"Have you been watching the news?"
"I saw the news last night."
"So you heard about the civil war."
"What civil war?"
"In Absurdsvani. In the capital. They've sealed off the airport. And they shot my friend in the back of the head."
"Okay, let's start from the beginning." Dr. Levine sighed. "What is this Absurdsvani?"
"Absurdsvani is on the Caspian Sea."
"Which is where, exactly? My geography's a little off."
"The Caspian Sea? It's, you know, south of Russia, near Turkmenistan—"
"Where?"
"Near Iran."
"Near Iran? I thought you were still in Moscow last time you called."
"St. Petersburg."
"Still, Iran must be a great deal farther off than Moscow. What are you doing there?"
I explained in so many words that I had traveled to Absurdistan to buy European citizenship off a crooked Belgian consular official after nailing my dead father's young wife. A reproachful silence followed.
"Is this a legal way to get citizenship?" Dr. Levine asked.
"Well," I said. " 'Legal' is a relative word . . ." Tou son of a bitch, I thought. How dare you suggest that I shouldn't avail myself of every last chance to get out of Russia when your own great-grandparents probably bribed half the czar's men in the Pale of Settlement and then sneaked out in a mail bag, just to make sure their descendants could lounge on a fine walnut-trimmed Eames chair on the corner of Park Avenue and Eighty-fifth Street, issuing half-baked censo- rious statements to the insulted and injured and collecting US$350 an hour for the privilege! But instead of saying this, I started to cry.
"Let's go through the important questions first," Dr. Levine said.
"There seem to be a lot of people being shot to death or blown up by land mines in your recent past. So let me ask you: Are you in a safe place? Is your life in any immediate danger? And, given the possibility that you may now experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress such as feelings of detachment, anger, and helplessness, do you think you can make rational decisions that will keep you safe in the future?"
"I'm not sure," I said, choking off my sobs to concentrate. "My friend Alyosha-Bob is trying to get us out of here. He's very smart, you know."
"Well, that's positive," Dr. Levine said. "In the meantime, you should spend your time constructively. Try to occupy yourself as you did in Moscow. If it's safe to do so, go for a walk or do some exercise. This type of activity, combined with three milligrams of Ativan a day, should lower your anxiety level."
"Do you think I can really—"
"Look, why don't you just try to relax?" Dr. Levine said. I could hear him slurping on his beloved citrus shake with vitamin boost, the modern equivalent of the analyst's cigar. "Just don't get so worked up," he said.
" Try to relax? How do I do that? That's like trying to drink my way to sobriety."
"You know what helps another patient of mine when he gets all worked up? He goes out and buys a suit. Why don't you go out and buy a suit, Misha?"
"I'm too sad to buy a suit," I whispered.
"What else comes to mind about that? About your sadness."
"No one cares about me, not even you, Doctor," I said. "I saw a nice democrat killed in front of me, and I try to grieve the best I can for him, but I can't. And I try to grieve for my papa, but nothing, as you say, 'comes to mind about that.' And I try to be good, I try to help people, but there's no way to be good here, or if there is, I don't know it. And I'm scared, and I'm lonely, and I'm unhappy, and I'm chastising myself for being scared, and lonely, and unhappy, and for being alive for thirty years and having nobody, not one soul save for Alyosha, who would care for me. I know there are people in New York and Paris and London who have the same problems, and that I shouldn't feel exceptional by comparison, but everything I do and everywhere I go, it's all wrong, wrong, wrong. And it can't just be me. I need to know that it's not just me. I need to hear that I'm better than this. I wake up in an empty bed and I look at my heart and it's gray. Literally. I take off my shirt, I pick up my breast, and my heart's all leathery and gray like a reptile's."
I heard several bouts of strained nasal breathing. I grasped the receiver, waiting to hear that it wasn't just me, that I was better than this, and that there was no such thing as a gray reptilian heart, "Say it!" I whispered, barely audibly, and in Russian. "Do your job! Make it work! Give me some happiness!"
More analytic silence followed.
"It is true," Dr. Levine grudgingly allowed, "that the circumstances in which you live present a unique set of problems."
"Yes," I said. It was true. Bad circumstances made for unique problems. I waited for more. I waited for one minute, then for another, but in vain. Oh, come on, Doctor. Throw a dog a bone. Tell me Pm better than this. Talk about my heart. I put my face in one of my big, squishy hands and I cried, exaggerating my wails in the hope that the doctor would take pity and absolve me of my sins.
