"Which other side?" I said.

"Who knows?" Nanabragov shrugged. "Some other side. Everyone has always been against us. The Russians. The Armenians. The Iranians. The Turks. Look who we're surrounded by. We have no friends here. We thought maybe Israel would like us and then the American public would be our friends. That's why we reached out to you." other side. Everyone has always been against us. The Russians. The Armenians. The Iranians. The Turks. Look who we're surrounded by. We have no friends here. We thought maybe Israel would like us and then the American public would be our friends. That's why we reached out to you."

"You lied to me, you twitchy b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I whispered. "The oil...the f.u.c.king LOGCAP!"

Nanabragov made a lightning twitch to starboard, as if rehearsing for some new Latin dance. "Did I do something wrong, Misha?" he asked. "Did I do anything to hurt my people?"

"The people..." I said. I looked to the refugees cl.u.s.tered beneath blue UNHCR tarps by the waterfront. I was worried they would catch wind of the mutton and sturgeon grilling several meters out to sea and then storm the Lapdog. Had they any strength or anger left? "You've destroyed them," I said. "The country is ruined."

"Well, what can be done?" Nanabragov shrugged.

"I believed in you," I said. "I thought we would make something better. All the people really need is a little hope and encouragement. They're hardworking and clever."

"This country is nothing without oil," Nanabragov said. "Sevo, Svani-it makes no difference. We're a feudal nation. We have a feudal mentality. It was all perfectly fine during the Cold War. We were taken care of by Moscow. But now the world changes so quickly that if you're even one centimeter behind, you'll be behind forever. When you compare us to all those Chinese and Indians, you know we've got no business being in the race. We need to find a new patron."

"But the young people aren't like that," I said. "My friend Alyosha says they can burn hundreds of pirated DVDs in seconds. They can hack into anything."

"Sure, they can burn and hack," Nanabragov said. "Give me a torch and I'll set the whole place on fire. I'm telling you, anyone who's the least bit smart around here fled to Orange County a long time ago."

"So you destroy a country because it's not compet.i.tive. What kind of reason is that?"

"It's the best reason, Misha. Nowadays, if you don't have natural resources, you need USAID. You need the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. You need Kellogg, Brown and Root. If only we could get on America's top-ten list and score big like Jordan or Egypt. Or Israel."

"Why did you kill Sakha the Democrat!" I shouted. "He wasn't just some third-rate peasant. He was one of us. He was one of us."

"Federal forces killed Sakha. It wasn't the SCROD."

"You planned it together with the Svani. First thing you did was get rid of the democrats."

"A lot of good they were. Rotten intelligentsia. Couldn't tie their own shoes. What are you doing, Misha? Oh, for G.o.d's sake. Stop it! Men don't cry. You look funny. Such a big man in tears...What would Nana say if she saw?"

I shook down to the most ridiculous parts of me, tears flying in every direction but upward, like the oil gushers that had failed to materialize. I could still hear Sakha's tender bleating, his last words, which had been addressed to me. Mishen'ka, please. Tell them to stop. They will listen to a man like you. Please. Say something. Mishen'ka, please. Tell them to stop. They will listen to a man like you. Please. Say something.

Mr. Nanabragov came up to me. He raised his hands as if to embrace me, but they twitched out of position. He stood there jerking silently. "Misha," he said. "Don't take my Nana away from me."

"What?"

His eyes were filling up with water and rainbows. "You don't understand what it has been like without her," he said, sniffling. "When she was at NYU and my Bubi was studying Ethnic Musicology at UCLA, there was nothing for me...nothing to live for. People like your father and me, we're of a different generation. Family is what we know. We can't live the way people do now, one child in San Diego, one in Torrance, one in the Valley." He wiped at his eyes.

"Surely you don't mean to leave her here, here," I said.

"You can both stay. Get married. After the Russian bombing next week, things will settle down. You'll see. I'll give you a piece of the cigarette action, not that you need a piece of anything."

"But we'll die here," I said, wiping my raw nose.

"Not necessarily. Don't you understand? I'll do anything to keep her. You're your father's son. He killed an American just to make sure you wouldn't leave him."

Seagulls were circling low over the dead sheep, and the Lapdog waiters were fingering their pistols. I remembered the seagull attacking the British kid on the videotape of my father getting decapitated. Everywhere I went, birds of prey were looking for an in. I stared at the smoke-gray sky above us, black smoke from the Lapdog grill, the haze wafting from the still-burning city. "Misha," Mr. Nanabragov said. "Misha. How can you fault me? Your father killed an Oklahoman to make sure you couldn't go back to New York."

"I know," I said simply.

