by Maxim Osipov
“How can I harass you today, sir?” the steward asks in English. Evidently he has a sense of humor.
It seems Anatoly, despite his excellent English, didn’t understand the joke. Harassment is a sensitive topic in America; that’s how it is here—they have campaigns against everything. So the steward changed “How can I help you?” to “How can I harass you?”
“I see, I see. ‘What can I do for you?’ is a better translation,” Anatoly gently corrects him.
That’s true too.
It’s amazing how these little things can lift one’s spirit. So, what shall we drink? He looks at Anatoly, questioningly: He won’t condemn him? A doctor on duty, and all that. He orders two Camparis on the rocks, for himself and Anatoly, and an orange juice for Anatoly’s wife.
“My first time getting sauced in an airplane,” says Anatoly. “You and I are now heavenly drinking buddies.”
You won’t get sauced on a sip of vermouth, of course.
Outside the window—total darkness; the fried food behind the curtain smells delicious; they’ve given the old woman her insulin and pills; they’ve got glasses in hand—here’s to your new life! And then there’s trouble. For the second time today, after the Portland mix-up, not counting that nutjob of a border guard.
He orders meals for himself, Anatoly, and the old woman, and shows off by describing the dishes and translating their names into Russian. But then their dear steward informs them that since only the doctor’s ticket is for first class, his two guests are entitled only to snacks. Nothing personal, as they say in America—just regulations.
Precisely: nothing personal. He demands three portions of food, along with two extra forks and knives. A stewardess comes over, frowns, shakes her head: Don’t they understand?
“Let them be. They’re right,” Anatoly pleads. A fair-weather friend. What a weakling. “Let’s drop it. After the mess we’re used to, when something’s done according to the rules . . .”
Oh, no, not this time—he’d show them what Russians are made of!
But, as usual, the Americans wouldn’t actually learn what Russians are made of. While shouting his stern words, he slips up and makes some kind of grammatical mistake—he himself doesn’t know where, exactly—but, of course, garbled insults, with an accent to boot, are funny. The steward—that son of a bitch—cracks a broad smile; the stewardess turns her back to him, her shoulders shaking with laughter. It’s a lost cause.
Everyone settles down. They’ve lost their appetites, but they’re given some food anyway, and they eat it. An hour and a half later, he gets up to relieve himself and, through the curtain that separates first class from coach, hears the steward complain: Why do the Russians always stink? It’s a specific smell.
I’d like to see how you fare after a trip from Yoshkar-Ola to Moscow, then Sheremetyevo, seventeen hours in the air . . . He finds deodorant—you can find anything in first class—and sprays himself. Humiliating. But what does he care?
•
Portland. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the crew, the captain thanks you . . . The Baptists head up the aisle. The old woman, Anatoly, and he are the last to disembark. They’re waiting for the wheelchair. The old woman—she’s not that old, really, just sixty-five—asks her husband for something, quietly. To comb her hair. He takes all their carry-on bags and goes into the hall. And there he is, their only son. A respectable fellow, by the looks of it. Tired. They work people to the bone here.
The reunion. Has the son seen his mother in this state? Blind, no legs. He embraces his father—better to turn away, not to listen in and pry. People don’t live with their parents here. Even if the engineer wanted them to move in, his wife wouldn’t allow it: the elderly live separately. They’ll put them in a good home—you wouldn’t dare call it an almshouse. “It’s more convenient for us, too,” the parents will say. A slow descent, step by step—it’s all planned out in America. Of course, his wards have nowhere to descend; they’ll start at the very bottom.
“This is our doctor,” Anatoly tells his son.
“Nice to meet you.” A handshake. A tired, absentminded gaze.
All right, farewell. He doesn’t want to waste their time, and besides, he has to board in fifteen minutes. But then, the Baptists: “Doctor, doctor, come on!”
Two young men drag him away, down the escalator—there, there! What happened? He runs into the baggage-claim area and scans the floor for a body: all clear, everyone’s on their feet.
