His Butler’s Story (1980-1981)

by Edward Limonov

  I came out of my room onto the third-floor landing.

  “Well, your book knocked me out,” Efimenkov said, noisily gasping for breath. “I stayed up all night reading it. It’s a scream of anger. The whole book’s written in the genre of a scream.”

  “The only thing Zhenya would talk about the whole trip was your book, Edward,” said Jon Barth, who had come rushing up the stairs after Efimenkov — our poor little stairway; Barth is as big as the Soviet writer. The two of them looked like sturdy airborne colonels come up through the ranks who had put on civilian clothes. The hands of both men stuck out of their sleeves as if their clothing belonged to somebody else. Sometimes, watching them reading together on the stage (Jon was Efimenkov’s interpreter, for besides being a professor and a CIA informer, he also did interpreting), it seemed strange to me that they didn’t suddenly throw off their jackets and start wrestling up there on the platform in front of the whole house — all those specialists in the Russian question, the Harrison Salisburys, the Updikes, the Ginsbergs, the Vonneguts, and the old Russian lady patriots of Russia without the Communists. They didn’t take off their jackets and wrestle even once, which greatly saddened me. If Steven had joined them, that would indeed have been an impressive spectacle: The boss was just as powerfully built as they were, a real hulk, as we used to say on the outskirts of Kharkov.

  Nancy had a supper party for Efimenkov that same evening, having made a special trip in from the country to meet him — you see what an important guest he was. Naturally I served. I placed the smoked salmon, herring, vodka, and various other delicacies from Zabar’s on sterling silver trays and set them out on the dining room table. Several other people were invited, some of whom I already knew. They were all supposed to go to the ballet to see another Russian superstar, Rudolph Nureyev, so they were fortifying themselves beforehand. After the ballet they were planning to go to a restaurant where Linda, I knew, had already reserved a table for them, having herself been invited by Gatsby to make a «couple» with Jon Barth in order to neutralize him. Mr. Steven Grey couldn’t stand Barth. He told Linda as much with his characteristic baronial candor: “You’ll sit next to that ass Barth and keep him distracted so he won’t disrupt the general conversation with his inanities.”

  Nancy, who I think was afraid she would be bored, invited another young married couple I wasn’t acquainted with, and also present was a friend of Efimenkov’s, an ugly scarecrow named Lydia, who, like Jon Barth, was for some reason an inevitable participant in the visits of all Soviet literary dignitaries to the United States. She was of Russian descent, but had been born in America and spoke Russian with an accent. Jenny and I used to laugh at Lydia and call her the lieutenant assigned to Major Barth. Maybe that’s the way it really was, or maybe it wasn’t, who knows, but the story of how I first met Jenny is also connected with the visit of another Soviet literary star to America — Stella Makhmudova. That was the first time I saw not only Jenny, but also the horse Lydia and the wrestler Barth.

  But more about that in its place. On the evening in question they were all sitting in the dining room and chattering of one thing and another, with neither direction nor point — you know, polite conversation — which I in the kitchen found offensive to listen to. Efimenkov was saying something about internal Soviet literary affairs, and Gatsby was talking about his business deals, and from time to time the hosts would ask me to bring them something, Gatsby in an exceptionally gentle tone of voice intended for Efimenkov, and Nancy in her usual one. Nancy has to be given her due; she was always fairly straightforward in her behavior.

  You’re probably thinking I was sitting indignantly in my kitchen and suffering from wounded pride, given the fact that here I was serving Gatsby and my compatriot Efimenkov even though I myself was a writer, and what a writer, since the literary superstar Efimenkov had just expressed his enthusiasm with my work in the most glowing terms. No, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, I was afraid that they would invite me to join them in the dining room and I would have to listen to all their horseshit, to Eflmenkov’s wooden accent and his naive attempts to explain to my employer things he wasn’t the least interested in hearing about. All the names of Soviet figures mentioned by Efimenkov were boring even to me — local celebrities; who the fuck cared. But of course Efimenkov didn’t know that. Or if you think I was suffering from wounded pride and ashamed of the fact that I was serving them and that Efimenkov was there to see it, then that’s wrong too. I had very healthy ideas about work and about being paid for it, and what Gatsby was paying me, in addition to my room and board and all the other privileges I enjoyed while living in his house, suited me just fine.

