"I wish Russia were strong," Valentin said, "and America weak. Then we could hold up our heads. Then my Ruth and Naomi could walk down Fifth Avenue and spit on whomever they wanted. No one would dare hit them or make them touch each other." We drank to Russia being powerful again. We drank once more to Naomi and Ruth. We drank to America's eventual comeuppance, which even AlyoshaBob with his golden American passport thought would happen in due course.
"Speaking of America," Alyosha-Bob said. "Listen, Mishen'ka . . . " But instead of finishing, he hung his head in an alcoholic stupor.
"What is it, Alyosha?" I said, touching his hand. But my friend had drifted off into sleep. His litde body could not take as much vodka as my larger one. We waited a few minutes for him to revive, which he did with a start. "Arumph!" he said. "Listen, Mishka. I had a drink with Barry from the American consulate, and I asked the big jerk . . . " His head slumped again. I tickled his nose with parsley. "I asked the big jerk if you could get a visa to the States now that your papa's dead."
My toxic hump throbbed with hope but also with the caveat that life could produce only disappointment. I burped quietiy into my hand and prepared to wipe away the tear that would be forthcoming whether the news was good or bad. "And?" I whispered. "What did he say?"
"No go," Alyosha-Bob mumbled. "They won't let in the child of a murderer. The dead Oklahoman was politically connected, too. They love Oklahomans in the new administration. They want to make an example of you."
The tear did not fall. But the anger found its way into my nostrils, from which it came out as a low, sonorous whistie. I picked up the fresh vodka bottle and threw it against a wall. It shattered in a brilliant show of light and clarity. The Mountain Eagle's clientele fell silent, a dozen shaved heads glistening with midsummer sweat, the richer men looking toward their bodyguards with raised eyebrows, the bodyguards looking toward their fists. The Georgian restaurant manager peeked out from his office, took note of who I was, bowed respectfully in my direction, and motioned for the waitress to bring me another bottie.
"Easy, Snack," Alyosha-Bob said.
"If you want to do something useful, throw a bottie at the Americans," Ruslan the Enforcer said. "But make sure to light it first. Let them all burn to death. See if I care!"
"America I want," I said, uncapping the new bottie and, in contravention of all drinking etiquette, pouring it right down my throat.
"New York. Rouenna. Take her from behind. Empire State Building. Korean grocery. Salad bar. Laundromat." I managed to stand up. The table spun around me in a fantasia of colors and textures—mutton parts hoisted on spits, egg yolks dripping into cheese pies, stews gur-gling with sunflower oil and blood. How could a late-afternoon meal turn so violent? Who were these cretinous people around me? Everywhere I looked, I saw failure and despondency. "They want an example to make?" I said. "I am the example. I am the best example for a good, loving, honest person. And I'm going to show them now!" I started staggering toward Mamudov and my Land Rover.
"Don't go!" Alyosha-Bob shouted after me. "Misha! You're not capable of action!"
"Am I not a man?" I shouted Beloved Papa's popular refrain. And to my driver, Mamudov, I said: "Take me to the American consulate." The generals in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service have surely seen it all. Migrant Mexicans chased by coyotes across the Rio Grande. Pitch-black Africans sealed into shipping containers so that they can sneak into the country, sell sunglasses by Battery Park, and then send food back to their children in Togo. Rafts full of dehydrated, starving, partially naked Hispanics washing up on the beaches of Miami to beg for asylum (I've always wondered why they don't bring along an adequate supply of bottled water and snacks for such a long journey). But have they ever seen a rich and educated person impale himself upon the flagpole bearing the Stars and Stripes? Have they ever seen a person whose wallet contains the U.S. dollar equivalent of a dozen American dreams prostrate himself before them for a chance to see the Brooklyn Promenade once more?
Have they ever met a cultured European who would choose the American berserk over the Belgian truffle? Forget the Mexicans and Africans and such. In a sense, my American story is the most compelling of all. It is the ultimate compliment to a nation known more for its belly than for its brain.
As we drove up Furshtatskaya Street, Mamudov told me he would disgorge me at the consulate's entrance and drive around the corner (civilian cars are not allowed to idle near the Americans' sacred space).
"You don't look well, excellency," Mamudov said to me. "Why not take a little nap back home? We'll pick up an Asian girl from the brothel and some Ativan from the American clinic. Just as you fancy."
