The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “Excuse me, miss, are you the last in line?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, not anymore. I’m after you . . . And what’s the line for? Grilled chickens or ‘Addresses and Inquiries’ ?”

  “Addresses and Inquiries, I hope.”

  “Good . . . good . . . let’s hope together. That’s the only thing we can do these days – hope. Right? I see you’re not from around here . . .”

  “Oh, yes, I am . . .”

  “Oh yeah? You sure don’t look like it. . . Forgive my curiosity, miss, if you’re from round here, why are you waiting at the Information Kiosk?”

  “I’m just looking up my school friends . . .”

  “Oh, okay. One has to do that from time to time . . . I thought you were some kind of foreigner or something . . .”

  Anya realized she had forgotten how to make small talk in Russian. She had lost that invisible something that makes you an insider, whether it’s a tone of voice, a gesture of habitual indifference, or half-words half said but fully understood. Anya left the Soviet Union fifteen years ago; then she had been told that it would be forever, that there would be no way back; it was like life and death. But now she was able to visit Leningrad again. The city had changed its name, and so had she. She came back as an American tourist, and stayed in the overpriced hotel where you could drink chilled orange juice, that item of bourgeois charm. Like other idle Westerners she began to collect communist antiques, little Octubrist star-pins showing baby Lenin with gilded curls, red banners with embroidered gold inscriptions “To the Best Pig Farmer for Achievement in Labor” or “To the Brigade with a High Level of Culture”. She wanted to pass for a native, but her unwarranted smiles were giving her away and the Petersburgians frowned at her suspiciously in passing.

  Anya was born on the Ninth Soviet Street in Leningrad and now she lived on the Tenth West Street, New York. Could she make small talk in New-Yorkese? Yes, of course. During these years she had learned how to be an insider-foreigner, a New-Yorker-foreigner, along with other resident and non-resident aliens, legal and illegal city dwellers. Anya was among the lucky green-card-carrying New Yorkers and could show her picture with the properly exposed right ear and the finger print. New York felt like home. It struck her now that she was much more comfortable in a place like home than she was at home. She was a regular at Lox Around the Clock, and could spell her name fast over the phone. R-o-s-en-b-l-u-m A-n-y-a no, it’s not Annie, it’s N-Y, like in ‘New-York’ – Thank you – You too.”

  Surely, she had an accent, but it was “so very charming”, a delicious little extra, like the dressing on a salad that comes free with an order of Manhattan chowder – “What dressing would you like on your salad, dear?” the waiter would ask her. “Italian, French, Russian, or blue cheese?” “Russian, please,” she would say, “with lots of fresh pepper . . .”

  She worked free-lance doing voice-overs for commercials, whenever they needed someone with an accent. The last one she had done was “La Larta. European youglette. Passion. Fat-free – I can’t believe it’s not yogurt.” Female voice: “Remember your first taste of Larta? Was it in Lisboa? Sofia? Odessa? (A mountain landscape, Caucasian peaks and a sparkling sea – a woman with Isabella Rossellini’s lips, her face radiant with Lancôme) Remember La Larta – natural and fresh like first love.”

  “Oh,” said the director, “you have to pronounce each sound distinctly. L is soft and French, the back of your tongue touches the palate – let me show you . . . look here, softly but firmly, and then breathe out on the A, open your lips, yes, yes as if for a kiss . . . Then tease me, yes, tease me with your Rrr – roll it deep in your throat – yes – rr stands for mystique, and then – suddenly – you let your tongue tickle your teeth – playful and light Ta-ta-ta-Larrta-ta ta-ta-the audience wants to taste it now, yes, yes, yes. ‘La Larta. Passion. Fat-free.’”

  And then Anya had done several AT&T commercials, she did a voice over the video of falling Berlin Wall. But that happened a few years ago, when it was still news. In any case, these were only temporary jobs. Eastern European accents went in and out of fashion. Anya had been an understudy for the new line of soft drinks: “A Revolution is brewing in the Orient. A Revolution in Cola,” but the role was given to a Romanian. She must have had better connections.

