Wild Child, The.

by Mary Jo Putney.

PROLOGUE.

Where I'm Calling From.

This is a book about love. The next 338 pages are dedicated with that cloying Russian affection that pa.s.ses for real warmth to my Beloved Papa, to the city of New York, to my sweet impoverished girlfriend in the South Bronx, and to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

This is also a book about too much too much love. It's a book about being had. Let me say that right away: love. It's a book about being had. Let me say that right away: I've been had. I've been had. They used me. Took advantage of me. Sized me up. Knew right away that they had their man. If "man" is the right word. They used me. Took advantage of me. Sized me up. Knew right away that they had their man. If "man" is the right word.

Maybe this whole being-had deal is genetic. I'm thinking of my grandmother here. An ardent Stalinist and faithful contributor to Leningrad Pravda Pravda until Alzheimer's took what was left of her senses, she penned the famous allegory of Stalin the Mountain Eagle swooping down the valley to pick off three imperialist badgers representing Britain, America, and France, their measly bodies torn to shreds in the grasp of the generalissimo's b.l.o.o.d.y talons. There's a picture of me as an infant crawling over Grandma's lap. I'm drooling on her. She's drooling on me. The year is 1972, and we both look absolutely demented. Well, look at me now, Grandma. Look at my missing teeth and dented lower stomach; look at what they did to my heart, that bruised kilogram of fat hanging off my breastbone. When it comes to being torn to shreds in the twenty-first century, I am the fourth badger. until Alzheimer's took what was left of her senses, she penned the famous allegory of Stalin the Mountain Eagle swooping down the valley to pick off three imperialist badgers representing Britain, America, and France, their measly bodies torn to shreds in the grasp of the generalissimo's b.l.o.o.d.y talons. There's a picture of me as an infant crawling over Grandma's lap. I'm drooling on her. She's drooling on me. The year is 1972, and we both look absolutely demented. Well, look at me now, Grandma. Look at my missing teeth and dented lower stomach; look at what they did to my heart, that bruised kilogram of fat hanging off my breastbone. When it comes to being torn to shreds in the twenty-first century, I am the fourth badger.

I'm writing this from Davidovo, a small village populated entirely by the so-called Mountain Jews near the northern frontier of the former Soviet republic of Absurdsvani. Ah, the Mountain Jews. In their hilly isolation and single-minded devotion to clan and Yahweh, they seem to me prehistoric, prehistoric, premammalian even, like some clever miniature dinosaur that once schlepped across the earth, the premammalian even, like some clever miniature dinosaur that once schlepped across the earth, the Haimosaurus rex. Haimosaurus rex.

It's early September. The sky is an unwavering blue, its blankness and infinity reminding me, for some reason, that we are on a small round planet inching its way through a terrifying void. Roosting atop the ample redbrick manses, the village's satellite dishes point toward the surrounding mountains, whose peaks are crowned with alpine white. Soft late-summer breezes minister to my wounds, and even the occasional stray dog wandering down the street harbors a satiated, peaceable demeanor, as if tomorrow it will emigrate to Switzerland.

The villagers have gathered around me, the dried-out senior citizens, the oily teenagers, the heavy local gangsters with Soviet prison tattoos on their fingers (former friends of my Beloved Papa), even the confused one-eyed octogenarian rabbi who is now crying on my shoulder, whispering in his bad Russian about what an honor it is to have an important Jew like me in his village, how he would like to feed me spinach pancakes and roasted lamb, find me a good local wife who would go down on me, pump up my stomach like a beach ball in need of air.

I'm a deeply secular Jew who finds no comfort in either nationalism or religion. But I can't help feeling comfortable among this strange offshoot of my race. The Mountain Jews coddle and cosset me; their hospitality is overwhelming; their spinach is succulent and soaks up their garlic and freshly churned b.u.t.ter.

And yet I yearn to take to the air.

To soar across the globe.

To land at the corner of 173rd Street and Vyse, where she is waiting for me.

My Park Avenue psychoa.n.a.lyst, Dr. Levine, has almost disabused me of the idea that I can fly. "Let's keep our feet on the ground," he likes to say. "Let's stick to what's actually possible." Wise words, Doctor, but maybe you're not quite hearing me.