"He wanted to keep you near him. He missed you so much. Is there anything more important than a father's embrace?"

"Nothing," I whispered.

And then Mr. Nanabragov was around my neck, crying and jerking and humping my leg. They still couldn't stop smelling of rancid sweat, our old men. All those French colognes and moisture gels, but that fundamental rank still lingered in their armpits. "Misha!" Mr. Nanabragov cried. "You have to promise me that you won't take my Nana away from me."

I felt him contracting around me, twitching in time with the slowing thump of my own heart. "I would be very angry if you did, Misha," he said. "So you have to promise me she won't leave."

I felt his bitter drool on the back of my neck. "I promise," I said.

42.

Saltines and Fresca.

We left a few days later. It was September 9. The day was light and airy and spoke of deliverance from the summer's heat. The train station was on the Svani Terrace, but we didn't bother with any precautions. The SCROD and federal checkpoints had disappeared completely, and Svani and Sevo citizens staggered around without hindrance, free to die on any terrace they chose.

We stood in the waiting room beneath a fading picture of the Svani dictator Georgi Kanuk, upon whose grave octogenarian visage one commentator had written #1 TERRORIST TERRORIST and another and another FATHER OF THE NATION FATHER OF THE NATION. Nana's mother had sneaked out of the house to say goodbye to us. Removed from the courtyard and the kitchen, she was a surprisingly different creature, feisty and emotional. The afternoon sun had touched her pale homebound cheeks. While she wept prodigiously at her daughter's departure, she did so with an almost reticent delight. "G.o.d will bless you," she kept saying to me and Nana. "In Brussels, in New York, wherever it is that you go, G.o.d will follow your footsteps with a father's eye."

"Tell Papa my heart is breaking," Nana said. "Tell him I'll come back as soon as the war is over, so maybe they should try to wrap it up by the Christmas break. By the way, is there any money in the Citibank account? I still haven't paid the bursar."

Mrs. Nanabragovna wiped her tears. "Now you're with Misha," she said, pointing to the general area around my wallet. "Misha will be your father, and there will always be water in his well for you to drink." Mother and daughter smiled and embraced each other.

I was angry and disgusted with the Nanabragovs, but I couldn't help being moved by their parting. "Be careful, little mother," I said to Mrs. Nanabragovna. "The Russians are planning to bomb the city next week. You must take shelter in your bas.e.m.e.nt."

"Oh, they'll never bomb our our house," Mrs. Nanabragovna said with a dismissive wave. "They'll just make a loop around Gorbigrad." house," Mrs. Nanabragovna said with a dismissive wave. "They'll just make a loop around Gorbigrad."

We were escorted onto the train by an army of men wearing homemade fatigues with the words AMERICAN EXPRESS RAPID REACTION FORCE AMERICAN EXPRESS RAPID REACTION FORCE. Our self-appointed protectors handled us roughly, like the soldiers they were, banging our laptops against the gravel and pulling us by our sleeves. We cursed their mothers under our breath and yet rejoiced at the presence of their formidable armaments, in particular the tank-busting cannon being dragged ahead of us.

The platforms were deserted. All the rail lines had been bombed into torqued ellipses of the kind made popular by a certain American sculptor, save for one upon which the American Express locomotive and two wagons idled. They were old wide-gauge Soviet cars brought up to gleaming Western snuff. The locomotive sported a silk-screened AmEx logo. Absurdi children had painted the wagons with scenes of a better life for themselves, earnest depictions of dark-haired boys and girls wearing Svani and Sevo crosses, flying happily between the Eiffel Tower, the Houses of Parliament in London, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. YOU YOU'VE GOT TO PLAY TO WIN, the children had written in large green English letters beneath their impossible fantasies. The roofs of the train cars were occupied by more members of the American Express Rapid Reaction Force nailing down their RPG launchers and waving a Colorado's worth of small arms at the sky.

We were handed over to a relatively pleasant group of Nana's former American Express colleagues, who immediately told us that the soldiers were merely "volunteers" and not affiliated at all with the American Express company. We were given a stack of doc.u.ments to sign, denying the company's responsibility for our likely deaths at the hands of desperate starving folk marauding along the train tracks.

One of the wagons had been converted into a plush Irish pub called Molly Malloy's, a branch of which used to service multinational oil execs on the International Terrace (its taps, in retrospect, had gushered better than the oil wells). The wood paneling had been artificially aged and warped; only the authenticating smells of p.i.s.s and meat pies were missing. The bartender, an imported Tatar in a jolly green hat, bade us to return for happy hour at six, when top-shelf drinks were reduced to US$20.

