Татьяна Толстая - Aetherial Worlds

And there, behind the doors, in my suitcase are my laptop, my iPad, my passport, all my cash and my credit cards, my phone, and basically everything I have of value. I had put it all in there back at Charles de Gaulle, you know, out of fear of those famous Parisian pickpockets.

So here I am, alone at night, in some deserted and dimly lit back corner of the Métro, separated from my belongings by an impenetrable, albeit transparent, wall. I’d suspect that similar emotions are felt by very wealthy people right after their death: just moments earlier you had everything and then— bang! —here you are, dead as a doornail, all incorporeal with rays shooting through you, and your bank accounts and real estate now belong to someone else, bwah-ha-ha.

Must be what Boris and Asya were quietly discussing.

Then a large man descends from the semidarkness. He grabs my suitcase, lifts it up with one hand high over the doors, and lowers it down beside me. I, of course, am very thankful— grand merci, merci beaucoup —but the man follows the suitcase over the doors; I don’t even understand how he manages it, and I don’t like that one bit.

He says: You’re not in a hurry, are you? Let’s get acquainted, get to know each other, be friends. I’m in a frightful hurry, I say, where is the nearest taxi stand? It’s past midnight, everything around us is locked up and parked, surrounded by dreary railroad fumes, and farther out, where I can see people’s faces, it’s also not so lovely: “Gorilla calls and parrot screams,” as the jingle of my student days goes. Those congregating outside are a liberal’s wet dream: transvestites, prostitutes, fresh arrivals, and the disadvantaged with difficult childhoods and even more difficult prospects for old age.

I run toward my saviors, the hookers and the trannies; the man runs after me, continuing our conversation:

“My name is Joaquinto. Are you a miss or a missus? I propose we immediately get to know each other, talk and spend some time together. You’re not in a hurry, are you? Wait, here is my phone number. Take it, please. Why don’t you want my phone number? Why don’t you want to get to know me? What are your reasons?”

It’s hard to explain right off the bat what my reasons are. Sometimes it’s hard to find the right words, Joaquinto.

Finally I manage to break free. I see the taxi line! At the head of it is a hunchback of slight stature, quizzically raising his finger at everyone in line: One? Two passengers? In New York airports there is always a dispatcher like this, shoving a slip of paper in your hand, guiding you to the right taxi, keeping the peace in the queue. Who knows—maybe it’s the same here?

It’s my turn; the hunchback raises one finger and immediately begins to wrestle my suitcase and purse from me. A slight altercation—I manage to hang on to my purse while he tightly grabs hold of my suitcase and drags it the five feet to the car. His hand shifts shape from a raised finger to a cupped palm: Pay up, lady. Me: Oh no you don’t, you little crook. You don’t get shit. I don’t pay for service that was imposed on me. Besides, I only have large bills.

An ugly scene follows: the hunchback, screaming and spitting, lunges after me into the car, I push him away with my foot, he pulls at the car door, I wrestle it free and slam it shut; shrieking and cursing accompanies the car as it finally pulls away. On my grave I’d like the following inscription, please:

She also wrestled with Quasimodo in Paris

at midnight

and won.

Okay, we’re on our way.

“How do you want me to go?” asks the driver, a product of the collapse of colonialism.

“Pardon…? Just—get me there, please. Whichever way. To my hotel.”

“No, but how would you like to go? Fast? Or…?”

Things just aren’t getting any better. I don’t even want to know what options are available to me here. A lady gets into a taxi, gives the driver an address. What questions could there be? What else can one expect from a lady at a train station?

We arrive. The driver looks at the euro notes I hand him, sulks.

“I don’t have any change,” he says.

That won’t work, Buster. I’ve taken taxis from the airport in Jerusalem, and even from Sheremetyevo in Moscow, God help me. I get it. No change? I can wait until it appears. I turn on my inner Buddhist.

We sit.

We wait.

Three minutes later he miraculously finds a five-euro note in his back pocket. I guess change really does come from within.

Hurray! I’m almost there. A lovely concierge at the hotel—a gorgeous man from Morocco who looks to be a student at the Sorbonne. He doesn’t need my passport, or my credit card, or my reservation number: it’s all good. Here is your key, here is your elevator, sweet dreams!

