"You look in the mood for something adventurous. Shashlik Caucasus-style?" (He almost always selected shashlik.) "Tell you what—make it two. It's not every day we can do the town together."
The waiter glanced at me to wonder whether I'd caught on or was still the dupe being led to slaughter. As always, Bastard chose the best Georgian red. He was much more a vodka than a wine man, but his greatest satisfaction seemed to come from the thought of the rich free feed than from the actual food or drink. Whatever else it was too, an Aragvi supper was the peak of Moscow's good life, and he reveled in it, fork spearing red cabbage, fingers splotched with the cold chicken's cream sauce. He had ordered enough for three—with the usual two half-liters of "vodka-kins"—but methodically cleaned the plates. A third of his bottle disappeared in ten minutes, and his face was florid with the gratification of a feast on a cold night.
"What's this disrespect for the savories? The salami's particularly recommended; give me your plate."
I said I was off^my form, trying to repeat the words I'd used on the telephone. Excuses sometimes annoyed him, but he let this one pass, merely repeating his supposed peasant saying about the medicinal powers of "the little darling white liquid."
Th'=' trick was to take token sips of the vodka, spilling an equal amount into my napkin: he had a weak sense of smell. He probably wasn't trying to get me drunk—it would have been easy enough to slip something into my glass, after all—but simply make me join his overindulgence as part of my fealty. At some level, he knew that the sight of him masticating made me queasy, even when I fought for my honor and my stomach by trying not to eat. . . . My other dodge was to talk enthusiastically about something that might delay his importuning. The weather—but
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not the Russian winter, for that would give him a lead for his sermon about my affection for, and duties to, the Russian people. What I'd been doing since our last meeting—but nothing about the hospital to avoid his hypocritical questions about Alyosha. Something neutral in the news.
He finished the last of the hors d'oeuvres and tossed back more vodka. Two more hours—he liked to leave at ten o'clock—and nothing nasty so far: my luck was holding. He permitted the waiter to serve the shashlik and pronounced himself satisfied with its preparation.
Then I made my first mistake. Bastard's "g's" for "kh's" and backwoods "o's" were unmistakable signs of a cracker upbringing: something else to be ashamed of This is what I failed to register when, to keep fending him off", I asked what part of the country he hailed from. He glowered at me for my impudence, his guard up like the dukes of a beery brawler.
"And what makes you think I wasn't brought up in Moscow?"
I was making no such assumption at all, I said; it had been a figure of speech. Still smoldering at the implied slur to his social standing, he remembered why we were here and bore down on me about my debt to the Soviet people—through him—for indulgences to Alyosha and me.
To feed his ego, I feigned disappointment not to have learned the origins of this masterful incognito operative; to make him feel smarter, I pretended be be in awe of his keen mind and Kremlin connections. Consumed by curiosity about all he couldn't reveal, I could not quite grasp his hints about the responsibility of a "true friend" to Russia. . . . Falling back on these standard defenses, I heard an echo of Alyosha's quip about sharpening the brains of the nation by "playing dumber than our sleuths."
The sleepiness of food and drink dissolved his veneer of artfully guiding the conversation. Patience gone, he snarled at the waiter and leaned his face across the table, inches from mine. Now each minute dragged like a speech to the Presidium. I had to convince him he was making progress with me, which would eventually penetrate my obtuseness and lead to what he wanted. The only way to do it, keeping clear of politics, was to talk about myself, emphasizing my self-doubts to show him how naively honest I was, how much I trusted him. Rikki-tikki-tavi came to mind and
Gold Medals393
I tried to remember whether it was the mongoose or cobra who owned Bastard's hypnotizing eyes.
The sounds of boisterous good times in the main hall faintly penetrated the door. Russians celebrating with the usual abandon, Georgians singing their clannish songs, Western tourists enamored of their artlessness, as I once was. I sweated and stole a glance at his watch. I even profaned my feelings for Alyosha by talking about them to consume another quarter hour. The tactics worked in the sense that he was satisfied with the evening's reapings but only through the humiliation of opening more of myself to him, and supplying more to be used against me next time. Parry, cover up, pretend to forget . . .
He ordered his favorite pastry. The worst was over: he always ended on a lighthearted note, with which the next invitation was supposed to harmonize. My response to his attempted joke about a haircut for me pleased him. What prompted my chuckle was in fact a memory of calling him "Doctor" during our first meetings.
Walking down the corridor, we passed the closed doors of six or seven small private rooms like ours. Bastard sighed. In a mellow mood now, he helped me with my coat and tipped the old cloakroom attendant handsomely for his bow. Outside the driver, who'd been waiting the three hours, scrambled to open both doors for us, but Bastard never pressed his offer to drive me home. I was grateful for the small mercy.
He removed a glove and squeezed my hand with a show of intimacy.
"What are your plans for tomorrow? Oh yes? Have fun, we've opened this country to you to show our trust. But remember your goal is establishing yourself."
I walked the whole way to the apartment. Spooky in the yellow of the swaying streetlamps, nighttime Moscow was both cruel and comforting for its assurance that "nothing can be done about it." I thought of Alyosha and Bastard urging me to stay; of Alyosha, even now, enjoying my hair after a shampoo and Bastard hating me for it. Maxi watched while I sandpapered the kitchen cabinets.
More surgery was immediately scheduled, to be followed by a third series of cobalt treatments. Alyosha submitted without
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interest. The declaration "To prevent further metastases" turned his head awry, as if it wanted to escape from his body.
The day before the second operation, he asked me to help him with his bath. I arrived early and wheeled him to the bathroom. When he undressed, I had my first acquaintance with the horror accompanying the tragedy. The incisions of the first operation were still unhealed. They had had to be reopened when the stitches were removed to drain lymphatic liquids gathering there. The effect of the radiation on the surrounding tissue prevented the clefts from knitting.
I had feared this moment since I first saw him mummy-like in the bandages. And the wounds were indeed fearful, but only momentarily, until my eyes did what was necessary to move to the greater awfulness of his groin. Three-inch cavities stared at me from both sides, like a revolting joke about the green eye of gangrene. The bottom of the hollows was raw meat, covered by blotches of puss.
I straightened up. A smell that I could hardly believe came from a living body was eating into my nostrils. "Sorry, old man," he apologized. "It's really rotten."
But the worst was what he as a whole had become. A desiccated, tormented body, hunched under the weight of his head. My sadness came in the Russian word gorye, with its connotations of human frailty and limitless hurt.
I washed what I could of him and shared his noontime soup. We talked about the time he had produced two pairs of roller skates and we whizzed down the whole of Gorky Street, dodging pedestrians and incredulous traffic cops. "I didn't want to grow up," he said. "Into what? 'Je ne regrette rien'—but you can do better."