Mother Russia (9781590209028)

by Robert Littell

  “Pravdin, Robespierre Isayevich,” Pravdin responds weakly. “What are you in for?”

  “They say I’m mad,” the new neighbor explains. He massages the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

  “So,” Pravdin asks, “are you?”

  “I’m not sure.” Abalakin hesitates, says finally: “The truth of the matter is I come from the past.”

  “Ha!” exclaims Pravdin. “I come from the future. What better place for the future and the past to meet than in this holy of holies!”

  Abalakin laughs uneasily. “I really do, come from the past I mean.”

  Pravdin sinks back onto his pillow. A pillow! After a while he swings his feet over the edge of the bed, slips them into his sneakers, ties the laces. Laces even! “How can you pee around here?” inquires Pravdin.

  “You take yourself down to the second door on your right in the hallway, you open your fly …”

  “What about permits?”

  “Permits to pee?” Abalakin asks.

  Pravdin is incredulous. “Anytime you want is when you can pee?”

  His roommate nods, regards Pravdin as if he is off his rocker. Pravdin takes himself down to the second door on his right in the hallway, opens his fly, pees into a toilet bowl with water in it, luxuriates in the sound of water spilling into water, glances at himself in the mirror over the sink when he washes his hands, turns quickly away when he sees someone he doesn’t recognize. He is thinner, paler, bloodless almost, it seems to him; his cheeks are sunken, his eyes lost in the shadowy depths of hollows.

  “What’s the lowdown on the building?” Pravdin inquires when he returns to his room.

  Abalakin has drawn up a chair in front of the open window and is sitting on it stark naked, sunning his hairy chest. “It’s a sane crowd, generally speaking,” he says, making no effort to conceal his bitterness. “On the side nearest the W.C. is a stress engineer who wrote a letter to the United Nations complaining about the lack of Soviet assistance to the struggle against imperialism in Vietnam. His roommate is an astronomer who published a report on black holes; it turns out that black holes are antisocialist. This same astronomer once discovered a comet and it was named after him. It recently whizzed past the earth a mere three hundred thousand light-years away. We celebrated the occasion by shaking up a bottle of water until it was bubbly and toasting his sanity. Let’s see, on our side we have a genuine Jewish activist who started a hunger strike to the death when they refused him an exit visa on the grounds he was involved in secret work; he was a cutter in a factory that made military uniforms. He’s being fed intravenously because strikes of any kind are antisocialist, you see. His roommate is a car mechanic who was caught running a black market operation on spare parts; spare parts are also antisocialist. The car mechanic passes the time, believe it or not, reciting all four conjugations of some Latin verb in the twenty-four tenses of the active indicative, passive indicative, active subjunctive, passive subjunctive, plus the four participles, the five infinitives, the five declensions with their six cases, and all the other clutter of that wretched language. Latin is anti—”

  “Socialist,” Pravdin finishes the refrain for him. “So you speak Latin?”

  “I did,” Abalakin says mysteriously.

  “How about Yiddish?” Pravdin asks.

  “I was Jewish once,” Abalakin says, “Sephardic Jewish, not Ashkenazi Jewish. I spoke Ladino. Would it be asking too much to ask you if you’re going to pass gas, would you do it in the hallway. Day or night. I’ll do the same for you.”

  Pravdin likes Abalakin well enough but he has the feeling that the other man is avoiding him. After several days of peeing noisily into the bowl whenever he feels the remotest pressure on his bladder, passing gas in the hallway, watching with a great sense of well-being the seconds, minutes, hours, tides tick by on his watches, Pravdin puts it to Abalakin: “Bad breath is what I don’t have,” he insists. “So what is there about me not to like?”

  Abalakin is spit-shining the steel rim of his eyeglasses, the steel caps on his teeth. “Over the years I have been obliged to spend a great deal of time in asylums,” he explains. “It is my experience that half the clients in them work for the police, and the other half would if they were invited to.”

  “An informer is what you think I am!” Pravdin howls.

