Russian Debutante's Handbook (13 page)

Vladimir was so shocked to see her, he rose automatically from his credit card application, noticing now the full effect of his surroundings: the harness, the leash, the K-Y, the den-o’-vice motif which would have given Dorian Gray a prompt heart attack. So this had been his home! Perhaps Mother had been right about some things.

Challah, on the other hand, did not appear shocked. “Where’s the money?” she said. She stepped over a mysterious jumble of faux fur that blocked the way to the kitchen and then turned on the faucet to wash her hands.

“What money?” Vladimir said. Money, money, he was thinking.

“The rent money,” came the answer from the kitchen.

That money. “I have two hundred,” he said.

Immediately she was back from the kitchen, her arms akimbo. “Where’s the other two hundred?” He had never seen this posture (which was such a crucial part of her job) projected at his person before. Who did she think he was? A client?

“Give me a few days,” he said. “I’m having a cash-flow problem.”

She took a step toward him, and he took a step back to the fire escape, the place he distinctly remembered as their prime cuddling ground, now more plausible as an actual escape route. Fire
escape.
Yes, it made sense.

“No few days,” she said. “If I don’t pay by the fifth of the month, Ionescu’s going to charge an extra thirty dollars.”

“That bastard,” Vladimir said, hoping for solidarity.

“Bastard?” she said. And then paused as if weighing the heft of that word. Vladimir put his hands out in front of him. He was getting ready to deflect the full force of a comparison between himself and the bastard. Challah spoke instead. “I should be looking for a new roommate, shouldn’t I?” she said.

So he had been downgraded to roommate status. When did all this happen? “Sweetheart,” he said, rather unexpectedly.

“You bastard,” she said finally, but the emotion had clearly been exhausted from that sentiment over the past weeks. Now it was but a statement of fact. “Don’t speak to me until you have the rest of the money.” She stepped aside to indicate that Vladimir could leave.

As he went past her, he felt a change in temperature; her body
was always in deep negotiation with the atmosphere around it, and it made him want to reach out with a comforting arm, the arm he had cultivated for the past month with Francesca. Instead he said: “I’ll have the money by tomorrow. I promise you that.”

Outside, it was Sunday, the first of September. He was homeless in a certain way, but the heat clothed him in several layers, and, of course, Francesca and his new family were only six avenues to the west. Ah, humiliation. It always left him with a vaguely vinegary taste in his mouth, and, when dispensed by a woman, made him long to see his father, who had a singular appreciation for the ego’s lacerations.

Challah had become proficient at her craft.

And he needed money.

PRESENTLY
,
THE TRUTH
became obvious: state-sponsored socialism had been a good thing. Vladimir spent his waking hours daydreaming of the simple life of his parents. A walk along the Neva River with your intended: no charge. Box of stale chocolates and one wilted rose: fifty kopeks. Tickets for two to the Worker’s Allegorical Puppet Theater: one ruble, ten kopeks (student rate). Now that was courtship! Empty wallets, empty stores, hearts filled with overflowing . . . If only he and Frannie could travel back in time, away from the crude avarice of this uncultured metropolis, back to those tender Khrushchev nights.

Vladimir woke up with a start. Oh? And what the hell was this? A daredevil roach was making her way up the death blades of the paper shredder. An enterprising couple in ethnic garb was wrestling with an acculturation facilitator over a set of fingerprints. Dah! He was at work! The Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society, that nonprofit gulag, was open for business!

Yes, all the signs pointed to his somnolent weekday money-making, every hour bringing with it another U.S.$8.00. He had been asleep from nine to noon. Three hours. Twenty-four dollars. Two dry martinis and a tapa of
jamon serrano.
A Bombay silk handkerchief for Fran.

“Not enough,” he said aloud. A recent tête-à-tête with his calculator had pinpointed the need for an additional $32,280 per year to meet Challah’s rent and the most basic Fran-based expenditures. With needy eyes he surveyed his little precinct. A junior clerk at the adjacent desk was effortlessly inhaling her homemade noodles and octopus, glancing impatiently at her faux Cartier watch with every breath of food.

“Mmph,” the junior clerk said.

This mindless grunt set Vladimir off on a trail of thoughts which brought him, in a roundabout way, back to the money-centered dreams he had been dreaming for the past three hours, and there, in the middle distance, suspended in the air, there floated . . .an Idea. A turbo-prop flying over a deserted landing strip, its pilot a certain Soviet sailor-invalid.

