The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  “Indeed!” he exclaimed. “And may I offer you one? But forgive me, perhaps I should first offer to introduce myself. Knox Ogden, your neighbor and, I hope, your friend.” He offered his hand unsteadily, and you realized from his movements and his speech that he was well along the way to intoxication. You did not take his hand. In Svanetia, one never touches someone without having known them for at least two hours. “Well,” he said, withdrawing his hand and sitting abruptly on your sofa. “Excuse me, I’m not feeling too fit.” Clearly he wasn’t: pallid, his eyes hollow and dark, his movements feeble or jerky. He took a deep but spasmodic breath and said, “You don’t have to tell me your name, Ekaterina Vladimirovna; I know it. It is a beautiful name, like that of a heroine out of Tolstoy, although your Georgian surname is not at all familiar to me. Dadiankeliani? Is that royal?”

  “Dadeshkeliani,” you corrected him. “Very royal.”

  “You are a princess?” He was the first person in America to know it, unless you include me, and to say I’m either a “person” or “in America” would be misleading. You nodded your head, feeling grateful; Bolshakov had consistently refused to acknowledge that you had been a princess. “I am honored, Your Highness,” Knoxogden said, and from his cupped position in the sofa attempted a bow. No one had bowed to you for a very long time, and no one had ever called you “Highness,” not in English. You were no longer frightened of him and you were not entirely annoyed with him. “Did you know,” he asked, “that Edgar Allan Poe had a cat he called Caterina? It was a tortoiseshell and would sit on his shoulder while he was writing, and when Poe was away from home he would write to Caterina as if she were family. But I suppose you don’t know the poet Poe?”

  “Ya, in Russian I read Poetpoe.” Actually you were more familiar with translations of his short stories than with his poems, but you knew him well and admired his gad, weirdness, although you had never learned of his Caterina.

  “I am a poet myself,” declared Knoxogden. He held up the volume he was carrying, a very slim green book, and passed it to you. You read the gold letters on the thin spine: KNOX OGDEN, THE FINAL MEADOW, DOUBLEDAY. You opened it and found handwriting on the flyleaf, a palsied scrawl just barely legible, For Ekaterina Vladimirovna Dadiankeliani, With the warmest regards of—The palsy suddenly became a controlled but unreadable arabesque in which you could make out only one letter: X. You were embarrassed at the gift of the book but only mildly annoyed at his misspelling of your surname. What most disturbed you was the thought that he had inscribed it without ever having met you; how could he have the warmest regards for you? You searched for proper words of thanks and had difficulty. But there was one word of English you knew well, one of the first English words you had ever learned, when you were young: kind.

  “Thou art much kind,” you said. “Ivasu khari. Thank thee.” He laughed, or made a coughing sound that resembled a laugh. “I teach English at the university,” he said. “And it looks like I’m just the man you need. We’ll start with your use of the archaic second-person pronouns. We don’t say thou and thee in modern English. You replaces both, and, alas, is used ubiquitously, without regard to the addressee’s intimate familiarity. English doesn’t have any equivalent of the German du, the French tu, or the Georgian shen.”

  Your sweet, reserved face became unusually expressive. “Thou—you—are knowing Georgian???”

  He made a pinch of his thumb and forefinger. “A tiny bit,” he said, then used his other hand to lift his drink and lustily swallow most of it. “I once was required to translate some stanzas of Rustavelli, and I had to pick up the rudiments.”

  You were overwhelmed, as if meeting an old acquaintance in a faraway place. “You know Shota Rustavelli? The Man in the Skin of…Big Cat?”

  “Panther,” he said. “Sometimes Tiger, but I think the beast Shota intended was the panther.”

  That great epic is to Georgia what The Canterbury Tales is to England, but not even most educated Russians have ever heard of it. Most Georgians know it virtually by heart, and you could recite it backward in your sleep…but not in English. Here was a man, your next-door neighbor, who could probably recite parts of The Man in the Panther’s Skin in English. Abruptly you were aware again of Anangka, that she was taking care of things for you, that she had “arranged” to give you an erudite neighbor who could help you with your new language. What a pity she could not have found a more attractive person, a more sober person, a healthier person.