I don't think I can fly like a graceful bird or like a rich American superhero. I think I can fly the way I do everything else-in fits and starts, with gravity constantly trying to thrash me against the narrow black band of the horizon, with sharp rocks sc.r.a.ping against my t.i.ts and stomachs, with rivers filling my mouth with mossy water and deserts plying my pockets with sand, with every hard-won ascent brokered by the possibility of a sharp fall into nothingness. I'm doing it now, Doctor. I'm soaring away from the ancient rabbi clinging warmly to the collar of my tracksuit, over the village's leafy vegetables and preroasted lambs, over the green-dappled overhang of two colliding mountain ranges that keep the prehistoric Mountain Jews safe from the distressing Moslems and Christians around them, over flattened Chechnya and pockmarked Sarajevo, over hydroelectric dams and the empty spirit world, over Europe, that gorgeous polis on the hill, a blue starry flag atop its fortress walls, over the frozen deadly calm of the Atlantic which would like nothing better than to drown me once and for all, over and over and over and finally toward and toward and toward, toward the tip of the slender island...

I am flying northward toward the woman of my dreams. I'm staying close to the ground, just like you said, Doctor. I'm trying to make out individual shapes and places. I'm trying to piece my life together. Now I can spot the Pakistani place on Church Street where I cleaned out the entire kitchen, drowning myself in ginger and sour mangoes, spicy lentils and cauliflower, as the gathered taxi drivers cheered me along, broadcasting news of my gluttony to their relatives in Lah.o.r.e. Now I am over the little skyline that has gathered to the east of Madison Park, the kilometer-high replica of St. Mark's Campanile in Venice, the golden tip of the New York Life Building, these stone symphonies, these modernist arrangements the Americans must have carved out from rocks the size of moons, these last stabs at G.o.dless immortality. Now I am above the clinic on Twenty-fourth Street, where a social worker once told me I had tested negative for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, forcing me into the bathroom to cry guiltily over the skinny, beautiful boys whose scared glances I had deflected in the waiting room. Now I am over the dense greenery of Central Park, tracing the shadows cast by young matrons walking their bite-sized Oriental dogs toward the communal redemption of the Great Lawn. The murky Harlem River flies past me; I skirt the silvery top of the slowly chugging IRT train and continue northeast, my body tired and limp, begging for ground fall.

I am over the South Bronx now, no longer sure if I am soaring or hitting the tarmac at Olympic speed. My girlfriend's world reaches out and envelops me. I am privy to the relentless truths of Tremont Avenue-where, according to the graceful loop of graffito, BEBO BEBO always always LOVES LARA LOVES LARA, where the neon storefront of Brave Fried Chicken begs me to sample its greasy-sweet aromas, where the Adonai Beauty Salon threatens to take my limp curly hairdo and turn it upward, set it aflame like Liberty's orange torch.

I pa.s.s like a fat beam of light through dollar stores selling T-shirts from the eighties and fake Rocawear sweatpants, through the brown hulks of housing projects warning OPERATION CLEAN HALLS OPERATION CLEAN HALLS and and TRESPa.s.sERS SUBJECT TO ARREST TRESPa.s.sERS SUBJECT TO ARREST, over the heads of boys in gang bandannas and hairnets jousting with one another astride their monster bikes, over the three-year-old Dominican girls in tank tops and fake diamond earrings, over the tidy front yard where the weeping brown Virgin is perpetually stroking the rosary round her blushing neck.

On the corner of 173rd Street and Vyse Avenue, on a brick housing-project stoop riddled with stray cheese puffs and red licorice sticks, my girl has draped her naked lap with Hunter College textbooks. I plow straight into the bounty of her caramelized summertime b.r.e.a.s.t.s, both covered by a tight yellow tee that informs me in chunky uppercase script that G IS FOR GANGSTA G IS FOR GANGSTA. And as I cover her with kisses, as the sweat of my transatlantic flight soaks her in my own brand of salt and mola.s.ses, I am struck stupid by my love for her and my grief for nearly everything else. Grief for my Beloved Papa, the real "gangsta" in my life. Grief for Russia, the distant land of my birth, and for Absurdistan, where the calendar will never pa.s.s the second week of September 2001.

This is a book about love. But it's also a book about geography. The South Bronx may be low on signage, but everywhere I look, I see the helpful arrows declaring YOU ARE HERE YOU ARE HERE.

I Am Am Here. Here.

I Am Here next to the woman I love. The city rushes out to locate and affirm me.

How can I be so fortunate?

Sometimes I can't believe that I am still alive.

1.

The Night in Question June 15, 2001

I am Misha Borisovich Vainberg, age thirty, a grossly overweight man with small, deeply set blue eyes, a pretty Jewish beak that brings to mind the most distinguished breed of parrot, and lips so delicate you would want to wipe them with the naked back of your hand.

