Edward Limonov - His Butler’s Story (1980-1981)

I packed my bag and went. They promised forty hours a week at four dollars an hour. One hundred sixty dollars. I went — I didn't have any other work.

I spent two months in a town near the Hudson River working as a common laborer and bricklayer and returned to New York at the end of November, there being no more work for me to do in the country.

The whole month of December I spent doing clothing alterations for rich ladies on Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue — skirts and pants. I charged them five dollars an hour for the sewing and cheated a little on the time, so that I started to pick up some money — at least, I was able to make my rent and live after a fashion, but I was bored. I was alone once more.

Once after sewing all day, I was sitting and eating and mechanically watching television, trying various stations, and irritably thinking, How long will I have to keep doing alterations on all their old shit? I'd spent the whole day repairing a torn coat with a fur lining of the sort that any bum would wear, although it belonged to a lady who lived next door to the Guggenheim Museum. Who would have believed that these rich ladies would be so cheap and have their old coats altered or have me patch their husbands' old trousers? I thought. And then on one of the programs I suddenly saw the sweet little face of Lodyzhnikov, so that instead of switching stations, I lingered for a moment, whereupon I was afforded the opportunity of beholding Drosselmeier himself — my former lover Leshka Kranets. Tall and imperious, Leshka strode about the stage in a huge black batlike cloak. The lead. Leshka was a drunk with a heart of gold. He not only slept with you, but worried about whether you were satisfied, or drunk enough, or whether you needed something to wear. As brief as our romance was, he still managed to give me some gold cuff links and to send me money in beautiful envelopes with the tenderest of inscriptions and anticipations and apologies, lest I be offended by the money, which was intended as a gift. But my prick takes me to those who don't love me, which of course is why I remained neither with Jenny nor with Leshka or Sarah, nor with any of the other, by no means bad people, with whom a generous fate has brought me into contact.

At that moment, Leshka happened to be tying a scarf around the neck of the nutcracker. You remember the part where the head comes off? I started smiling and then burst out laughing. Leshka had always been a healer and a doctor, and it had been my lot from time to time to feel the benefit of his healing organ in the days when I still considered myself bisexual.

But who will heal me now? I thought. Jenny was leaving on the fifth of January and already had her ticket. The millionaire's little house had provided me with a great deal of healing, and now I wouldn't be seeing it anymore. And then it suddenly occurred to me, why in fact shouldn't I see it again? Why shouldn't I offer to take Jenny's place? She had tried to find somebody, but hadn't been able to. I would have my favorite garden again, and the house with the children's room where I could take refuge from calamity, and a reliable income — every week. Let's look into it, I thought. I still wasn't ready then to live on my own.

And turning off the television, I erased Leshka from the screen and called up Jenny.

You can reproach Steven Gatsby with probably just about anything you like, including the lack of a sense of humor, but he does enjoy showing off, and his snobbery is something you won't take away from him. Therefore, when Jenny arranged an interview for me with Gatsby in the same long-suffering solarium three days before she left, she was certain he wouldn't take me, but I understood her boss better than she did. We looked each other over, chatted for ten minutes, and I knew I could work for him as long as I wanted to. A housekeeper-writer was something he required the same way he required bread, and I believe that my sojourn in his house will in time inevitably take its place in his family chronicle.

Jenny finally rolled out of the house on the fifth of January, 1979, taking with her a heap of cardboard boxes and other assorted trash, and accompanied by virtually the whole Jackson clan, by the timid Martha, who hadn't left for Los Angeles yet, by Bridget and the weeping Linda, and by numerous other tertiary figures — friends and acquaintances of Jenny's — as well as by the shrieking of children and an otherwise indescribable bustle. Jenny's friends also managed to pilfer a number of other absolute essentials, including a fair quantity of alcohol, which she let them haul out of the basement and stick in among the clothing and furniture that did in fact belong to her. I didn't intercede on behalf of «our» alcohol at the time; I didn't want to ruin her leave-taking.

I was genuinely happy that she was going. She was actually moving only her body to Los Angeles; her mind and thoughts had already been there for a long time with the proprietor of the printing shop. She was an appalling sight the last days before she left, her pregnancy having made her even more animal-like and bovine. Like any real American girl raised on mass culture, Jenny, as you already know, firmly believed that everything natural was healthy, and behaved accordingly, burping, letting out mooing sounds, and unfortunately even smelling bad. I'm ashamed even to pronounce the word, but, yes, she did that too, although it's true she first gave a warning, saying, "I'm going to fart," although the warning didn't in fact change anything. In short, she really let herself go after she got pregnant.

How is Mark going to put up with her? I thought. "Goodbye, Jenny Jackson," I said at the door.

"Goodbye, Edward Limonov," she replied with a smile. Nobody asked me to go to the airport, and so I didn't. The door shut behind her.

Only then, gentlemen, did I realize how lucky I was that Jenny was gone from my life. It's good, I thought, when your whole future is open to you, wide open again, and you can do whatever the hell you want. For a start I went up to her former room, now mine, and thoroughly washed it and threw out everything I thought should be thrown away, with a firm hand clearing away all her trash and her dirt. I worked on that project for the next two days — Saturday and Sunday. As I've been saying, Jenny hadn't done anything for the last several months, except read books on babies and how to raise them.

On Monday Linda arrived and my working life began.

"Edward," she said, "the basic thing you need to know about Steven is that he's not a detail person. He pays other people, people like you and me, to work out the details for him. He only gives general instructions, and he likes you to anticipate his thoughts."

"Okay," I said, "I'll anticipate his thoughts." I didn't have any idea then how I was going to do that, and I still don't, but I was already well beyond that other Edward, the naive Russian, and was saying "Yes!" to everything, and somehow it has worked out. It's an easy thing to say "yes," and it doesn't cost you anything. And so I said, "Yes," "Of course," and "I'll do it."

"The fact Steven hired you means you're more than halfway there, but were you aware that Nancy wanted to hire Marilyn," Linda said, lighting a cigarette, "a girl who used to work for her on the farm in Connecticut? She's taken Marilyn under her wing, and Steven hired you against her wish. Just between us," Linda continued, "that's the main reason he took you. Nancy wanted a spy in the house, but Steven can't stand Marilyn — she's fat, ugly, and pimply — and he won't have a spy in his home; he wants to keep his personal life private."

"Yes, I know all about Marilyn; Jenny told me," I replied, although I had never suspected that my being hired as housekeeper concealed such complicated behind-the-scenes machinations, intrigues, and struggles. "I thought Steven hired me because he's a snob," I said, "so he could brag a little to his friends about his butler being a writer."