"Why?"

"Fall of Saigon, '75."

"Je ne comprends pas."

"Shake a limb, Snack. We're gonna make a run for the emba.s.sy."

The U U.S. ARMY ARMY had arrived in Svani City. had arrived in Svani City.

20.

The American Gambit.

The American emba.s.sy was situated in the shadows of the ExxonMobil skysc.r.a.per, a freshly built rectangle of salmon-hued gla.s.s with art deco bands of chrome meant to evoke permanence and easy history. The emba.s.sy itself was housed in an old pastel academy once used to educate the sons of local czarist n.o.bility. In the wake of the attacks on American emba.s.sies in Africa, a moat of trenches and razor wire surrounded the American outpost in Absurdistan. The gathering crowds, however, were well equipped with wire cutters and the like, and they charged the compound with bravado, as if the incoming helicopters had convinced them they were extras in a Hollywood historical drama.

Some were older, but the majority seemed to be of college age, dressed to look as nonthreatening and American as possible. They carried signs that listed the reasons for being accepted aboard the hovering Chinooks, among other things: 21 YR YR. OLD GIRL OLD GIRL, NOT NOT PROS-t.i.tUTKA PROS-t.i.tUTKA, HAVE STUDENT VISA TO CALIFORNIAN UNIVERSITY AT THE NORTHBRIDGE HAVE STUDENT VISA TO CALIFORNIAN UNIVERSITY AT THE NORTHBRIDGE + + MINE FAMILY HAS GAS MINE FAMILY HAS GAS. And: PLEASE LET ME GO WITH YOU PLEASE LET ME GO WITH YOU-SECRET POLICE WILL DIE ME, BECAUSE I POLITICAL AGAINST DEBIL KANUK DICTATOR BECAUSE I POLITICAL AGAINST DEBIL KANUK DICTATOR. And: WE WE HALLIBURTON HALLIBURTON, KBR KBR #1, #1, GO HOUSTON ROCKETS GO HOUSTON ROCKETS! And: AMERICA AMERICA: IF YOU DON IF YOU DON'T CARE ANYTHING ABOUT US, $AVE OUR OIL. My favorite, hoisted by a grizzly old pensioner, a simple retired laborer by the looks of him, whose sign was nonetheless written in perfectly correct English: WE ARE NO WORSE THAN YOU ARE WE ARE NO WORSE THAN YOU ARE. WE ARE ONLY POORER WE ARE ONLY POORER.

"American and EU citizens coming through," Alyosha-Bob shouted, pushing aside the little brown Absurdis around us. I picked up his war cry, and even Timofey started shouting: "American and yoo-yoo, commie fru!"

Our U.S. and Belgian pa.s.sports held aloft, we were quickly diverted toward a VIP line, where the potential aspirants were taller and whiter and fatter-more my speed all around. The only dark standout was Larry Zartarian, the Hyatt manager, who was trying to shove his mother into the arms of a consular officer, shouting, "Cysts! Deadly cysts! She needs emergency medical care at Cedars-Sinai. My mother will be your mother! Take her away from me!" The black-clad mama (a near-double of her son, only with her whiskers more expertly cropped) shouted back, "No, no, I won't go! He won't live without me! He doesn't know how to live. He's an idiot."

We spotted Josh Weiner scurrying around behind several marine guards, dribbling saliva into his cellular phone and waving around a clipboard. "Weiner!" Alyosha-Bob shouted. "Cla.s.s of '94!"

Weiner flashed us a bulls.h.i.t grin and waved the clipboard, then pointed to his watch to indicate he was busy. "Oh, come on!" Alyosha-Bob shouted. "Don't make me write to the alumni newsletter!"

The diplomat sighed, slammed shut his phone, and came over to us. "Say, what's the deal here, Joshie?" Alyosha-Bob said, putting a friendly hand into the crook of Weiner's arm. "Think we can get our a.s.ses on that whirlybird?"

"What kind of citizenship does he have?" Weiner said, gesturing my way but not looking me in the face. The State Department always deals with me in the third person.

"Misha's an EU citizen," Alyosha-Bob said. "He's a Belgian."

"For right now, they're just letting Americans go up," Weiner said.

"That's fine," I said. "Don't worry about it, Joshie. I'll just die here like your friend Sakha."

"Take it easy, Misha," Alyosha-Bob said.

"That's not fair," Weiner said.