Turns out their luggage is lost. Brothers—they’re all “brothers”—what was the use of dragging him down here? There are people here to greet them—can’t they fill out the paperwork?
The greeters are indistinguishable from the newcomers: the same peaceful, vacant expressions. Nobody speaks English? They can’t write their own addresses? Garibaldi was wrong about people forgetting their fatherlands in America. These people hadn’t even learned the English alphabet. How long have they been here? “Four years.”
“The Americans,” explains one of the greeters, “are such nice folk. They treat us like we’re deaf and dumb.”
The Baptists have thirty-six pieces of luggage; each is entitled to two seats.
•
While he was filling out the paperwork, his plane departed. The next flight is scheduled for the morning, six and a half hours from now. He again changes his ticket without any difficulty; he was supposed to fly in the morning anyway. But what is he supposed to do now? Get a hotel room? By the time he finds a hotel and goes to bed, it’ll be time to get up again. And the room would set him back at least fifty dollars. He’ll make do at the airport. It would be great to take a shower, of course, but those are the breaks—and he doesn’t have a change of clothes, either.
The other end of the earth—this in itself had long ceased to impress him. So he finds himself in towns with beautiful names—Albuquerque, for example, or Indianapolis. So what? Everywhere he goes, be it New York, Albuquerque, or what have you, he sees the same things: the red floor, the red-and-white walls, perfectly straight lines, harmonious colors, nothing too pleasing to the eye, and certainly nothing offensive. And everywhere, as if part of the design: the soft strains of Mozart’s symphonies, piano concertos—not the most famous pieces, and mainly the second, slower parts. Who’s playing? The Oregon Symphony, the Portland Philharmonic—what’s the difference? As long as it’s not trashy pop or street songs, like you hear back at home. But where can he go if he wants total silence? A picky passenger—no one is surprised: Please, this way to the meditation room. He can sit, lie down. Meditation? That’s right, thinking. The airports back home now have chapels, but even nonbelievers need a place to think. Again, no one’s feelings are offended.
“Can I smoke in the meditation room?” he suddenly asks, to his own surprise.
“Smoke?” Is he crazy? There’s no smoking in American airports.
The question about smoking cuts off any possibility of informal conversation; it demonstrates to them that he is a dangerous man. Fine, fine, he’ll smoke in the designated areas, outside.
The airport is empty. Can he at least leave his bag here? No, he has to keep his carry-on luggage with him at all times. Really, at all times? Don’t even try to smile—this is no laughing matter.
Rules are rules, he understands. That’s why their hospitals are superb, a hundred times better than the hospitals at home—and yet, it’s all rather silly. A black guard, thickset and gray, helps him load his things onto the black conveyor belt without a hint of distaste—just work. The guard even appears to sympathize with him. Maybe he’s also a smoker.
“Missed my flight, so I have to wait until morning,” he explains to the guard, reentering the building for the second or third time.
“Just one of those days, man . . .” the guard says.
In Russian he would have said: “Happens.” The guard has a deep bass voice.
He walks out to a spot where he can see the highway—an occasional car passes, neither fast no
r slow, just under the speed limit—and remembers his trips around the Boston area, which he took with his friends or sometimes alone. He knew that all the cars passing by contained people who valued their lives no less than he valued his—their lives and the safety of their vehicles; and so they tended to be cautious, give warning, and not to despise themselves for their willingness to yield. Should he live out his life, or at least a part of it—for some reason, he wants to say the last part—here? Here, where they dispose of their trash properly, park their cars according to certain rules. He could master it; it would be easier than mastering English. And it’s not just a question of safety. He imagines himself as an old man, for some reason completely alone—perhaps because he’s alone at the moment—in a small town on the coast. His neighbors have crude, red faces, but they themselves aren’t crude. They talk about him: a doctor lives around here. They’re pleased to know that their neighbor is a doctor. They kept their balance throughout their lives, and he kept his, when they all could have lost it at any point . . .
