Vodka

by Boris Starling

  Alice opened her eyes again. The harridans were still lined up in front of her.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  Stomach empty and throat raw, she asked Nadhezda how she’d gotten there.

  “A policeman brought you in. Not before time, either. A few more minutes out there and you’d have been gone.” A policeman; Alice vaguely remembered a man in uniform standing over her. “Oh!” Nadhezda’s mouth formed a perfect circle. “He said to give you his name. I told him it didn’t matter, but he was insistent.” She inserted two fingers into the pocket of her jeans—they were too tight for her to get a whole hand in—and pulled out a slip of paper.

  “Uvarov, Grigori Eduardovich,” she read. “Said you’d saved his ass, and now you’re even.”

  It was the first time Alice had seen the underbelly of Russia, warts and all. On the wall above her was a poster of a woman facedown in a puddle, her untied shoelaces spelling out the message Know Your Limit. Next to the poster, a bulletin board was speckled with the recipes of some of the concoctions drunk by the inmates there. Alice read them with horror. There was Canaan Balsam—three and a half ounces of meths, seven ounces of milk stout, and three and a half ounces of clear varnish; Spirit of Geneva—one and a half ounces of White Lilac toilet water, one and a half ounces of sock deodorizer, seven ounces of Zhiguli beer, and ten ounces of spirit varnish; The Tear—one half ounce of lavender water, one half ounce of Verbena, one ounce of Forest Water eau de cologne, 10 ounces of mouth-wash, and ten ounces of lemonade; and finally, spectacularly, Dog’s Giblets—three and a half ounces of Zhiguli beer, one ounce of Sadko the Wealthy Guest shampoo, two ounces of antidandruff solution, one third ounce of superglue, one ounce of brake fluid, and two thirds ounce of insecticide.

  Moscow has scores of these “aquariums”—overnight holding stations into which the police toss drunkards—but only one of them is for women only. This rarity, Alice realized, reflects the Russian belief that it’s worse for a woman to be an alcoholic. A man can get away with heavy drinking, but a woman can’t. A female alcoholic has failed as a woman, though a male alcoholic hasn’t necessarily failed as a man; men prove their virility through vodka, just like the man who sleeps around is a stud where his female counterpart is a whore.

  A female alcoholic is polluted, and as such is seen to reject her identity as a woman, the symbol of moral purity. In Russia, women are not only emotional carers, carriers and copers; they’re also custodians, champions, caretakers and guardians of society’s morals. If a woman falls from social grace, she falls harder and further than a man.

  Nadhezda took a Polaroid of Alice and gave it to her. Had Alice not watched the picture being taken, she’d scarcely have believed the image was her own. Her face was lumpy and swollen; bruises rose from her skin like foothills stained mauve by the setting sun.

  “Fight or fall?” Nadhezda asked.

  “Sidewalk sickness.” Fell over.

  Nadhezda’s eyes betrayed her thoughts: they all said that, even the ones battered by their husbands. “How much did you drink?”

  “A horse’s dose.” A large amount.

  “Here—” Nadhezda handed Alice a clipboard with a questionnaire pinned to it and a pen hanging from a string. “There are eight questions here. Answer them honestly—your instinctive reaction, mind, not what you think you should write. OK?”

  Alice nodded. She gripped the pen, watching it shake between her fingers, and began.

  Are you always thinking about the next opportunity to have a drink?

  Do you drink alone?

  Do you drink for effect rather than taste?

  Do you use alcohol to calm your nerves or help you sleep?

  Do you protect your alcohol supply?

  Do you use more alcohol than planned?

  Do you have a higher tolerance than other people of the same age and gender as you?

  Do you have blackouts?

  It was only when she’d gotten to the bottom that Alice realized she’d checked “yes” to every one.

  It was the first time Alice had ever been left without her props. All the things she’d quoted to differentiate herself from alcoholics—that she had a fantastic job, she always looked good, she was always organized, she never slept in the gutter—no longer applied. She was no better than what she’d despised. She was just like her mother, no matter how much she’d pretended otherwise.

  It was the first time she’d been totally honest with herself when it came to drinking. Simple questions, simple answers. It wasn’t that hard, if you didn’t fight it.

  It was the first time she’d ever cleared her throat and said the words that had hitherto stuck in her craw.

  “I’m an alcoholic,” she told the room.

  Alice felt lighter the moment she’d said it. She’d broken through the looking-glass of her final deception. The realization that she no longer loved Lewis had come some time ago, but her mind had allowed her to handle only one massive revelation at a time.

  It was as though her perspective, which had been so warped, had suddenly been flipped back to normal. She saw in a rush that all her problems stemmed from vodka rather than the other way around. She’d started drinking heavily because she was unhappy, a physical solution to an emotional problem; but, as her drinking had become ever heavier, the cure had become the disease, and the equation had been reversed. Now she was unhappy because she was drinking.

  Alcoholism is a parasite that destroys everything in its path—hope, trust, honesty, love and relationships—and which is utterly arrogant in its demand for total control, determined to have the answers in any discussion, determined to make everyone else feel helpless, angry, frustrated and isolated. It was as though Alice had been possessed, and even as she shrank from so melodramatic an analogy she knew it was accurate. She had to exorcise this strange beast that was living inside her and intertwining itself with her personality.