"Hey, Joshie, did you file the protest?" I said.

"What protest?"

"You told me you were going to file a protest. Remember? Right before they shot Sakha. How's that protest going for you? Any word yet?"

"Oh, whatever, whatever, Snack Daddy," Weiner said. "Keep thinking it's all my fault. I'm just a low-level State Department employee. You think I actually save people's lives? You think I'm Oskar Snack Daddy," Weiner said. "Keep thinking it's all my fault. I'm just a low-level State Department employee. You think I actually save people's lives? You think I'm Oskar f.u.c.king f.u.c.king Schindler? I did everything I could for Sakha. He ripped us off left and right, too. That Zegna tie was just the tip of it. He 'borrowed' baby formula from the commissary, and he used improper channels to get his niece a scholarship at Penn State. And that's just what we Schindler? I did everything I could for Sakha. He ripped us off left and right, too. That Zegna tie was just the tip of it. He 'borrowed' baby formula from the commissary, and he used improper channels to get his niece a scholarship at Penn State. And that's just what we know know about. These people are operators. Don't kid yourself." about. These people are operators. Don't kid yourself."

I took a step toward Weiner, an aggressive step, but Alyosha-Bob's body was already between us. "You know something, Snack?" Weiner said, backing away from me quickly. "Go ahead. Get the f.u.c.k out of here. I really don't care anymore. Go eat Cheetos by the ton and have your belly rubbed by freshmen. Just don't consider me your friend, all right? Because you never were."

He waved us through toward the line of fully accredited Americans queuing at the foot of the ExxonMobil Building, bewildered-looking emba.s.sy families toting precious duffel bags, oilmen garrulously sharing in the fun of evacuation, slapping one another on the back and fondly recalling the Hyatt's full-tilt prost.i.tutes.

"Hey, big boy," one of these specimens shouted at me. "Hey, sc.u.mbag."

Big boy? Sc.u.mbag? I put both hands between my chests to indicate having taken affront. Before me stood a bowlegged orangutan in drawstring shorts and a U.S.S. Nimitz Nimitz cap. cap.

"Roger Daltrey," he spat at me.

"Who?" I said. The name reminded me of a band member of some famous U.S. or British rock-and-roll band, but all my musical references were modern and focused on hip-hop and multiculturalism. "Who's Roger Daltrey?"

"You don't even know, do you?" said my antagonist, doffing his cap so that a halo of deeply receding red hair floated above him to match his angry words. "You f.u.c.king Russians don't even remember who you kill. f.u.c.king animals."

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Alyosha-Bob said, once again thrusting his small frame between me and my tormentor.

"What?" I said.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Alyosha-Bob said again, the repet.i.tion dull yet meaningful in my ears.

"Your father killed my uncle," the American explained. "Over nothing. Over a rat farm."

"Huh?" I was dizzy with confusion and low blood sugar. What was he talking about? The Oklahoma businessman? The one Papa allegedly had executed in Petersburg? "But you're not from Oklahoma," I said. "You sound like you're working-cla.s.s New Jersey. Are you sure you're related? The Oklahoma guy was supposed to be educated."

"What did you say, a.s.shole?" the putative relative of the dead Oklahoman Roger Daltrey shouted at me. "What did you say to my face? I'm uneducated uneducated?"

"Shut up, Misha," Alyosha-Bob growled at me. "Shut up and stay calm."

"You know, I Googled your father," the Daltrey relative said, "and he was just a total p.r.i.c.k. a.s.sholes like him ruined your country and ruined this one, too. They should send all of you to the Hague, stand you up on war-crimes charges."

A cry dislodged itself from somewhere between my sternum and my groin, from someplace wet and lonely and orphaned. I found myself lapsing into the heavily accented English of my first years in the States as I shouted, "BELOVED PAPA WAS NO TOTAL p.r.i.c.k!"

And with those words, I reached past Alyosha-Bob and clipped the American on the side of the head, one ferocious squishy bear paw striking him someplace relatively soft and unbreakable, not far removed from the small clump of brain that kept his vitals going.

My antagonist collapsed immediately and started roaring with shame and pain. Momentarily, Josh Weiner and his superiors were on the scene, men in pressed shirts and sober ties who held me back from the violence that had instantaneously gone out of me. "Beloved Papa was no total p.r.i.c.k," I said quietly, nodding in affirmation. "He was a Jewish dissident. A man of conscience."