But he wouldn't do it. Not for US$350 an hour. Not for all the money on the Cayman Islands. Not for all the money in this grayhearted world of mine. As depressed and immobile as a twenty-first-century Oblomov, I lay on my bed scrolling through the darkest corners of the Internet, the laptop whizzing and bleating atop the mound of my stomach. I watched all kinds of unfortunate women being degraded and humiliated, tied up, spat upon, forced to swallow gigantic penises, and I wished I could wipe off their dripping faces, whisk them away to some Minneapolis or Toronto, and teach them to take pleasure in a simple linear life far from their big-dicked tormentors. I decided to write Rouenna an electronic letter.
Dear Rouenna,
I am in a small country called Absurdsvani, to the south of Russia, near Iran. A civil war has broken out and innocent democrats are being shot in the street. I am trying to save as many people as I can. The Belgian government has awarded me citizenship in recognition of my services, but it may be too late to save my own life. Pray for me, Rouenna. Go to mass with your abuela Maria and pray for my soul. I don't know if your new boyfriend has taught you to read Freud yet, but I want to tell you about a dream I had in which you sold me an apple for eight dollars. My analyst says it means that everything you ever did for me was conditional upon my money. From the very beginning when you saw my loft and said, "Dang, jumbo, I think I finally made it," you were using me. (See, I don't forget a thing!) My analyst, who is a medical doctor, says you better change, Rouenna, because what you're doing to me is going to destroy you inside. You're the one who's going to be hurt by your actions and that's a medical opinion. Think about it!
If I make it out of here alive I'll still be yours forever, because you're the only thing that makes my life worth living.
Tour Loving Russian Bear; Misha
Actually, I hadn't gotten around to mentioning the apple dream to Dr. Levine, but it was always useful to bring up an authority figure with Rouenna. As soon as I sent the message, an auto response popped up on my screen.
Hey there cowboys and cowgirls! I cant answer your message right now because me and my man are going up to CAPE COD for a week just to chill out from all the stress thats been killing us!!!! While y'all steaming like Chinese dumplings in NTC we'll be staying at a famous film director's house in hiyanissport (cant say who it is or Proffessor Shteynfarb will kill me!). Ha ha. Just kidding. I'll be back next Wednesday so dont miss me too much. Kisses, R.
Thought of the Day: "The earth swarms with people who are not worth talking to." —Voltaire, French Philospher. Totally true!!!!!
I reread the message, the laptop pneumatically rising and falling on my belly with each breath. There was a phrase that had stuck in my mind. It wasn't the Voltaire. I reread Rouenna's message. "Film director." That was it. Not a movie director, but a film director. Christ. I tapped at the keyboard with a numb forefinger, winding my computer back to the stream of pornography, the clean-shaven vaginas confronted with twirling batons. I fell asleep in a whirlpool of rage, a woman
's false moaning registering thinly on the laptop's speakers.
A hand was rubbing my shoulder, but I couldn't connect it to the familiar voice telling me to "Wake up, Misha." The hand continued to massage me, infusing my shoulder with the smell of alcohol and man sweat.
"Don't touch me!" I cried, jolting awake and smacking hard at the hand on my shoulder. For an odd second, I was surprised to find Alyosha-Bob standing beside me and not my father.
"What the fuck, Misha?" Alyosha-Bob said, rubbing at his hurt.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "I'm sorry." The globe of Alyosha-Bob's head hovered over me, blue veins forming rivers of concern, his nose a living, breathing subcontinent. He was wearing nothing but sweatpants, his naked chest sporting a standard Orthodox cross and a Jewish c'hai. Recently my friend had been flapping his fish lips about adding some religious meaning to his life. I wanted to ask him: why are Americans always searching for something when clearly there is nothing to be found?
He picked up the laptop from my belly. "Oh, that's nice, Snack," he said. "Stuffherass.com. Is that your new girlfriend in the dog collar?"
"I'm sorry I hit you," I said. "I just don't want to be touched right now."
"What did your analyst say?"
"Post-traumatic stress. Blah, blah, blah."
"What else did he say?"
"He told me to go for a walk. You know, get some exercise. Buy a suit."
