"I learned the lessons, and quick. You have a mouth, eat. A prick,yuc/:. A brain, wangle money. Never waste a minute thinking politics. And socialism? What are those two"—he points to the book illustrator and the Kandidat—"talking about? Oi, don't make me laugh."
The strange thing is, he continues, that the skinny postwar years could be a laugh if you had some wits and liked physical enjoyment. These rewards no longer tempt him, but it's too late to leave, even though he has a cousin in Massachusetts or could arrange an invitation from Israel. But Zhenya's right to go. Russia's satisfactions wear thin as a man wears out. . . .
The same Zhenya is thriftily stuffing the last of his dirty socks into a suitcase. Someone wonders aloud whether he'll succumb to copying groovy styles in the West, forfeiting his own artistic vision. If he becomes the darling of salons and foundations, another voice adds, his creative future is gloomy. Next, the concerned—and envious—gathering considers his chances of sustaining his helpless artist role to persuade people to pay his way. Even in Moscow, the bearded rebel made use of the Artists' Union's "creative retreats," always leaving early and scorning the "corrupting privileges," lest someone get the wrong idea. The young scrounger will become an old one, says someone out of Zhenya's earshot; but he'll strike rich veins along the way.
The party flags. Leaving for work, some of Zhenya's friends kiss him on the mouth; others walk away with an overcasual "so
The President's Day^321
long," affecting that they'll meet tomorrow. When his sister arrives, I say I must be off. Simultaneously exulting in and whining about his future, Zhenya Walks me up into the courtyard, a rare gesture of hospitality.
"See you in New York, old man. You can take me to a good dinner." His handshake crunches my bones. I don't mention the little pencil drawing he's often promised in return for small favors, or the superb one of the world floating in a lake that Anastasia forgot to take—and that I want even more.
"Yeah, good old New York." Although the thought of myself there, let alone Zhenya, sounds like more of his bull, I wish him good luck.
"And stop worrying. Smart operators—and with talent too— can't lose in the Big Tent."
Alyosha has asked me to lunch. To enjoy the scent of spring leaves instead of diesel fumes, I return by a back route to the peasant market, where I want to buy a contribution. After the strutting at Zhenya's, the market's ragtag population is a relief From a Mercedes parked outside, three spifFy African journalists make a grand appearance to select fresh vegetables for their dinner. A provincial lady remarks to her companion that a good Russian winter ought to whiten their cruddy skins.
Scrutinizing my obviously imported shoes, a wiry Georgian vendor sidles up to me in half-steps as if to offer feelthy pictures.
"Pssst," he buzzes, "wanna buy some . . . tomatoes? What's the look? I'm serious."
Several red spheres—yes, real tomatoes!—plop into his hand from their place of safekeeping in his smock sleeve. When I indicate interest in all five, a miniature scale appears from somewhere else, and I'm warned that the damage is five rubles, a skilled worker's daily wage. Encouraged by the transaction, the Georgian offers to show me a genuine cucumber.
No taxis are in sight outside the market, so I iiail passing cars with the sign that I'll pay the standard ruble for delivery in central Moscow. The driver who stops is at the wheel of a new Volga belonging to one of the ubiquitous organizations known by a post-office box number because it is too secret even to be named. He comments on the sun and his fishing, then describes
322^MOSCOW FAREWELL
last weekend's visit to his grandmother on a collective farm in the north, where, attempting a joke, he mentioned her starchy size and suggested she eat fewer potatoes.
"That's not funny. We haven't seen a potato in months."
The eighty-year-old lady's pension was too small even for bread. Only contributions from relatives and part-time work as a farm laborer enabled her to survive. . . . The driver was skeptical of his grandmother's peasant craftiness until he saw a young lad watching him eat his picnic pork. He'll return to the farm next weekend with sacks of potatoes bought in Moscow.
"Like taking a samovar to Tula, I guess." He smiles wryly and soon is enumerating his new car's defects in comparison to the Volvo he once drove for an embassy. Naturally, neither his grandmother's plight nor the Volga's flaws dent his cheerful conviction of Soviet superiority.
Alyosha is not home. He has recently erected a tin garage in the no-man's-land behind his courtyard for when the BMW of his fantasies replaces the Volga. On a crate inside is seated a hag who used to limp the street like a stray until Alyosha gave her use of the garage to warm her feet. Her muttering that Alyosha has been taken to the hospital sounds like her usual ranting.
Two new girls in summer dresses stroll across the courtyard, mount the stairs and ring Alyosha's bell. I can't persuade them to stay but they promise to telephone later. Walking around front again, I watch the thin traffic avoiding a cavity that has sundered the roadway since the first November freeze and thaw. Soon I'm waving to the Volga's pommeled nose as it appears in its standard place from behind the bend.
I notice a slight wanness to Alyosha's complexion, probably because he has to work this afternoon or had a boisterous night, but there is nothing exceptional in his hearty arm around my waist. After a sparser meal than usual, he remains in the bathroom for an unbantering twenty minutes, but this fits the pattern of his slight indisposition and meager appetite since March. As usual, we have shady business to transact. Although the two Jimi Hendrix records I've brought—they'll be well sold to a collector by the weekend—are not expressly illegal, we effect the exchange with the gestures, unfinished whispers and microphone-evading step onto the staircase that lend a sense of style to
The President's DayX323
our every meeting. Today's only missing element is the quip that would have set us laughing at the system and ourselves.
We are still on the stairs when up strides No-nickname Ira, whom I never see without thinking of her story. Her mother, a Jewess with a hysterical manner, was head of the French division of the Writers' Union's Foreign Department in the 1960s and also a KGB Colonel whose work included supervising the watch on French-speaking Africans visiting the country. In that capacity, she saw to it that the susceptibles met coached girls, and sometimes told her daughter about the excellent photographs she arranged of the ensuing action.
But Ira had no thought of this when, at fourteen, a young man stopped her on her way home from school, said she was extremely photogenic, and invited her to his studio to pose. Ira feared to tell her mother about the rape but a girl friend informed for her. The enraged Colonel saw to it that the rapist was sentenced not to the maximum seven years but, under the section of the law dealing with "extremely grave consequences," to death. Ira's discovery of this years later caused the final break with her mother, whom she never saw again. She lived her own life as a translator and wife to several successful husbands.
She has come now to find out whether a friend of Alyosha's who is going abroad will be free to buy some books for her in Paris. (Actually, I am that friend, but Alyosha thought it prudent not to mention this when he promised her.) Her smart spring suit prompts the thought that I've never seen her fully clothed before. But although willing to perform for us now, Alyosha alleges we must be off^ immediately to our afternoon appointments, and she retires in some puzzlement over not being invited in even for a glass of wine.
On time for once, we drive leisurely to the People's Court where Alyosha most often works. A former merchant's house, revolutionary headquarters, clinic and medical archive, the building has been repainted recently, but the smells of its hundred years linger in the corridors. The warm weather has lured pensioners outside to park benches, leaving only a handful to while away their day watching the spicier cases. Alyosha's is in a former maid's room rigged with three benches for spectators. His client is suing to have the room that she and her recently