The Tool & the Butterflies

by Dmitry Lipskerov

  “And?”

  “Him too. Nothing! No balls, no dick!” They sat on the couch and maintained an austere silence as they waited for their coffee. Iratov was nearly stunned by these events. The secretary brought the coffee, and the men watched her leave—but the way they looked at her was more questioning than sexual.

  “Is it an epidemic?” Mr. Iratov asked.

  “Maybe …” Sytin rubbed the crotch of his pants. “We could make a killing on an epidemic. You put up the money, I’ll assemble a team of surgeons and teach them to perform the phalloplasty procedure. What a great idea!” Some vague clumps of thought swirled in Iratov’s brain, but he just couldn’t collect them.

  “Can’t think straight …” he admitted.

  “That’s your testosterone dropping! I measured myself and my patients. Our levels are crashing!” Sytin suddenly beamed. “We have to buy up testosterone on a strategic scale! Band-Aids, gels, all the accompanying medicine that reduces estrogen in the body and stimulates male hormones! Let’s say fifty-fifty?”

  “I watched a stranger fuck my wife last night,” Iratov said suddenly.

  “What?” Sytin groaned.

  “Well … imagine this: this young pup shows up, and he’s an absolute copy of me. Who do you think he said he was?”

  “A long-lost son?”

  “He said he was my member. And he presented incontrovertible evidence. He’s part of me, so he fulfilled my marital duties. He took my darling Vera up one side of the room and down the other … I mean, I fulfilled my marital duties, but I was watching from the sidelines at the same time … And I have to admit, I experienced feelings that were completely new to me—it was like insane jealousy, but at the same time, my brain was so turned on!”

  “Well, that’s quite common,” the andrologist explained. “Especially when people are tired of classic sex … but still, this guy was your member?!”

  “Precisely.”

  “Maybe it was just your nerves acting up? An illusion? A hallucination?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “I don’t doubt it …” Sytin went over to the pharmacy cabinet, took out a box, and handed it to Iratov.

  “What’s this?”

  “Testosterone gel. Rub it on your chest every morning.”

  “What for? My member has detached from me like a module from a space station, and now it’s operating autonomously …”

  “Look, Yakut, who’s the doctor here?”

  “You are.”

  “Above all, testosterone is essential for the brain! You need it to think straight! To reason! Testosterone is what makes us men. What makes us dominant! Just think about it! Why are women incapable of thinking rationally? Because they’re testosterone-poor, that’s why!”

  “Alright,” Iratov agreed. He took off his shirt, squeezed some gel into his palm, and rubbed it on his powerful chest.

  “If you’re gonna be on top of a woman, you’ve gotta wash it off, otherwise hair’ll sprout on her breasts like weeds, he-he-he!”

  “Why would I be on top of a woman?”

  “Good point … Well, how about starting that business? It’s a sure thing …”

  “Do you remember why I came here?”

  “Regarding a phalloplasty.”

  “Then schedule the operation!”

  Iratov went to his office on foot. The city was in the power of a thaw; everything exuded water, and Mr. Iratov’s light shoes sank into the slush. His car followed beside him.

  “I wonder if my driver has a penis … or did he lose it, too?” He wanted to inquire about that intimate detail without delay, but just then a man pulled even with him. Mr. Iratov recognized him immediately; he had seen him in the crowd at the Bolshoi Theatre. He also thought he’d heard this man say his wife’s name with a British accent—“Verushka!”

  “Hello, Mr. Iratov!” said the freak.

  “Do we know each other?”

  “I know of you.”

  The car window opened, and the driver called out to his boss and asked if everything was alright. Mr. Iratov waved him away.

  “Do you need something from me?”

  “Strictly speaking, no. Not anymore.”

  “So you needed something before? What was it?”

  “Do you remember, some twenty-five years ago, you gave the order to kill a person who had somehow found out your secrets?”

  “I never—”

  “Oh, spare me! I do not represent any law enforcement organ. I won’t write anything about you. Your guys almost killed me!”