"My uncle has three children," the American groaned. "Three orphaned children, you fat useless f.u.c.k."

"We're sorry about all this," Alyosha-Bob beseeched the diplomatic staff and the arriving marines. "My friend lost his temper. He's a Belgian, that's all."

"Sir," the tallest and grayest of the diplomats told me, "we have to ask you to leave the emba.s.sy grounds."

I looked into his officious face, smooth and hard like an actor's or a politician's. "These are Exxon Exxon grounds," I said miserably. grounds," I said miserably.

"You're the son of Boris Vainberg," the older diplomat said. "I know all about you. There's no way I'm letting you board a United States aircraft."

"He's nothing like his father," Alyosha-Bob said. "He's not a killer. He studied multiculturalism at Accidental College. Weiner, tell them." He looked around for our cla.s.smate, but Josh Weiner was nowhere to be found.

"You go on without me," I told Alyosha-Bob. "There's no reason for you to stay here. Go. I'll find a way out of here myself."

"You'll die here," Alyosha-Bob said. "You don't understand anything."

I looked at him, trying to decide if I should be angered by his remark. Did I understand anything? My understanding had limits, that was certain, but my friendship with Alyosha-Bob had none. My friend stood before me, pained and small-a thirty-one-year-old man who seemed older by twenty years, as if each year spent in Russia had cost him three years more. Why had he come here? Why had he decided to become my brother and safekeeper?

"I miss Svetlana," Alyosha-Bob said. "You never understood just how much I love her. You think it's all just political economy in the end, but it's not. You think she's a pa.s.sport wh.o.r.e, but she loves me more than you can know, more than any woman's ever loved you."

"Sir." A marine was laying his hands upon me, as if inducting me into some sacred ritual with violent overtones.

"Go," I said. "I'm not as helpless as you think. Go to your Svetlana. You're right in everything you say. We'll meet up in Brussels someday."

Alyosha-Bob stretched out his arm to embrace me, thought better of it, turned around so that I wouldn't see his tears, and walked toward the sheets of ExxonMobil gla.s.s vibrating beneath the arrival of another mighty Chinook. I went partly limp, nearly tipping over the marine beneath me (such pretty eyelashes he had, this Latino-American trooper), as other American hands picked up the slack and guided me toward an exit, toward a hole in the razor wire big enough to fit me.

21.

The School of Gentle Persuasion.

I met Alyosha-Bob on the last day of our first semester at Accidental. I could hardly believe that I had emerged from one hundred days of American college instruction with remarkably good grades (an average of 3.94 out of a possible 4.0 points) and as the recipient of a furtive (albeit monocultural) hand job given behind a beer truck by a white girl with greasy mitts and a stutter.

It was the middle of December, and the midwestern campus was not so much blanketed by snow as encased in it. Most of the student body had already left for the East Coast or Chicagoland to join their families for the Kwanzaa vacation; the few of us who remained were knocking about the campus drunk and stoned and in search of fellow humanity. Back then my coat pockets were always stuffed with ham sandwiches (heavy on the mayonnaise) and bags of corn chips, while my freezing fingers were clasped around a marijuana roach from which I sucked with tremendous force and greed. That year had been my first encounter with marijuana, and I was seriously addicted.

It was nighttime. Two in the morning. A comfortable American bed awaited me somewhere, but I was not ready to go home. The pride of the campus was a truly magnificent chapel built in a naive Moorish style in front of which I would stand at night, smoking joint after joint and imagining that maybe a better life awaited us after death (the year was 1990, the time of perestroika, and many thoughtful Russians were hopeful that G.o.d existed). But on that night the chapel refused to reveal to me its closely held Presbyterian secrets, the proportion of good works and industry that would win me a place in the part of paradise reserved for American pa.s.sport holders. On that night I was left with only the truth that nothing of our personality survives after death, that in the end all that was Misha Vainberg would evaporate along with the styles and delusions of his epoch, leaving behind not one flutter of his sad heavy brilliance, not one damp spot around which his successors could congregate to appreciate his life and times.

