"Russian ending or american ending?" by Mary Kay Zuravleff

Photo by Tamzin Smith

Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1960, Mary Kay Zuravleff spent her formative years growing up there and in Oklahoma City. She studied mathematics and English at Rice University and obtained her M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. In 1982, she moved to Washington, D.C. and it was then that she decided to make the D.C. area her home. Since then, she has gone on to teach writing at American University, Johns Hopkins University, and George Mason University, as well as for her manuscript consultation and coaching company, NoveltyDC. 

​Mary Kay Zuravleff has also spent nine years attached to the Smithsonian Institution, first as an editor at the American Art Museum and then at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, which together form the Smithsonian’s Asian art museums. She is also the author of three novels titled, The Frequency of Souls, The Bowl is Already Broken, and Man Alive!, as well as several pieces of fiction, including the short story/novel except, Russian Ending or American Ending?. 

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Max Wheeler is a writer from South Florida who currently resides in Arlington, Va with his wife and dog. He will be receiving his MFA in Creative Writing from American University in May 2022.

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Introduction to "Russian Ending or American Ending?"
By max wheeler

There are times when you read something, maybe a story or an article, oftentimes a poem, and you think back to a time when it really would’ve helped you understand what it was you were going through. At the very least, you would’ve been able to experience some kind of shared understanding, if only with a collection of words. For me, that time was shortly after the death of my grandfather. He was a man who had, as a boy, immigrated to the United States in the early 20’s from Mexico. Our family, however, found out about this right before he died. Apparently, he had lived the great majority of his life and the near-entirety of mine claiming to be born and bred American. It wasn’t until my mother bought the family some DNA kits from a well-known ancestry site did we figure out there was something more to my grandfather’s claims of “born and bred American”. What I wish I had then: Russian Ending or American Ending? by Mary Kay Zuravleff. 

In Zuravleff’s Russian Ending or American Ending?, the year is 1920, and the main character, Yelena, is an American. She is going about what appears to be an evening like any other. Her husband, originally from Russian Poland, is at the Russian Club playing pinochle, and she is at their apartment watching their two children. Then the quiet evening is suddenly interrupted by someone who buzzes up to Yelena’s apartment, asking to be let in. She calls herself Frances G. Byrne, the census enumerator. “Let’s sit up and be counted,” Yelena says to her infant son, Tommy. Several minutes later, Yelena, born in Erie, Pennsylvania to Russian immigrant parents, is no longer Yelena but “Elaine”, and she is no longer American but Alien. 

What follows in Russian Ending or American Ending? is a heartbreaking yet disturbingly funny look at the struggle between country and family, rejection and acceptance, and how we fit into all of it. In short, this story is as much about belonging and agency as it is about country and family. It is clear then why this story appeared in Grace and Gravity’s 9th volume, Furious Gravity. According to the publication’s site, Furious Gravity was intended to be “…a platform in which women write about the gravitational forces that bind them together or push them apart.” When I asked Mary Kay Zuravleff what was at the heart of this story, she told me, “It is Yelena’s claim, ‘I am an American’, and the rest of the world responding, ‘no.’” And so, keeping with the theme of gravitational forces, we have Yelena at the center of this story’s universe and the celestial giants of nationhood, family, and identity all pushing and pulling her apart. The closeness of this struggle is felt even more so by the author’s choice to set the story in first-person. We see through Yelena’s eyes the devastation wrought when she collides with the census enumerator, Frances G. Byrne. Bryne, like a planet-killing asteroid, is paradoxically small. Her meek politeness fits her like a mask that weakly covers the depths of her annihilating indifference to Yelena’s struggles. “What a bother I’ve caused,” Bryne says after Yelena begins to sob at the news she is no longer an American. What makes this tragedy even more powerful isnt just our closeness to it, but the added weight of painful irony. “I feel useless…” she says. “And worse for the shame of having done the same as you, telling Russians to go back where they came from. Because I’m American, and that’s what Americans do.”

And so, we come full circle as to why this story resonated so much with me. It had been a few years since my grandfather’s death, and I had periodically returned to the question of why? Why did he hold onto his heritage for so long? Why did he feel like he couldn’t share his own life’s story with those closest to him? Surely, after serving in World War 2 and becoming a naturalized citizen, there was no one that could claim he was not American right? Or perhaps was there another fear? Towards the end of the story, Yelena says, “[Ma] raised me to believe that for every wish come true there is a catch, and you could easily end up worse off than where you started.” Perhaps this is a common sentiment among those caught between country and claim.

Russian Ending or American Ending? is for everyone, anyone, especially those who want to peek inside the mind of someone caught in the event horizon. One side pulls her to a place that she is trying to escape, the other side, towards which she desperately crawls, pushes her away. While the end result is a nowhere, a homelessness that is stretched across time and space, this does not deter Yelena one bit. “And like a kettle at full boil, I’ll whistle,” she says. “That’s the only way to make us count in ten years, in a hundred.” If one thing is for certain, Yelena has my attention. You should give her yours, as well. Unlike Yelena asking us, “Russian Ending or American Ending?” in order to highlight the similarities in either outcome, there is no question as to whether or not you should read this story. You should.

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Check out more of Mary Kay Zuravleff's work, including her book Man Alive!, here.

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