“What about this Sevo-Svani thing?” I asked. “Larry Zartarian said—”
“Oh, to hell with Christ’s footrest. These people are pragmatists. ‘Fuck you, pay me,’ that’s their attitude. And speaking of pragmatism, here comes my democratic friend.”
A small, hook-nosed man was running our way. For a second I thought I was looking at an exact copy of my dead papa in his lackluster pre-oligarch days. Intelligent brown eyes, pet-goat beard, miniature yellow teeth. He was probably a poor ex-Soviet academic in his forties, married to a wife who suffered from a heart murmur, the father of two brilliant, inquisitive children with flat feet. “Gentlemen, meet Sakha the Democrat,” Josh Weiner said. “He edits the glossy journal
“Forgive me for being late, Mr. Weiner,” Sakha panted, clutching at a bright orange tie. “I hope you have not already eaten. I am so very hungry.”
“We’re just about to order,” Alyosha-Bob said. “Mr. Sakha, this is my college buddy Misha Vainberg.”
“The Jewish people have a long and peaceful history in our land,” Sakha said, putting a shaking hand to his heart. “They are our brothers, and whoever is their enemy is our enemy also. When you are in Absurdsvani, my mother will be your mother, my wife your sister, and you will always find water in my well to drink.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I wish I could reciprocate, but my dear mother’s dead, and my girl just ran off with some schmuck.”
“That’s just the way they speak here,” Josh Weiner explained to me. “It doesn’t really mean anything.” The look I gave him indicated that he was not worthy of sharing the same planet with me.
We summoned the waiter, and I ordered three sturgeon omelets and a Bloody Mary pitcher. “May I have the chicken cordon bleu on a roll with tomato, pickle, and french fries, Mr. Weiner?” Sakha the Democrat asked. He brought his menu closer to the young diplomat. “It’s the deluxe platter…right here…under ‘Fresh from the Henhouse.’”
“Just get the chicken cordon bleu on a roll,” Weiner said wearily. “They’re cutting back our democracy budget. We can’t afford deluxe platters anymore.”
“I’ll pay for your french fries, Mr. Sakha,” I said.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Vainberg!” Sakha the Democrat cried. “It’s so good to see a young man interested in pluralism.”
“How can you do your important work on an empty stomach?” I said to him. I watched Josh Weiner unfurl his lower lip my way, menacing me with his active cold sore.
“And who are you by profession?” Sakha asked me.
“I’m a philanthropist,” I said. “I run a charity in Petersburg called Misha’s Children. It’s my gift to the world.”
“You have an open heart,” said my new friend. “That is so rare these days.”
“Sakha just came back from a democracy forum in New York,” Josh Weiner said, “where he bought himself that nice orange tie. We provided airfare and five nights’ accommodation in a four-star hotel. I’m assuming he paid for the tie himself. There certainly wasn’t a budget line for it.”
“It
“I bought it in Century 21,” Sakha said, nodding happily. “The actual color is called Dark Orange Equestrian. Some say the Svani people were originally horse cultivators. Did you know that our archaeologists found a clay pot in the Grghangxa region, dating to 850
B.C., which shows a local man wrestling a pony? Now I can also claim to be an equestrian with my tie! Of course, I am only joking, gentlemen. Ha ha.”
“You are Svani by nationality?” I said.
“I am Sevo,” Sakha the Democrat told me. “But it makes no difference. Svani, Sevo, we are the same people. The distinctions are only useful for the ruling class…”
“How so, Mr. Sakha?” I asked.
“So that they can better oppress us!” he cried. But instead of elaborating, the democrat spent the next fifteen minutes looking expectantly in the direction of the kitchen. The food finally arrived. After putting half the fries into his briefcase “for my three little girls,” Sakha dispatched the chicken cordon bleu faster than I could lay to rest the first of my three sturgeon omelets. The pickle he saved for last, savoring every wet crunch, his eyes likewise moist with pleasure. “The most delicious food in the world,” he said. “Like in the American restaurant Arby’s. It’s not every day one gets to enjoy french-fried potatoes like these.”
I looked triumphantly at Josh Weiner. “My pleasure,” I said.
“Tell you what, Sakha, old worm, why don’t we split the New York–style cheesecake,” Josh Weiner suggested. “And we’ll get the pot of coffee for two.”
“I got a much better idea,” I said. “Sakha, why don’t you go to the sundae bar inside and help yourself to all the trimmings. Just tell them to put it on my tab. Misha Vainberg, penthouse suite.”
“If only my little girls could see me now,” Sakha whispered to himself as he took off for his tasty treat.
“Misha’s Children,” Josh Weiner said, looking up at the heavy atmosphere hanging above us like a dollop of clotted cream. “Un
I foraged through my last omelet, lapping up chunks of delicious hormone-free Absurdi egg, and breathing in the salty freshness of the sturgeon. “At least I’m helping people,” I whispered.
We sat there without uttering a word until Sakha returned with a concoction that resembled a frigate parked on top of an aircraft carrier. “The banana I skipped,” he said, giving me an accounting. “I can get a banana anywhere. These here are Oreo-cookie clusters.”
“Eat, eat,” I said, patting him on the sleeve. “I want you to be happy.” After the sundae was finished and its various juices slurped up, our group made haste to disband. Josh Weiner and I barely looked at each other as we committed the standard urban smack of the palm (“high-five”) and knock of the fist. We even failed to shoot an imaginary finger gun at each other in parting, unthinkable for a Multicultural Studies major and a former resident of Ghetto Fabulous House. All in all, it was not a proud day for Accidental College.
“Walk behind me,” Sakha the Democrat told me when my fellow alumni had gone. “I’ve roused your manservant from his shed behind the pool. Monsieur Lefevre is waiting for us behind the McDonald’s on the Svani Terrace.”
“Where’s that?” I asked, but Sakha was already headed for the lobby.
17
We had driven off the Boulevard of National Unity, with its multinational skyscrapers and chain stores, and onto a broad natural platform overlooking the city. Sakha the Democrat, glowing with the pride of a know-it-all intellectual, had asked me to come out of the car and survey the landscape with him. As we left the American SUV embellished with the Hyatt logo, my manservant, Timofey, rushed up to me and unfurled a beach umbrella above my tall frame as if I were some African ruler arriving at the airport. The umbrella didn’t help. Sweat fell from me in sheets of water and steam until I smelled like a hamburger.
We looked down upon the city. “Look, Mr. Vainberg!” Sakha said. “Have you ever seen such loveliness? Perhaps it does not match your native Petersburg, or, being a Jew, your beloved Jerusalem, but all the same—the hills, the sea, the architectural ensemble wrought over the centuries…Doesn’t your heart tremble?”
But it wasn’t trembling. The Absurdi capital looked like a miniature Cairo after it had crashed into a rocky mountain. There were three populated terraces jutting out from this mountain, little serving platters of humanity clinging to the inhospitable rock and connected by a winding road. At the top, the International Terrace was home to the multinational skyscrapers, the embassies, and the major retailers (for example, Staples, Hugo Boss, the 718 Perfumery, Ferragamo, the Toys “R” Us superstore). Farther down, the Svani Terrace, the traditional home of the majority Svani people, had a famous used-remote-control market, along with a part of the minaret-studded Moslem quarter snug behind an ancient fortifying wall. “I knew there were Moslems here!” I exclaimed to Sakha. “Moslems