I started to shake in both anger and fear, wrapping my arms around me in a sorrowful embrace, for I so loved my personality that I would kill everyone in my path to a.s.sure its survival. Very well, Very well, I thought, I thought, if faith will not comfort me, then I will turn to progress. if faith will not comfort me, then I will turn to progress. I stalked off to the other side of the campus and found myself in a newly built quadrangle, where the modern festive greens and yellows of the dormitories shivered astride windowpanes encrusted with snow. I sat down in a snowdrift, opened a bag of corn chips, and swallowed them all in one go. Then I lit the remainder of a joint and realized that I should have smoked the marijuana first and eaten the corn chips second. When would I learn already? I stalked off to the other side of the campus and found myself in a newly built quadrangle, where the modern festive greens and yellows of the dormitories shivered astride windowpanes encrusted with snow. I sat down in a snowdrift, opened a bag of corn chips, and swallowed them all in one go. Then I lit the remainder of a joint and realized that I should have smoked the marijuana first and eaten the corn chips second. When would I learn already?

Laughter and a flash of light from somewhere above as a square black solid, a burial casket, it would seem, flew through the air and landed softly on a neighboring mound of snow, where it lodged at an angle like a gravestone. Frightened, I backed my a.s.s farther into the snowdrift, peeled the cellophane off a frozen ham sandwich, and nervously started eating. Death was everywhere around me. Cold American death.

A second casket was launched. It somersaulted briefly in the frozen air, then fell squarely before my feet. The laughter increased, and I covered my head with my hands and howled in terror. Who could be doing this to me? Who could be so cruel as to bait a foreign man under the influence? I opened another sandwich and swallowed most of it strictly out of fear.

And then a third object, a piece of serrated cardboard, fell by my feet. I put down my food and took a better look. It was part of a Scrabble game board, a curious American game that rewards a player's knowledge of English lexicography and orthography. I crawled toward one of the burial caskets, my monstrous Soviet mittens filling with snow, until I made out the word BOSE BOSE glittering at the base. Like most Russian children, I had spent my youth l.u.s.ting after Western technology, so I knew immediately that the object before me was a pricey stereo speaker. Now, why would someone be flinging such a treasure from a dormitory window? I elected to find out. glittering at the base. Like most Russian children, I had spent my youth l.u.s.ting after Western technology, so I knew immediately that the object before me was a pricey stereo speaker. Now, why would someone be flinging such a treasure from a dormitory window? I elected to find out.

Inside the dormitory, one got the impression of a hastily a.s.sembled submarine with small porthole-shaped windows and exposed piping overhead, along with the steady hum of distant propulsion, as if we were burrowing our way beneath the midwestern tundra, hoping to emerge either in the California sun or on the elevated B line rumbling toward Grand Street. The moodily lit lobby was given over to a long row of vending machines from which I procured a dozen delicious MoonPies, their chocolate crust breaking beneath my tongue, bathing it in soft white artificial marshmallow.

"Ho-kay," I said to the empty hallways, on which corkboards were lined with notices demanding swift lesbian action against fat men who got hand jobs from oppressed sisters behind beer trucks. "Bery vell," I said, flexing my stuffed nose. "Such a voman must be prodected."

Savoring my MoonPies, I crossed the lifeless hallways, my ears p.r.i.c.ked for the sound of Rastafarian music, my stuffed nose trying to follow the telltale trail of purple haze sneaking out from beneath some yellow-lit doorjamb. Finally, on the topmost floor, such a place was found, absent the Bob Marley but filled to the brim with loud male voices trying to outdo one another, as if to impress a woman.

I produced one of my big, squishy hands and knocked.

"f.u.c.k you!" yelled a familiar Russian-tinged voice. I put my hand down and felt insulted. Why didn't anyone like me? But as I backed away from the door, the same voice shouted, "Oh, whatever. Come in."

Delighted by the change of heart, I opened the door to face that little runt, the Russian emigre Vladimir Girshkin, a soph.o.m.ore of no great distinction who nonetheless condescended to me because of his nine-year American tenure and his fine American accent. Girshkin was drunk and high, more so than me, and his whole florid, goateed being repulsed me. Next to Girshkin was Jerry Shteynfarb the future novelist, ensconced in some hippie Salvadoran poncho with a GIVE PEACE A CHANCE GIVE PEACE A CHANCE b.u.t.ton pinned to his heart. b.u.t.ton pinned to his heart.

