Lake Success

by Gary Shteyngart

“Ma-hum!”

  “Next I’m going to teach him how to make friends,” Barry said.

  The Mexican woman left flautas for dinner. Layla let Jonah sit in his wet shorts to celebrate his achievement. There was nothing more tragic yet moving than a skinny boy’s body shivering beneath the fluorescent kitchen lights. “I had trouble making friends, too,” Barry said, “but I had some techniques I’ve been sharing with Jonah. I ran a lot of scripts in my mind. You know, sometimes it helps to make friends with someone everyone else makes fun of. Like a poor kid. Think of him as a ‘practice friend.’ So who’s the most disadvantaged kid in Hebrew school?”

  “Are you kidding?” Layla said. “I don’t think there are any.”

  “Maybe somebody’s father or mother died and they’re sad.”

  “Jesus, Barry.”

  “Just think on it. And then we’ll have that kid over to the house and I’ll teach Jonah my friend moves.”

  “Hey, let’s swim more tonight!” Jonah said. “Maybe you can time me with one of your watches?”

  Layla had to teach an evening class. “Can I come with you?” Barry asked her.

  The boy looked down at his flauta.

  “Don’t worry,” Barry said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  —

  ON THE way to her class, Layla told Barry she thought that the students at UTEP were better and smarter than their classmates had been at Princeton. She felt they would live more fulfilling lives. “These kids who show up at the Ivies, they’re already destroyed,” she said. “For them college is just this four-year interval to hammer in the notion that they tower over the rest of humanity. A working mother in my class feels more passion about learning than we ever did.”

  Barry disagreed. Princeton was the best thing that could have happened to him. He told her he could never have scaled the heights of finance without Princeton. He probably could never have married someone as young and pretty and credentialed as Seema, though he kept that part to himself.

  When they arrived, the large, slightly down-at-the-heels lecture hall was filled to capacity. Barry figured there were at least a hundred kids in the room. There were lots of pink JanSport bags and unironic Nike caps. Barry made his way to the back of the amphitheater-shaped room so that he could look down at Layla doing her thing. She wore a clingy floral blouse with a sober white blazer. He thought that maybe she had dressed up for him. She was unspeakably hot to him right now.

  Layla’s Holocaust class was intense and super interdisciplinary. She threw everything she could at the subject, from statistical modeling to a short film to a philosopher named Adorno. She was a mentor now, and her students loved and obeyed her. They raised their hands shyly, their voices shaky at times, their academic English still tentative and unsure. She cut students off by pointing her index finger at them and saying, “Nicely put. Anyone else?” Or if she really wanted to get tough: “I can’t say I agree.”

  The students went on these long Chicano arcs about their transborder lives. The woman next to him, in her early thirties by the looks of her, had an uncle, a repair-shop owner in Juárez, who was kidnapped by a cartel gang for not paying a cuota, and they took out his nails one by one until family members in El Paso paid up. “It takes that girl two hours to get to class across the border,” Layla told him afterward. “Many of these kids have lost people.” Layla always circled back to the 1930s and 1940s, but she let the students have some rope when it came to their own lives. Corruption, moral and otherwise, formed a ready subject. A shop owner paying a cuota, a Nazi-era Jew being divested of her property, a Cambodian having his glasses knocked off his face by a Pol Pot thug. Slides came and went. Cattle cars. The Rwandan killing fields. Guatemala. One showed a cartoon of a big-lipped frog smiling as a gang of men in hoods raped a heavily bespectacled woman, shouting for mercy. “This is what happens to race traitors on November 9,” the caption read, followed by “#MAGA.” The class gasped audibly. Barry was shocked. Apart from the cruel and crude imagery, this was the same frog he had seen on Layla’s laptop. Had she been getting messages like this, too?

  “Who knows who this is?” Layla asked, pointing at the frog.

  Maybe two dozen hands went up. “And who’s regularly on Twitter?” About the same number of hands went up.

  “It’s Pepe the Frog,” one of several Mexican emo girls in the class explained. “He’s a white-supremacist symbol.”

