would happen in due course.
“Speaking of America,” Alyosha-Bob said. “Listen, Mishen’ka…” But instead of finishing, he hung his head in an alcoholic stupor.
“What is it, Alyosha?” I said, touching his hand. But my friend had drifted off into sleep. His little body could not take as much vodka as my larger one. We waited a few minutes for him to revive, which he did with a start. “Arumph!” he said. “Listen, Mishka. I had a drink with Barry from the American consulate, and I asked the big jerk…” His head slumped again. I tickled his nose with parsley. “I asked the big jerk if you could get a visa to the States now that your papa’s dead.”
My toxic hump throbbed with hope but also with the caveat that life could produce only disappointment. I burped quietly into my hand and prepared to wipe away the tear that would be forthcoming whether the news was good or bad. “And?” I whispered. “What did he say?”
“No go,” Alyosha-Bob mumbled. “They won’t let in the child of a murderer. The dead Oklahoman was politically connected, too. They love Oklahomans in the new administration. They want to make an example of you.”
The tear did not fall. But the anger found its way into my nostrils, from which it came out as a low, sonorous whistle. I picked up the fresh vodka bottle and threw it against a wall. It shattered in a brilliant show of light and clarity. The Mountain Eagle’s clientele fell silent, a dozen shaved heads glistening with midsummer sweat, the richer men looking toward their bodyguards with raised eyebrows, the bodyguards looking toward their fists. The Georgian restaurant manager peeked out from his office, took note of who I was, bowed respectfully in my direction, and motioned for the waitress to bring me another bottle.
“Easy, Snack,” Alyosha-Bob said.
“If you want to do something useful, throw a bottle at the Americans,” Ruslan the Enforcer said. “But make sure to light it first. Let them all burn to death. See if I care!”
“America I want,” I said, uncapping the new bottle and, in contravention of all drinking etiquette, pouring it right down my throat. “New York. Rouenna. Take her from behind. Empire State Building. Korean grocery. Salad bar. Laundromat.” I managed to stand up. The table spun around me in a fantasia of colors and textures—mutton parts hoisted on spits, egg yolks dripping into cheese pies, stews gurgling with sunflower oil and blood. How could a late-afternoon meal turn so violent? Who were these cretinous people around me? Everywhere I looked, I saw failure and despondency. “They want an example to make?” I said. “I
“Don’t go!” Alyosha-Bob shouted after me. “Misha! You’re not capable of action!”
“Am I not a man?” I shouted Beloved Papa’s popular refrain. And to my driver, Mamudov, I said: “Take me to the American consulate.”
The generals in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service have surely seen it all. Migrant Mexicans chased by coyotes across the Rio Grande. Pitch-black Africans sealed into shipping containers so that they can sneak into the country, sell sunglasses by Battery Park, and then send food back to their children in Togo. Rafts full of dehydrated, starving, partially naked Hispanics washing up on the beaches of Miami to beg for asylum (I’ve always wondered why they don’t bring along an adequate supply of bottled water and snacks for such a long journey). But have they ever seen a rich and educated person impale himself upon the flagpole bearing the Stars and Stripes? Have they ever seen a person whose wallet contains the U.S. dollar equivalent of a dozen American dreams prostrate himself before them for a chance to see the Brooklyn Promenade once more? Have they ever met a cultured European who would choose the American berserk over the Belgian truffle? Forget the Mexicans and Africans and such. In a sense, my American story is the most compelling of all. It is the ultimate compliment to a nation known more for its belly than for its brain.
As we drove up Furshtatskaya Street, Mamudov told me he would disgorge me at the consulate’s entrance and drive around the corner (civilian cars are not allowed to idle near the Americans’ sacred space). “You don’t look well, excellency,” Mamudov said to me. “Why not take a little nap back home? We’ll pick up an Asian girl from the brothel and some Ativan from the American clinic. Just as you fancy.”
“To the
Outside I found the prickled atmosphere that occurs whenever a Western consulate is forced to position itself along a dirty third-world street, whenever local neutrons and electrons are not allowed to mix with the West’s positive charge. I felt myself repelled by an invisible wind and almost fell backward. The American flag above the consulate’s portico, however, gave me a friendly wave of encouragement. I crossed the street and came upon two Russian meatheads, one in a Caesar haircut (to hide a massively receding hairline), the other a flattop, each about two thirds my size, beefed up with buckwheat and cheap sausage, each dressed in uniforms bearing the Stars and Stripes on their shoulders.
“May we help you with something?” the flattop said as I staggered toward the announcement board where the Rules of Humiliation for Russian visa applicants were spelled out in English officialese:
“May we help you with something?” the flattop repeated. His face had a single long crack running from forehead to chin, as if he had been dropped one time too many as a child. “This place isn’t for you, fellow. The consulate is closed. Shove off.”
“I want to see the charge d’affaires,” I said. “I am Misha Vainberg, son of the famous Boris Vainberg who peed on the dog in front of the KGB headquarters during the Soviet times.” I leaned against the wall of the consulate building and spread my arms out, exposing the white of my stomach the way a puppy shows he’s defenseless in front of a larger dog. “My father was a very big dissident. Bigger than Sharansky! Once the Americans hear of what he’s done for freedom of religion, they’ll build a statue to him in Times Square.”
The two security guards smiled broadly at each other. It isn’t often anymore that you can beat up a Jew in an official capacity in Russia, so when the chance comes, you have to grab it. You have to beat the Jew for church and fatherland or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. The guy with the Caesar cut flexed the rolls of his neck in provocation. “If you don’t leave immediately,” he said, “you’re going to have some problems with us.”
“Maybe you should go to the Israeli consulate,” the flattop suggested. “You’ll have better luck there, I’m sure.”
“Suitcase! Train station! Israel!” Caesar chanted the familiar Russian mantra urging Jews to leave the country. Flattop took up the refrain, and they shared an enjoyable moment.
“Just wait until I tell the charge d’affaires that a pair of anti-Semites is guarding his consulate,” I sputtered, alcoholic drool dappling my chin. “You’ll be working at the consulate in Yekaterinburg, so dress warm, fuckers.”
It took me a while to figure out that they were punching me. I was staring at a woman beating her carpet outside her window, thinking those were the thuds resonating along the quiet street. To be fair to my tormentors, Flattop and Caesar were good strong Russian boys in their late twenties, purposeful and furious. But beating the lard out of me is not an activity to be done casually; it takes hard work and a certain amount of smarts. One can’t just keep hitting me in the stomach and tits, hoping that I’ll crumple like a cheap pastry.
“Ooooh,” I moaned, going through the motions of drunken incomprehension. “What’s happening to me?”
“Let’s punch him in the liver and kidneys,” Caesar suggested, wiping his sweaty brow.
They started aiming for those delicate organs but with few results. The elastic bands surrounding me took each bruise with equanimity. Whenever fist met fat, I merely stumbled to the side, turning to face either Flatty or Caesar. I used each brief occasion to tell them a little about my life.
“I studied multiculturalism at Accidental College…”
Left hook to liver.
“My mama named me Misha, but the Hasids called me Moses…”
Right jab to left kidney.
“I’m starting a charity for the poorest kids, called Misha’s Children…”
Hammer blow to liver.
