Absurdistan

by Gary Shteyngart

  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 nothing, 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. “Absurdsvanï 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 SVANÏ 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 Svanï 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 Svanï 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, Svanï 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 Svanï 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 Alyosha-Bob 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-and-response. 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.
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  “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 English letters on camouflage.

  “Get your manservant and your laptop. And your Belgian passport, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Fall of Saigon, ’75.”

  “Je ne comprends pas.”

  “Shake a limb, Snack. We’re gonna make a run for the embassy.”

  The U.S. ARMY had arrived in Svanï 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. And: PLEASE LET ME GO WITH YOU—SECRET POLICE WILL DIE ME, BECAUSE I POLITICAL AGAINST DEBIL KANUK DICTATOR. And: WE HALLIBURTON, KBR #1, GO HOUSTON ROCKETS! And: 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, “Cysts! Deadly cysts! She needs emergency medical care at Cedars-Sinai. My mother will be your mother! Take her away from me!” The black-clad mama (a near-double of her son, only with her whiskers more expertly cropped) shouted back, “No, no, I won’t go! He won’t live without me! He doesn’t know how to live. He’s an idiot.”

  We spotted Josh Weiner scurrying around behind several marine guards, dribbling saliva into his cellular phone and waving around a clipboard. “Weiner!” Alyosha-Bob shouted. “Class of ’94!”

  Weiner flashed us a bullshit grin and waved the clipboard, then pointed to his watch to indicate he was busy. “Oh, come on!” Alyosha-Bob shouted. “Don’t make me write to the alumni newsletter!”

  The diplomat sighed, slammed shut his phone, and came over to us. “Say, what’s the deal here, Joshie?” Alyosha-Bob said, putting a friendly hand into the crook of Weiner’s arm. “Think we can get our asses on that whirlybird?”

  “What kind of citizenship does he have?” Weiner said, gesturing my way but not looking me in the face. The State Department always deals with me in the third person.

  “Misha’s an EU citizen,” Alyosha-Bob said. “He’s a Belgian.”

  “For right now, they’re just letting Americans go up,” Weiner said.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it, Joshie. I’ll just die here like your friend Sakha.”

  “Take it easy, Misha,” Alyosha-Bob said.

  “That’s not fair,” Weiner said.

  “Hey, Joshie, did you file the protest?” I said.

  “What protest?”

  “You told me you were going to file a protest. Remember? Right before they shot Sakha. How’s that protest going for you? Any word yet?”

  “Oh, whatever, Snack Daddy,” Weiner said. “Keep thinking it’s all my fault. I’m just a low-level State Department employee. You think I actually save people’s lives? You think I’m Oskar fucking Schindler? I did everything I could for Sakha. He ripped us off left and right, too. That Zegna tie was just the tip of it. He ‘borrowed’ baby formula from the commissary, and he used improper channels to get his niece a scholarship at Penn State. And that’s just what we know about. These people are operators. Don’t kid yourself.”

  I took a step toward Weiner, an aggressive step, but Alyosha-Bob’s body was already between us. “You know something, Snack?” Weiner said, backing away from me quickly. “Go ahead. Get the fuck out of here. I really don’t care anymore. Go eat Cheetos by the ton and have your belly rubbed by freshmen. Just don’t consider me your friend, all right? Because you never were.”

  He waved us through toward the line of fully accredited Americans queuing at the foot of the ExxonMobil Building, bewildered-looking embassy families toting precious duffel bags, oilmen garrulously sharing in the fun of evacuation, slapping one another on the back and fondly recalling the Hyatt’s full-tilt prostitutes.

  “Hey, big boy,” one of these specimens shouted at me. “Hey, scumbag.”

  Big boy? Scumbag? I put both hands between my chests to indicate having taken affront. Before me stood a bowlegged orangutan in drawstring shorts and a U.S.S. Nimitz cap.

  “Roger Daltrey,” he spat at me.