  “But they didn’t … Yeah, I remember. So I suppose you’re the one who took a dump in my stash?”

  “I won’t deny it.”

  “Why do you hate me so much, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Oh no, I’m not capable of hatred. I simply have a sense of when what’s happening is right.”

  “Oh lord, so are you from the Church?”

  “God forbid!”

  “Then who are you?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if I told you. Incidentally, I know all about your problems.”

  “Oh yeah? And what problems would those be?”

  “You have no sexual organ, and now your sexual organ is pleasuring your wife and his name is Eugene. There’s nothing in the universe that can surprise me now …”

  “Next you’ll be telling me that you’re my balls!”

  “Goodness gracious! I am not worthy of such an honor!”

  “Well, that’s something at least.”

  “I could have taken revenge for everything you have done in this life—I would have done so with pleasure twenty-five years ago, but you left your country for Israel and then the USA. By the way, do you really have Jewish roots?”

  “Oh yes. My father’s grandmother was Jewish …”

  “Uh-huh … but apparently you didn’t feel like converting?”

  “No. The American lifestyle is more to my liking.”

  “Being Jewish is not a lifestyle!”

  “Whatever you say … I’m not religious, but I do know there’s a God.”

  “How can you know that but not be religious?”

  “It just worked out that way …” Iratov stopped, and his companion slowed down, too. “How about you? Do you have a penis?”

  “No, and I never have.”

  “Well, what are you pestering me for then, huh?”

  “That’s uncalled for. I approached you politely, and you’re—”

  “How come you think you’re better than me?”

  “It makes no sense to compare us. I am of a different substance entirely!”

  “Oh sure, of course. You have no penis for higher reasons!” Iratov sneered. “And I have lost mine for my sins—”

  “I have been without one since the moment of my creation! It was not part of the plan!”

  “Do you have anything else for me?” Iratov could already see his office building and was losing interest in talking to this freak.

  “Actually, it’s you who has something for me.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “We’ll save that for next time!”

  “Thank God.” Mr. Iratov smiled at this strange entity. “I’m here and I have to work!” He skipped toward the entrance, sticking to the dry islands.

  “Just so you know, my name is Mr. E!” the freak called after him.

  11

  I would now like to continue my story about the fate of Iratov’s unacknowledged son who was later adopted by the young Dasha, for it is directly germane to the future that is now ahead. That little Buryat girl proved to have a strong spirit; she never snapped at little Joseph, no matter how hard it got. She never even complained to anyone about how rough she had it. She may’ve cried into her pillow in despair some nights, but those moments of weakness were extremely rare. The girl’s fortitude won her respect at the orphanage; the director gave her a seven-ruble raise, her colleagues helped her out for free, and life went on, as it
does. Joseph kept growing and repaid his adoptive mother’s love with his handsome face and the clarity of his gaze—which had no thought behind it. The boy’s brain hadn’t been completely destroyed. He had the mind of a three-year-old, but the sexual domain was fully intact. Joseph never made in his pants. He had been trained to use the toilet and received a cookie or a piece of candy as a reward every time he did. When the boy forgot himself and peed against the wall, Dasha would chide him and threaten to not read him a bedtime story. Then Joseph would grab a rag and clean up after himself.

  Dasha mostly read him Brodsky poems from the worn samizdat manuscript she had inherited from her mother. Joseph didn’t understand the meaning of the text, but, in that respect, he was identical to his mother, from whom all the intricate currents of the Nobel laureate’s poetry were just as hidden; it was only the musical qualities that awakened beatific joy in her soul. She thought that Joseph Brodsky was her father who had forgotten his book. He didn’t even know that Dasha existed, since he had been expelled from the country for social parasitism. The girl’s duties often brought her to the orphanage library, where they kept children’s poetry, and she logically concluded that all those Marshaks, Kushaks, and Chukovskies were expelled for social parasitism along with her father and had been excommunicated from the Motherland for good.