  “Put it this way,” Abalakin says, “if I don’t tell you anything, there’s nothing you can pass on to the doctors whether you are or aren’t.”

  Pravdin sulks in his corner of the room without saying a word to Abalakin. Mealtimes come and go in silence. A lady librarian passes with a cart full of books; Pravdin borrows a copy of Ten Days That Shook the World, discovers the last page of each chapter has been torn out, goes racing after her to exchange, has to be restrained by white-coated guards when she refuses on the grounds that house rules limit him to one book a week. Two days go by in silence.

  “What’s not right?” Abalakin finally inquires in a tone that indicates he is ready to let bygones be bygones. Pravdin doesn’t respond, instead writes on the wall over his bed:

  Those who are not with us are us

  (R. Pravdin: Pravdin has come a long way from the days when he was neither for, neither against, as God was his witness), spends the rest of the afternoon, part of the next morning illuminating (with colored pencils supplied by the lady librarian) the first letter of each word.

  “Listen, Robespierre Pravdin,” Abalakin finally appeals to him. “I made a mistake and I admit it. I’m apologizing.” He offers his hand.

  Pravdin, never one to hold a grudge, accepts it instantly.

  “What’s this about you coming from the future?” Abalakin wants to know.

  “That”—Pravdin rolls his eyes to indicate the walls have ears, lowers his voice—“was a story I made up to make them think I was off my rocker. I thought they would let me go if they were convinced I was insane.” Pravdin laughs nervously. “Ha! At least I thought I was making it up. Now I’m not so sure. What about you coming from the past?”

  “That’s real,” Abalakin says intently. “I know you’ll think I’m crazy. Everyone thinks I’m crazy when I tell them. I remember fourteen distinct incarnations before this one.” His face takes on a swollen look; his eyes stare trancelike into Pravdin’s pupil as if he is looking through a tiny hole into another universe. “Once I was wounded at the siege of Khiva in the Kara Kum desert. An old woman with no hair sucked the pus from my wound. I must have told her about other incarnations because I was thrown into a pit full of crazy people next to the guard house. I died there of plague. Once I voyaged to Persia with the train of the one they called Tamer the Lame. We crossed great deserts, guided from oasis to oasis by the fires in the turrets of the minarets. I got drunk on wine in Persia and spoke of my incarnations and was put in another asylum, where I died quickly of a pain in the stomach that the doctors were unable to diagnose. I think now it was appendicitis.”

  “I always wound up in an asylum when they found out about my incarnations. Nobody believed me. I’m going to finish this life in an asylum too. I’m a walking compendium on lunatic asylums; physical conditions have improved in the last thousand years, though things are about the same with respect to the intelligence of the doctors.” Abalakin grabs the lapel of Pravdin’s pajamas, pulls him close. “Once I fought against Napoleon. I lost all my toes to frostbite and spoke of my incarnations when I was feverish. When I got well they put me in an asylum for army veterans near Moscow. I met a nobleman there who had been cheated out of his patrimony by a half brother who claimed the nobleman wasn’t legitimate, then had him committed. The nobleman knew where there were documents proving his parentage, but they wouldn’t let him out to get them. So he rotted in the asylum. He believed me when I described my incarnations and told me where the documents were so I could set things straight in my next incarnation.”

  “And did you,” Pravdin wants to know, “set things straight?”

  “As soon as I was
old enough to write, I wrote an anonymous letter to his heirs telling them where the documents were. They filed suit and won the case. Once I was a boss,” he continues, drugged by his own story. “I was the last Emir of Bukhara, Said Mirmuhammed Alimkhan. I held the power of life and death over my subjects. People kissed the hem of my robe.”

  “You lived in the Ark twenty meters above the level of the city?” Pravdin asks incredulously. “You were beardless and spoke with a stutter?”

  “How do you know these things?” Abalakin demands.

  “Every Friday you made your way, in finely worked golden slippers, along the carpets laid between the Ark and the mosque.”

  “Yes, yes. Later, I would return to the Ark through the twin towers, climb the steps between the prison cells to the balcony to watch the executions.”