Tiredness diverts his thoughts: This morning the Gypsy had predicted his happiness. You’ll be happy here! Are there Gypsies in America? There are Gypsies everywhere, supposedly. No, here it’s the American Indians who provide a connection to the prehistoric past. By the way, in all his years of flying to America, he hasn’t laid eyes on a single Indian—all he’s seen are bizarre place-names, like Idaho . . . And now he’s passed through security again and is already lying on the red floor; in the meditation room, the standard linoleum floor is covered in industrial carpeting. He thinks: I’m engaged in a meaningless activity, while eternity exists—father was right—eternity exists, and the only things that count are those that are projected into eternity, that occupy some part of it. Providing medical treatment to people—no matter which people—is an act projected into eternity, even though his patients don’t live forever, and sometimes not for very long at all. And a meeting with his friends, which he missed today—has eternal significance. As does listening to music, and observing nature . . . But the rest of it, like this idiotic job for money—what a waste! Why do these English words come to mind first? He doesn’t know the language that well, and Russian has plenty of synonyms for wasted: useless, fruitless, to no avail, in vain . . . Many ways of saying it: pointless, hopeless, hollow, empty, futile . . .
He falls asleep.
•
He doesn’t sleep long, about an hour and a half, and he is awakened by a terrible clamor: the sound of a gigantic vacuum cleaner entering the room. It’s operated by a black-haired little man—Hispanic, in all likelihood—wearing earmuffs, so as not to go deaf. The earmuffs are trimmed with artificial pink fur; they make the fellow look like an Indian in a feathered headdress.
He gives a short laugh and then pretends to be asleep. How could he sleep with that terrible roar? Not asleep, then—meditating. That’s what the room is for, isn’t it? He’s loath to get up. All right, get a move on, Indian—the room’s plenty clean. The fellow quickly passes by with his horrible machine—no more than a few centimeters away—and then he’s all alone again, in silence.
He looks at his watch, closes his eyes, and summons images of those who love him unconditionally. It’s a sort of lucid dream, almost entirely controlled by his conscious mind, but not entirely.
He wants to see his father—and there he is, his father. He perceives his father as a whole, not as a collection of properties and qualities. These properties and qualities are well known to him—he’s the man’s son, after all—but they bear little relation to his father’s essence, to the mystery of his personality. Kind, generous, dedicated, sure—but he can say all that about his friends, too.
“How did it turn out this way?” he asks his father. “I have a soul, I have talent—not just for medicine, which you know about, but also for music. I mean, I definitely had musical talent, and I still love music more than anything—that’s not so common in our time—so how did this happen? Making these pointless trips because my real job doesn’t pay, lying around on a red floor, envying people with stern faces who have their lives figured out?” He must really be tired—his eyes are misting over.
But seriously, what’s there to cry about? So he’s tired. So he mixed up his Portlands and missed out on seeing his friends. He’ll see them next month. A night on the floor? He saved fifty dollars, and it’s nice and clean. But the fact that his father is gone . . . It’s been eleven years and he still hasn’t gotten over it.
The tears actually help. He takes a good, hard look at himself and sees the absurdity of the situation—a grown man in tears, the red floor, the medical bag under his head—and soon falls asleep again. And now he has a real dream: He and his father are sitting next to a broken-down car, near the place where the wheel goes. The thing is broken—what’s it called, the hubcap? The rim? It’s clear there’s no fixing it. They don’t have the parts, and they don’t know how to do it anyway. They used to find themselves in that position quite often. They’re just sitting there on the ground, and his father says: “You’re my dear boy.” It’s not about the words, of course; it’s what the words contain, it’s the look in his father’s eyes, which implies that everything is proceeding as it should, and that he regrets that his son is lonely.
He lingers on the border between dream and reality, then abruptly gets up and washes the best he can in the impeccably clean restroom. He’s been in transit so long that his face is covered with stubble, but he hasn’t got a razor or a brush. Is there time for coffee? A final smoke? He really did forget himself in the meditation room . . . Security check: the change, the keys, everything out of his pockets. The shift has changed, but the new guards are no less thorough. A detailed examination. What if he misses the morning flight? All right, he’s made it—on the plane, Portland to New York. There are about fifteen to twenty passengers in the cabin, and the sleepy, aged stewardess informs them all: “If you’ve ever taken a plane even once since 1966”—the year of his birth, as it happens—“then you certainly don’t need me to show you how to fasten your seat belt.” A rather charming, creative departure from the rules.
