Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel

by Gary Shteyngart

  Oh God, I went to my cousin Nam Jun’s wedding and I had to say this like totally vomitatious speech to him and his fat halmoni bride. She’s like five years older than him and has ankles like redwoods. Slap a green visor and a perm on her, that ajumma is done! And the thing is they really love each other, all they kept doing is crying in each other’s arms and she kept feeding him ddok. Sick, I know, but I wonder how I could learn to love somebody like that. Sometimes I walk around as if in a dream, like I’m on the outside looking in, and Gopher and my parents and my brothers are just these ghosts floating past me. Oh, and at the wedding there were all these adorable little girls all painted like cats and wearing little gowns and they kept chasing this little boy around and trying to wrestle him down and I thought of your little cousin Myong-hee. She must be what three by now? I miss her so much I may just drop by your cousin’s house and squeeze her to death! Anyway, welcome home, sweet poontang of mine. Big California kiss your way.

  JUNE 19

  EUNI-TARD: Sally, are you bidding on the gray ankle boots on Padma?

  SALLYSTAR: How did you know?

  EUNI-TARD: Duh, you’re my sister. And they’re size 30. Anyway, stop bidding, we’re completing against each other.

  EUNI-TARD: Oops. COMPETING against each other.

  SALLYSTAR: Mom wanted the olive ones, but they didn’t have her size.

  EUNI-TARD: I’m going to check out the Retail Corridor at Union Square. Don’t get the olive. You have an apple-shaped body so you should wear only dark below the waist and NEVER, NEVER wear empire-waist tops, which make you look totally top-heavy.

  SALLYSTAR: You’re back in the States?

  EUNI-TARD: Don’t sound so excited. Are you in D.C.?

  SALLYSTAR: Yeah, we just got off the bus. It’s crazy here. There are all these National Guard troops that just got back from Venezuela and they didn’t get the Service Bonus they were promised so they’re marching on the Mall with all their guns.

  EUNI-TARD: WITH THEIR GUNS??? Sally, maybe you should like LEAVE.

  SALLYSTAR: No, it’s okay. They’re actually pretty nice. It’s not fair what the Bipartisans are doing to them. Do you know how many of them died in Ciudad Bolivar? And do you know many of them are like mentally and physically screwed up for life? So what if the government’s broke? What are they going to do about our troops? They have a responsibility. This is what happens when there’s only one party in charge and we live in a police state. Yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to talk like that over Teens.

  EUNI-TARD: Sally, this is ridiculous. Why can’t you march in New York? I’ll march with you if you want, but I don’t want you doing these crazy things by yourself.

  SALLYSTAR: Have you been to the house yet? I didn’t hear anything from Mommy.

  EUNI-TARD: No. Soon. I don’t want to see dad just yet. Has he been talking about me?

  SALLYSTAR: No, but he’s sulking for some reason and we can’t figure out why.

  EUNI-TARD: Who cares?

  SALLYSTAR: I think Uncle Joon is coming.

  EUNI-TARD: Great, dad will have to give him money and he’ll just go to Atlantic City and blow it all. Like dad’s practice has been doing so well that he can afford it.

  SALLYSTAR: Where are you staying?

  EUNI-TARD: Remember that girl Joy Lee?

  SALLYSTAR: From Long Beach? The one who had the armadillo?

  EUNI-TARD: She lives downtown now.

  SALLYSTAR: Fancy.

  EUNI-TARD: Not really. It’s by some projects. But don’t worry, it’s safe.

  SALLYSTAR: Reverend Suk’s Crusade is next month. You should come.

  EUNI-TARD: I hope you’re joking.

  SALLYSTAR: If you don’t want to come to the house you can at least see your family. And maybe you can meet someone. There’s tons of Korean guys at the Crusade.

  EUNI-TARD: How do you know I’m still not with Ben?

  SALLYSTAR: The white guy from Rome?

  EUNI-TARD: Yeah WHITE guy. Wow, Barnard’s really opened your mind.

  SALLYSTAR: Don’t be sarcastic. I hate that.

  EUNI-TARD: Can’t I just see you and talk to you without having to go to some stupid Geejush event? When are you coming home?

  SALLYSTAR: Tomorrow. Want to have dinner at Madangsui tomorrow?

  EUNI-TARD: Minus dad.