  “Do you remember someone who lifted a palm to you for mercy?”

  “They all lifted their palms to me for mercy, but I never granted it,” Abalakin whispers. “How do you know these things?”

  “There was one who asked for mercy who had the triangle of a seer on his palm.”

  Abalakin slumps weakly to the floor; Pravdin’s lapel slips through his fingers. “There was one who had the triangle of a seer on his palm,” he acknowledges. “I had the hand cut off at the wrist and brought to me.”

  Pravdin turns away. “Dear God,” he murmurs, “you’re telling the truth!”

  Incarnations flicker before Pravdin’s eyes like frames from an old Eisenstein. Eyeglasses shatter; the baby carriage hurtles down the steps, picks up speed, travels back in space and time to Bukhara. Pravdin grips the side of the carriage and peers over the edge, feels the wind in his face, sees far below Chuvash Al-hakim bi’amrillahi lift a palm with the triangle of a seer on it to the Boss of Bukhara, Maksut Mustarkovich Abalakin, who smiles down in a kindly way as the executioner’s knife cuts through the Druse’s jugular “Aiiiiiii,” cries Pravdin, sweaty and weak and wide awake. He sits up in the darkness. Chances are he’s insane, in which case no harm will be done. Dear God, look what I’ve been reduced to! But what if he’s not insane? If he’s not, he can write an anonymous letter in his next incarnation, tell where the manuscripts are, set things straight. Pravdin remembers Mother Russia’s story about Lenin saying what do we have to lose and shuffling off to the toilet before the Bolshevik revolution. Me too, what do I have to lose? Pravdin thinks.

  In the inky blackness of the night, he gently shakes Abalakin awake, whispers for several minutes in his ear. Abalakin nods, gratefully squeezes Pravdin’s shoulder. He is very moved, he whispers, by this proof that Pravdin believes him.

  Pravdin crawls between the sheets of his bed, sinks immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep. When he wakes in the morning Abalakin is gone, along with his bedding and his few personal possessions.

  In midmorning Pravdin’s Eisenhower jacket and trousers are returned to him. They have been dry-cleaned and pressed. Shortly after lunch he is summoned to a front office and handed a paper bag containing four medals, a box of Q-Tips, a can of vaginal deodorant spray, a tube of depilatory cream and asked to sign a receipt. Pravdin, nostalgic for the ordered sweetness of shtetl life he never experienced, feels faint, puts a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Is something not right?” the matron asks in a concerned voice. Pravdin’s bloodless lips move, words form but no sound emerges: he is speechless with humiliation.

  Half an hour later he is given a certificate of insanity and released from the asylum.

  Zingers to Singer:

  The letters of

  MOTHER RUSSIA

  16 February

  My very dear and obviously delightful Mister Singer, Copies to: Soviet Ministry of Trade, Import Section

  United States of America Ministry of Tradea,

  Export Section

  United States of America Embassy, Moscow

  I had the misfortune several years ago to come into the possession of your adorable little automatic stitching machine, model number SW106. I say misfortune because although it makes sewing easier it takes something (I’m not sure what) away we had before we sewed on a Singer. But that’s another story. Very shortly, come to think of it, almost immediately after I acquired my Singer it started tearing the fabric when it was supposed to be stitching it which was a catastrophe as opposed to an annoyance because in those days though not so much any more fabric, especially French or Italian, was difficult if not impossible to come by and once come by treated as a treasure. So you will I hope understand that the tearing of the fabric was something I tried to stop immediately with zero results since there was nobody I could find who would admit to being familiar with a United States of America machine even though it was a pre cold, even pre world war model. Nobody that is until one night last year at of all places a wonderful mainly Bach concert I met a sewing machine repairman with honest if dirty fingernails who let slip he had worked on Singers before the war and batting my still sexy eyelashes I talked him into taking a peek at mine which is how I finally discovered that what I need is:

  Shuttle race

  Why I am writing you if you haven’t divined it already is in the expectation that you will supply to me the service aprés vente mentioned in your manual as your point forte (my instruction booklet is in French) for which I am taking the liberty of thanking you in advance.

