I went along, being a Russian like them, feeling respect for death.
He was stretched on the table, dressed in a black suit, without shoes, but with socks on. «Touch him – his feet are cold already,» said the old woman, squeezing his foot. I too touched it; it was cold. The belongings of the maintenance man Tolik were given away, as is customary. I, too, got two white shirts and leather gloves, almost new. But they were all too big. He was a big guy. I gave them away to someone. To Voroshilov the artist, I think.
I wonder if Diane von Furstenberg or Jackie Onassis are happy? You won't learn this from the magazines, won't see it on TV, they themselves won't tell you about it. On TV there was a show about apes. The inquisitive Japanese were studying them in Africa.
The apes looked happy, but then this one bald guy-ape went into such fierce hysterics that I had to change my opinion. Probably he was sick of the woods – tree trunks, endless tree trunks. The way they were lying there was good though. The kids, the girls, the adult females – some stroke each other, some do other things out of mutual affection. That's what we should adopt from them.
The Daughter of Madam Ango
Ah, that daughter of that Madam. The Madam, judging from the name, was a woman of very easy virtue, and so the daughter, obviously, is also quite dubious, because, as they say, like mother like daughter. Her whole personality is contained by her name. Just imagine for a moment if you wilclass="underline" since Madam Ango has breached all the norms of decency and even her name sounds dubious, then what sort of a little thing would the daughter of Madam Ango be? It's just pure debauchery. She wears her fur coat – all naked underneath – and then she's off to a restaurant, a rose or some other flower in her hair; and at the restaurant she causes a brawl, and the men fight for the she-devil. The blood is spilled, the mirrors are crushed, the tuxedoes and tails are torn. And she just exudes the scent of her cool skin from under her fur coat; she bares a breast with her nipple indecently cracked – she's happy.
She's lives alone. Rents an apartment. Now a man moves in with her, now a whole dozen keep visiting her. There's no system to it. She dresses so that everything is obvious to alclass="underline" her hat, to one side, so you can't see half of her face. She'll wear any kind of white pants, or a dress that's like a flag trailing behind her for half a block. She's long past sixteen, yet there is no sign of maturity. She smokes, drinks, and sniffs like a horse. Secretly from all, she suffers from poor health. Loves to fuck, even puffs and pants. She'll come to a bad end.
She twiddles a long cigarette holder with her fingers. She'll come to a bad end. Will die in the gutter. Still, she's fun.
Her value system is founded on champagne and caviar. In the novels, the daughter of Madam Ango marries a general or a senator or dies from some fateful, vicious disease (tuberculosis, cancer) – not so in real life, not always.
Loves her c. Affectionately refers to it by diminutive names using various suffixes and endings.
I've never met a person before whom I could kneel down, kiss his feet, and prostrate myself. I would do that, I would follow and serve him. But there's no such person. Everyone is serving. No one is leading. There's no one leading on a new path.
There's no one on the path.
I see a clean yard. I see young people, men and women. They sit in the Oriental manner – they sing touching each other and swaying in synch. «Are you afraid of water?» I ask myself, awake now. «It's been a long time since I've seen it,» I reply to myself.
Enter into that clean yard, to those people, regardless of what they wear, regardless of how much or little they eat – just be with them – just feel their hands and be, without any malice, together.
Buy me white clothes! Give me fire in my hands! Cut my collar off. Send me to the guillotine. I want to die young. Put a violent end to my life, bleed me, kill me, torture and hack me to pieces! There cannot be an old Limonov! Do this within the next few years. Best time – April or May!
During the misty spring days, our New York is remarkably beautiful for a lonely person.
In that mist, it feels good to look for tulips on the tops of skyscrapers, flying gently, solo, from one roof to the other on homespun silk wings.
to E.R.
Black fabrics absorb the sun well. It feels good to sweat in them in the spring. Once, maybe, I had a coat like this. I can't remember now. It feels good to: Let the coat drop into the puddles, step over it, enter through the door – it'll bang behind my back – buy some fried food, drink some alcohol, wipe my face with the napkin, get off a chair, say: ha-ha-ha! Exit through the door, turn left at the corner, get the knife out, hide it in my right sleeve, dive into the entrance of Your house, stab the doorman, jump into the elevator, and find myself on the nineteenth floor, kiss You on Your silly lips, take your fucking clothes off, fuck you – panting – into the tight, child's-like orifice, into your weak and silly hole, and start toward the door while receiving a hot piece of metal lodged in my stomach, then die on the parquet floor. It was only You that I ever loved, I think. And at the very last moment, a glimpse of the policeman's shoes.
«Gabriel, my friend, do you happen to enjoy torture? Actually, it's pleasant, isn't it, to observe some twisted features.»
«I like torture mixed with sex. The pure pain is not pleasant for the observer, Edward.»
«That's right, Gabriel. But I'm an Asian, and in these matters the oriental sophistication is well known. We Asians like to have our experiments.»
A sad career of a major from some Southern country proceeded under the cypresses and palm trees.
I love: the tree of death, bloody around the trunk, and somebody's fate, shortnened in order to use it as an example.
A knife that pierced a map.
An officer in a beret – that's my aide.
Blood in the bandages of a soldier who fell into the grass.
The scent of eau-du-cologne and cognac.
I love my future.
And the black Southern shadows.
And a twenty-three-year-old woman, who sneaked in to shoot me.
Yesterday, a black man walks along Broadway and repeats melancholically: «I love King-Kong… I love King-Kong… I love King-Kong…»
I smiled at him. And he smiled. We exchanged glances like conspirators.
We're in the know. And the big ape has nothing to do with it either.
Yesterday, again, I saw one of ours. Bending, making an artistic gesture, he offered a car the right of way. It was he who smiled at me in that way. My own father never smiled at me like that. It's clear, this guy too is one of ours.
Two in one day – not bad.
Jule, the hairdresser, Serge, the collector of stamps, and I somehow gut to be good friends and formed a group. A passion for flying together at sunset united us. On a clear day you can often see us gliding over the hills and lakes near the town of St. Paul. Three of us are suspended – reclining – over the big pine grove to the south-east of Peoria: we breathe in the aromas.