  “Are you in line for information?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “And where is the line for addresses?”

  “It’s here too.”

  “Well, what I really need is a phone number . . . And it would be great to get a home address too, but I know they’re not listed . . . It’s dangerous now . . . I don’t blame them. What you need nowadays is an iron door . . . Don’t look at me like that . . . You think I’m joking . . . I know you’re young, miss, you probably think – an iron door, well that’s a bit much . . . but let me tell you, I know a really honest guy, who was an engineer in the good old days . . . he makes excellent iron doors. Real quality iron. You can call him, tell him I gave you his number . . .”

  “Thanks, I’ll think about it . . .”

  “Well, don’t think too long or it’ll be too late . . . Sorry, you should spit when you say it, that or touch wood – we don’t wish anything bad to happen . . . Maybe we’ll have law and order here some day . . . or at least order . . .”

  “Hm . . .”

  “Come to think of it, maybe they don’t list the phone numbers either . . . Have you got a pen, miss? Oh this is a great one! ‘Ai luf Niu lork!’ Did you get it in Gostiny Dvor or in the House of Friendship?”

  Anya began to fill out her “inquiry cards” to avoid any further discussion of iron doors. She wanted to find her teenage loves, Sasha and Misha with whom she had had her first failed perfect moments. Both relationships had been interrupted. In the case of Sasha, they had split up after he told her she was frigid; with Misha, they had parted after sealing the secret erotic pact of Napoleonic proportions. She wanted to write an end to their love stories, to recover a few missing links, to fill in the blanks. They were complete antipodes, Sasha and Misha. Sasha was blond, Misha dark, Sasha was her official boyfriend, Misha was a secret one. Sasha was beautiful, Misha intellectual. Sasha had known too many girls, Misha had read too much Nietzsche at a young age. It was almost twenty years ago and the popular song of the day had been “First Love”. “Oh, first love, it comes and goes with the tide,” sang the Yugoslav pop star, the beautiful Radmila Karaklaic, as she blew kisses out to the sparkling sea somewhere near the recently bombed town of Dubrovnik . . .

  In his white coat with blood-red lining . . . Sasha was beautiful, he wore a long black scarf and the aura of a black market professional. He sang the popular song by Salvatore Adamo about falling snow: “The snow was falling. You wouldn’t come this evening. The snow was falling. Everything was white with despair . . .” Tombait la neige. Tu ne viendras pas ce soir. His masculine voice caressed her with the foreign warmth. French snow was falling over and over again, slowly and softly, slowly and softly . . . Was it possible for her not to come that evening, how was it possible that she wouldn’t come that evening? Oh, she would have to come . . . and she just couldn’t resist. She recalled the shape of his lips, soft, full and cracked, but she couldn’t remember at all what they had talked about. Oh, yes, she had been a bit taken aback when she found out he had never read Pasternak. On the other hand, he was a real man and sang beautiful songs. He had put his hand under her sweater. Touched her. Tried to unfasten her bra. But those silly little hooks in the back wouldn’t come undone. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, let me help . . .” But he felt that a man should be a man, that there were things a man should do himself. Just at that moment a noise in the corridor had interrupted them. It was Sasha’s father, a former sea captain, coming home after work. So, once again, they had nowhere else to go; there were no drive-ins, no cars, no back seats, no contraception, and only cheap Bulgarian wine. Like all Leningrad teenagers they went to walk on the roofs of the Peter and Paul Fortress. They wal
ked under the sign that said: “No dogs allowed. Walking on the roofs is strictly prohibited . . .” It would get all icy there and one could easily slip down, distracted by the gorgeous panorama of the Neva embankment. But it was quite spectacular: the imperial palace, dissolving in the mist, the dark grey ripples on the river, a poem or two . . . Wait, do you remember how it goes . . .? “Life is a lie, but with a charming sorrow . . .” Yes, she would say, “yes . . .”.