  The door, which Knox Ogden had left partly open behind him, opened fully, and there was Kenny. He was carrying a folded chessboard and a box of chess pieces. The youth glowered like a panther at Professor Ogden, then looked at you and pouted.

  “Coming in,” you invited Kenny.

  “Most Russian speakers tend to overuse the participle,” said Knox Ogden. “That’s simply ‘Come in,’ not ‘Coming.’”

  Kenny said to him, “You know you’re not supposed to be drinking.”

  “Now there’s an awful participle,” Knox Ogden observed. He returned Kenny’s fierce glower and said, “I’m not drinking. I’m just bringing it to her.” And he thrust his glass into your hands.

  You were not able to hold it as if it belonged to you, and Kenny observed, “She drinks vodka, not bourbon.”

  “Oh, my mistake!” said Knox Ogden, and he lifted himself slowly up out of the sofa, took your glass, and said, “I’ll be right back with your Stolichnaya. No ice, right?”

  “No ice,” you said.

  “No dice,” said Kenny. “You just stay away from her, you leem!”

  “‘Leem’?” said the professor. “That’s a new one. Is it anything like ‘geek’?”

  “Worse,” said Kenny.

  “I’ve been promoted,” the professor said to you. “I used to be a mere geek. Before that, a nerd. Before that, a dork.” He turned to Kenny. The two males were almost the same height, but the professor was much heavier. “Listen, punk, you spoiled my friendship with Edith. Damned if I’ll let you drive me away from this beautiful princess, who needs my help as much as I need hers.” He bowed to you.

  “She doesn’t need anything from you,” Kenny said. “Why don’t you go play with yourself!”

  “Why don’t I smack you one upside your insolent face?” said the professor, drawing back his hand.

  “Try it,” Kenny challenged him. “I’m not afraid of you. Don’t fuck with me.”

  “Watch your language,” the professor said to him, then he said to you, “You don’t want to expose yourself to this punk’s disgusting English. He’ll infect you with his contagious slang and vulgarities.”

  Kenny said to you, “Yeah, so you want me to take a hike?”

  You had just recently learned the word, and you said, “No, I am not wanting…I do not want for you to hike.” You were a little flattered, dear Kat, to have two men (three, if you could’ve counted invisible me) fighting over you. But you were distressed that they did not get along with each other. You were abashed to be thrust into the position of having to choose between them. If you’d had to choose, of course there would have been no choice: simply as a desirable male, Kenny had it all over the professor. But wouldn’t you antagonize Anangka if you chose him? Didn’t Anangka want you to choose the professor, so that you could learn good English as soon as possible? And perhaps Anangka wanted the professor to divert you from your lust for Kenny. As gently and politely as you could, you said to the professor, “Kenneth and me, we have plan to play chess.” As if on cue, Kenny unfolded the chessboard on your dining table and began arranging the pieces.

  “‘Kenneth and I,’” Knox Ogden corrected you. “Okay, I know when I’m not wanted.” He made to leave but turned at the door. “But you haven’t seen the last of me, either of you!” He went out.

  Kenny continued setting up the chessboard. “What a total jerk,” he said. “‘Eye-ther!’ It’s pronounced ‘ee-ther’—don’t you ever let him tell you different. ‘Eye-ther’ is the way that stuck-up goody-goodies say
it. That’s stuffy and chicken shit.”

  Kenny was going too fast for you. “Wait,” you requested. “One word at time. What means ‘jerk’?”

  Kenny giggled, and the sound of his giggle brought him down from the tough grown-up that he’d been trying to be and made him into your adorable twelve-year-old all over again. “That’s just short for ‘jerk-off,’ and I can’t tell you what that means. But a jerk is sort of, like, like a dork, only it’s kind of, like, ‘jerk’ is what you do with your dork, your prick, like, you know? I mean, I don’t mean you, because ladies don’t have pricks.” Kenny was blushing.