"Brilliant as ever." Alyosha-Bob laughed. "I ordered buffalo wings from room service. They're in the living room. There's Black Label in the minibar."
The buffalo wings were dry and inauthentic, and it took four buckets, or forty-eight wings, to satisfy me. I sucked on the brittle bones as if I were a pornographic understudy myself, savoring the mild tomato-based "hot sauce" dribbling past my chin and onto my Hyatt bathrobe. I let the invisible central-air currents stroke my stubbly face. Hot sauce and air-conditioning: when I put them together, I almost felt safe.
Alyosha-Bob was typing on his laptop with one hand while the other was switching television channels with a hefty zapper. He was trolling for news about Absurdistan. "CNN nothing, MSNBC noth-ing, BBC almost nothing, France 2 something, but je ne comprends pas what it is . . . Looks like we're stuck with ORT." He turned on one of the Kremlin-controlled Russian networks, all Putin, all the time. True enough, the Russian president was giving a press conference. He looked the way he always did, like a mildly unhappy horse dipping his mouth into a bowl of oats. "Absurdsvani is an important partner for Russia, strategically, economically, and culturally," Putin sadly imparted into the microphone. "We hope for a cessation to the violence. We implore the Sevo leadership to respect international norms."
Alyosha-Bob switched to another Russian government channel. Come to think of it, they were all government channels. A young Western-looking reporter stood in front of a marble slab etched with the words PARK HYATT SVANI CITY.
"Hey, that's our hotel," I said.
"So far, a modest death toll," the reporter was saying. "Sixty-five people killed in the conflict, twelve of them armed Sevo coup plotters shot by security forces in front of the Hyatt Hotel."
"Sevo coup plotters?" I said. "Armed? They were just democrats with expensive ties."
The reporter continued, "As a result of the personal mediation of President Putin, a temporary cease-fire was signed today in Svani City."
"That's a good sign!" Alyosha-Bob said. "They might reopen the airport."
I made a halfhearted snort of affirmation. To be honest, the idea of moving from the Hyatt seemed fantastical to me. I wanted to go back to my room and look at the poor girls on the Internet some more. I wanted to tear their tormentors apart with both hands. The reporter went on, "Today the new president of the republic, Debil Kanuk, son of the murdered state leader Georgi Kanuk, met with the leaders of the Sevo rebellion, who are calling themselves the State Committee for the Restoration of Order and Democracy, or SCROD, according to the English acronym."
"That's a fish, isn't it?" I said. "They named themselves after a fish."
"Not even a good fish," Alyosha-Bob said.
The Svani leader shook hands with his older but better-dressed Sevo counterparts. They all smiled as if they had just returned from a triumphant duck hunt.
"Who do you like more, Svani or Sevo?" I asked my friend.
"They all suck," Alyosha-Bob said. "Larry Zartarian said this whole war is about an oil pipeline KBR is building from the Caspian through Turkey. Everyone wants it to go through their territory so they can profit from the kickbacks."
Watching the proud, well-tailored Sevos shake hands with the distasteful Debil Kanuk, his oily forehead dripping pancake makeup beneath the klieg lights, I decided to root firmly for the Sevo people. If only in Sakha's memory.
And then I recognized one of the men standing next to Debil Kanuk. Crisp olive uniform, dim eyes perpetually scanning the horizon, red fists hanging like pomegranates above his hips. It seemed Colonel Svyokla was smirking directly at me, daring me to save Sakha's life.
He spoke calmly into the microphone. After the hoglike bursts of language coming out of Debil Kanuk, the colonel seemed positively an orator. "Until the murderous Sevo plotters responsible for downing President Georgi Kanuk's plane are apprehended," he said, "the republic's borders will remain sealed and closed to all air traffic. There will be justice for the Svani people."
"Damn!" Alyosha-Bob said. "What the hell, Misha? They're not going to let the foreigners leave? What do they want from us? This is bullshit!" He stopped to look at me. "Are you crying, Snack?" I touched my face. It was true. My cheeks were soaked, and my nostrils were filled with the sea breeze of my own body salt; meanwhile, in back of me, the toxic hump was hitting all the familiar bass notes: "DES-pair, DES-pair, des-PAIR." It was all happening again. The driveway. The spent bullet casings. The rising cloud of gravel. The bodies jerking upward. Sakha's last words to me: Mishen'ka, please. Tell them to stop. They will listen to a man like you. Alyosha-Bob switched off the television and walked over to me.