It took eight rings for Mr. Rybakov to hop over to his phone. “Allo! Allo!” the breathless Fan Man said. There was splashing in the background. The grind of machinery. A kind of improvised yodeling. Well, someone was starting his afternoon on a high note.

“Allo, Mr. Rybakov. Vladimir Girshkin, your resettlement specialist and faithful servant.”

“And it’s about time,” Rybakov shouted. “The Fan and I were wondering . . .”

“My apologies. Work, work. The business of America is business, as they say. Listen, I was just inquiring about your case in Washington—”

Vladimir stopped. Okay. That was a lie. Not so hard. Just like lying to Mother. Or pretending with Challah. Now what?

“Washington,” said the Fan Man. “Columbia District. That’s our nation’s capital! Oh, you crafty little fuck . . . Well done!”

Vladimir took a deep breath. He tugged on his polyester tie. It was time for the pitch. It was time for the money. “I was wondering,” he said, “if you could reimburse me for the plane fare.”

“Of course. Plane fare. Such trifles. How much?”

Vladimir tried on a few sums. “Five hundred dollars,” he said.

“Flying first-class, I see. Only the best for my Girshkin. Say, let’s meet around five. I’ll give you the money and we’ll take the SS
Brezhnev
for a harbor run.”

“SS
Brezhnev?
” Had Mr. Rybakov peeked into Vladimir’s socialist dreams?

“My new speedboat.”

“Capital,” Vladimir said.

AT THE APPOINTED
time Vladimir squeezed into an elevator. At ground level he found his own tattered compatriots from the office (their loafers scuffed and unpolished, their dresses acrylic blends from bargain basements) flushed out onto Broadway: a single nonprofit ray amid the gleaming masses of the surrounding law offices and investment firms. He quickly crossed the high-rise graveyard of Battery Park City, and arrived, red-cheeked and winded, at the marina.

The SS
Brezhnev
was a cigarette boat—long, thin, and sleek, a veritable Francesca of the seas—bobbing playfully between two gargantuan yachts, both under the blue flag of Hong Kong, both looking bloated and unwieldy in comparison to their neighbor.

“Ahoy,” Mr. Rybakov cried in English, waving his captain’s hat.

Vladimir clambered onto the boat and hugged the happy Rybakov. He noticed that both he and his host were wearing vintage trousers, plaid shirts, and shiny ties. Throw in the guyabera and janitor pants, and the two of them could start their own clothing line.

“Welcome aboard, friend,” Rybakov said. “A pleasant day for a sail, no? The air is clear, the water placid. And here I have prepared a parcel with your reimbursement and a complimentary sailing cap.”

“Thank you, Admiral. Why, it fits just perfectly.” Now the look was complete.

“I’ve had Brezhnev’s likeness imprinted on the back. And allow me to introduce you to Vladko, my maritime Serb and first mate. Vladko! Come meet Vladimir Girshkin.”

A hatch opened, and from the lower deck there emerged a preternaturally tall, round-chested, pink-eyed, near-naked young man, as substantial as anything Serbian myth ever produced. He blinked repeatedly and covered his eyes. Behind him, a large striped cat (or maybe a small tiger) roamed a devastated landscape of crushed tomato-soup cans, empty gas canisters, deflated soccer balls, and all kinds of time-worn Balkan paraphernalia: coats-of-arms, tricolors, blown-up photographs of fatigue-clad men with guns standing solemnly around makeshift graves.

“Ah, I believe we share practically the same name,” Vladimir told Vladko.

“Ne, ne,”
the Serb protested, his expression still that of a man emerging from a bomb shelter. “I am Vladko.” Perhaps his Russian was limited.

“And this,” said Rybakov, pointing to a miniature fan mounted on the dashboard, “is the Fan’s little niece, Fanya.”

“I have had the pleasure of meeting your esteemed uncle,” Vladimir started to say.

“But she’s too young to talk!” Rybakov laughed. “Oh, you romantic cad.” He turned to the Serb: “Vladko, hey there! First mate on the bridge! Start the engines! Away we go!”