  The girl herself thought that poems didn’t count as work; they were just little splashes of feeling. She did real work, hard and important, with a future nobody wanted, which made it altruistic, and therefore she was certain that she would never be dismissed from the orphanage for mentally challenged children and teenagers. Director Yurieva got less bitchy with age and gradually lost her sight, so times were thin at the orphanage. There was a lot of theft, and the mortality rate among the children significantly exceeded the officially allowable limit. Yurieva was put out to pasture with a pension and an Award for Valiant Labor. Everyone cried at her retirement party and promised to visit her every day … In the five years left to their former boss, nobody visited her once. The Lord took her away early one morning; she suffocated a minute after her heart stopped.

  Director Yurieva was replaced by a successor of the male sex, Vladlen Stepanovich Catov—a demotion for him, since he was previously the deputy minister of transportation. He’d gotten into some trouble, so they shipped him off to head the orphanage. He was a strong man who did not surrender to despair at having fallen so far. Quite the contrary—he was of the opinion that everything happens for a reason. So Director Catov reduced the budget for feeding the developmentally disabled children by a factor of three, convinced that the government had put him there to cut fodder expenses and surplus population, and the mortality rate at the orphanage climbed even higher. Theft practically came to an end, since the food situation had begun to resemble the siege of Leningrad. The children were so weak that they hardly moved and mostly stayed in bed. Interestingly enough, Catov did not embezzle the food funds; instead, he spent them on beautifying the grounds, repairing the building, and other maintenance needs. Basically, Catov was an idiot with big ideas who really ought to have been placed in the institution for developmentally disabled adults that was right there on the other side of the woods. But who was going to do that? The bosses at the District Commission for Public Education were satisfied with the former deputy minister’s work. For some reason, they appeared not to notice the mortality rate among the children under his care; evidently, there really had been some instructions about cutting the population passed down from on high.

  That’s as may be, but Dasha’s situation at the orphanage became much worse, too, since Catov’s eye fell on her maidenly loveliness, and he unambiguously suggested that they meet each other’s physiological needs during naptime. Dasha had not given the slightest thought to relations between men and women, remembering Yurieva’s admonitions that any sexual contact she had might reflect poorly on little Joseph. She categorically refused Catov’s advances, and he retaliated by forbidding Joseph to eat at the orphanage’s expense. The situation became desperate. Dasha couldn’t afford to feed two people, so she didn’t get enough to eat and withered away right before her colleagues’ eyes. That was when I had to intervene.

  I met her when she was walking to the dormitory, holding Joseph firmly by the hand. The kid was hollering, since he had used the toilet but not received his reward. He was squirming, tucking his knees under him and making Dasha drag him. I approached from around the corner and laid my hand on the boy’s head. He instantly calmed down and began walking peacefully beside his mother.

  “How did you do that?” asked Dasha, surprised.

  “Oh, that was nothing,” I said with a smile.

  “But who are you?”

  “I am kind.”

  “I can tell …”

  “Your name is Dasha, right?”

  “How do you know that?” Dasha was surprised again, narrowing her already narrow eyes at me.

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter. I know a lot of things. Well now, Dasha, there is nearly a full brick of American dollars waiting in your dormitory room. You are most likely unaware of their existence, but you probably remember that you got a package containing a bundle of funny little green slips a few years ago.”

  “Yeah …” she said. “Yeah, I remember something like that. I used to slide those slips under the flowerpots, make a little ‘X.’ It was pretty.”

  “So where are the slips now?”

  “They’re somewhere … the flowers dried out, so I don’t have any use for them.”

  “Our kindhearted government has seen fit to furnish you with three thousand rubles for adopting an ill child. The dollars, however—those funny little green slips—will be reallocated elsewhere, given the fact that you do not require them.”

  “Are you joking?

  “Why would I?” I took an envelope full of rubles from my breast pocket and handed it to her. “Here, please make good use of this. Let’s go back to the dormitory. You’ll have to fill out a form indicating that you have received the full amount.”