I sent Timofey off to bed down in the service quarters, then retired to our compartment. The comforters and pillows were plush and hypoallergenic, the overhead racks had a built-in DVD player, a plasma screen, and a docking station for our laptops with Internet access that actually worked. "This is better than the Hyatt!" I told Nana as we fondled each other beneath a tasteful print of Svani City at the turn of the last century, a wooden tram running past an onion-domed church, men in crisp czarist uniforms bidding each other good morning.

I had nearly removed her bra and liberated one nipple when the conductor meekly came a-calling. "I'm paying for both of us," I told the old man trembling in his AmEx regalia and visored cap. "And for my manservant, too."

"Three persons, all told," the conductor said, showering us with his spittle. He was yet another aficionado of the local breakfast favorite, sheep's head and trotters dunked in garlic broth. "Er, all told, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, please, sir."

I proffered my American Express card, and the conductor excused himself to run it through the system. "Just slide it under the door when you're finished," I told him, and went back to sampling my Nana's sugar and sweets.

She had blessed the entire train crew with the sounds of her tumultuous nine-part o.r.g.a.s.m when the locomotive whistled and our train sprang into belated motion. Nana dismounted, licked her fingers, then pressed her plush nose to the window. "Are you sad to be leaving your homeland, sweetie?" I asked, pulling on my underpants and giving a last tussle to my still-swollen organ.

"There's not much of it left," Nana said. She made an outline with her pinkie against the missing shape of the Central Mosque in the distance. The moistness of her digit against the gla.s.s left a pretty arabesque in place of the minaret's defunct silver cupola. The train pa.s.sed through a tunnel, and we reemerged on the far end of the Gorbigrad peninsula. From this vantage point, the wrecked skysc.r.a.pers of the International Terrace had lined up in such a way that you could see clear through their looted interiors to an Ottoman fortress in the background that had been cleaved more or less in two. Nana lowered the shades.

"They'll build it anew," I said. "Maybe USAID or the European Bank will come through after all. Won't they, Nana?" I watched her face closely, trying to see how much she knew of her father's exploits.

"Misha, you're cute, cute," Nana said in a way that would brook no dissent. She put her head on my lap and yawned. "I hope your optimism carries me through life, little father. Want to play Food, Decor, Service?"

We did that for a while, and then I logged on to the Internet to check the weather in Brussels, my future home, and in New York, where Nana was headed to begin her NYU semester. "You're going to have some great weather in the city," I told her. "Wow, from the tenth to the sixteenth, we're looking at temps in the seventies, clear skies. You're so lucky."

"Someday the Americans will let you back in," Nana said, yawning again. "They'll forget that your father killed the Oklahoman and welcome you for your money." She burrowed into the comforter and started to snore dramatically. I most likely did the same, rocking our carriage with my sleep apnea.

Around six o'clock, I woke up and adjourned for a drink. The bar car was decorated with many Irish proverbs celebrating the wisdom and hilarity of unchecked alcoholism, the remaining s.p.a.ce given over to large placards that said HERE CAN BE YOUR ADVERTISING HERE CAN BE YOUR ADVERTISING. Retreating KBR men in pleated shorts and extra-large T-shirts were lounging on the tartan couch by the window while the bartender served them luscious pink lobster rolls and thick, oily American potato chips. The men were raucous and drunk. One of the Scotsmen was apparently trying to have a literary conversation with his Houston counterpart. "Evelyn Whuh Whuh?" the Texan was shouting. "Get outta here, mister! That ain't a real name!"

The train moved slowly to make sure our protectors would not fall off the roof. Outside the window, the country people had gathered by the tracks to try to interest us in their remaining possessions-the leftovers of their mules, their wives' silver brocade work, plumbing fixtures that looked like mud-caked saxophones, gilt-edged portraits of Georgi Kanuk in happier times presenting a drooling Leonid Brezhnev with a fist-sized diamond.

In the background, the Caspian Sea was fighting an encroaching salt bed, while in the foreground, a lake of slurry and waste b.u.t.ted up against a dehydrated stretch of gra.s.s; between the two, the remains of the oil industry were being minutely disa.s.sembled, sections of old nodding donkey pumps now offered for sale by the men lining the railroad tracks.

The smell of fresh excrement penetrated the bulletproof walls of our wagon, and we could hear members of the AmEx Rapid Reaction Force stomping about on the roof, threatening the dying men outside with the laser scopes of their rifles or else picking off the rare Daewoo steam iron in exchange for packets of contraband saltines and warm cans of Fresca. As the sun set, the impromptu trading lessened in tempo, and the men lining the railroad tracks began to decompose into clay shards and clumps of sand mixed with gra.s.s. Their humanity ended so swiftly that one moment I could discern the subtle glow of the whites of their eyes against the blue and black of the fading desert and sea, and in the next instant I saw only yellow on black, gray on black, black on black-nothing.