For many of my last years, I have lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, neither by choice nor by desire. The City of the Czars, the Venice of the North, Russia's cultural capital...forget all that. By the year 2001, our St. Leninsburg has taken on the appearance of a phantasmagoric third-world city, our neocla.s.sical buildings sinking into the c.r.a.p-choked ca.n.a.ls, bizarre peasant huts fashioned out of corrugated metal and plywood colonizing the broad avenues with their capitalist iconography (cigarette ads featuring an American football player catching a hamburger with a baseball mitt), and what is worst of all, our intelligent, depressive citizenry has been replaced by a new race of mutants dressed in studied imitation of the West, young women in tight Lycra, their scooped-up little b.r.e.a.s.t.s pointing at once to New York and Shanghai, with men in fake black Calvin Klein jeans hanging limply around their caved-in a.s.ses.

The good news is that when you're an incorrigible fatso like me-325 pounds at last count-and the son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, all of St. Leninsburg rushes out to service you: the drawbridges lower themselves as you advance, and the pretty palaces line up alongside the ca.n.a.l banks, thrusting their busty friezes in your face. You are blessed with the rarest treasure to be found in this mineral-rich land. You are blessed with respect.

On the night of June 15 in the catastrophic year 2001, I was getting plenty of respect from my friends at a restaurant called the Home of the Russian Fisherman on Krestovskiy Island, one of the verdant islands caught in the delta of the Neva River. Krestovskiy is where we rich people pretend to be living in a kind of post-Soviet Switzerland, trudging along the manicured bike paths built 'round our kottedzhes kottedzhes and and town khauses, town khauses, and filling our lungs with parcels of atmosphere seemingly imported from the Alps. and filling our lungs with parcels of atmosphere seemingly imported from the Alps.

The Fisherman's gimmick is that you catch your own fish out of a man-made lake, and then for about US$50 per kilo, the kitchen staff will smoke it for you or bake it on coals. On what the police would later call "the night in question," we were standing around the Sp.a.w.ning Salmon pontoon, yelling at our servants, drinking down carafes of green California Riesling, our Nokia mobilniki mobilniki ringing with the social urgency that comes only when the White Nights strangle the nighttime, when the inhabitants of our ruined city are kept permanently awake by the pink afterglow of the northern sun, when the best you can do is drink your friends into the morning. ringing with the social urgency that comes only when the White Nights strangle the nighttime, when the inhabitants of our ruined city are kept permanently awake by the pink afterglow of the northern sun, when the best you can do is drink your friends into the morning.

Let me tell you something: without good friends, you might as well drown yourself in Russia. After decades of listening to the familial agitprop of our parents ("We will die for you!" they sing), after surviving the criminal closeness of the Russian family ("Don't leave us!" they plead), after the cra.s.s socialization foisted upon us by our teachers and factory directors ("We will staple your circ.u.mcised khui khui to the wall!" they threaten), all that's left is that toast between two failed friends in some stinking outdoor beer kiosk. to the wall!" they threaten), all that's left is that toast between two failed friends in some stinking outdoor beer kiosk.

"To your health, Misha Borisovich."

"To your success, Dimitry Ivanovich."

"To the army, the air force, and the whole Soviet fleet...Drink to the bottom!"

I'm a modest person bent on privacy and lonely sadness, so I have very few friends. My best buddy in Russia is a former American I like to call Alyosha-Bob. Born Robert Lips.h.i.tz in the northern reaches of New York State, this little bald eagle (not a single hair on his dome by age twenty-five) flew to St. Leninsburg eight years ago and was transformed, by dint of alcoholism and inertia, into a successful Russian biznesman biznesman renamed Alyosha, the owner of ExcessHollywood, a riotously profitable DVD import-export business, and the swain of Svetlana, a young Petersburg hottie. In addition to being bald, Alyosha-Bob has a pinched face ending in a reddish goatee, wet blue eyes that fool you with their near-tears, and enormous flounder lips cleansed hourly by vodka. A skinhead on the metro once described him as a renamed Alyosha, the owner of ExcessHollywood, a riotously profitable DVD import-export business, and the swain of Svetlana, a young Petersburg hottie. In addition to being bald, Alyosha-Bob has a pinched face ending in a reddish goatee, wet blue eyes that fool you with their near-tears, and enormous flounder lips cleansed hourly by vodka. A skinhead on the metro once described him as a gnussniy zhid, gnussniy zhid, or a "vile-looking Yid," and I think most of the populace sees him that way. I certainly did when I first met him as a fellow undergraduate at Accidental College in the American Midwest a decade ago. or a "vile-looking Yid," and I think most of the populace sees him that way. I certainly did when I first met him as a fellow undergraduate at Accidental College in the American Midwest a decade ago.