  “And what does ‘MAGA’ stand for?” Layla asked.

  “Make America Great Again.”

  They launched into a discussion of social media. It was draining. He noticed that there was a profound difference between the freshman and the more senior students in the class, who were quite eloquent. At Princeton, the students were ready from day one, but many of the incoming UTEP kids seemed unprepared for college. Layla took nothing for granted and explained every term. “ ‘Aesthetics’ is a complicated way to talk about beauty,” she said at one point, and then went right back to MAGA and Pepe the Frog. Barry wished she would get off the topic of social media and show another film on the Adorno guy, say something authoritative about the six million dead.

  No matter what topic Layla seemed to focus on, Barry could see that the kids remained distracted by the Nazi rape cartoon, which still dominated the overhead projection. One of the first-year kids, a white boy with a buzz cut, kept trying to defend freedom of speech. He had a lot of pop culture at his disposal. “My uncle always says there are more Lieutenant Dans than Forrest Gumps,” he kept repeating. Barry hadn’t a clue what that meant. “Maybe it’s some rich teenager having a goof in his parents’ basement,” he said of the frog cartoon. Barry could feel Layla’s anger rising, but he was getting angry, too. He had read about these new pro-Trump fascist memes as they called them even back in New York before he left, but now the ugliness was right in front of him and these kids. What was the point of that? Surely this stuff would pass once Hillary was elected and everything went back to normal. He felt it was unseemly for Layla to show her students something that affected her personally. How could you equate the Holocaust with a crudely drawn frog?

  The kid with the buzz cut was persistent, and Layla eventually had to cut him off.

  “Well, I think you’re just wrong,” she finally said. The class gasped. Evidently, Layla never rebutted a student this way. “Okay, I respectfully think you’re wrong,” she added. “And please let’s not mention Forrest Gump for the rest of the semester.” This was supposed to be a joke, and her more loyal adherents tittered. “Where was I?” Layla said.

  “Professor Hayes,” a Latina girl sitting next to Barry said, “could you take down that picture, please?” Yes, Barry thought.

  “Does it bother you?” Layla asked. Her pallid face was flushed.

  “It does,” the girl said.

  “But we just had a slide from the liberation of the Sobibór death camp,” Layla said. “The stacked corpses. That was up for at least twenty minutes. That didn’t bother you?” The girl was momentarily confused. “It’s okay,” Layla said. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I know this class can be very difficult on an emotional level. What about this particular cartoon bothers you?” The girl was silent. Barry followed the second hand of his Tudor. At least something in this world still made sense. “The Pepe the Frog rape scene is sickening and vile, but it’s a drawing,” Layla said. “The photographs we saw were actual human beings. There were one-point-five million children murdered by the Nazis. You didn’t mishear me.”

  “Yeah, but that stuff, it happen to people I know,” the girl said, pointing at the frog slide.

  “So it can happen to you,” Layla said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Maybe,” the girl said. “I don’t know.”

  Barry hoped Layla would show mercy, but he knew, from their three years of rhetorical combat at Princeton, that she
could not. “I’ll turn it off,” Layla said, “but before I do, I wanted to show you one last thing.” She scrolled up, past the frog drawing to show that it had been tweeted at the handle @Layla_E_Hayes. The class gasped again. “This cartoon was drawn with me in mind.”

  Barry wanted to punch someone, preferably a Nazi, but really anyone would do. Why didn’t she tell him? Why didn’t she share this burden with him? She didn’t take him seriously. She never had. All that bullshit about Princeton not being the best was really just cover for him not being the best. It was like she had lied to him all along.

  “But you don’t wear glasses,” the girl said.

  “Yes, but traditionally the enemies of the people wear glasses. Cue Pol Pot. By the way, this nice fellow, CommanderGoyToy is his handle, went to the trouble to find out that I had been married to a Jewish man and was thus a ‘race traitor.’ He also found out that I had a child, and some of his followers got in touch with him. I had to erase him from social media entirely.”