"To the khui with the Asian girl," I said, kicking the door open.
"Am I not a man, Mamudov?"
Outside I found the prickled atmosphere that occurs whenever a Western consulate is forced to position itself along a dirty third-world street, whenever local neutrons and electrons are not allowed to mix with the West's positive charge. I felt myself repelled by an invisible wind and almost fell backward. The American flag above the consulate's portico, however, gave me a friendly wave of encouragement. I crossed the street and came upon two Russian meatheads, one in a Caesar haircut (to hide a massively receding hairline), the other a flattop, each about two thirds my size, beefed up with buckwheat and cheap sausage, each dressed in uniforms bearing the Stars and Stripes on their shoulders.
"May we help you with something?" the flattop said as I staggered toward the announcement board where the Rules of Humiliation for Russian visa applicants were spelled out in English officialese: U.S. law places on each nonimmigrant visa applicant a presumption of im- migrant intent. The burden of proof is on the applicant to overcome this presumption. In other words: You're all whores and bandits, so why bother applying?
"May we help you with something?" the flattop repeated. His face had a single long crack running from forehead to chin, as if he had been dropped one time too many as a child. "This place isn't for you, fellow. The consulate is closed. Shove off."
"I want to see the charge d'affaires," I said. "I am Misha Vainberg, son of the famous Boris Vainberg who peed on the dog in front of the KGB headquarters during the Soviet times." I leaned against the wall of the consulate building and spread my arms out, exposing the white of my stomach the way a puppy shows he's defenseless in front of a larger dog. "My father was a very big dissident. Bigger than Sharansky! Once the Americans hear of what he's done for freedom of religion, they'll build a statue to him in Times Square." The two security guards smiled broadly at each other. It isn't often anymore that you can beat up a Jew in an official capacity in Russia, so when the chance comes, you have to grab it. You have to beat the Jew for church and fatherland or you'll regret it for the rest of your life. The guy with the Caesar cut flexed the rolls of his neck in provocation. "If you don't leave immediately," he said, "you're going to have some problems with us."
"Maybe you should go to the Israeli consulate," the flattop suggested. "You'll have better luck there, I'm sure."
"Suitcase! Train station! Israel!" Caesar chanted the familiar Russian mantra urging Jews to leave the country. Flattop took up the refrain, and they shared an enjoyable moment.
"Just wait until I tell the charge d'affaires that a pair of anti-Semites is guarding his consulate," I sputtered, alcoholic drool dappling my chin. "You'll be working at the consulate in Yekaterinburg, so dress warm, fuckers."
It took me a while to figure out that they were punching me. I was staring at a woman beating her carpet outside her window, thinking those were the thuds resonating along the quiet street. To be fair to my tormentors, Flattop and Caesar were good strong Russian boys in their late twenties, purposeful and furious. But beating the lard out of me is not an activity to be done casually; it takes hard work and a certain amount of smarts. One can't just keep hitting me in the stomach and tits, hoping that I'll crumple like a cheap pastry.
"Ooooh," I moaned, going through the motions of dr
unken incomprehension. "What's happening to me^'
"Let's punch him in the liver and kidneys," Caesar suggested, wiping his sweaty brow. They started aiming for those delicate organs but with few results. The elastic bands surrounding me took each bruise with equanimity. Whenever fist met fat, I merely stumbled to the side, turning to face either Flatty or Caesar. I used each brief occasion to tell them a litde about my life.
"I studied multiculturalism at Accidental College . . . " Left hook to liver.
"My mama named me Misha, but the Hasids called me Moses . . . " Right jab to left kidney.
"I'm starting a charity for the poorest kids, called Misha's Children . . ." Hammer blow to liver.
"Rouenna kissed the underside of my khui..." Kidneys, one-two punch.
"I am a better American than most native-born Americans . . . " Roundabout to the spleen.
"I went into analysis to work on my weight issues . . . " Open-fisted liver poke.