Alyosha-Bob and I have an interesting hobby that we indulge whenever possible. We think of ourselves as the Gentlemen Who Like to Rap. Our oeuvre stretches from the old-school jams of Ice Cube, Ice-T, and Public Enemy to the sensuous contemporary rhythms of ghetto tech, a hybrid of Miami ba.s.s, Chicago ghetto tracks, and Detroit electronica. The modern reader may be familiar with "a.s.s-N-t.i.tties" by DJ a.s.sault, perhaps the seminal seminal work of the genre. work of the genre.

On the night in question, I got the action started with a Detroit ditty I enjoy on summer days:

Aw, s.h.i.t Heah I come Shut yo mouf And bite yo tongue.

Alyosha-Bob, in his torn Helmut Lang slacks and Accidental College sweatshirt, picked up the tune:

Aw, girl, You think you bad?

Let me see you Bounce dat a.s.s.

Our melodies rang out over the Russian Fisherman's four pontoons (Sp.a.w.ning Salmon, Imperial Sturgeon, Capricious Trout, and Sweet Little b.u.t.terfish), over this whole tiny man-made lake, whatever the h.e.l.l it's called (Dollar Lake? Euro Pond?), over the complimentary-valet-parking-lot where one of the oafish employees just dented my new Land Rover.

Heah come dat b.i.t.c.h From round de way Box my putz putz Like Ca.s.sius Clay.

"Sing it, Snack Daddy!" Alyosha-Bob cheered me on, using my Accidental College nickname.

My name is Vainberg I like ho's Sniff 'em out Wid my Hebrew nose

Pump that s.h.i.t From 'round the back Big-booty ho Ack ack ack

This being Russia, a nation of busybody peasants thrust into an awkward modernity, some idiot will always endeavor to spoil your good fun. And so the neighboring biznesman, biznesman, a sunburned midlevel killer standing next to his pasty girlfriend from some cow-filled province, starts in with "Now, fellows, why do you have to sing like African exchange students? You both look so cultured"-in other words, like vile-looking Yids-"why don't you declaim some Pushkin instead? Didn't he have some nice verses about the White Nights? That would be very seasonal." a sunburned midlevel killer standing next to his pasty girlfriend from some cow-filled province, starts in with "Now, fellows, why do you have to sing like African exchange students? You both look so cultured"-in other words, like vile-looking Yids-"why don't you declaim some Pushkin instead? Didn't he have some nice verses about the White Nights? That would be very seasonal."

"Hey, if Pushkin were alive today, he'd be a rapper," I said.

"That's right," Alyosha-Bob said. "He'd be M.C. Push."

"Fight the power!" I said in English.

Our Pushkin-loving friend stared at us. This is what happens when you don't learn English, by the way. You're always at a loss for words. "G.o.d help you children," he finally said, taking his lady friend by one diminutive arm and guiding her over to the other side of the pontoon.

Children? Was he talking about Was he talking about us us? What would an Ice Cube or an Ice-T do in this situation? I reached for my mobilnik, mobilnik, ready to dial my Park Avenue a.n.a.lyst, Dr. Levine, to tell him that once again I had been insulted and injured, that once again I had been undermined by a fellow Russian. ready to dial my Park Avenue a.n.a.lyst, Dr. Levine, to tell him that once again I had been insulted and injured, that once again I had been undermined by a fellow Russian.

And then I heard my manservant, Timofey, ringing his special hand bell. The mobilnik mobilnik fell out of my hand, the Pushkin lover and his girlfriend disappeared from the pontoon, the pontoon itself floated off into another dimension, even Dr. Levine and his soft American ministrations were reduced to a distant hum. fell out of my hand, the Pushkin lover and his girlfriend disappeared from the pontoon, the pontoon itself floated off into another dimension, even Dr. Levine and his soft American ministrations were reduced to a distant hum.

It was feeding time.

With a low bow, manservant Timofey presented me with a tray of blackened sturgeon kebabs and a carafe of Black Label. I fell down on a hard plastic chair that twisted and torqued beneath my weight like a piece of modern sculpture. I bent over the sturgeon, sniffing it with closed eyes as if offering a silent prayer. My feet were locked together, my ankles grinding into each other with expectant anxiety. I prepared for my meal in the usual fashion: fork in my left hand; my dominant right clenched into a fist on my lap, ready to punch anyone who dared take away my food.