  “I still wouldn’t ban this GoyToy from Twitter,” Forrest Gump said. “ ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ That was Thomas Jefferson.”

  “No,” Layla said, “it was a woman named Evelyn Beatrice Hall.”

  Barry stewed in hurt and shock and anger for most of the car ride. He rolled down his window and desperately inhaled the cool evening air. Across the border, the chimneys of the maquiladora plants were releasing bursts of steam against a frenzied urban background, like in the opening sequence of Blade Runner. El Paso was the future. Or maybe it was Juárez.

  “What?” she finally said as they were approaching the trendy Mesa neighborhood. They passed a hipster coffee place made out of a bunch of shipping containers, which Layla frequented for their ancient-grains bowl.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s okay to be emotionally raw. That’s what the class is about.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” That came out louder than he wanted it. “I’m teaching Jonah how to swim and make friends, we’re talking about adopting Mexican kids together, but I’m still a stranger in your house. I could have done something.”

  “Really? What?”

  “I have a friend whose fund owns a lot of Twitter. He can do stuff to make those people go away. He’s what’s called an activist investor.”

  “I know what that is.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “I read up on stuff. You think I don’t know about Valupro?”

  Barry suddenly felt both numb and nauseated. “Oh,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  The nausea passed, but he still couldn’t locate his fingers or his feet. He breathed in and out slowly. “Here comes the morality police, I guess,” he said.

  “Did I say anything? I’ll be me and you be you. Just like back in college.”

  “Fine.”

  “What? Am I missing something?”

  “There’s just so much complexity in a trade like Valupro.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “So you hate me now?”

  “Are we still in the same car? Do I let you play with my kid? Am I fucking you every night?” Barry flinched, as if hit. She was an angrier person than Seema, always had been. How did he conveniently manage to forget that fact all these years?

  “I really don’t think you should look at Twitter anymore,” Barry said, trying to sound diplomatic and maybe a little hurt.

  “Because I can’t handle it?” Layla said. “It’s such a manly medium.”

  “No, just, maybe give it a rest a little bit. For your mental health.” She did not respond. Every time he looked over at her, he saw that hot blazer and the cool nape of her neck. He hated to admit it, but her anger and forcefulness aroused him. He wanted to kiss her. He had to find a way to calm her down.

  “Look, I thought you were amazing as a teacher,” he said, once they were lying in bed. “You didn’t mention Trump by name once, but that’s what the class was about.”

  She was checking her phone. Barry now recognized the scrolling-down-Twitter motion of her right thumb. Probably more of that Nazi shit. “Thanks,” she said. “But that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  Barry sighed. “I can’t win,” he said.

  “It’s all about winning.”

  “Can we talk about the fact that I taught Jonah how to swim today?”

  She started crying. “I’m a terrible mother,” she said. “I put my child in harm’s way.”

  He couldn’t keep up with her moods. “These people are psychopaths,” he said. “Did you call the police?”

  “They’re watching us,” Layla said. “Every hour of every day.”

  Barry sat up in the bed. “Who?” She wouldn’t answer.

  “And today I fucked up in class. I spoke down to them. They’re not fully getting this. And it’s so important that they get this.”

  “You can’t be held responsible for how this country votes.”

  “We’re all responsible.”

  “Especially me, right? Mr. Valupro. Taking away lifesaving medicines from dying kids.”

  “Is that what you think you did?”

  “Oh, fuck this, Layla. Why can’t we ever change?”

  She turned her back on him. They lay silently for a while, as they used to up in his room at the Tiger Inn. Suddenly she reached back and took his hand, guided it to her stomach and the mound of wiry pubic hair below. “I’m sorry,” Barry said. “I love you so much.” She shushed him.

  He found the base of her spine and softly massaged the vertebrae with his thumb. He kissed her neck, which still tasted young. He wanted to tell her how much she aroused him in class, at least before she put up that damn frog. This smart, powerful teacher in a white linen blazer covering her bare arms.