  If I objected to Gatsby’s exploitation of me, it was because of his unconscious desire to force my mind to take part in his business and his hysterics, and that wasn’t a present I could give him. But to the exploitation of a part of my time and physical strength I was ready to give my consent, and had in fact requested that exploitation myself in exchange for his money. I needed his money in order to live and to write other books and to pay for the translation of those I had already written and to arrange for their sale and then to leave Gatsby and exploit my own labor.

  I almost sighed with relief when they finally left for the ballet and I could start clearing the table. And although they had eaten all the smoked and pickled delicacies from Zabar’s, including even the tiniest red morsels of the smoked salmon from Scotland on the silver dish, I still cleared away the dirty dishes enthusiastically. The last operation of the day. The end.

  After putting the dishes in the dishwasher and making sure that the children had had enough television and gone to bed (Nancy had brought her two youngest children with her from Connecticut), I went off to bed myself.

  I was awakened by bells. That is, I heard ringing in my sleep, but when I woke up, I realized with horror that it was the front doorbell. I got dressed as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t easy. I didn’t have a robe, and so by the time I got my pants and shirt on and had taken the elevator downstairs, whoever had been at the door was gone. I had almost decided that the ringing had in fact been a dream and had gone into the kitchen to get myself a drink of cold seltzer water before going back upstairs to my room and to bed for good, when the telephone suddenly rang. I looked at the kitchen clock. It was midnight. On the phone an old woman’s trembling voice said, “There’s a young lady at your front door. She can’t get inside. I’m very concerned about her; it’s cold outside and she has only a dress on.”

  My heart sank. It was Nancy of course. She and Gatsby both have the same idiotic habit of the rich of going outside without their coats on, sometimes even in winter. What do they care; they always catch the first taxi that comes along before they have a chance to feel the cold. And that fall evening too, Nancy had gone out with nothing but her dress on. Just as I was hanging up, there was another irritable ring at the front door. I rushed to open it.

  “Everybody’s sound asleep. I’ve been ringing for half an hour,” she said angrily, but clearly restraining herself. «Everybody» meant me and her children, obviously.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy,” I said. “The children had already gone to bed and so had I. I thought you had a key.”

  “I didn’t take it with me,” she said, a bit apologetically, evidently beginning to recover from the cold and her vexation.

  Gatsby and Efimenkov both had house keys, and I couldn’t have stayed up all night waiting for them anyway, since they were coming back separately. Gatsby could have given her his own key.

  I asked her if she needed anything, and she answered that she didn’t and that I could go to bed. It was peculiar that she had come home by herself, but I could hardly interrogate the lady of the house; if she didn’t want to say anything about it, I would have to be content with permission to go to bed. And so I went to bed.

  I was awakened once again by an obnoxious sound, something like the domestic equivalent of a police siren — the sound of the intercom we use to cal
l each other. I glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. What is it this time? I wondered nervously. Another disaster, no doubt.

  “Yes?” I said into the telephone in as cheerful and energetic a voice as I could muster. The tireless Russian, ready for anything at any time of day or night. Superman.

  Efimenkov’s drunken voice answered. “Edik,” he said, “come on down! We’re sitting in the kitchen and we want to have a drink with you. Steven wants to,” he corrected himself. “I told him about your book, and he’s very interested. Come on down.”

  I lost my temper. “If the ‘boss’ wants me to, then I will,” I said, “but if it’s you, Zhenya, then we can drink tomorrow or any other time, but right now it happens to be three o’clock in the morning.”

  “He wants you to, and I do too,” said the persistent Efimenkov, calmly swallowing my resentment.

  Swearing softly, I pulled on a khaki T-shirt with an eagle and “U.S. Army” on it and my black «service» pants and went downstairs. The two of them were sitting in the kitchen by themselves and talking, Efimenkov with his elbows resting on the table.