  They had parted that day at the park entrance. On the way there she had worried that her nose was getting too frozen and red and that she didn’t look good any more. She was too embarrassed to look at him and could only catch glimpses of his blond curls, his scarf and the dark birth mark on his cheek. Then there were some clumsy gestures and an unexpected wetness on her lips. Did she kiss him or not? She tried to concentrate because this was supposed to be her perfect moment.

  “You’re frigid,” he said very seriously.

  Frigid . . . frigid . . . a blushing goddess. So, that’s what it was called? This clumsiness, arousal, alienation, excitement, tongue-tiedness, humidity, humility, humiliation.

  “Are you waiting for apricot juice?”

  “No . . .”

  “You mean, it’s gone? I don’t believe it . . . this is really incredible . . . All they have is the Scottish Whisky” . . .

  “Miss, where are you from?”

  This time Anya did not protest. She began to fill out the card for Misha – all in red ink. Misha didn’t know any French songs and he didn’t care much about Salvatore Adamo. They spoke only about Nietzsche, orgasms and will to power. “Orgasms: they have to be simultaneous, or nothing at all. They’re beyond good and evil . . . For protection women can simply insert a little piece of lemon inside them. It’s the most natural method, favoured by poets of the Silver Age . . .” If her relationship with Sasha had been a conventional romance with indispensable walks on the roofs of the fortress, then her relationship with Misha was an example of teenage non-conformism. They had dated mostly on the phone and had seen each other only about three times during their two-year-long erotic conversation. She could still hear his voice which had already lost its boyish pitch and acquired a deep guttural masculinity, resounding in her right ear.

  When she thought of Misha, she saw herself sitting on an uncomfortable chair near the “communal” telephone, counting the black squares on the tiled floor. The telephone was in the hall and was shared by everyone in the apartment. While talking to Misha she had had to lower her voice, because Valentina Petrovna, the voracious gossip, would conspicuously walk back and forth between her room and the kitchen, slowing down as she neared the phone. The rest of the time she was probably standing behind the door to her room, busily filling in the gaps in Anya’s and Misha’s fragmented conversation. With Misha Anya had been very intimate but theirs was a safe intimacy, and distance had protected them from self-censorship. They knew they were part of a larger system of official public communication. The invisible presence of the others, the flutter of slippers in the hall had only stimulated them, provoked confessions about the things that had never happened in real life.

  Anya met Misha on the “Devil’s Wheel” – a special ride in the Kirov Park of Culture and Leisure. Misha fell victim to the calumnia of Anya’s girlfriend – Ira – who observed his immediate fondness for Anya. “He’s handsome,” Ira said, “but he has smooth rosy cheeks – like a girl. You know what I mean . . .”

  “He has smooth rosy cheeks like a girl . . .” – this strange sentence haunted Anya the whole day, that beautiful spring day when they were riding on the “Devil’s Wheel”, trying to touch each other in the air in an instant of ephemeral intimacy, and then pushing each other away, as they swung on the chains. The song went like this:

  Just remember long ago in spring

  We were riding in the park on the “Devil’s Wheel”

  Devil’s wheel, Devil’s wheel

  and your face is flying, close to me

  But I’m swinging on the chains,

  I’m flying – OH!

  “Ahh . . .”

  “Oh?”

  “Ahh – ‘I’m swinging on the chains, I’m flying Ahh . . .’ “I thought you were humming the old song ‘Devil’s Wheel’. It hasn’t been on the radio for ages . . . It must be ten years old . . .”

  “Yeah . . . I don’t know why it stuck with me.”

  “It’s a nice song. I remember that great Muslim Magomaev used to sing it on TV on New Year’s Eve. It was when I was still married to my ex-wife and our son was in the Army . . . She would be making her New Year potato salad in the kitchen with my mother-in-law and I would be watching that TV show called ‘Little Blue Light’. And there would be a clock and the voice of comrade Brezhnev – first it was comrade Brezhnev himself, then it was his voice, and in the last years the voice of an anchorman reading Brezhnev’s speech . . . poor guy had a tic . . . but the speech always sounded so warm and familiar and it went so well with a little glass of vodka and herring: ‘Dear Soviet citizens . . . I wish you good health, happiness in your personal life and success in your labor.’ And then Muslim Magomaev would sing – ‘Devil’s Wheel’. Just remember long ago in the spring . . . We were riding in the park on ‘Devil’s Wheel, Devil’s Wheel, Devil’s Wheel . . .’ I know you’re not supposed to remember things like that these days . . . Now it’s called ‘the era of stagnation . . .’.”