  When she turned around, her eyes were so wide, he thought she was going to yell at him. But that’s not what happened at all. Within seconds she was on top of him, pounding him into her bed, and then, just as abruptly, she was done. Never once did she look at him or offer him any affection. He was turned on like always, but her behavior felt like payback. Though, for what? Their college years? The shepherdess story? Goldman? Valupro? The whole fucking country circa 2016?

  They went out to the pool later, the pool where he had taught her boy how to swim, and tried to search out the thunderbird etched into the Franklins in the dusk.

  Something was howling in the arroyo, and something else was screeching. He wondered if he and Layla were getting closer or growing apart. “Let’s go to Juárez,” she said. “I know it’s important to you. You and your Hemingway and Fitzgerald. You were such a modernist loser in college. I’ll put together some people. We’ll do a day trip.”

  “I really do love you,” he said. “You and Jonah.”

  She looked at him miserably. They leaned in for a kiss, then she got out her phone. He could hear her thumb scrolling in the darkness.

  * * *

  —

  THEY HAD made plans to go to Mexico in a week. Before then, Jonah had a playdate with a boy named Menachem whose father had just been fired from the Wells Fargo downtown. Barry made sure Jonah got a haircut, something close and military that made him a bit more manly. Then they spent the whole weekend practicing his friend moves. “Do you want to be like me?” Barry said. “Lots of friends, conversing with everyone I meet?”

  “Ma-hum.”

  “Don’t say ‘Ma-hum,’ just say ‘Yeah,’ but like you don’t really mean it. And never start a sentence with ‘Do you know?’ Always wait for your friend to tell you what he likes instead, and then say, ‘That’s pretty cool,’ even if it’s not at all. And no map or train talk. I know, I know. Listen, I’d love to just run up to people and say, ‘Hey, is that an Omega Speedmaster pre-moon with alpha hands?’ But first you have
to know if they have the same passion as you. And most people don’t have very strong passions. Not like we do.”

  To Barry’s chagrin, Menachem did not seem overly concerned about his father’s firing from Wells Fargo. He was about half a foot taller than Jonah, curly haired, and funny and fierce. He spotted the basketball hoop over the garage and quickly demanded that they shoot hoops at once. “Did you know that I got hurt playing basketball once?” Jonah said. “I had to go to the ER.” Barry sighed and got out a basketball. He and Menachem did some layups while Jonah mostly watched. Things went better at the pool. Menachem’s family apparently didn’t have one, so the kid happily plunged in, shorts and T-shirt and all.

  “No diving!” Barry sang.

  “Let’s race!” Menachem shouted. He began pounding across the pool freestyle and beat Jonah decisively, but that seemed all right with Jonah. “You swim really cool,” he said, which wasn’t the best line, but seemed to make Menachem happy. Barry was pleased that Jonah exhibited so much fairness and courtesy. The kid would be just right for Princeton someday. Layla came out with cucumber sandwiches, a Waspy touch, but assured Menachem they were glatt kosher. The boys gobbled them down so fast it made Barry heartsick. Two hungry boys. This was his dream. These two should have been his children.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER LUNCH, the boys repaired to the Mapparium and closed the door behind them. An hour later, consumed with anxiety over Jonah’s social skills, Barry knocked. “Hey, fellas…” The two boys were hunched over Jonah’s computer and breathing heavily.

  “We’re on a map site!” Menachem shouted. All of Jonah’s trains were scattered on the ground, the first time Barry had seen them in such disarray. He leaned over their shoulders and studied the screen. Jonah had posted his Acela map in progress along with the innocent headline “This is my first posted map. Can you tell me how I can improve it?”

  The replies were insanely granular. There were hundreds if not thousands of fellow enthusiasts who knew Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor by heart and had many useful suggestions. One message, however, was from CommanderGoyToy: “Did you know your mother is a race traitor and your a halfbreed spawn?” Barry was outraged. Jonah was a nine-year-old kid! But Jonah said he was used to it. Menachem also shrugged. “He can’t even spell,” Jonah noted.