"When I move back to New York, I think I'll live in trendy Williamsburg . . . "
There were curses and panting around me and the plebian stench of heavy exertion. I felt sad for these boys trapped in their stupid Stars and Stripes outfits, guarding the very people they should have hated the most. We would all die together in this stupid fucking city of frozen windowpanes and grotty courtyards. Our gravestones would be vandalized, our names covered with swastikas and bird shit, our mommies with their frying pans rotting away by our side. What was the point of it all? What was keeping us from the inevitable? "You should aim for the throat and spine," I slurred to my assailants. "If you punch my hump, maybe I'll die on the spot. What good is being alive, anyway, when it's always at somebody's mercy?" The guards slowly lowered themselves to the curb, and I slid down to join them, panting along with them out of camaraderie. They put their hands around my back, so that all three of us were linked. "Why do you want us to hurt you?" Flattop asked. "Do you take us for animals? We don't like hurting people, no matter what you think."
"I have to go to America," I said. "I'm in love with a beautiful girl from the Bronx."
"The famous one with the big ass?" Caesar asked.
"No, her name is Rouenna Sales. She's only famous on her own block. I've sent her a dozen electronic mails this week, and she hasn't written back. She's being chased by a poseur who has American citizenship. A writer."
"A good writer?" Caesar asked, taking out a flask and passing it to me.
"No," I said, taking a swig.
"Well, then why are you worried? A smart girl wouldn't go with a bad writer."
Flattop pressed me to him. "Don't despair, brother," he said. "We may have nothing in this country, but our women have kind, beautiful souls. They will love you even if you're lazy or drunk or give them a thrashing now and then."
"Or even if you're fat," Caesar suggested. We took more swigs of the moonshine. As far as my new companions were concerned, I was no longer a parasitic Jew but someone to be trusted. An alcoholic.
"I love Russia in my own way," I blurted out. "If only I could do something for this country without looking like an asshole."
"You said something about Misha's Children," Flatty reminded me.
"How can I mend young hearts when my own is broken? My dear papa was recendy taken away from me. They blew him up on the Palace Bridge."
"Very sad," Caesar said. "My father was just run over by a bread truck."
"Mine fell out of a window last year," Flattop said. "It was only the second story, but he fell on his head. Kaput." We each made a deep mourning sound with the combination of our noses, throats, and lips, as if we were tragically sucking noodles out of an iron bowl. The sound traveled slowly down the street, stopping at every door on the way and secredy adding to each household's despair.
"We should get up," I said. "I should leave you be. What if one of your American masters came walking down the street? They would fire you."
"Let them all go to the devil," Caesar said. "We're talking to our brother here. We would die for our brother."
"We're already so ashamed of ourselves to be wearing the American flag on our sleeves," Flattop said. "You remind us of our country's dignity. They can punch Russia over and over again, but she will never fall. Maybe she'll slide down to the pavement as we have . . . you know, for a drink . . . But she will never fall."
"Help me, brothers!" I cried, meaning no more than they should help hoist me to my feet, but they took it in a more spiritual light—
they set me upright on my feet, dusted off my Puma tracksuit, rubbed the sore spots where they had hit me, and kissed me three times on my cheeks. "If you have children who need winter boots or anything else," I said, "come by Bolshoi Prospekt on the Petrogradskaya Side, house seventy-four. Ask for Boris Vainberg's son, they all know who I am. I'll give you every one I have."
"If some mudak tries to hurt you because of your religion, or laughs at how fat you are, come to us and we will break his head open," Caesar said.
We toasted one last time with the flask, "To our friendship!," and then I zigzagged my way down the street toward my waiting car. A light wind picked me up and guided me forward, cleaning the dust off my neck and wiping a spot of blood from my lower chin. The day was shifting from unbearable humidity to elusive summer pleasure, much as the violence against me had given way to pity and understanding. All I ask is the occasional reprieve.
"Did you talk to the Americans?" Mamudov asked.
"No," I said, massaging the bruised flab around my kidneys. "But I spoke to some Russians, and they made me feel good again. There are wonderful countrymen around us, don't you think so, Mamudov?" My Chechen driver said nothing. "Let's go to the Mountain Eagle," I said. "Maybe Alyosha-Bob and his friends are still there. I want to drink some more!"
Alyosha-Bob and Ruslan the Enforcer had just quit the premises, but the artist Valentin was still dawdling, hungrily finishing up everyone's sour cabbage and cramming several slices of leftover Georgian cheese bread into his broken-down satchel.