He looks through the window at the droplets of water on its outer surface, dancing and scattering in the wind. The reunion with his father was not terribly momentous. Not even a reunion, really—just a dream, a purely psychic phenomenon. Nevertheless, he feels like a child who had been crying for a long, long time, until grown-ups turned their attention to him, until they looked at him with gentle eyes, so that he realized that all was forgiven, and then his tears had dried up, though his face still ached a little, and all he wanted was to be active, to play, to eat.
May he have another serving? “No, not unless someone refuses theirs. The meals are determined by the number of passengers.” Not a problem, he’s full anyway.
With his stubble and two days without a shower, he probably seems suspicious, and possibly smells quite bad. Americans are sensitive to smells. But what can he do? Besides, he doesn’t notice his own smell, just as he doesn’t perceive his own Russian accent. He sprawls across three seats, wraps his feet in a blanket, puts on his headphones—Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, a flawed recording, but what an inspired performance . . . Six hours’ rest until he hits New York, the city of the yellow devil . . . Who called it that?
•
On his arrival he is possessed by a spirit of profligacy and buys ridiculous, expensive gifts for his friends and family. And on the plane back to Russia, before it even leaves the ground, he commits an act that will make him feel ashamed.
Here’s how it plays out. The plane is stuffed with passengers, and he’s seated at the window next to the emergency exit—a rare, valuable seat, with more legroom, which he reserved in advance. Beside him slumps a middle-aged gentleman who weighs around 170 kilograms; you see that kind of obesity only in America. What’s more, he’s completely drunk, and drenched in sweat; his hot flanks extend far over the edges of his seat. It’s clear that this situation won’t improve
during the flight to Moscow.
He scrambles out past the mountain of flesh and, without even thinking of what he’ll say, wends his way to the stewardess and informs her that his neighbor is drunk. In his view, that constitutes a threat to the safety of everyone on board: in the event of an emergency, would the man be able to help his fellow passengers climb out the exit?
“Sir, would you like to be reseated?” the stewardess asks the fat man. “No?” She asks him to speak up. “Well, then we’ll just have to call the police. You’ll fly to Moscow in the same seat, at the same time, but tomorrow.”
Now he feels the need to intervene, to vouch for his neighbor . . . Having freed himself from the mound of flesh, he has a clearer sense of what he has wrought. Maybe the fellow had simply been nervous before the flight—many people are afraid to fly; he himself has had to resort to alcohol, though in smaller doses. But both parties ignore him, and as soon as the fat man hears the word police, he gets up and trudges after the stewardess to the back of the cabin.
He feels ashamed. He’s behaved like an American. Oh, well, what’s done is done—this isn’t a matter of life and death.
A woman takes the place of the fat drunk. She’s about forty-five, rather young-looking, freckled. Her hand brushes against his on the armrest, and he feels a pleasant chill through her shirt. Very nice. Now he’ll take a sleeping pill, they’ll bring him some wine, and he’ll doze off and wake up in Moscow. But they don’t bring him wine.
“But how will you help your fellow passengers in the event of an emergency?” The beverage cart is operated by that same stewardess: it turns out that not all Americans approve of snitching.
Let’s see if the pills work with juice. They would have, if it weren’t for his new neighbor. She finishes her Diet Pepsi, rattles the ice in her cup, and talks, talks, talks.
She’s from New York, going to Russia for the first time. She wants to know more about the country; he’s supposed to enlighten her. Half-asleep, he mutters various inanities, but the neighbor is insatiable. She changes the subject to America, then to the whole world, and finally—to herself. The conversation on the plane with a random fellow traveler is a popular genre. It substitutes for psychoanalysis, for confession. She recently broke up with her lover: he used to bribe her with expensive gifts—the last straw was the Jaguar.