This is The Author's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Cressad Elyshan, the deputy fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Author's Voice, we'll hear Lara Vapnir read her story, waiting for the miracle, from the April 25, 2016 issue of

the magazine.

Vapnir is the author of two short story collections, there are Jews in my house and broccoli

and other tales of food and love, and two novels, memoirs of a muse and the scent of pine.

She published her first story in the New Yorker in 2003.

Now, here's Lara Vatnir.

Waiting for the Miracle.

Vadik arrived in New York on a snowy Saturday morning in the middle of winter.

He woke up as the plane started its descent into JFK

and quickly raised his window shade, hoping to catch a glimpse of that famous Manhattan skyline.

But all he saw was a murky, white mass.

It was still thrilling.

Although he couldn't see the contrast of the buildings,

he could sense them right there under a plane, hidden by the clouds.

He felt a familiar search of excitement, the excitement that had buoyed him for months

ever since he was granted the coveted H-1B visa that would allow him to work in the U.S. for three years.

He had spent well past two years in Istanbul and had grown sick of the place.

He had celebrated his 30th birthday there, but the new decade would begin in a new country for him.

Every now and then, he would open his passport and stroke the thin paper visa as if it

were alive.

...