  There was no longer any alternative. She couldn’t cut down or drink only on certain days, she had to stop altogether. Alice knew she was on an elevator that only went down. She could get off at any time, but if she didn’t, she’d end where the elevator did: six feet under. The cure would be long and painful, and there was no guarantee of success, but recognizing the problem was the first step to solving it. Wasn’t she the woman who relished challenges? And what was this if not just another one?

  One was too many. A million wasn’t enough.

  There were Western AA groups meeting in the Anglican Church on Voznesensky Lane, Tuesday through Sunday—why not Monday, Alice thought, when that was the worst day for alcoholics? There were Russian AA groups all over the city. She didn’t want either. They’d all be full of men, and she’d have to spend too much time and energy dealing with their shit to concentrate on herself. Nor would she feel comfortable about unburdening herself to strangers. The abduction had unnerved her to the point where she could not endure the company of friends, let alone strangers, without several drinks inside her. The memory of what it felt like to be stripped and humiliated—knowing all the while that her ordeal was being filmed—made it impossible for her to consider exposing that corner of her innermost self that had remained private to public view.

  No. She’d do this herself, the hard way, cold turkey, and she’d take help from one source and one source only: the only man strong enough to deal with her. She’d been conducting twin illicit affairs, with Lev and with the vodka bottle, and she’d finally confirmed one to her husband at the same time as she’d confessed the other to herself. It seemed only logical that she should use one to defeat the other.

  She saw that Lev’s love for her was unconditional. That was why he’d wanted her to sort herself out, and that was why he’d been prepared to alienate her. Lewis would go on protecting and protecting until the end of time, because he’d do anything to avoid the confrontation. Two men, very different from each other, both of whom loved her; but only one of them would deal with it in the right way, for her at least.


  Healing could occur only in the heart of the wound itself. Alice had to go to the wound and examine why she drank, what she was like when she drank, and what part of herself she was losing. If she was to heal and truly recover, she must first take a good look at herself, and that meant finding something she could use to get over the hate, the contempt, the denial of the good she had in herself. Her marriage was gone, her friends and job too. The self-love would come from the one person she knew could give it to her.

  Nadhezda showed Alice to the phone, and she called Lev.

  He didn’t seem at all surprised to hear from her. When she told him what had happened, he said nothing. When she told him the clinic’s address, he laughed. “I know that place.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. We run it.”

  “You do what?”

  “The 21st Century runs the clinic.”

  “You’re a vodka gang, and you run a drying-out clinic?”

  “Sure. Having people get shitfaced doesn’t make sense, socially or economically. Most of the women in there have moved beyond vodka to those vile cocktails listed on the boards there.” Sell people drink and then help them recover; only a Russian could read that sentence without seeing a contradiction.

  “You’ll help me?”

  “Of course. But only if you trust me, only if you do whatever I say.”

  “Put my life in your hands?”

  “If you want to see it that way, yes.”

  “What are you going to do—sew in a torpedo?” A torpedo was an anti-alcohol pellet implanted beneath the skin. “I don’t want any chemical shit.”

  “No, no torpedoes. But you must believe in me; you must trust me to be fair even when I’m being cruel.”

  “I don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner,” she said.

  “Your choice, Alice.”

  She was strong and independent, or at least that was how she’d always seen herself. She’d never asked for help before. Alice had never allowed herself to be truly naked in front of Lev before, not metaphorically. Yes, she’d told him everything about herself, but she knew that this process would expose her soul far more comprehensively than weeks of pillow talk could ever do. Would he love her less if he saw her flayed?

  “Do whatever you like, Alice, whatever you need.” He’d read her mind, she was sure of it. “I love you, and my love can’t be made or marred by anything that you do. Nothing you confess could make me love you less.”

  In the heart of every storm, there’s a quiet light.

  “I smelled it on you,” he said, “the odor of an alcoholic. Not the actual fumes, but the emotional aroma, the way you weaved and ducked and blocked questions about alcohol. There was this deep, dreadful silence. I sensed that you didn’t want to talk about it, or even that you couldn’t talk about it, it was so forbidden to you. I just heard the silence, that mute shame, or denials that included a lot of explanations.”

  “Do you think I’m a bad person?” she said.

  “Bad? Good? What do they mean, Alice? I know that people do things for reasons that may transcend notions of right and wrong. I believe that what I do is right, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that those who oppose me are wrong. Do you understand that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Because it’s a very Russian thing to think.”

  He could see her better than she could herself. It was one of Lev’s strengths, his ability to pinpoint other people’s attitudes, identities and state of mind, and equally one of his weaknesses that he was relatively incapable of doing this to himself.

  It might be worse for a woman to be an alcoholic than for a man, Lev said, but it’s also easier for them to recover. Women don’t have the same problem with humility that men do. To recover, Alice would need to surrender. She would need to accept the way she was and what she’d done to herself. A man—especially a Russian man—would resist this spirit of humility, but even the strongest woman hasn’t been taught how to rescue herself. The image of Prince Charming rescuing the damsel from the forest where she’s strayed is too deeply imbedded in the female psyche. And that is woman’s salvation.