  SALLYSTAR: K.

  EUNI-TARD: Love you, Sally! Call me the minute you get out of DC and let me know you’re safe.

  SALLYSTAR: I love you too.

  EUNI-TARD TO LABRAMOV:

  Lenny,

  I’m going out shopping, if you come home and the delivery comes, can you please make sure the milk is antibiotic-free not just fat-free this time and that they didn’t forget the Lavazza Qualità Oro Espresso. Then put the veal and the whole branzino in the fridge and set the white peaches out on the countertop, I’ll take care of them later. Don’t forget to put the fish and veal in the fridge, Lenny! And if you’re going to do the dishes please wipe down the countertop. You always leave water all over the place. You’re worried about roaches and water bugs, what do you think they’re attracted to? Have a good day, nerd-face.

  Eunice

  THE NUCLEAR OPTION

  FROM THE DIARIES OF LENNY ABRAMOV

  JUNE 25

  Dear Diary,

  I learned how to say “elephant” in Korean this week.

  We went to the Bronx Zoo, because Noah Weinberg said on his stream that the ARA was going to close the place down and ship all the animals to Saudi Arabia “to die of heatstroke.” I never know which part of Noah’s streams to believe, but, the way we live now, you can never be too sure. We had fun with the monkeys and “José the Beaver” and all the smaller animals, but the highlight was this beautiful savannah elephant named Sammy. When we ambled up to his humble enclosure, Eunice grabbed my nose and said, “Kokiri.”

  “Ko,” she explained, “means ‘nose.’ Kokiri. Long nose. ‘Elephant’ in Korean.”

  “I hab a long dose because I’m Jewish,” I said, trying to pull her hand off my face. “Dere’s duthing I can do aboud it.”

  “You’re so sensitive, Lenny,” she said, laughing. “I heart your nose so much. I wish I had a nose.” And she started kissing my comma of a snout in full view of the pachyderm, going gently up and down the endless thing with her tough little lips. As she did so, I locked eyes with the elephant, and I watched myself being kissed in the prism of the elephant’s eye, the giant hazel apparatus surrounded with flecks of coarse gray eyebrow. He was twenty-five, Sammy, at the middle of his lifespan, much like I was. A lonely elephant, the only one the zoo had at the moment, removed from his compatriots and from the possibility of love. He slowly flicked back one massive ear, like a Galician shopkeeper of a century ago spreading his arms as if to say, “Yes, this is all there is.” And then it occurred to me, lucky me mirrored in the beast’s eye, lucky Lenny having his trunk kissed by Eunice Park: The elephant knows. The elephant knows there is nothing after this life and very little in it. The elephant is aware of his eventual extinction and he is hurt by it, reduced by it, made to feel his solitary nature, he who will eventually trample his way through bush and scrub to lie down and die where his mother once trembled at her haunches to give him life. Mother, aloneness, entrapment, extinction. The elephant is essentially an Ashkenazi animal, but a wholly rational one—it too wants to live forever.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Eunice. “I don’t want kokiri to see you kissing my nose like that. It’ll only make him sadder.”

  “Aw,” she said. “You’re so sweet to animals, Len. I think that’s a good sign. My dad had a dog once and he really took care of her.”

  Yes, diary, so many good signs! Such a positive week. Progress on every front. Hitting most of the important categories. Lov[ing] Eunice (Point No. 3), Be[ing] Nice to Parents (Within Limits) (Point No. 5), and Work[ing] Hard for Joshie (No. 1). I’ll get to our (yes, our!) visit with the Abramovs in a second, but let me give you a little breakdown on the wo
rk situation.

  Well, the first thing I did at Post-Human Services was march into the Eternity Lounge and talk to the guy in the red bandana and SUK DIK suit, who put me on his stream “101 People We Need to Feel Sorry For,” Darryl from Brown, who stole my desk while I was in Rome. “Hey, guy,” I said. “Look, I appreciate the attention, but I got this new girlfriend with 780 Fuckability”—I had made sure to put an Image of Eunice I had taken at the zoo front and center on my äppärät screen—“and I’m kind of, like, trying to play it real coolio with her. So would you mind taking me off your stream?”

  “Fuck you, Rhesus,” the young fellow said. “I do whatever I want. You’re not, like, my parent. And even if you so were my parent I’d still tell you to go plug yourself.”