"Come on, Snacky," he said. He made an open-armed gesture toward my body.
"Go ahead," I sobbed, leaning toward him. He sat down and put my head on his warm, naked shoulder. The tears kept coming, easily, aimlessly, with regard for nothing but the salty streams they forged across my friend's body, eventually pooling inside his cavernous belly button.
"Let's rap a little," he said. "Would you like to rap a little, Misha?
Remember who we are? We're the Gentlemen Who Like to Rap!"
"I remember," I said. I smiled just enough to reassure AlyoshaBob that I was still salvageable.
"Then how about some ghetto tech? How about a little 'Dick Work'?"
"Okay," I said, glancing shyly between my legs.
" 'Lemme see yoah dick work, / Lemme see yoah dick work,' " Alyosha-Bob sang into an imaginary microphone, mimicking the tone of a young promiscuous woman from the Detroit ghetto. " 'Lemme see yoah dick work . . .' "
He leaned the microphone over to me. Pretending to be this imaginary ghetto woman's paramour, I sang in a false ghetto-pimp baritone: " 'Let me see dat pussy work.' " We both laughed. "Good boy," Alyosha-Bob said. "That's how we do it. That's how we hit it. Straight-up Detroit shit. Call-andresponse. You're my nigga."
"And you are mine," I said, kissing him on the cheek. I felt something bright and piercing at the tip of my belly. Could rap be any more empowering? Was it true that the people who had nothing were the most fortunate people of all?
Our embrace was interrupted by the dull but steadily appreciating roar of an aircraft. Alyosha-Bob sprang to the window and pulled open the blinds.
"Get over here, Misha!" he said.
"Do I have to?"
"Look!"
A Chinook helicopter, a kind of mechanized air cow, bulky and graceless beneath its two rotors, was flying over the oil fields, headed for the International Terrace. I made out the inscription on its side, white Engl
ish letters on camouflage.
"Get your manservant and your laptop. And your Belgian passport, too."
"Why?"
"Fall of Saigon, '75."
"Je ne comprends pas.x
"Shake a limb, Snack. We're gonna make a run for the embassy." The U.S. ARMY had arrived in Svani City.
20
The American Gambit
The American embassy was situated in the shadows of the ExxonMobil skyscraper, a freshly built rectangle of salmon-hued glass with art deco bands of chrome meant to evoke permanence and easy history. The embassy itself was housed in an old pastel academy once used to educate the sons of local czarist nobility. In the wake of the attacks on American embassies in Africa, a moat of trenches and razor wire surrounded the American outpost in Absurdistan. The gathering crowds, however, were well equipped with wire cutters and the like, and they charged the compound with bravado, as if the incoming helicopters had convinced them they were extras in a Hollywood historical drama.
Some were older, but the majority seemed to be of college age, dressed to look as nonthreatening and American as possible. They carried signs that listed the reasons for being accepted aboard the hovering Chinooks, among other things: 21 YR. OLD GIRL, NOT PROS- TITUTKA, HAVE STUDENT VISA TO CALIFORNIAN UNIVERSITY AT THE
NORTHBRIDGE + MINE FAMILY HAS GAS. A n d : PLEASE LET ME GO WITH
YOU—SECRET POLICE WILL DIE ME, BECAUSE I POLITICAL AGAINST
DEBIL KANUK DICTATOR. A n d : WE V HALLIBURTON, KBR #1, GO HOUS- TON ROCKETS! A n d : AMERICA: IF YOU DON'T CARE ANYTHING ABOUT
us, $AVE OUR OIL. My favorite, hoisted by a grizzly old pensioner, a simple retired laborer by the looks of him, whose sign was nonetheless written in perfectly correct English: WE ARE NO WORSE THAN YOU
ARE. WE ARE ONLY POORER.
"American and EU citizens coming through," Alyosha-Bob shouted, pushing aside the little brown Absurdis around us. I picked up his war cry, and even Timofey started shouting: "American and yoo-yoo, commie fru!"
Our U.S. and Belgian passports held aloft, we were quickly diverted toward a VIP line, where the potential aspirants were taller and whiter and fatter—more my speed all around. The only dark standout was Larry Zartarian, the Hyatt manager, who was trying to shove his mother into the arms of a consular officer, shouting,
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