Absurdistan

“Well, my Alyosha’s not a pederast,” Svetlana said. “He merely comes to Club 69 for the atmosphere. And to make connections.”

“Hi, Seryozha,” I said to the friendly boy. “How’s life, cucumber?”

“Seryozha number one, true love forever, I am only just for you,” Seryozha said in English, blowing me a professional kiss.

“Seryozha’s going to Thailand with a rich Swede,” Captain Belugin announced as Seryozha smiled at us like a shy albino marmoset. He scooped the vodka out with a beaker, pouring us a hundred grams a head. “Better watch out for the cockroaches there,” said Belugin. “They’re like this…” He spread out his arms, favoring us with his briny armpits.

“Cirrus, Europay, ATM, one-stop banking…Super Dollar, why you lonely?” Seryozha said. He wiggled his tush for us and left.

“Good boy,” Belugin said. “We could use him on the force. They’re so clean here. Hygiene. Morality starts with hygiene. Just look at the Germans.” We glanced over to the middle-aged members of the German tour group throwing deutsche marks at our teenage countrymen, bringing us tidings of an advanced civilization. We heard an enormous cheer from downstairs. The floor show was about to start—the pioneer songs of our youth bellowed out by muscular drag queens in full Soviet regalia. I found it very nostalgic.

“I wish I could leave this stupid country just like Seryozha,” I said.

“And why can’t you?” Belugin asked.

“The Americans won’t give me a visa because they say my papa killed that Oklahoman fellow. And the European Union won’t let any Vainbergs in, either.”

“Ach,” Belugin said to me. “Why do you want to move to the West, young man? Things will improve for our people, just you wait. In a mere fifty years, I predict, life here will be brighter than even in Yugoslavia. You know, Misha, I’ve been to Europe. The streets are cleaner, but there’s no Russian soul. Do you know what I’m talking about here? You can’t just sit down with a man in Copenhagen and look him in the eye over a shot glass and then—boof!—you are brothers forever.”

“Please…” I said. “I want to…I want—”

“Well, of course you want,” said the captain. “What kind of a young man would you be if you didn’t want? I understand you implicitly. We old men were once young, too, don’t forget!”

“Yes,” I said, following his logic. “I’m young. So I want.”

“Then let me help you, Misha. You see, I am originally from the Republic of Absurdsvani, land of oil and grapes. Absurdistan, as we like to call it. I’m a Russian by blood, but I also know the way of the infamous Svani people, those lusty Southern black-asses, those Cretins of the Caucasus. Now, one of my friends in Svani City is a counselor at the Belgian embassy. A European of great learning and propriety. I wonder if, for a small sum, he could arrange for your citizenship in the Flemish kingdom…”

“That sounds like a sensible idea,” Alyosha-Bob said. “What about it, Misha? If you get a Belgian passport, you can travel all over the continent.”

“Maybe Rouenna will come live with me,” I said. “Maybe I can tempt her away from Jerry Shteynfarb. Belgium is full of chocolate and fries, right?”

“We could fly down to Absurdistan next week,” Alyosha-Bob said. “I own a branch of ExcessHollywood there. There’s a direct Aeroflot flight on Monday.”

“I’m not flying Aeroflot,” I told my friend. “I don’t want to die just yet. We’ll take Austrian Airlines through Vienna. I’ll pay for everything.”

I pictured myself sitting at a zippy Belgian cafe watching a multicultural woman in a thong eating a frankfurter. Did such things happen in Brussels? In New York they happened all the time.

“So, Belugin,” Alyosha-Bob said to the captain. “What’s it going to cost for Misha to get his Belgian passport?”

“What will it cost? Nothing, nothing.” Captain Belugin waved it off. “Well, almost nothing. A hundred thousand U.S. for my Belgian friend, and a hundred thousand for me as an introduction fee.”

“I want my manservant to come with me,” I said. “I need a Belgian work visa for my Timofey.”

“You’re bringing your manservant?” Alyosha-Bob said. “You’re quite a Westerner, Count Vainberg.”

“Go to the khui,” I said. “I’d like to see you wash your own socks the way I once washed mine with my working-class girlfriend in New York.”

“Boys.” Captain Belugin put a hand between us. “A work visa is the height of simplicity. Another twenty thousand for me, and twenty thousand for Monsieur Lefevre of the Belgian embassy. You’ll be fast friends with Jean-Michel. He likes to run over the locals with his Peugeot.”

“Has Oleg the Moose’s money been moved to Misha’s offshore accounts?” Alyosha-Bob asked.

“Misha’s got about thirty-five million dollars in Cyprus,” Belugin said, looking over his yellow fingernails, obviously not too impressed by the remainder of Beloved Papa’s carefully hoarded fortune, a long trail of wrecked factories, misappropriated natural gas concessions, the much-talked-about VainBergAir (an airline without any airplanes but with plenty of stewardesses), and, of course, the infamous graveyard for New Russian Jews.

It didn’t sound like much money to me, either, to be honest. Let’s do the math. I was thirty, and the official life expectancy for a Russian male is fifty-six, so I probably had another twenty-six or so years to live. Thirty-five million divided by twenty-six years equals about US$1,350,000 a year. That wasn’t much for Europe, but I could survive. Hell, I got by on a mere US$200,000 a year in New York when I was young, though I didn’t have a manservant to support, and I often denied myself certain pleasures (never have I owned a hot-air balloon or a Long Island bungalow).

But who cares about my poverty! For the first time in an eternity, I felt a current of pure pleasure wend itself around my beleaguered liver and up my bloated lungs. Freedom was upon me.

I remembered my childhood escapes from Leningrad, the annual summer train trip to the Crimea. Blessed memories of little Misha leaning out the carriage window, the Russian countryside crawling up to the train tracks, an occasional aspen whipping Misha’s curious face. I always knew that summer was drawing near when my mother came over with my crumpled Panama hat and sang an improvised tune for me:

Misha the Bear
Is leaving his lair
He’s had enough
Of winter’s despair

Yes, I’ve had enough of it, mamochka! I smiled and hiccuped into my shot glass. There was something oddly fetching about the prospect of being alive today, knowing that next week I would follow Peter the Great’s bronze steed. I would fulfill every educated young Russian’s dream. I would go beyond the cordon.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” Captain Belugin said. “As soon as you land in Absurdistan, go to the Park Hyatt Svani City and talk to Larry Zartarian, the manager. He’ll make all the necessary arrangements. You’ll be a Belgian in no time.”

“Belgium,” Sveta said wistfully. “You’re a very lucky man.”

“You’re a great big cosmopolitan whore,” Alyosha-Bob said, “but I love you.”

“You’re a traitor to your country, but what can be done?” Captain Belugin said.

I reflected upon their words and raised a toast to myself. “Yes, what can be done?” I said. “Everything has its limits.”

The glasses clinked. My future was set. I drank vodka and felt ennobled. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you now: I was wrong about everything. Family, friendship, coitus, the future, the past, even the present, my mainstay… even that I managed to get wrong.