  You and Kenny sat at the dining table with the chessboard between you, and first you corrected his misplacement of the black king and queen, transposing them. You wished you had something to offer him in the way of refreshment. Your little refrigerator was still empty. You wished you had something to drink yourself, for although you fasted on Human Rights Day you were not required to thirst. As if in response to your thought, the door opened and Professor Ogden returned, briefly, carrying a tumbler with clear liquid in it. “Your Stolichnaya, Your Highness,” he said, and bowed and made his exit backwards without turning his back to you. You did not even have time to remember how to say thank-you.

  “Shit,” said Kenny. “I wish you wouldn’t drink that.”

  “But I have thirst,” you protested.

  “I put a six-pack of Cokes in your fridge,” he said. “I guess you didn’t notice.” He jumped up and fetched one, popping open its top.

  “Thank thee—thank you much,” you said. “But you drink it. Please, I drink this.” A thought occurred to you. Although you were touched and grateful for his gesture (you would discover later, when you looked in your fridge, that he had also put there a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, and a package of margarine, none of these items “snitched” from downstairs but all purchased at the store with his own money from his newspaper route), you wondered how he had gained admission to your apartment while you were out. For even if you were careless about leaving your door unlocked while you were in the apartment, you still retained your habit, from Tbilisi and from Leningrad, of locking your room when you went out. Hesitantly, searching for the words, you asked him, “How did you come in room while I am out? You have key?”

  “Oh, sure,” Kenny said, and reached into his dzhinsy pocket and fished out a whole ring of many keys and showed them to you. “I guess nobody told you. I’m the super.”

  “‘Super’?”

  “Superintendent,” he elaborated. “Of this building. I’m, like, in charge of the whole place.” When you looked surprised, he added, “With all of these lushes on every floor, somebody’s got to stay sober enough to, like, watch out for everything and stuff. You know?”

  Chapter eight

  Kenny could not play chess. Oh, he knew the rules, and the rudiments, and even some of the refinements, but he had no grasp whatsoever of such instruments as the gambit, the knight fork, or the defrocked bishop, and while he was all too eager to demonstrate he knew how to castle, he castled kingside when he should have castled queenside, and he castled either side when he did not need to castle at all. The first game ended in eleven quick moves, interrupted when you had to hush him, his talkativeness, his trying to explain that although he had access to your apartment and to everyone else’s, he would never “snoop” (a new word you loved) or “mess around with your stuff.” The second game lasted a bit longer because you relaxed your defense and let him explore. By the fifth game, because you’d finished your drink (on an empty stomach), you were almost tempted to let him mate you, just to keep up his interest and confidence; you were walking him through the steps of the Winawer Variation of the French Defense, trying to explain why he should be patient, not take pawns just because they were there to be taken, hold back and wait for the chance to let his queen pounce, hold back, now pounce, now retreat, stay back, be patient, control himself, wait, watch for the right moment, respond to your movements, not cause them; and for a time he did exercise remarkable endurance, but then impetuously he plunged forward and lost his rook and thus his strategic advantage, and the game.

  You doubted he could ever mate you, but you were determined to teach him how, and thus disappointed when he sat back and said, “Shit, I can’t put it together. I guess I’m not, like, old enough for you yet. Let’s do something else.” You told him of the chess players who had already been masters at the age of twelve: Capablanca, Alekhine, Reshevsky, and of course those great precocious American kids Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer; and you assured him that all he needed was practice, and more practice. You almost told him about Islamber and how Islamber had become very good in chess at the age of only eleven. But you were not ready yet to tell him about Islamber. You asked Kenny what he would like to do, what game, or maybe he would like to hear you tell a story? Maybe you would like to take off dzhinsy? you wanted to ask.

  “Wanna see my telescope?” he asked. You caught your breath, uncertain about the word: Maybe it was another slang word, like prick, for the private part. When you smiled but looked puzzled, he tried a pantomime that didn’t help: one fist held to his eye, the other fist stretching slowly out from it, swelling, expanding outward. You nodded your head eagerly. He told you you’d need to put on your coat, and, mystified, you did. He ran downstairs to get his own jacket, then took you up to the third floor of the mansion and to a door to another stairway, that led upward to a shed on the roof.