  “But it was such a good song . . .”

  Anya was afraid to lose Misha’s face forever at the next swing. “Devil’s Wheel, Devil’s Wheel and your face is flying close to me”. The words of this popular song shaped their romance. But in this whirlpool of excitement, in the chains of the Devil’s Wheel, in the cool air of the Russian spring Misha’s cheeks were getting rosier and rosier. Ira’s words froze on the tip of her tongue. He blushed like a girl. They were doomed . . .

  They would have made a strange couple anyway – he with his girlish rosy cheeks and his deep masculine voice, and she with her boyish clumsiness and long red nails painted with an imported Polish nail-polish. They didn’t know what to do with their excessively erotic and intellectual selves. After the encounter on the Devil’s Wheel came months of phone calls. They would carefully plan their next meeting and then always postpone it. Finally they decided, that it was now or never, they would conduct a secret ritual, to penetrate deep mysteries of the soul.

  She left her house and walked away from the city center. She passed the larger-than-life portrait of Lenin made of red fishnet in the 1960s. Behind the statue of the Russian inventor of the radio was an urban no-man’s land, with the old botanical gardens, the ruined greeneries and endless fences made of wood and iron. This was the border zone – exactly the place that Misha wanted to perform their secret ritual. “This can be done only once in a life time,” he said seriously. “Napoleon did it to Josephine.”

  She had to stand against the iron fence with her hands behind her back and her eyes open wide. He touched her eye with his tongue. He touched it deeply, trying to penetrate the darkness of her pupil. He lingered for a second, and then he licked the white around her eyelids, as if drawing the contours of her vision from inside her. Her gaze reacquired a kind of primordial warmth and humidity. They paused for a moment. Her eyes overflowing with desire.

  They never deigned to kiss or hold each other; or saying romantic “I love yous” on the roof of the fortress. They despised such conventional games. They committed a single Napoleonic transgression, a dazzling eye-contact, a mysterious pact of intimacy signed with neither ink nor blood.

  “Miss, you’ll have to rewrite this . . . We don’t accept red ink. And try to be neat . . .”

  “Forgive me, I have terrible handwriting . . .”

  “That’s your problem, not mine. And hurry please, we close in an hour . . .”

  “But we’ve been waiting an hour and a half.”

  “Well, yesterday, they were waiting for three hours and in drizzling rain. Be grateful that you
’re in line for information, and not bread . . .”

  “Oh, by the way, miss, speaking of bread, you should see what they sell in the cooperative bakery around the corner. Their heart-shaped sweet bread now cost five hundred rubles . . . I mean this is ridiculous . . . They used to be twenty kopecks – max.”

  “What are you talking about? We didn’t have heart-shaped breads before . . . If it were up to people like you, we’d still be living in the era of stagnation or even worse, in the time of the great purges . . . You can’t take any change . . .”

  “Hey, Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen, whatever . . . Stop yelling while you are in line. These working conditions are impossible! I can’t give out any information with all this shouting!”

  And in New York there were a hundred kinds of bread – Anya suddenly felt ashamed – bread with and without calories, with and without fat, bread which is not really bread at all but only looks like it. Bread that never gets stale, that is non-perishable, eternally fresh and barely edible. Sometimes you have to rush to an expensive store, miles away to get foreign bread that lasts only a day, that’s fattening and crusty and doesn’t fit into the toaster. So Anya did not express her views on the heart-shaped bread. She tried hard to remain neutral and friendly with all the strangers in line and concentrated on filling out her inquiry cards. But those two intimate episodes were her main clues for tracking down Sasha and Misha. The rest was the hearsay of well-meaning friends, rumors, that were mostly fifteen years old.