  “Who?” I said. The name reminded me of a band member of some famous U.S. or British rock-and-roll band, but all my musical references were modern and focused on hip-hop and multiculturalism. “Who’s Roger Daltrey?”

  “You don’t even know, do you?” said my antagonist, doffing his cap so that a halo of deeply receding red hair floated above him to match his angry words. “You fucking Russians don’t even remember who you kill. Fucking animals.”

  “Oh, shit,” Alyosha-Bob said, once again thrusting his small frame between me and my tormentor.

  “What?” I said.

  “Oh, shit,” Alyosha-Bob said again, the repetition dull yet meaningful in my ears.

  “Your father killed my uncle,” the American explained. “Over nothing. Over a rat farm.”

  “Huh?” I was dizzy with confusion and low blood sugar. What was he talking about? The Oklahoma businessman? The one Papa allegedly had executed in Petersburg? “But you’re not from Oklahoma,” I said. “You sound like you’re working-class New Jersey. Are you sure you’re related? The Oklahoma guy was supposed to be educated.”

  “What did you say, asshole?” the putative relative of the dead Oklahoman Roger Daltrey shouted at me. “What did you say to my face? I’m uneducated?”

  “Shut up, Misha,” Alyosha-Bob growled at me. “Shut up and stay calm.”

  “You know, I Googled your father,” the Daltrey relative said, “and he was just a total prick. Assholes like him ruined your country and ruined this one, too. They should send all of you to the Hague, stand you up on war-crimes charges.”

  A cry dislodged itself from somewhere between my sternum and my groin, from someplace wet and lonely and orphaned. I found myself lapsing into the heavily accented English of my first years in the States as I shouted, “BELOVED PAPA WAS NO TOTAL PRICK!”

  And with those words, I reached past Alyosha-Bob and clipped the American on the side of the head, one ferocious squishy bear paw striking him someplace relatively soft and unbreakable, not far removed from the small clump of brain that kept his vitals going.

  My antagonist collapsed immediately and started roaring with shame and pain. Momentarily, Josh Weiner and his superiors were on the scene, men in pressed shirts and sober ties who held me back from th
e violence that had instantaneously gone out of me. “Beloved Papa was no total prick,” I said quietly, nodding in affirmation. “He was a Jewish dissident. A man of conscience.”

  “My uncle has three children,” the American groaned. “Three orphaned children, you fat useless fuck.”

  “We’re sorry about all this,” Alyosha-Bob beseeched the diplomatic staff and the arriving marines. “My friend lost his temper. He’s a Belgian, that’s all.”

  “Sir,” the tallest and grayest of the diplomats told me, “we have to ask you to leave the embassy grounds.”

  I looked into his officious face, smooth and hard like an actor’s or a politician’s. “These are Exxon grounds,” I said miserably.

  “You’re the son of Boris Vainberg,” the older diplomat said. “I know all about you. There’s no way I’m letting you board a United States aircraft.”

  “He’s nothing like his father,” Alyosha-Bob said. “He’s not a killer. He studied multiculturalism at Accidental College. Weiner, tell them.” He looked around for our classmate, but Josh Weiner was nowhere to be found.

  “You go on without me,” I told Alyosha-Bob. “There’s no reason for you to stay here. Go. I’ll find a way out of here myself.”

  “You’ll die here,” Alyosha-Bob said. “You don’t understand anything.”

  I looked at him, trying to decide if I should be angered by his remark. Did I understand anything? My understanding had limits, that was certain, but my friendship with Alyosha-Bob had none. My friend stood before me, pained and small—a thirty-one-year-old man who seemed older by twenty years, as if each year spent in Russia had cost him three years more. Why had he come here? Why had he decided to become my brother and safekeeper?

  “I miss Svetlana,” Alyosha-Bob said. “You never understood just how much I love her. You think it’s all just political economy in the end, but it’s not. You think she’s a passport whore, but she loves me more than you can know, more than any woman’s ever loved you.”