My mobilnik mobilnik rang. The St. Petersburg telephone code appeared on the screen. Apparently international calls were possible this far out of the capital; we had outdistanced the Absurdi censors. rang. The St. Petersburg telephone code appeared on the screen. Apparently international calls were possible this far out of the capital; we had outdistanced the Absurdi censors.

The familiar number blinked impatiently on my phone. It was Alyosha-Bob. I wanted to tell him that I was safe and leaving the country, but I was too embarra.s.sed to go into the particulars of what had transpired-how the Nanabragovs had taken my honor and how one of them-granted, the most gentle and sympathetic-was now snoring away in my train compartment. Instead, I picked up one of the Russian papers and tried to distract myself with the news. The death toll from the Absurdi conflict was approaching three thousand, the American electorate still couldn't find the Caspian Sea on a map, while the Russian president Putin was promising both to bomb the warring parties and to mediate between them. I put the paper down. My stomach and mouth were suddenly hurting from the beating Tafa and Rafa had given me. Or perhaps I had merely channeled the suffering of the nation around me.

I pictured my life in Brussels. The days pa.s.sing slowly in that quiet European indeterminacy. The price of living amid civilization, away from the bustle and treachery of America and Absurdistan both.

The older Scots were trying to teach the Texans the chorus to one of their bagpipe songs, soused with melancholy cheer and the impossibility of ever really saying farewell. Potato chips flew out of mouths and beer steins clanked together as the Tatar barman tried to keep the beat with a pair of coasters.

So whenever friendly friens may meet Wherever Scots foregather, Wherever Scots foregather, We'll raise our gless, we'll shout We'll raise our gless, we'll shout Hurroo, Hurroo, It's Carnwath Mill forever. It's Carnwath Mill forever.

The sun had set entirely, and the AmEx men were shining their flashlights at a yellow corpse stumbling alongside the tracks, its hands waving madly for a moment's notice. We pulled down the shades before the gunshots began.

43.

The Faith of My Fathers.

I was rightfully hungover the next day, whiskey being one of my more problematic tipples. Something was blocking the busy neural pathway where my neck had set up a Customs post with my head. "Oh, dear," I moaned, kissing Rouenna's face, or, as it turned out, the doughy pillow where she had left her scents. Did I say Rouenna? I meant Nana, of course. And then I realized I had been dreaming of Rouenna all night long, about the time she and I, along with her little cousin Mercedes, had taken a tour of Hunter College. As we pa.s.sed through the library, the lively ten-year-old Mercedes had said, "Ai, mami, mami, look at all them f.u.c.ken books!" And Rouenna, who had misguidedly dressed herself in a business suit for the informal college tour, very solemnly replied, "Why you cursin' in an educated place, Mercedes?" look at all them f.u.c.ken books!" And Rouenna, who had misguidedly dressed herself in a business suit for the informal college tour, very solemnly replied, "Why you cursin' in an educated place, Mercedes?"

Was it the word "educated" that was sc.r.a.ping away at my heart? The respect for book learning from a woman who, up till that point, had thought d.i.c.kens was a p.o.r.n star? Was it the cheap business suit that could barely contain Ro's figure? Why did I miss her so much all of a sudden, my traitorous Bronx girl with the tough hands and the bleeding gums?

"Breakfast is here, bobo, bobo," Nana said. "Get it while it's hot." The train crew had set up a small table for us upon which a heap of croissants and m.u.f.fins exuded the nauseating smells of b.u.t.ter and cranberries. I propelled myself to the table, nearly knocking over a silver tray bearing a notecard with the AmEx logo. A train happily chugged past an indifferent sun; below, a message written in a woman's dainty, practiced hand:

Good morning, respected pa.s.senger!

Today is Monday, September 10, 2001 We are pa.s.sing through northern Absurdsvani, where today's temperature will be a maximum of 28 degrees Celsius, with sunny conditions prevailing along the Staraushanski Valley and into the Griboedov mountain range.

Lunch in the bar car will be a caviar sampler with blini and just-picked country leeks followed by elderberry-cured roast beef (a northern Absurdi specialty) with fingerling potatoes and cavalo nero. cavalo nero.

We will be arriving at the Red Bridge border checkpoint at 15:00 o'clock. Please have your pa.s.sports ready.

My name is Oksana Petrovna, I am proud to work on this train, and I am here only just for you!

