"I zank you, Gomradz!" Clicking his heels, the Democratic German once again gives the Hitler salute, and Genka, who adores his friends and dangerous moments, hands him a glass of vodka with a satisfied, but typically self-contained smile. The student from the Nice German Republic takes a little gulp and sits down. He drinks little. Perhaps the cause of his dislike of alcohol is that his father is an alcoholic. An alcoholic who, six years ago, became a one-eyed alcoholic. Viktor put out his eye.
It happened, according to the account of "M. Curlers," like this. Viktor's parents, like "M. Curlers's" live in Tyurenka, in a little private house. One day, after lunch, Viktoryushka, who'd just gotten married (for the first time) was lying with his young bride in the garden, on a bed under the apple-tree. Viktor was having a nap after his lunch. "But I don't know whether they were 'humping' or not…" laughed Paul, since besides French M. Curlers knows only the vulgar tongue of his native Tyurenka. "They were lying there… Dad came home from work drunk and started stumbling around the garden… up to his ass in adventure… Finding the young people on the bed, Dad started laughing and grabbed Viktor's wife by the foot… 'Get the fuck out of here, you old fool!' said Viktor. The old fool not only didn't leave, he started shaking and pulling the bed with the young couple in it, maybe trying to tip them out… Viktor told his Dad to fuck off once again, and warned him not to interfere in his, Viktor's, life. Then Dad told Viktor to fuck off, and, sticking his hand under the covers, grabbed Viktor's wife by the ass…" Here, the storyteller, M. Curlers, suffered a fit of soundless laughter and slapped his palm against his thigh. Then he continued: "Viktor stood up, took a log that was lying on the ground and smashed Papa in the head with it. Smashed him so hard that 'First Aid' came for Papa" – obviously finding this story extremely amusing, the narrator again crumpled in a fit of laughter. "But it didn't aid, Ed – not even 'first.' It turned out the log had a branch on it, and this branch hit Papa in the eye… It fucked Papa's eye real good, it splattered it completely, like an egg in a frying pan…"
"They're real savages, these Tyurenka people -" reflects Ed, pressed between two strong, hot bodies – his wife, Anna Moiseyevich, and M. Curlers "- even the best of them." Viktorushka, who went on living with his parents – somehow or other his father forgave him – obviously isn't harried with remorse for having put out dear Papa's eye. One day he calmly and laughingly told Ed his own version of the story, which hardly differs from Paul's version. This happened after a French lesson. Viktor gives Ed French lessons twice a week. Yes, Viktor knows the language of the Franks; it was his second language at University.
Why does Viktor teach Ed French, and not Paul? The snobbish M. Curlers said that he will converse with Ed with pleasure, once he's learned the language with Viktor's help, but he cannot and will not teach the basics. Therefore Viktor teaches Ed French, for a little money. For half the normal price. Ed doesn't want to learn German. He already studied French in school and at the Culinary School where fate directed him in l961. (The Militia demanded that he establish a place of work, and he preferred writing out recipes for borsch and pie, plucking chickens and dismembering pigs, to being exiled 101 kilometers away from Kharkov. He was very promptly expelled for stealing chickens and non-attendance.) Why is Ed trying to revive his French, lost in the course of his vagabond life?* What the point of studying French? It's hard to say; maybe some vague future adventures on the surface of the globe. In the style of "The Adventurers": Alain Delon and Lino Venturi. Maybe he and Genka…
Nonetheless, Eduard understands quite well that his Magnificent pal Genka – his pride, his friend, in a sense his leader and guide – is a weakling… Of course, this weakness is not physical, but a weakness of character. Genka's desires, and even his fantasies, do not extend beyond sitting at the Tavern, a trip to the Monte Carlo, swimming in the river in winter, drinking bouts and petty hooliganism in all its attractive variants. It's a sweet life in Kharkov. The most dangerous of their undertakings was the attempt to get onto the transport aircraft, though it was not crowned with success. They got arrested. It's true that Genka, the haughty, sleek, elegant thoroughbred, passed himself and Eduard off as KGB – he dropped the names of some genuine bigwigs in the Kharkov KGB, and the airport security guards let them go, and even offered them cognac and a buffet. "What idiots!" laughed Genka and Ed in the taxi which was carrying them away from the gates of the Kharkov Airport.
"Hey, Ed! Ed, what, have you fallen asleep?" asks Anna Moiseyevna, waving her hand in front of his eyes. "Are you dreaming?"
"What did you see before you, dear poet?" eagerly asks the enthusiast, Viktorushka. He treats his pupil with a certain degree of irony, respecting Ed not for his poems but because Ed knows how to sew pants and can make money without leaving home. Few are those who believe in his poems. Everyone believes in pants. Pants are obvious. Ed can sew two pairs a day, or, if he works from early morning til late at night, he can even make three pair.
To be continued…
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A Young Scoundrel Page 6