I insert the key card into the lock with the blissful feeling of having finally arrived safely, against the odds, of finally stepping off the ship onto terra firma, where Boris and Asya are no longer a threat. I press the door handle down and step into the room. A soul-piercing scream. It’s occupied! For a second my eyes are exposed to an unexpected performance: a huge black man is pounding some lady. Or a mademoiselle. Or God knows what.

Finally, having obtained a new set of keys from the concierge, I find myself in the privacy of my hotel room; I lock the doors, kick off my heels, power up my laptop, and open a bottle of wine. My hands shaking, I pour Bordeaux generously into the soft plastic cup provided by the hotel. In a split second the cup tips over, the entire contents splashing onto my laptop keyboard. The laptop survives for three minutes and, just before dying, tries desperately to tell me something. It first changes languages, however this results not in letters, but in mysterious symbols I didn’t know existed. I keep desperately trying to press the buttons as Russian letters turn uncontrollably into zodiac signs, waves, stars, ships, and crescent moons. And then the window with the text curls up as if into a tube and slides away.

Drift, wait, and obey.

What if there were no Italy? What if it simply never existed—no such geological configuration in the shape of a boot? Perhaps it was flooded in Noah’s days. Or perhaps it collapsed as a single block, with its Alps and Apennines, with its rosebushes and lemon trees, and—why not—along with Sicily and Sardinia, into blue waters during an earthquake, the sea formless and empty, only the Holy Spirit hovering above the salty abyss. Where would the Albanians, who steal laundry from clotheslines, steer their rubber boats? Let’s pull out a map and duly look: the closest laundry is hanging in Corsica—too far to swim, and the locals might respond with a knuckle sandwich, although there wouldn’t be any locals, would there, and no Frenchmen, either, only Gauls, unconquered and thus never having been ennobled by the Romans. Ipso facto, farther west there would be no Spaniards and no Portuguese, only wild Iberians, most likely under the reign of the Moors. Obviously there wouldn’t be any Romanians or Moldovans, and Chișinău would be inhabited by an altogether different tribe, perhaps one unable even to mix lime paint in a bucket or to replace a windowpane. The English language as we know it—that is, with its almost sixty percent of words derived from Latin—simply wouldn’t exist. And there wouldn’t be any Latin letters, either; we’d write everything with Greek ones, although I’ll grant that, practically speaking, the difference is small.

Greeks would be everywhere, there having been no Romans to conquer them—though that would, most likely, have been done, with great satisfaction, by the Persians once Alexander the Great died. Persians are pretty clever engineers; they are wonderful at building bridges and know how to irrigate, so no need to worry about pavements and water supply. The post office would also run smoothly, especially when serving the royal family. But when it comes to marble statues, mosaics, encaustic painting, and small bronze statuettes, things don’t look so good. No doubt the Greeks can invent anything, make anything, build, write, and paint anything, but what about the small matter of taste? Persian style can be somewhat heavy-handed. Lapis lazuli. The battle of a king with a lion. Golden floor-length robes and hats piled high reflecting the ethos of Ivan the Terrible’s court. Same goes for social mores. Abuse and tyranny, dark anger bubbling underneath: “Everyone! On your knees, bow with your forehead to the floor!” Keep all the women under lock and key and no funny business; drill a hole in the prisoner’s shoulder blades and thread a rope through it. And where is political thought? Consuls, proconsuls, the senate, political parties, the patricians, the plebeians, and, last but not least, the Republic? Where is Roman Law? Helloooo? Where are the orators? The historians? The theaters? Would the Persians really give a crap about the accrescent hum of an assembling crowd, the crepuscular sky above the amphitheater, the sweet scent of the oleander, the last bit of light from Venus, the evening star that’s not really a star at all? About historical scrolls, the adversarial legal system? Would they be captivated by Ciceros, or, given the absence of such, by Demostheneses; would they come to respect them and create public forums where any deadbeat can let his big mouth run? Impale, impale on a stake, clean the forums with quicklime, and farewell, civil rights leaders and advocates. Where are the baths, the flowing summer robes, the shaved chins, the terraced villas? Where are respected women, worthy mothers of worthy citizens? What about honoring agreements? Projects for the common good? Poetry, where is the poetry? Satire!!! Would a Persian tolerate satire? Or privacy of correspondence? Or doing sports in the buff? Or a relaxed attitude toward the gods?