  “Zhenya tells me you’ve written a great book,” Steven addressed me as I came in.

  I merely smiled in answer; what could I say? The modest Limonov. But Gatsby wasn’t waiting for an answer and continued.

  “I asked Zhenya if he meant you had written a ‘good book, but he insisted on his knowledge of English and maintained that you had in fact written a great book.”

  “Steven, let’s drink to his book,” Efimenkov interrupted. “Let’s drink some very good wine.”

  “I’ll treat you to something special, Zhenya,” Gatsby said, and went down the stairway leading from the kitchen to the basement and the wine cellar.

  “I told him all about your book,” Efimenkov informed me, leaning toward me in a wearily confidential way. “I wanted us all to have a drink together, and maybe you’ll stop hating him and he’ll understand you better.”

  Efimenkov’s simple face glowed from all he had drunk, but he wasn’t drunk, and at that moment he wasn’t playing any games. I decided to trust him. Only I couldn’t remember ever having told him that I hated Steven. I had of course mentioned it in my diary, which I usually left lying around the house, since nobody else knew Russian. How do I know, maybe the inquisitive Efimenkov, maybe the Soviet writer had taken a look at it.

  Gatsby returned with a unique bottle of German white wine that, as the label attested, was not intended for sale but only for collectors. I got up to get the glasses. Gatsby had made an effort to get them himself, but I stopped him by saying, “Excuse me, Steven, but I’m still the housekeeper here.” The joke was appreciated.

  Gatsby opened the bottle, and the wine really was excellent. We sat and drank. After a few swallows, Gatsby turned happily and guilelessly to his favorite theme, himself. He spoke rapidly and fitfully about how tired he was of his countless responsibilities and obligations, about how little sleep he got and how much he traveled. Efimenkov listened attentively and even eagerly, I thought.

  It turned out that Gatsby had found someone to take over for him as Chairman of the Board of one of the largest of his corporations, based in California, so that things would be easier for him and he could spend more time in New York, which he loves. That was exactly what Linda and I had been most afraid of, that he would be staying here more and more often.

  And then Gatsby started talking enthusiastically about an offer he had received the week before to buy a satellite, “my own satellite,” he said happily, and about how little it would cost, since it had already been written off by the government. He mentioned the sum, which I immediately forgot; it was so remote as to be unreal. He was, it turned out, undecided as to whether he should buy it. In his enthusiasm he looked just like a child. «Satellite» on his lips sounded like the name of a new toy. As it very likely was.

  It was difficult to stop Gatsby. From the satellite he jumped to his war with the Japanese in the area of computers, and then just as quickly he turned to the story of «his» film, which Efimenkov obviously knew nothing about.

  Gatsby continued to pontificate, and I wondered why the hell I was sitting there, if he wasn’t going to let me speak. Oh, I’m so sick of these aristocratic whims. Efimenkov is a pretty brash type, and when he had something to say, he spoke loudly and persistently, not in the least concerned about his wooden accent. After all, he had spent his whole life reciting to huge auditoriums full of masses of people.

  A break came when Gatsby left to take a leak.

  “He really is overworked, poor guy. He doesn’t look well; his face has an unhealthy flush. He obviously needs to take a rest; he’s working himself to death,” Efimenkov said with admiring sympathy. “And you see how he talks,” Efimenkov continued, sipping some wine. “He’s evidently suffering from nervous exhaustion.”

  It was clear he was delighted with the energetic American capitalist. In my opinion, Gatsby didn’t really do all that much. For all his apparent energy, he accomplished a great deal less than Efimenkov imagined. He spent more time on traveling from Connecticut to Colorado and Texas and to New York and back, and to the West Coast and Europe, and on lunches and dinners, each of which lasted two or three hours and was always accompanied by French wine, than he did on actual work or business. The unhealthy flush on Gatsby’s face could have been explained by the French wine and the lunches, and at forty Gatsby did have a paunch hanging over his belt, not a large one, but a paunch nonetheless, as for that matter did Efimenkov, although in years past he had been as thin as a rail. I couldn’t explain all that to Efimenkov in the short time the capitalist was in the toilet. I couldn’t explain that Gatsby was not as effective as Efimenkov thought he was, that the auto manufacturing and the other businesses he owned might in fact have managed quite well without him, without all his bustling and his lunches and his dinners, and that perhaps Gatsby was more concerned with gratifying his own ego than he was with working. I decided to explain that to Efimenkov some other time, but I didn’t have a chance, and then he went back to the Soviet Union.