  Climbing to the shed reminded you so much of climbing to the top of the Dadeshkelianis’ tower in Lisedi, where you had first made love to Islamber. The shed was very cold, thus your coats. It was also very private, but with windows on three sides. Kenny showed you his telescope. It was a big thing, hard, shiny, pointing toward the stars. It was mounted upon a tripod, and you had to stand on a box to put your eye to its hole and look into it. You did not know astronomy, and he took an almost prideful revenge, considering your superiority in chess, in pointing out to you, eastward, away from the interfering lights of the city’s downtown, the constellations of “Little Dog” and “Big Dog,” naming the stars of each and telling you how many light-years it had taken for their light to reach the earth. Awesome. You reflected upon, but could not tell him yet, this contrast between your interests: That his was upon the faraway, the unreachable, the unknown, while yours was upon the close-up, smellable, touchable, woods-musky growths of this earth.

  You stayed in the shed on the roof for quite a while, until even you with your immunity to cold grew chilled, and then you returned to your room. Did you like the stars? he was eager to know. They were fine, you said.

  He looked doubtful and asked, “What do you like to study?”

  “Mushrooms,” you said.

  “Really?” he said. “To collect, or just to eat?”

  “Not to collect nor to eat,” you said, but to watch, to examine, to learn the growth of, to wonder at how and why and upon what they lived, to measure the way they took the air, to ponder the brevity and urgency of their lives, to look closely at the way they created their spores and spread them to perpetuate themselves.

  He wanted to know, “Can you tell the difference between the ones that are poisonous and the ones that aren’t?”

  You laughed, and you laughed, and then you said, “Oh, I am much sorry for the laughing but, you see, I can even tell the chemistry of each poison they use, and why, and how much, and toward what other creatures the poison is intended as a defense.”

  “Sunday,” said Kenny, “let’s you and me go to the museum.” Before he left you that night, he gave you four things: a quick, spontaneous (but carefully prefantasized) peck on the cheek and three magazines that he had obtained at the same store where he got the stuff he left in your refrigerator. They surprised you: Glamour, Ladies Home Journal, and Playgirl. The first two would keep you for hours, for days, showing you a foretaste of all the things you should be and do, what you should wear and put upon your face, what you should cook and how, what
you should smell like, what you should say; but the third would keep you for weeks, because it sanctioned the proposition that all women are sexual creatures bent upon the celebration of their sensuality. You thought aloud in English, “Is okay for woman in America to be like this,” and you wondered if his gift of it was some message from Kenny that he found you desirable or had at least thought about it. You stayed up very late that night with your magazines and your dictionary, and that was the beginning of your concentrated study of our complicated tongue.

  And early on Sunday afternoon (Loretta lent you a decent coat, a very nice one, better than any you’d ever had, and some costume jewelry, a necklace, earrings, a bracelet), you and Kenny walked the not-considerable distance to the museum of natural history that was part of the institute named after the cousin of the man who’d built the mansion and still haunted it. You spent an hour pointing out and trying to explain items in the small but impressive mycology section of the museum, and then Kenny returned the favor in the astronomy section, and then almost by accident you turned a corner and stumbled upon the section devoted to the American Indian, which thrilled you, and you had to spend more time there than in either (ee-ther) mycology or astronomy. Had Kenny ever seen Indians? you wanted to know. Only on TV, he said. After you’d read, or tried to read, every label in the Indian section, you suggested to Kenny that, because it was just next door, you might drop by the institute’s museum of art, where you found a collection of modern paintings almost as good as in Leningrad’s Hermitage; you had spent many weekends at the Hermitage and thus could tell Kenny without reading the labels which were the van Goghs and which the Cézannes, which the Picassos and which the Matisses, but Kenny was very quickly bored with art, and, since darkness was still an hour or so away, you asked him if he knew how to get to the ramp trains, slope rails, whatever, and he said, “Oh, you mean the inclines?” and he got the two of you onto a bus, paying the fare himself, that took you to the Duquesne Incline, where you had some fun at last on the funicular, from the top of which Kenny could point out all the landmarks of the city: Three Rivers Stadium, Point State Park, and each of the tallest skyscrapers by name. Twilight came while you were up there, and all the lights of the town came on like Kenny’s stars.