I bit into the sturgeon kebab, filling my mouth with both the crisp burnt edges and the smooth mealy interior. My body trembled inside my leviathan Puma tracksuit, my heroic gut spinning counterclockwise, my two-scoop b.r.e.a.s.t.s slapping against each other. The usual food-inspired images presented themselves. Myself, my Beloved Papa, and my young mother in a hollowed-out boat built to resemble a white swan floating past a grotto, triumphant Stalin-era music echoing around us ("Here's my pa.s.sport! What What a pa.s.sport! It's my great red a pa.s.sport! It's my great red Soviet Soviet pa.s.sport!"), Beloved Papa's wet hands rubbing my tummy and skirting the waistband of my shorts, and Mommy's smooth, dry ones brushing against the nape of my neck, a chorus of their hoa.r.s.e, tired voices saying, "We love you, Misha. We love you, bear cub." pa.s.sport!"), Beloved Papa's wet hands rubbing my tummy and skirting the waistband of my shorts, and Mommy's smooth, dry ones brushing against the nape of my neck, a chorus of their hoa.r.s.e, tired voices saying, "We love you, Misha. We love you, bear cub."

My body fell into a rocking motion like the religious people rock when they're deep in the thrall of their G.o.d. I finished off the first kebab and the one after that, my chin oily with sturgeon juices, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s shivering as if they'd been smothered with packets of ice. Another chunk of fish fell into my mouth, this one well dusted with parsley and olive oil. I breathed in the smells of the sea, my right fist still clenched, fingers digging into palm, my nose touching the plate, sturgeon extract coating my nostrils, my little circ.u.mcised khui khui burning with the joy of release. burning with the joy of release.

And then it was over. And then the kebabs were gone. I was left with an empty plate. I was left with nothing before me. Ah, dear me. Where was I now? An abandoned bear cub without his li'l fishy. I splashed a gla.s.s of water on my face and dabbed myself off with a napkin Timofey had tucked into my tracksuit. I picked up the carafe of Black Label, pressed it to my cold lips, and, with a single tilt of the wrist, emptied it into my gullet.

The world was golden around me, the evening sun setting light to a row of swaying alders; the alders abuzz with the warble of siskin birds, those striped yellow fellows from our nursery rhymes. I turned pastoral for a moment, my thoughts running to Beloved Papa, who was born in a village and for whom village life should be prescribed, as only there-half asleep in a cowshed, naked and ugly, but sober all the same-do the soft tremors of what could be happiness cross his swollen Aramaic face. I would have to bring him here one day, to the Home of the Russian Fisherman. I would buy him a few chilled bottles of his favorite Flagman vodka, take him out to the farthest pontoon, put my arm around his dandruff-dusted shoulders, press his tiny lemur head into one of my side hams, and make him understand that despite all the disappointments I have handed him over the past twenty years, the two of us are meant to be together forever.

Emerging from the food's thrall, I noticed that the demographics of the Sp.a.w.ning Salmon pontoon were changing. A group of young coworkers in blue blazers had shown up, led by a buffoon in a bow tie who played the role of a "fun person," breaking the coworkers up into teams, thrusting fishing rods into their weak hands, and leading them in a chorus of "Fi-ish! Fi-ish! Fi-ish!" What the h.e.l.l was going on here? Was this the first sign of an emerging Russian middle cla.s.s? Did all these idiots work for a German bank? Perhaps they were holders of American MBAs.

Meanwhile, all eyes fell on a striking older woman in a full-length white gown and black Mikimoto pearls, casting her line into the man-made lake. She was one of those mysteriously elegant women who appear to have walked in from the year 1913, as if all those red pioneer scarves and peasant blouses from our jacka.s.s Soviet days had never alighted on her delicate shoulders.

I am not enamored of such people, I must say. How is it possible to live outside of history? Who can claim immunity to it by dint of beauty and breeding? My only consolation was that neither this charming creature nor the young Deutsche Bank workers now shouting in unison "Sal-mon! Sal-mon!" would catch any tasty fish today. Beloved Papa and I have an agreement with the management of the Home of the Russian Fisherman restaurant-whenever a Vainberg takes up a rod, the owner's nephew puts on his Aqua-Lung, swims under the pontoons, and hooks the best fish on our lines. So all Czarina with the Black Pearls would get for her troubles would be a tasteless, defective salmon.

