What a mensch, said the pirate. How many men do you know who spoil their wives like that? Women in this country are lucky not to spend half their lives with a black eye. Do you know when was the last time I made breakfast for my wife? I’m really asking, because I don’t. I’m not even entirely sure what number wife I’m on, or if she eats. And this is a literary man we’re talking about, the greatest poet — not just in Odessa, mind you, but in all of the former SSSR!
The pirate didn’t stop. While he spoke and gesticulated and let the ends of his mustache stab the air, he glanced intermittently into the corridor to see if Pasha was returning. He needed to be saved from his own performance. At some point Pasha had been gone too long. The pirate destroyed the cracker monument he’d been erecting and fell silent.
Of course, if Pasha expended even a tenth of the effort he does with Sveta to the outside world, the pirate said quietly, who knows, he might not be in this predicament.
Is it dire? asked Frida.
Yes and no — it depends on what he wants.
And what is that?
Do you think Pasha has a clue what he wants himself?
A glass of mineral water would be nice, said Pasha, finding pleasure everywhere this morning.
Treacherous heat notwithstanding, they decided to venture out for a stroll. There were too many of them, no air-conditioning. The apartment’s single window, a porthole situated over the sink, was reminiscent of a jail-cell aperture in that it served a strictly psychological function. Besides, Frida had just arrived — wasn’t she curious to take a look around? Mark Twain had been. There was the Opera House, Potemkin Steps, Vorontsov Palace, Railway Station. With every additional proper noun plucked from the air, Frida felt more jet-lagged. Odessa had more obligatory sights than London, Paris, and Rome combined. How could one miss out on seeing the building in which Ilf and Petrov were born, the synagogue that Babel may have once set foot in, the synagogue that Babel would never have set foot in, the Pushkin monument, the hidden Pushkin mementos, the black velvet drape where a Caravaggio used to hang? Luckily, there was time. If it was used wisely, Frida might be able to see a fair amount. The information was contradictory to say the least. Odessa was a backwater town, delusional province, cultural wasteland, Pasha said as much, yet Frida’s twelve-day visit wasn’t enough to cover everything. A hollow shell of a city, claimed the patron saint himself, but Frida was clearly at fault for not displaying a sufficient measure of curiosity toward it. Was her presence there not curiosity enough?
The pirate, who outside Frida’s thoughts went by Tochka, wasn’t made for the heat. He promptly began to melt. First his mustache became a viscous puddle that migrated south and poured drip by agonizing drip off his chin, staining the soaked-to-transparency dress shirt, the ruffles of which had wilted. Decomposing eyebrows obstructed vision, making it rather a challenge to ambulate. Nobody was very surprised when he muttered an unintelligible excuse and veered perpendicular on a side street. Pasha didn’t appear to notice that their party had shrunk. His heels scraped the pavement. Sveta bounced alongside. Frida craned her neck, occasionally making an affirmative throat sound or venturing an architecture-related inquiry. The answers got lost somewhere. The surroundings were blurred by exhaustion and gastric discomfort (Sveta had made lunch; report on cooking not positive). Frida was cotton-mouthed and angry with herself. The people they passed either looked at Pasha and uttered cordial hellos or looked at Pasha and whispered something to their companions. All signs pointed to the fact that Pasha’s eyes were open and functional — he heeded curbs, avoided dog poop (sometimes), paused at stop signs — but he gave no hint of noticing the people who noticed him. Those who greeted him and those who didn’t received the same treatment — namely, no response at all, not even an ear twitch. Impenetrably sullen, he scraped onward. Frida shot a pleading look at Sveta. You had to give it to her, Sveta tried her best — she pulled Pasha’s beard, tickled the mossy nape of his neck, bit his shoulder, gnawed at his elbow, none of which revived the walking corpse.
They entered a small park, following a narrow, swerving path lined with reassuring oaks that opened out onto a square with a cathedral and a fountain, and Frida felt a swell. I remember this! she cried.
The Sobornaya? clarified Sveta.
Ded took me here. I rode those swings. We fed two sad goats right there by that statue.
Full-scale renovation three years ago, said Pasha. When you left, there was nothing here but a dilapidated cathedral — no swings, no statue, and I greatly doubt the goats.
They did a nice job, though, didn’t they? said Sveta. They even put in trash cans. Not nearly enough, but it’s a start.
• • •
IT WAS THE SORT of place that required an introducer. Frida could’ve passed by fifty times without noticing. If asked, she’d guess that in its place was a post office, but this would be pure speculation. Though Gogol Street was rather touristy, the particular door was locked by a visual code, rendering it invisible to nonnatives. Not that inside it was anything special. Tables, chairs, a leathery man dozing with one pant leg slung over the other in the far corner. All cafés had that far corner, which belonged to the people you could never become. Perhaps the only notable aspect was the lack of distinguishing characteristics. No decorative flourishes, no menu innovations. It was like a café of the spiritual realm, everything understood implicitly.
Nobody bothered to take Frida’s order. She was still in the doorway when the prominent waiter brought her a giant glass, more of a vase, jammed with behemoth ice cubes, and several glass bottles of Coca-Cola. The others got small glasses, sans ice, filled with any beverage of their choosing. They had vast and varied preferences — black currant juice, kvass, Borjomi water, Tarkhun, an aloe-lemon concoction, bilberry mors — all of which were in need of diluting; for those purposes there were bottles of vodka and cognac. If that sounds like a lot of drinks for the three of them, it’s because it wasn’t the three of them. The café into which Pasha had led them happened to be packed with his friends — an international group, poets hailing from Petersburg, New York, Berlin, Zurich, Bucharest, Vienna, even Australia. They’d been trickling into Odessa over the past day for the upcoming Conference of Literature, which was just a convenient stop before the main event, a dress rehearsal for the larger, grander, more refined and much-awaited Russian-Georgian poetry festival, Dreams of Georgia, held in Tbilisi, Batumi, Rustavi, and Tskaltubo.
Is that why you’re here? Are you a poetess yourself? asked a smiley man with psoriatic streaks across his cheeks.
Oh, no, not at all, not me, said Frida, in a hurry to clarify, as if the possibility of being momentarily mistaken for one were inadmissible, an offense to the very concept of poet, though the way it came off was that it would be an offense to Frida’s conception of herself. Everything seemed to fluster her, as if she’d never encountered the likes of it before. She was finding it impossible not to act frazzled in all instances. Or worse yet, disproportionately impressed. But this was just a guise, was it not? She was giving off an entirely wrong impression, unable to locate the correct one. I’m here for my cousin’s wedding, she told the man as he fiddled with the saltshaker. Pasha’s my uncle.