With a postindustrial hum like that of a desktop computer powering up, the
Brezhnev
’s engines were engaged. Vladko expertly navigated her past the hefty sloops of the marina, setting course around the southern tip of Manhattan Isle. A boat ride! Vladimir thought with childish glee. It was one of the million things he’d never done. Oh, the stench of the open sea!

“What did you see in Washington?” Mr. Rybakov shouted over the gnashing wind and roiling waters, both easily separated by the
Brezhnev
’s aerodynamic prow.

“Your case remains highly contentious,” Vladimir cheerfully lied. Yes, the key was to remain cheerful. Big smile. They were playing Ducking Reality, a delightful little game expressly designed for Russian émigrés. Why, Vladimir’s own grandmother was a national champion. “I have met with several members of the House Judiciary Committee . . .”

“So, I take it, you visited the president at his White House.”

“It was closed,” Vladimir said. And why was it closed? Easy enough. “The air-conditioning broke.”

“And they couldn’t turn on a few
fans
?” Rybakov shook his head and his fist in protest to the White House staff. “All these Americans are pigs. Air-conditioning. Hypermalls. Trash, these people. I ought to write another letter to the
Times
on the theme of ‘Where Is This Country Going?’ Except as a citizen I would have more clout.”

“Any day now,” Vladimir reassured him. It was good to keep these things open-ended.

“And did you see the president’s developing young daughter? That delightful creature!”

“I caught a glimpse of her at the Kennedy Center. She’s coming along nicely.” Now, this wasn’t even lying anymore. This was storytelling for invalids. This was social work. This was outreach to the elderly.

Rybakov rubbed his hands together and winked at Vladimir. Then he sighed and fingered the insignia on his cap. He wiped the water spray off his sunglasses. Leaning against the bow of his speedboat in his sunglasses and cap, this was as close as Mr. Rybakov had ever come to looking like a New World person—rich, American, in control. Vladimir was reminded of his own adolescent daydreams: young Vladimir, the simple-minded son of a local factory owner,
running triumphantly down the field of his Hebrew school’s opulent Recreation Centrum, the eyes of the local Benetton-clad maidens following intently the brown oblong ball encased in his burly arms as he scored the “home goal” or “home run” or whatever it was he had to score. All in all, Vladimir’s American dreams formed a curious arc. During adolescence he dreamed of acceptance. In his brief days at college he dreamed of love. After college, he dreamed of a rather improbable dialectic of both love
and
acceptance. And now, with love and acceptance finally in the bag, he dreamed of money. What fresh tortures would await him next?

“Maybe next time you’re in Washington,” Mr. Rybakov was saying, “you could introduce me to the first daughter. We could go out for ice cream. A young lady like her could be very interested in my tales of the sea.”

Vladimir nodded his assent as the half-moon of southern Manhattan rapidly receded behind them. The skyscrapers, chief among them the World Trade Center towers, appeared as if they were rising directly out of the water (an almost Venetian effect), or as if they were perched on an offering platter.

“There she is!” Rybakov shouted to Vladko. They were fast approaching a cargo ship anchored midharbor, her hull rusted pink, her prow stenciled with the Cyrillic legend:
Sovetskaya Vlast’,
or
Soviet Might.
The vessel flew under the somber red-and-black flag of Armenia, which, as Vladimir remembered from his abbreviated Leningrad schooling, was a land-locked country. “Aha,” Vladimir said, his tone full of simulated good nature. “An Armenian flag on a ship. Now here’s a curious sight.”

Once the
Brezhnev
drew alongside the stern of the
Vlast’,
a rope was thrown overboard by an unseen Armenian sailor and speedily tethered to the
Brezhnev
by the indispensable Vladko. A metallic boat—no, a very uncomplicated raft, like the cover of a shoebox—was soon lowered as well. “I see the Armenians are expecting us,”
Vladimir said. He suddenly thought of Francesca, of her proximity . . . Why, at this very moment, across the bay and only two kilometers uptown, she was returning from school to the Ruoccos’ bright little aerie, dropping her satchel by the bread-maker, washing the heat off her face in the cat’s bathroom with its oddly comforting smells. Yes, she was making Vladimir into a human being, an indigenous citizen of this world.

“What Armenians?” Rybakov said. “These are Georgians.”

“Georgians,” Vladimir said. It was better not to ask questions. But a note of fear sounded in the back of his head, that cramped space where his money dreams were also headquartered. Fear and money. They went well together.