"How are you doing, litde brother?" I said. "Enjoying the beautiful day?"
"I'm going to see my friends at the Alabama Father strip club," Valentin said sheepishly.
I presumed he meant the mother-daughter whore team. "Hey, why don't I take you and Naomi and Ruth out to dinner!" I said.
"We'll go to the Noble's Nest."
The monarchist, although presumably well fed on Alyosha-Bob's ruble, clapped his hands together. "Dinner!" he cried. "How very Christian of you, sir!"
The Alabama Father strip club was all but empty at this time of day, only four drunk members of the Dutch consulate passed out in the back by the empty roulette table and the imported rum-and-Coke machine. Despite the lack of an audience, Valentin's special friends, Elizaveta Ivanovna and her daughter, Lyudmila Petrovna, were up on the makeshift stage grinding against two poles to the sound of the American super-band Pearl Jam.
The age difference between the artist's friends was not as obvious as I had imagined; in fact, mother and daughter resembled two sisters, one perhaps ten years older than the other, her naked breasts pointing downward, a single crease separating them from the little tummy below. The mother was imparting upon Lyudmila her theory that the pole was like a wild animal that one had to grasp with one's thighs lest it escape. The daughter, like all daughters, was shrugging her off, saying, " Mamochka, I know what I'm doing. I watch special movies when you're asleep—"
"You're a dunderhead," the mother said, thrusting to the sound of the ravenous American rock-and-roll band. "Why did I ever give birth to you?"
"Ladies!" Valentin cried out to them. "My dear ones . . . good evening to you!"
"Hi, there, little guy," mother and daughter sang in unison. They each put a hand down their tiny lower garments and writhed with special vigor for the artist's benefit.
"Ladies," Valentin said, "I would like to introduce you to Mikhail Borisovich Vainberg. A very good man. Earlier in the evening we drank to America's downfall. He d
rives around in a Land Rover." The ladies appraised my expensive shoes and stopped writhing. They hopped down from their poles and pressed themselves against me. Quickly the air around me was filled with the smell of nail polish and light exertion. "Good evening," I said, brushing my curly mane, for I tend to get a little shy around prostitutes. It was, I confess, nice to feel their warm flesh against me.
"Please come home with us!" cried the daughter, massaging the posterior crease of my pants with one curious finger. "Fifty dollars per hour for both. You can do what you like, front and back, but please no bruises."
"Better yet, we'll go home with youV the mother said. "I imagine you have a beautiful home on the embankment of the River Moika . . . or one of those gorgeous Stalin buildings on Moskovsky Prospekt."
"Misha is the son of Boris Vainberg, a famous and recendy deceased businessman," Valentin announced. "He has offered to take us to a restaurant called the Noble's Nest."
"I've never heard of it," said the mother, "but it sounds just grand."
"It's in the teahouse of the Yusupov Mansion," I said with a pedantic air, knowing that the mansion where the loony monk Rasputin was poisoned would not make much of an impression on the ladies. Valentin managed a slight, historic smile and tried to nuzzle up to the daughter, who favored him with a chaste kiss on the forehead. The Noble's Nest is really quite a place. They normally don't allow whores or low-earning people like Valentin, but because of my fine reputation, the management was quick to relent.
Now, it is no secret that St. Petersburg is a backwater, lost in the shadow of our craven capital, Moscow, which itself is but a thirdworld megalopolis teetering on the edge of some spectacular extinction. And yet the Noble's Nest has one of the most divine restaurants I have ever seen—dripping with more gold plating than the dome of St. Isaac's, yes; covered with floor-to-ceiling paintings of dead nobles, to be sure. And yet, somehow, against the odds, the place carries off the excesses of the past with the dignified luster of the Winter Palace.
I knew that a fellow like Valentin would rejoice. For people like him, this restaurant is one of the two Russias they can understand. For people like Valentin, it's either the marble and malachite of the Hermitage or a crumbling communal flat in the Kolomna district. Valentin's tarts wept when they saw the menu. They couldn't even name the dishes, such was their excitement and money lust. They had to refer to them by their prices: "Let's split the sixteen dollars for an appetizer and then I'll have the twenty-eight dollars and you can split the thirty-two . . . Is that all right, Mikhail Borisovich?"
Absurdistan: A Novel Page 8