A man-sized industrial fan twirled its mighty propeller by the window, creating an unnatural breeze that tempered the suffocating dormitory heat. Pieces of paper and cardboard were being sprayed out of the fan, like the bits of potato salad trying to escape my mouth at a Women's Studies picnic. Alyosha-Bob, naked save for a pair of cotton boxers, was feeding a hardcover book into the giant fan, its remainders flying out the window and onto the snow-covered quadrangle.

"Die, Pasternak, die!" he was shouting.

"Hey, Bob," Jerry Shteynfarb casually said, "what do I do with the toaster oven?"

"Toss it!" Alyosha-Bob shouted. "The f.u.c.k I gonna use it for? I'm never eating again. Hey, look at this, guys. f.u.c.king Ada. Ada. Take that, Nabokov! You sixteen-karat bore!" Take that, Nabokov! You sixteen-karat bore!"

"Right on," said Shteynfarb and, without any compunction, hurled the toaster oven out the window, his weak literary arm straining under the metallic load.

"Hey, guys," I said. I blew my nose against my coat sleeve. "Hey. Why you throwing everything out the window?"

"Because every sing, sing," Shteynfarb said, mimicking my accent, "must go. That's vai. vai."

"We've each taken three tabs of acid," Vladimir Girshkin explained, his eyes dark and blank beneath his tortoisesh.e.l.l granny gla.s.ses. "And now Bob is getting rid of all his worldly belongings."

"Oh," I said. "Maybe he's a Buddhist."

"Oh," said Shteynfarb. "Maybe he's not. Maybe he just wants to say f.u.c.k-all to everything for no reason. Does everything have to be systematized for you, Misha?"

Alyosha-Bob had turned his dilated pupils my way and challenged me with a skinny red index finger. "You're Snack Daddy," he said, using the nickname I had managed to acquire through my dining hall exploits. I stood in awe of his near-naked splendor, the way he appeared perfectly sane and competent even as he presided over the demise of all the beautiful things his parents must have bought him. This was a new kind of Jew, a super Jew, one divorced from the material world.

"You're Queasy Bob," I said. "I've seen you around the Honor Scholars' Library."

"I know about you," Alyosha-Bob said. "You're the son of that refusenik Boris Vainberg. You're the real deal. You're like a part of history."

I smiled at all three designations. "No, I'm not so big a person as you think," I said. "I am just..." I stopped to pick through my vocabulary. "I am just...I am just..."

"You heard him, he is just," Vladimir Girshkin said.

"Misha the Just," Jerry Shteynfarb said.

"Snack Daddy the Magnificent," Girshkin picked up.

I looked sadly at my compatriots. Three Russians from Leningrad. Striving for the attention of a solitary American Jew. Why couldn't we do better by each other? Why couldn't we form a team to a.s.suage our loneliness? One day I had offered Girshkin and Shteynfarb some homemade beet salad and a loaf of authentic rye bread from the local Lithuanian-owned bakery, but they had only laughed at my nostalgia.

"I am just a student of history," I told Alyosha-Bob.

"Say, Bob, whaddaya want to do with this?" Vladimir Girshkin said as he picked up a framed photograph of a sweet, dimple-faced Alyosha-Bob huddled beneath his impossibly beautiful mother, an a.s.syrian princess in hoop earrings, her l.u.s.trous hair held back by chopsticks, and his father, a Yankee professor adrift in a corduroy suit one size too large. Later, I would spend my summers with the Lips.h.i.tzes at their upstate New York farm, watching them administer their stunningly profitable business, Local Color. They catered to wealthy New Yorkers and Bostonians who would rent out their spread for weddings. During the ceremony, they would be joined by the local townspeople, the local color, as it were-articulate, poor black and white families who would show up and pretend to be longtime friends of the bride or groom, talking in their catchy, bebop dialects about failed crop cycles and the demise of the rust belt. I learned much about the unhappy state of the American family from my summers with the Lips.h.i.tzes, especially about the use of silence as a corrective tool.

"Break the gla.s.s," Alyosha-Bob said of the framed photo, "then shred the picture in the fan and throw the frame out the window."

"Aye-aye, Captain," said Vladimir Girshkin. He picked up a paperweight of St. Basil's Cathedral that had been sitting peaceably amid the junkscape of Alyosha-Bob's desk and started smashing the family portrait, the jarring noises drowned out by the twirl of the industrial fan.

"Should I shred your clothes before throwing them out?" Jerry Shteynfarb asked, rustling through a huge pile of rugged outerwear.

"Give me my coat," Alyosha-Bob said.