  Alice laughed when he told her this. It reminded her that all Russian men are chauvinists.

  They picked up Lewis at lunchtime. It was very simple: a posse of 21st Century heavies walked into the Sklifosovsky and told him that Alice was safe and that Lev would like to speak to him. Lewis was so relieved at the first that he hardly gave it a second thought. He hadn’t bothered to chase after Alice when she’d left the Aragvi, assuming that she was simply being melodramatic and would return in her own time. When he’d still been sitting alone after ten minutes, he had, belatedly and with a rising sense of panic, gone out into the street. Of course by that time she’d been long gone. He’d called every police station and hospital in central Moscow, but no one had seen Alice.

  Husband and lover, alone in a penthouse drawing room. Lev offered him a seat; Lewis said he’d rather stand. “Where’s Alice?” he asked.

  “She’s safe, and she’s going to be all right, that’s the most important thing.”

  “I’m her husband.”

  “Alice is an alcoholic.”

  “She’s not.”

  “Alice is an alcoholic.”

  “She has a drinking problem, sure, and I’d rather she drank less, but that doesn’t make her an alcoholic.”

  “You’re a doctor, you must know better than anyone that she fits every medical definition. Alice is an alcoholic. She knows exactly the time of her last drink. She has no control over alcohol. She can’t predict what’ll happen after the first vodka. Every day she says she’ll have just two drinks and go home, and every day there’s an excuse to have more—a work event, or she’s had a hard day, or she’s depressed, or angry, or celebrating, whatever. ‘Just this one time’—I’ve heard her say it, and you must have too: the most dangerous words in your language or mine, because that’s how you start not to notice. When have you ever heard her say ‘enough’?”

  “Plenty of times.”

  “No. Never. Alcoholism is a disease of more; enough is when you pass out.”

  “I’ve tried to help her.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “How dare you?”

  “You’ve done anything but help her. You’ve just mirrored her problem. Her addiction is alcohol; yours is her. You’ve cleared up after her, you’ve apologized for her, you’ve let her think this can go on indefinitely. Instead of making her see how much she’s been messing up her life, you’ve let her keep thinking that what she’s doing is normal. Your love for her is soft, when it needs to be tough.”

  “You think I can’t see what you’re trying to do here?”

  “I’m trying to help Alice.”

  “No. You’re trying to pry her away from me. What do you think I’ll do? Throw up my hands and say, ‘OK, she’s all yours’? I married her for better or for worse, and I’m going to stick through both—that’s what marriage is about. It’s this shithole you call a city that’s done this to her. She made her vows to me, not to you. You’re in no position to tell me what to do.”

  The gunpowder sparked in Lev. “I could have you killed in an instant if that’s what I wanted, and no one would be any the wiser. I brought you here because you’re Alice’s husband and it’s only fair that you know she’s all right. We both love the same woman, sure, but this isn’t a competition to see which one of us she prefers. She needs help from herself before she needs either of us, can’t you see that? Don’t get me wrong, I can understand why you don’t want to listen to me. But for Alice’s sake, consider the merits of my suggestion, not its provenance.”

  “That’s nothing to do with—”

  “I’m taking charge of Alice’s recovery,” Lev said with finality. “I’m going to help put her back on her feet. After that, as ever, she’s free to choose.”

  “No.”

  “You’ve had years of marriage to make i
t better, and you haven’t done so. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. If you really love Alice, you owe it to her to let someone else have a try.”

  Alice had braced herself for hell, and hell was what she got. The symptoms began to start in the evening, less than twenty-four hours since her last drink and before the alcohol had completely cleared her system—a sign of reasonably severe dependence. She felt uncomfortable, even trapped, in her own body. If she could have, she’d have climbed out of her skin like the rhinoceros in Kipling’s Just So Stories. Her hands were shaking, she was anxious and so nervous that even the slightest sound, a door opening or a window creaking, made her start.

  Lev took her temperature and frowned. It was up to a hundred and two degrees, and beads of sweat seemed to sizzle on her forehead. Her pulse felt giddily high, and her veins thrummed with hammering blood. When he left again, she tried to sleep, and gave up after half an hour wriggling irritably from one side of the bed to the other. She tried to eat, and managed half a piece of toast before feeling as nauseously satiated as after an eight-course meal.

  Each symptom came in on top of the one before, a symphony introducing each instrument of the orchestra in turn. Above them all was the haunting voice of the soloist: “Get out of here, have a drink, get away from this place.”

  A drink, that was all she wanted, a measly hundred grams of vodka. It was the one thing that would help. It was the one thing she couldn’t have. Lev had cleared the place of every drop of alcohol, down to the toiletries in the bathroom. There was nothing that contained even trace amounts of alcohol—no mouthwash and no toothpaste, no aftershave and no eau de cologne. Bad breath and rich armpits were a small price to pay, he said.

  “I want a drink,” Alice said.

  “No.”

  “One drink, just to take the edge off it.”

  “No.”

  “Lev, give me a drink, please.”

  “No.”

  “I hate you! Give me a fucking drink!”