  As before, cute young people were laughing at our interaction, their laughter slow and thick and full of educated malice. I was frankly too stunned to reply (I was of the opinion that I was slowly befriending the SUK DIK guy), and even more stunned when my co-worker Kelly Nardl stepped out from behind the fasting-glucose tester, her arms crossed over the redness of her neck and chest, her chin glistening with alkalized water. “Don’t you dare talk to Lenny like that, Darryl,” she said. “Who do you think you are? What, just because he’s older than you? I can’t wait to see you hit thirty. I’ve seen your charts. You’ve got major structural damage from when you were into heroin and carbs, and your whole stupid Boston family is predisposed to alcoholism and whatever the fuck. You think your metabolism is just going to keep you skinny like that forever? Minus the exercise? When was the last time I saw you working out at ZeroMass or No Body? You are going to age fast, my friend.” She took me by the arm. “Come on, Lenny,” she said.

  “It’s just because he used to be a buddy of Joshie’s,” Darryl shouted after us. “You think that gives you a right to defend him? I’m going to tell on both of you to Howard Shu.”

  “He didn’t used to be a buddy of Joshie’s,” Kelly growled at him, and how delightful she looked when enraged, those fierce American eyes, the forthrightness of her tremendous jaw. “They’re still friends. If it weren’t for Original Gangsters like Lenny, there would be no Post-Human Services and you wouldn’t have your fat salary and benefits, and you’d probably be getting an M.F.A. in so-called art and design at SUNY Purchase right about now, you little turd. So be thankful to your elders or I will fuck you up.”

  We both left the Eternity Lounge proud and confused, as if we had stood up to some crazed, violent child, and I ended up thanking Kelly for half an hour, until she kindly told me to shut up. I worried that Darryl would tell Howard Shu, who would tell Joshie, who would get upset that Kelly was stressing Darryl out, the stressing out of Darryl types a big no-no in our organization. “I don’t care,” she said, “I’m thinking about quitting anyway. Maybe I’ll move back to S.F.” The idea of leaving Post-Human Services, of giving up on Indefinite Life Extension and eking out a small hairy lifetime in the Bay Area, seemed to me tantamount to plunging off the Empire State Building with such mass and velocity that the myriad of safety nets would snap beneath you until your skull knew the pavement. I massaged Kelly’s shoulders. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t even think about it, Kel. We’re going to stick by Joshie forever.”

  But Kelly never got reprimanded. Instead, when I walked into our synagogue’s main sanctuary one humid morning, Little Bobby Cohen, the youngest Post-Human staffer (I think he’s nineteen years old at the most), approached me wearing a kind of saffron monk getup. “Come with me, Leonard,” he said, his Bar Mitzvah voice straining under the profundity of what he was about to do.

  “Oh, what’s all this?” I asked, my heart pumping blood so hard my toes hurt.

  As he led me to a tiny back office where, judging by the sweet-briny smell, the former synagogue’s gefilte-fish supply was stored, Little Bobby sang: “May you live forever, may you never know death, may you float like Joshie, on a newborn’s breath.”

  My God! The Desking Ceremony.

  And there it was, surrounded by a dozen staffers and our leader (who hugged and kissed me)—my new desk! As Kelly fed me a ceremonial garlic bulb, followed by some sugar-free niacin mints, I surveyed all the pretty young people who had doubted me, all those Darryls and friends of Darryls, and I felt the queasy, mercurial justice of the world. I was back! My Roman failures were near-erased. Now I could begin again. I ran out into the synagogue’s sanctuary, where The Boards were noisily registering my existence, the droning but comforting sound of the letters “LENNY A.” flipping into place at the very bottom of one of the boards, along with my last blood work—not so hot—and the promising mood indicator “meek but cooperative.”

  My desk. All three square feet of it, shiny and sleek, full of text and streams and Images rising up from its digital surface, a desk probably worth the 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars I still owed Howard Shu. Ignoring the Eternity Lounge as if it were now beneath me, I spent the bulk of my working week at my desk, opening up several data streams at once so that I resembled a man too busy to bother with socializing.