  Yours most appreciatively,

  Volkova, Z. A.

  Post Scriptum: I have been criticized for the hopelessness with which I distribute parentheses which (aren’t they?) the building blocks of stream of consciousness, so I hereby offer you a handful which you can sprinkle on to taste.

  (((((((((((((((((((((((((( )))))))))))))))))))))))

  25 March

  My very dear (and presumably delightful) Mister Singer, Copies to: Soviet Ministry of Trade, Import Section

  United States of America Ministry of Trade,

  Export Section

  United States of America Embassy, Moscow

  Soviet Foreign Ministry

  United States of America Foreign Ministry

  Ha! Good question. In my naiveté I assumed I could simply present my aging though still angular body at the door of the United States of America Embassy here and give to one of those prissily correct gray-suited assistant something-or-others rubles which he could then convert through some obscure bookkeeping process into dollars which could then be passed on to you. Well we all have (isn’t it so?) our illusions. My favorite to which I am forever faithful is that there is a logic or more precisely an order to the world when all of our senses Eve shout at us that the world or the little we know of it suffers from an essential lack of harmony, an ugly dissonance, a seductive vulgarity, almost as if the music of the spheres were a concerto for vacuum cleaner and orchestra with an occasional solo (do you at all see what I mean?) by one of your darling Singers. Enormous stretches of time and space conspire to rob life of its harmony and (as one thing leads more often than not to another) its meaning and dignity. I have a feeling which is threatening to become a theory that we must make great efforts to End dignity and meaning and let’s not forget harmony in the details of daily life, which is why I suggested in my first zinger dear Mister Singer that your darling little stitching machine takes something away from us in return for permitting us to sew more rapidly. Here you must surely be asking yourself, then why on earth does she want to repair hers? to which I can only respond I am hooked on speed and have been ever since my father relented and took us for an excursion in his new horseless carriage at a time which now seems so very very long ago. But back to the crux which is (isn’t it?) how am I to pay you for the Shuttle Race? The precious young lady who shares the top floor of the next to last (and if what I hear is true, soon to be last) wooden house in central Moscow suggests that we barter. Do you recognize the word? I have already identified what I want from you so now you must identify what you want from me. My young lady friend has an idea you might like to have some old photographs of our Russian battlefi
elds strewn with corpses but I told her that I suspected (correct me if I’m wrong) that you Americans are only interested in the dead when they are individually wrapped. Here we still cry at holocausts. But that’s another story. In any case I am quite prepared to barter with you or if you can figure out how payment can be arranged to pay you, as the price of four dollars and seventy-five cents plus mailing seems to me to be ridiculously reasonable. I am obliged to tell you that Volkova, Z.A. is a Misses and not a Dear Sir, which point I am emphasizing by adding to my signature the more or less nickname that certain white-coated führers have bestowed upon me. Trusting to hear from you I remain as always someone who understands the hopelessness of life, yet hopes she is wrong.

  Volkova, Z. A.

  Mother Russia

  Post Scriptum: How is it (I am curious, even eager, to know) that one can write a letter to a Mister Singer and receive a response to this very same letter from a Mister Prolnor? Naughty, naughty Mister Prolnor? who ever you are, didn’t your mother teach you not to read other people’s mail? Here it is done all the time bien entendu. In the bad old days they used to take a certain pride in their work and reseal the letters professionally and it was hard to know if they had (as we suspected) been opened, but nowadays the bureaucratic rats who are responsible for incoming mail are rushed for time or lazy or amateurish or all of the above because they simply seal them up again with transparent tape. Still Mister Prolnor one expects more from the United States of America after all the advertising you’ve done about freedom of expression and that sort of thing. So I remain hopeful that my zingers to my dear and presumably delightful Mister Singer will elicit a response from the man of that very name.

  12 April

  My dear (and to give you the benefit of the doubt, original) Mister Singer:

  Copies to: Soviet Ministry of Trade, Import Section