  I had guessed it long ago, but it was only after looking at them then that it became absolutely clear that Gatsby and Efimenkov belonged to the same class, to the masters of this world, even though one was a multimillionaire and the other a Communist writer; or, if you like, that they both belonged to the same international gang, to the big brothers of this world, its elite. Not long ago there had been a note in a New York magazine about my employer with the absolutely incredible tide, “Today’s Working Class,” and under the title a picture of Steven in glasses with his tie slightly askew and an incisively intelligent expression on his face — the image presented by the magazine to America was the same one he had of himself. But it wasn’t the way I saw him. For me, from my vantage in the kitchen, he was a spoiled, capricious nabob who, if his father and grandfather hadn’t left him millions, would probably not have been able to make even one dollar on his own. I knew that when faced with the simplest tasks in life, he was as helpless as a child. I didn’t believe Jenny the first time she told me that, but now I knew that a missing button could unnerve him and deprive him of his poise. He could borrow a million, or even millions — that was his specialty, obtaining money; he had friends, or a bank could lend it to him — but he didn’t know how to sew on a button. Everything he knew how to do was based on his inheritance, on the thing that gave him his place in the world, but not on himself. True, sometimes he was interesting.

  Efimenkov has always maintained in his books that he is a working-class blue blood, a man of simple Siberian stock, in a way even flaunting his simplicity and sincerity. It’s a naive lie that he himself believes. He left Siberia when he was still a boy, and he hasn’t worked as a laborer more than six months in his whole life, since the magazines and newspapers started publishing him when he was sixteen, and by the time he was eighteen he was already a famous writer. From that day on he never again had anything in common with ordinary
people and has lived the rest of his life as a writer, a very famous writer and a member of the elite. He was given pictures by Dali, Picasso, and Chagall, and the only working-class thing about him is his musical comedy working-class cap and his fine leather coat which cost money — Comrade Mr. Efimenkov, although in general he’s not a bad guy. It’s all the same kind of phoniness as Mao Tsetung’s, who wore a blue cotton working-class tunic his whole life, or Deng Tsao-ping’s, with their banquets and their residence in the former Imperial Palace.

  Gatsby and Efimenkov understood each other perfectly and needed each other, while I sat thinking unhappily about how I’d like to be with them, but unfortunately could not. I’m thirty-five years old and have earned my living by physical labor ever since I was seventeen, so that their pseudo-working-class slogans are just crap to me. True, we all work, but the kind of work Mr. Gatsby does is very different from the black woman Olga’s or mine. Well, so maybe Olga doesn’t measure up to Gatsby, the wrong education, let’s say, but if you compare Gatsby and me, then who’s better, who’s more talented, who’s more needed by the world? For me, that’s the fateful question, the one I ask myself every day as I struggle and contend with my employer and rival, even if he’s a beast and a devil, albeit a charming devil, a product of contemporary civilization, a brilliant devil in a gorgeous car. Edward Limonov and Gatsby. Which one will triumph?

  Chapter Two

  I often wonder, while sitting in a lawn chair on the roof of our house on weekends, getting tan in the sunshine, reading the newspaper, and sipping a cup of coffee, what would have happened to me, what direction my life would have taken, if I hadn’t met Jenny and grabbed on to her with all my might. What would have happened, if, on that rainy spring evening of April 24th, 1977, I hadn’t gone with the Russian drunk Tolya to the poetry reading at Queens College where I met Jenny — Jenny, who didn’t understand a word of what the Russian poetess Stella Makhmudova was saying, but who was there thanks to a happy conjunction of circumstances. What would have happened? Would I have survived or not?