  Affecting a god-like air—my Eunice-kissed proboscis pointed toward the ceiling, both hands caressing the data in front of me, as if ready to make man out of clay—I scanned the files of our prospective Life Lovers. Their white, beatific, mostly male faces (our research shows that women are more concerned with taking care of their progeny than with living forever) flashed before me, telling me about their charitable activities, their plans for humanity, their concern for our chronically ill planet, their dreams of eternal transcendence with like-minded yuan billionaires. I guessed that the last time they had been so painfully dishonest was when they penned their applications to Swarthmore forty years earlier.

  I picked out the profiles that appealed the most to me, some for the usual financial, intellectual, or “durability” (health) reasons, but others because they could not keep the fear out of their eyes, the fear that, for all the wealth and sinecures they had amassed, for all their supplicating children and grandchildren, the end was irreversible, the lapse into the void a tragedy before which all tragedies were scandalously trite, their progeny a joke, their accomplishments a drop of fresh water in a salty ocean. I scanned the good cholesterol and the bad, the estrogen buildups and the financial crack-ups, but mostly I was looking for the equivalent of Joshie’s funny limp: An admission of weakness and insignificance; an allusion to the broad unfairness and cosmic blundering of the universe we inhabit. And an intense desire to set it right.

  One of my Intakes, let’s call him Barry, ran a small Retail empire in the Southern states. He looked suitably cowed by what Howard Shu must have told him before he was handed over to me. We accepted, on average, 18 percent of our High Net Worth applicants, our dreaded rejection letter still sent out by actual post. The Intake lasted a while. Barry, trying to subdue any remaining trace of his Alabama drawl, wanted to sound knowledgeable about our work. He asked about cellular inspection, repair, and reconstruction. I painted him a three-dimensional picture of millions of autonomous nanobots inside his well-preserved squash-playing body, extracting nutrients, supplementing, delivering, playing with the building blocks, copying, manipulating, reprogramming, replacing blood, destroying harmful bacteria and viruses, monitoring and identifying pathogens, reversing soft-tissue destruction, preventing bacterial infection, repairing DNA. I tried to remember how enthusiastic I had been upon first joining Joshie’s enterprise as an NYU senior. I used my hands a lot, the way the faded Roman actors had done at da Tonino, the restaurant where I had taken Eunice and fed her the spicy eggplant. “How soon?” Barry asked, visibly excited by my excitement. “When will all this be possible?”

  “We’re almost there,” I said, despairing. The 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars I owed Howard Shu would be deducted on the first of the next month. That money was supposed to be my deposit for the first of many beta dechronification treatments. Forget my name on The Boards. The train was pulling out of the station and I was running behind it, my sui
tcase half open, white underwear spilling comically along the platform.

  I took Barry all the way over to the wasteland of York Avenue to our research center, the ten-story slab of concrete that once served as an adjunct to a large hospital. It was time for him to meet out Indians. We have this Cowboys and Indians theme going on at Post-Human Services. At the Life Lovers Outreach division we call ourselves Cowboys; the “Indians” are the actual research staff, mostly on loan from the Subcontinent and East Asia, housed at an eighty-thousand-square-foot facility on York and at three satellite locations in Austin, Texas; Concord, Massachusetts; and Portland, Oregon.

  The Indians keep things pretty simple. There really isn’t much to see in the areas to which visitors are allowed—basically the same thing you see in any office—young people with äppäräti, immune to the rest of the world, maybe the occasional glass cage filled with mice or some kind of spinning thingamabob. Two of our most sociable guys, both named Prabal, came out to greet him from the cancer and viral labs and burdened him with yet more terminology while letting out a few practiced promos: “We’re past the alpha testing, Mr. Barry. I’d say we’re definitely at the beta stage.”

  Back at the synagogue, I gave Barry the willingness-to-live test. The H-scan test to measure the subject’s biological age. The willingness-to-persevere-in-difficult-conditions test. The Infinite Sadness Endurance Test. The response-to-loss-of-child test. He must have sensed how much was at stake, his sharp WASP-y beak aquiver as the Images were projected against his pupils, the results streaming on my äppärät. He would do anything to persevere. He was saddened by life, by the endless progression from one source of pain to another, but not more than most. He had three children and would cling to them forever, even if his present-day bank account would not be able to preserve more than two for eternity. I entered “Sophie’s Choice” on my intake äppärät, a major problem as far as Joshie was concerned.