David Bezmozgis - The Free World

One afternoon in late August, on his way home from picketing the Israeli embassy, Lyova witnessed the election of the new pope. After five hours of circular and monotonous marching, he’d stopped and set his sign down at the edge of St. Peter’s square.

— Looked like a nice fellow, Lyova said. You could almost imagine that Jesus Christ himself had had a hand in his election.

They decided that they would go to see his inauguration, scheduled for the following week.

— You still expect to be here? Alec asked.

— Unfortunately, I’ve no reason to expect otherwise, Lyova said.

— No action at the embassy?

— Some Italian Communists showed up with anti-Zionist placards and offered to march in solidarity. We nearly came to blows. Despite what some people say, I still have my limits. I’m not so far gone yet that I’ll join up with a bunch of idiots who get a sexual thrill from shouting, Zionism is racism!

— What happened to your enemy’s enemy?

— Sometimes your enemy’s enemy is still your enemy. Incidentally, this is how my late grandmother used to refer to me and my sister. It was how she explained her boundless love. Do you know how come Grandmother loves you so much? How come, Grandmother? Because you’re the enemy of Grandmother’s enemy.

— And the enemy?

— My mother.

— Her daughter-in-law?

— No, daughter. They were very close, but always arguing. You’ve never heard it phrased this way? I always thought it was commonplace. It’s how my mother now refers to my son.

At the mention of his son, Lyova grew morose. He was so often hustling, clowning, and crusading that Alec had assumed he was unaffected by the kind of loneliness and melancholy one would expect in a man who hadn’t seen his wife and son in more than a year. After all, as Polina hadn’t failed to point out, nothing tangible was stopping him from boarding a plane to Tel Aviv. That he chose not to do this suggested that he preferred the life he was leading in Rome. It occurred to Alec, not for the first time, that he had completely misread someone. At that moment, Lyova seemed to be defined precisely by the feelings to which Alec had believed him to be impervious.

As Lyova brooded, Alec’s mind turned to Masha. He wondered what Masha would have made of Lyova in his state. Just as he’d wondered moments earlier if she’d have been amused by their conversation. Ever since he’d first seen her at the orientation he pictured her presiding in some upper gallery of his mind. He performed for her delectation. He noticed things he would have otherwise ignored, and saw with fresh eyes what was familiar to him.

Though who she was and what she really thought about anything, Alec had no idea. He’d seen her only twice. Once during the orientation and once more in the lobby of the pensione. Both times he had been under the scrutiny of Masha’s mother and brother. A powerful neurotic force seemed to bind the three of them together.

He’d confided this to Karl, with the hope that Karl might have a lead on an apartment or some job for the brother.

Through some unspecified connection, Karl said that he knew of a good place coming available in Ostia.

— How good is good?

— You want a private tour?

— A description would help. I have to tell them something.

— Tell them. A separate bathroom. A separate kitchen. Clean, no bugs. In short, a palace.

— You don’t know of anything in Ladispoli? Ladispoli would be more convenient, Alec said.

— This is what I can do, Karl said. I’ll need an answer tomorrow.

— I’ll ask.

— Ask, Karl said. As a favor to you, I’ll reduce my commission. They’ll get a nice discount and you’ll get yourself another little chickadee.

— She might be more than that.

— It doesn’t matter to me, Karl said. Do as you like. Nobody ever accused you of good sense. The lunacy with Polina proved that. Although, there, I could almost see why. Anyway, if I didn’t know better, I’d recommend some self-restraint. Leave well enough alone. Particularly at a time like this.

— When isn’t it a time like this?

— Spoken like a proper imbecile.

— You don’t think it’s true?

— You talk a lot of shit, Karl said. Careful you don’t step in it.

Alec saw no point in reminding Karl that he recalled a time, not all that long ago, when Karl was not too far removed from this sort of shit. In this respect, they were both their father’s sons. When they’d reached a certain age, they’d learned why their mother had spent so many nights sobbing behind the bedroom door. And if their parents had managed to conceal Samuil’s infidelities from them while they were young, the infidelities were common knowledge to almost everyone else. This was something Alec realized on the occasion of Samuil’s fifty-fifth birthday, when Yuli, their mother’s cousin, got drunk and, in a failed attempt at humor, made some inappropriate comments during his toast.

At the factory, nobody ever mentioned it. People feared Samuil, and knew that he had a network of informants. But though Alec never heard anything said, he knew that strains of the gossip persisted. He inferred as much from the contemptuous smirks and glances directed at him when he chatted with some girl at work. There was more to those glances than simple resentment over his privileged status as the son of Samuil Leyzerovich. Implicit was that he’d inherited his libidinous appetite from his father, and the suggestion of something more odious, the libel of the rapacious, satyric Jew — which cast him and his father shoulder to shoulder, leering toothily, their trousers agape, members aloft, ready to defile the virginal daughters of the motherland.

In reality, of course, such a thing would have been impossible, not least because Alec couldn’t remember the last time he and his father had exhibited anything resembling coordination of purpose. And beyond that, there was also the matter of the virginal daughters, who had few representatives among the female collective of the VEF radio-technical factory.

Before he took up with Polina, he’d had a few desultory affairs. Without these, the boredom would have been unendurable. Other coworkers dealt with the same problem differently. For lunch three men would each throw in a ruble for the price of a bottle, but Alec didn’t have the right constitution for this. He resorted to persuading some Mila, Luba, or Luda to accompany him into a small utility room that smelled heavily of phenol.

When he met Polina, however, an alternative to the phenol-smelling room had miraculously presented itself. After living under the strict regime of his in-laws for six years, Karl had succeeded in obtaining a separate apartment in a cooperative that was being built in Teika, within walking distance of VEF. For two years, as it was slowly being constructed, he had passed the building every day on his way to work. When it was finally completed, people received letters telling them that they could take possession. Vans and movers arrived. Curtains and lamps appeared in the windows of his future neighbors. Karl was impatient to join them, but Rosa refused to move until the apartment had been prepared to her taste. She and her mother hired an interior decorator and spent weeks deliberating over the wallpaper, carpets, furniture, and appliances. The decorator had come recommended in the typical way, as a resourceful person, capable of getting her hands on merchandise of incomparable scarcity. However, months elapsed between the deliberations and the arrival of the wallpaper, carpets, and furnishings. Rosa, her mother, and the interior decorator made intermittent visits to the apartment, which otherwise remained unoccupied. The glaring fact of this incensed Karl every time he passed the building to and from work. In retaliation, he began to use the apartment on his own. He invited friends to drink and play cards. He let Alec use it for his liaisons. On occasion, he brought women there himself.