  When she saw the envelope full of money, the girl seemed to have been struck dumb; her round, flat face looked like a fresh crepe, joyful and delicious. We arrived at the dormitory and completed the agreed-upon procedures. Dasha’s pencil scratched over the form, then she returned the remaining dollars, which she’d tucked under a stone. I had to spend some time explaining what such an enormous sum could buy. I enumerated it for her: she could rent an apartment downtown, eat well for three years, buy new clothes for her and the boy, and take taxis sometimes.

  Her mouth was agape when I left her, and I was astonished by how many little teeth she had. She took my advice, rented a one-room apartment—not downtown, of course, it was a little one way out by Belyaevo—bought new clothes—but just for Joseph—and resigned from the orphanage, much to Director Catov’s dismay.

  “I’d like to drown you like a ca—“ He stopped, his superstitious nature preventing him from invoking a curse linked to his own name. “I hope you die like a dog!”

  Dasha spent more than half the money on hiring the best doctors for Joseph. They spent a year examining the boy, prescribing the latest medications, and assembling expert panels, but all of that failed to yield any positive results, just financial losses. Joseph peed against the wall in the office of the country’s foremost neurologist, and his treatment was terminated forthwith. The sentence they passed was final and was not subject to appeal: mental retardation.

  “Well, so what,” Dasha thought. Life goes on, and it goes on a lot easier if you don’t spend money on false hope. She got a job as a janitor in her own apartment building so she’d always be near the boy … Things changed with time. Joseph kept his angelic features as he entered adolescence, but, just as Director Yurieva had warned, he was soon tormented by hormones, which instantly gained the upper hand. His brain wasn’t up to understanding what was happening to his body; he would often run around the apartment naked, his young manhood standing tall, yanking
it back and forth, trying to break this little thing that was the source of his torment, until it suddenly squirted fluid, which brought momentary relief. From then on, Joseph spent almost every moment interfering with himself. He even kept at this most interesting new activity while he was eating. Dasha would wind up threateningly with a towel, but what could the poor woman do? She just had to put up with it. One time, she came out of the bathroom with her robe slightly open. Joseph’s eyes began to sparkle, he broke into a sweat, and what little gray matter he had put two and two together. There it was. That was what he had needed all along; the sweet fruit was right in front of him. The boy overcame his mother easily. She was in such a state that she defended herself rather limply. Thoughts about a perverse connection between mother and son slid through her mind … He was already inside her when she reached the conclusion that a mother must use any means to help her sick, suffering child. They weren’t related by blood, after all. Physically, she didn’t experience anything, not even from the bites and scratches, which she’d gotten used to over the years. What was going on between her legs was of no interest to her … After that, Joseph would lay Dasha down on the bed five times a day and continue interfering with himself in the intervals. She actually used the fact that her son was such an insatiable animal to her advantage, resisting and thereby forcing him to sweep the apartment or wash the dishes and only then giving herself to him as a reward for his labor.

  It went on that way for a few months. To Dasha’s delight, Joseph grew calmer and his moments of aggression waned. Then he called Dasha by her name, which she found surprising. Of course, he had managed some simple words, like “mom,” “eat,” and “potty …” It wasn’t like her name was hard to pronounce or anything, it was just that it was happening for the first time. Then it went on that way, not “mom” but “Dasha.”

  About a year later, she missed her period. Dasha didn’t pay any particular attention to that, but when her stomach started to swell, she panicked, since she had seen all kinds of illnesses in her long years of caring for the child, including a huge stomach tumor—it was a man who had it, but still. She left Joseph with the janitor who worked the other shift and dashed to the neighborhood clinic, where she signed up to see the oncologist. Dasha awaited her fateful hour in terror. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but for Joseph, who would live a year, max, if she died and passed into the world where deer lived after they’d been eaten … A week later, she saw an externally indifferent oncologist, who laid her down on the examination table and spent a few minutes touching her swollen stomach.