America.”
But all I thought was, My God—singly wrapped cheese; so
exotic, so needlessly luxurious. As Vova continued to list the mar-
vels of everyday American life, I couldn’t help but daydream of
what living there would be like.
I even got a special haircut for the big move. It was called the
Lioness.
In the USSR, all haircuts had names. The Lioness looked iden-
tical to Jon Bon Jovi’s hair except fluffier. Tamara, Mom’s hair-
dresser, had suggested the cut to offset my eyes, which, she claimed,
appeared unnaturally large compared to the rest of my face. If it’s
good enough for Jon, I thought, it’s good enough for me.
For my arrival, I wore an outfit that you could appreciate only
if you grew up during the eighties. In that case, you would be sick
with envy over my aquamarine sweater and neon-pink corduroy
pants, purchased on the black market for three hundred rubles.
I had even put on makeup: a touch of green eye shadow and pink
lipstick. I felt like a movie star. My Wednesday Addams personal-
ity nearly vanished behind the trendy Oksana who was about to
move to the land of opportunity. I had no doubt I would fit right
in, wearing clothes in the tradition of the MTV music videos
 A M E R I CA N G Y P SY 11

I had studied. Perhaps this Oksana could pass for a girl with an
average family, instead of a Gypsy one.
Funny: I really thought it would be that simple.

For the first fifteen years of my life, my parents performed in a

traveling Roma ensemble the size of a circus. They had little
choice in the matter—my grandparents ran it, and it was a family
affair. Although my mother was Armenian by blood, once she
married my father, she may as well have been Roma.
We led a spur-of-the-moment kind of life, always on the road
touring and adjusting to schedules and local customs. Officially
we lived in Moscow, but by the age of ten, I had traveled from the
Mongolian deserts to the Siberian tundra; I had become adept at
sleeping on the worn-out seats of old train stations and during
show rehearsals.
Even after I started school, I tried to spend every possible mo-
ment on the road, in part to hide my inclination to forget home-
work assignments or to ditch school for a matinee of a foreign
flick. But a bigger reason was fear. For the first five grades I’d done
well as the Ukrainian Oksana. Then, one day, a classmate stuck a
piece of paper to my back. I didn’t notice it for some hours, and by
then it was too late.
Gyp.
The classmate was Aleksey Moruskin, Nastya’s boyfriend.
Later, when he and I sat in the principal’s office, his hair and face
stained magenta-red as he sulked at the floor between the princi-
pal’s desk and his feet, I knew his pout had little to do with guilt
and a lot with the fact that I’d dumped a bowl of beets on his
head during lunch. It was the only time I was grateful to the
school cooks for making home-style vegetables every day.
Timofey Timofeevich, who sometimes punished students by
 12 O K SA N A M A R A FI OT I

making them kneel on a pile of dried beans in the corner of his

office, sat across from us like God come down for Judgment one
day early.
“Raskazivay (Tell me),” he said to Aleksey.
The boy mumbled, “Nastya heard her”—a nod at me—
“grandmother singing on the radio,” then stopped and swung his
legs like a kindergartner.
“I don’t have all day, boy.” Timofey Timofeevich sang bass with
an a cappella quartet called Bright Sunrises. His voice reached
places.
“The announcer guy said she was a . . . you know . . .”
“Where’s that bag of kidney beans I’ve been saving for a spe-
cial occasion?”
“Hesaidshewasagypsy,” Aleksey pinballed in a single breath.
The bag was opened, the beans scattered. Aleksey cut me a
look that hissed of revenge. He kneeled down, cheeks puffed to
hold in the sobs. You’d have to kneel for a while before it went
from uncomfortable to painful, but he still cried.
“My dad is a Ukrainian Rom,” I said to Timofey Timofee-
vich, as if he were about to confiscate my last name now that the
Gypsy part had been revealed.
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