"Such a nice girl, this Oksana," I said to Nana. "She's even more professional than that poor Larry Zartarian." I winced at the thought of the Hyatt manager and his mother, still trapped beneath my bed at the Intourist Hotel.

"She's a s.l.u.t," Nana corrected me, pouring three creams into my coffee, which is how I took it.

I raised the shades. What a difference a night made! The oily sea-desert had been replaced by a near-alpine vista. Fields of yellow late-summer gra.s.s (or was it really hay in disguise?) rolled down the hills. Rills fed brooks, which nurtured distant lakes, which in turn drank from the whitecapped mountains straddling the horizon. A bird that might have been an eagle or a pigeon (my eyesight is not so strong) circled above the distant skyline of these promontories. And something was mercifully absent from this unfurling of nature's green, blue, and white tricolor, something beaten and raw, scorched and unkempt, vulgar and blackened with rot. "Where are the people?" I asked Nana. "Why don't they come eat all these eagles and hay instead of dying in the desert?"

"The people have been moving off the mountain for decades," Nana said. "They follow the oil."

"But there's no oil left," I said. "Right, Nana? The whole war was cooked up by your papa and Golly Burton because they ran out of oil. Isn't that true?"

Nana shrugged. "What do I know?" she said. "I'm just a senior at NYU. You gotta try this excellent honey! It's soooo good. And not too sweet. Taste the difference?"

I tasted it, all right. "That is really great," I said. "Where does it come from?" We started turning over the honeypot, trying to find a label. "Ah, it's from Turkey!"

As I was finishing up the croissants, the train came to a halt. "Yum, yum, yum," I said, glancing out the window. Some vendors had gathered beneath my window, and the AmEx soldiers were jumping off the roof to bargain with them. The country folk had set up a wooden bench piled with cartons of Newport Lights, spinach leaves, and fresh cherries. "The lunch menu didn't say anything about dessert," I said to Nana. "Maybe I should buy some cherries."

The sound of a local tongue brushed up against my window with gravelly insistence. Already voices were being raised in anger even as U.S. dollars changed hands along with cigarettes and spinach. It was then that I noticed a strange phenomenon-the vendors had little blue and white circles pinned to their dark heads. Yarmulkes? Yarmulkes? "Nana," I said, "are these the Mountain-" "Nana," I said, "are these the Mountain-"

The door to our cabin slammed open. A presence almost as large as my own took up the s.p.a.ce between Nana and me, immediately overturning our breakfast table. "Vainberg!" the creature barked. "Oh, thank G.o.d I've found you! You have to get off the train now! I'm a friend of your late father's. Avram."

I backed off into a corner and raised my hands in protest. Avram? My father? Not again! "What's this about?" I said weakly.

The man was of late middle age, dressed in a leather cap, along with designer shirt and pants that his wife had nicely matched to his proportions. He had a pitiful and worried mien, yet the rest of his appearance was strong, sweaty, and powerful. He was clearly a Jew. And such a Jew! A prehistoric Jew, as I've said before, a Haimosaurus rex Haimosaurus rex with the flabby little hands, the big roaring mouth, the broad muscular legs and sensual hindquarters. with the flabby little hands, the big roaring mouth, the broad muscular legs and sensual hindquarters. So this is how we all began, So this is how we all began, I thought to myself. "Mr. Vainberg," the Jewish dinosaur was saying, "they will kill you at the border. They will take Miss Nana back to her father. We have no time. You must get off the train without delay." I thought to myself. "Mr. Vainberg," the Jewish dinosaur was saying, "they will kill you at the border. They will take Miss Nana back to her father. We have no time. You must get off the train without delay."

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Nana said. "My father must have found out I left with you. He probably ordered the border guards to kill you in revenge."

"Not probably. probably. Exactly so!" the intruder cried. "I'm a Mountain Jew, Mr. Vainberg. There was a Mossad man, a Dror or a Jimmy, who came through here three days ago, and he warned us that you were coming and that there would be trouble if the Nanabragov girl was with you. We've set up a diversion outside with the American Express hooligans. We must get you off the train. These thugs will soon tire of bargaining for cherries, and then they're liable to shoot us all." Exactly so!" the intruder cried. "I'm a Mountain Jew, Mr. Vainberg. There was a Mossad man, a Dror or a Jimmy, who came through here three days ago, and he warned us that you were coming and that there would be trouble if the Nanabragov girl was with you. We've set up a diversion outside with the American Express hooligans. We must get you off the train. These thugs will soon tire of bargaining for cherries, and then they're liable to shoot us all."

"The American Express train crew works for Nana's father?" I said.