You can't ignore history altogether.

On the night in question, Alyosha-Bob and I were joined by three lovely females: Rouenna, the love of my life, visiting for two weeks from the Bronx, New York; Svetlana, Alyosha-Bob's dark-eyed Tatar beauty, a junior public-relations executive for a local chain of perfume shops; and Beloved Papa's twenty-one-year-old provincial wife, Lyuba.

I must say, I was anxious about bringing these women together (also, I have a generalized fear of women). Svetlana and Rouenna have aggressive personalities; Lyuba and Rouenna were once lower-cla.s.s and lack refinement; and Svetlana and Lyuba, being Russian, present with symptoms of mild depression rooted in early childhood trauma (cf. Papadapolis, Spiro, "It's My My Pierogi: Transgenerational Conflict in Post-Soviet Families," Pierogi: Transgenerational Conflict in Post-Soviet Families," Annals of Post-Lacanian Psychiatry, Annals of Post-Lacanian Psychiatry, Boulder/Paris, Vol. 23, No. 8, 1997). A part of me expected discord among the women, or what the Americans call "fireworks." Another part of me just wanted to see that sn.o.bby b.i.t.c.h Svetlana get her a.s.s kicked. Boulder/Paris, Vol. 23, No. 8, 1997). A part of me expected discord among the women, or what the Americans call "fireworks." Another part of me just wanted to see that sn.o.bby b.i.t.c.h Svetlana get her a.s.s kicked.

While Alyosha-Bob and I were rapping, Lyuba's servant girl had been making the girls pretty with lipstick and pomade in one of the Fisherman's changing huts, and when they joined us on the pontoon, they reeked of fake citrus (and a touch of real sweat), their dainty lips aglow in the summer twilight, their teeny voices abuzz with interesting conversation about Stockmann, the celebrated Finnish emporium on St. Leninsburg's main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt. They were discussing a summer special-two hand-fluffed Finnish towels for US$20-both towels distinguished by their highly un-Russian, shockingly Western color: orange.

Listening to the tale of the orange towel, I got a little engorged down in the circ.u.mcised purple half-khui department. These women of ours were so cute! Well, not my stepmother, Lyuba, obviously, who is eleven years younger than me and happens to spend her nights moaning unconvincingly under the coniferous trunk of Beloved Papa, with his impressive turtlelike department. These women of ours were so cute! Well, not my stepmother, Lyuba, obviously, who is eleven years younger than me and happens to spend her nights moaning unconvincingly under the coniferous trunk of Beloved Papa, with his impressive turtlelike khui khui (blessed memories of it swinging about in the bathtub, my curious toddler hands trying to s.n.a.t.c.h it). (blessed memories of it swinging about in the bathtub, my curious toddler hands trying to s.n.a.t.c.h it).

And I wasn't hot for Svetlana, either; despite her fashionable Mongol cheekbones, her clingy Italian sweater, and that profoundly calculated aloofness, the supposedly s.e.xy posturing of the educated Russian woman, despite all that, let me tell you, I absolutely refuse to sleep with one of my co-nationals. G.o.d only knows where they've been.

So that leaves me with my Rouenna Sales (p.r.o.nounced Sah Sah-lez, in the Spanish manner), my South Bronx girlie-girl, my big-boned precious, my giant multicultural swallow, with her crinkly hair violently pulled back into a red handkerchief, with her glossy pear-shaped brown nose always in need of kisses and lotion.

"I think," said my stepmom, Lyuba, in English for Rouenna's benefit, "I thought," she added. She was having trouble with her tenses. "I think, I thought...I think, I thought..."

I sink, I sought...I sink, I sought...

"What are you sinking, sinking, darling?" asked Svetlana, tugging on her line impatiently. darling?" asked Svetlana, tugging on her line impatiently.

But Lyuba would not be so easily discouraged from expressing herself in a bright new language. Married for two years to the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, the dear woman was finally coming to terms with her true worth. Recently a Milanese doctor had been hired to burn out the malicious orange freckles ringing her coa.r.s.e nubbin, while a Bilbao surgeon was on his way to chisel out the baby fat flapping around her tufty teenager's cheeks (the fat actually made her look more sympathetic, like a ruined farm girl just coming out of her adolescence).

"I think, I thought," Lyuba said, "that orange towel so ugly. For girl is nice lavender, for boy like my husband, Boris, light blue, for servant black because her hand already dirty."

"d.a.m.n, sugar," Rouenna said. "You're hard-core."

"What it is 'harcourt'?"