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

"He's such an old goat, it's unbelievable!" said Gatsby. "He even tried to grab Nancy once, Edward, if you can believe that! What an old goat!"

I could believe it. Gatsby hadn't said what, what part of Nancy's body, Stanislaw had tried to grab — maybe it was awkward for him to tell his butler that Stanislaw had tried to grab his wife's ass? Or had in fact grabbed it, for what else could "tried to grab" mean? That he was merely thinking about it? How could Gatsby know what Stanislaw was thinking?

"He was visiting me in Connecticut, and he tried to grab Nancy," Gatsby continued delightedly. It was obvious that even if he didn't like what had happened, Stanislaw's audacity was very much to his taste. I didn't ask Gatsby how he reacted — did he pretend he hadn't noticed the satyr? I don't think he would have been reluctant to punch Stanislaw in the jaw, but he did have a certain respect for audacity in other people.

"He even went after Jenny," Gatsby continued, "and she complained to me about it. I said to him, 'Stanislaw, please, don't terrorize my employees. "

Steven obviously used the word «employees» for my benefit. Telling the story to someone else he would probably have said "my servants."

"He's one of the Polish mafia," the boss continued. "You know, all those Polanskis and Kozinskis…"

"And Brzezinskis," I added, and Gatsby laughed.

"An unbelievable old goat!" Gatsby summed up.

After such a testimonial, I was eager to make Stanislaw's acquaintance and observe him in action whenever he came to our house.

He looked pretty good for his age — slim, although his face was a little worn, it's true, but you wouldn't have said he was fifty — forty at the most. The only thing not quite right about him was that his clothing was out of date. He was dressed the way they dressed at the end of the sixties — in flared pants that fit tight across his ass, a close-fitting short jacket, and long hair.

I haven't dressed that way in a long time. I wear pants that are narrow at the bottom and wide in the seat, and my jackets are a good size with big shoulders, as if one or two sizes too large. My hair is cut now like James Dean's — you know, die famous actor of the fifties. The fifties are very «in» right now, as I'm well aware, and why shouldn't I be; after all, I'm a contemporary servant of the world bourgeoisie.

But let's leave me and return to Stanislaw. The Pole and die Russian got along well from their very first meeting, although I was busy with Tatiana and couldn't give him very much time, except for the glass of vodka we each had in the kitchen before I went back upstairs to fuck her, making my apologies to him and brazenly telling him I had a warm body in my bed. You know how we are, I thought complacently to myself; we fuck too and know how to.

The whole time Stanislaw resided in our heaven — he told Gatsby that he had come for just a few days, but thanks to my personal generosity and the fact that Gatsby was in Europe, he stayed more than two weeks — I had a body in my bed. And I gave him a terrible complex, an awful complex! I wasn't doing it just for his sake; it merely worked out that way. And here too the Poles lost, gentlemen, just as in the historical rivalry between Poland and Russia. During those two weeks he fucked only Marisza, the daughter of one of their Polish writers. Whereas I had, during the same period, at least six women, including the above-mentioned Tatiana, Teresa, the musician Natasha, and the Dutch girl Maria, and one evening Sarah dropped by, and in addition a married woman came specially from the state of Israel to fuck me — she'd read my book.

From time to time I made my appearance in the kitchen, in our club so to speak, where Stanislaw would invariably be calling all over New York, trying to get his old connections going again. He had come to New York from his home in Texas with a pile of pictures he was trying to peddle on his own — without gallery representation. I no longer respected people who didn't have a gallery; even I, a servant, had my own literary agent. You've got to be professional, Stanislaw, I thought, and it doesn't matter if you're a professional artist or a professional hit man. Thank you, Great United States; you have at least taught me something. And although Stanislaw maintained that he had no need of a gallery and showed me his portfolio with photographs of himself — Stanislaw with Roman Polanski, Stanislaw with Henry Miller, Stanislaw with Mary Hemingway — I began to discern in this cheerful Polish lecher and buffoon the all-too-familiar features of a failure worried that he was fifty and getting old.

I would creep down to the kitchen yawning and stretching — I was never fully rested, as is understandable — and Stanislaw would already be sitting by the phone and making calls. Not that he was hard pressed — not at all. In Texas they had built sculptures based on his designs. In a steel slab of extraordinary thickness young scholars enthusiastic about the project had made a hole using something like an atomic cannon. A hole ripped out just the way he wanted it. He was depicting holes. We live in a magnificent time, gentlemen, a time when every-thing is beyond our reach and nothing is forbidden — a time in fact for making holes. The hole may even be the symbol of our time — a torn and gaping hole leading nowhere.

Stanislaw had enough for meat and butter, but with artists, as with writers, if you're not among the first, you consider yourself a failure. The headlines in newspapers, the photographs, and the monographs are enjoyed by the few at the top. All that remained for Stanislaw was Marisza.

He would look and look at girls I would show him, and how could I not, since from time to time we would all sit in the kitchen, and his young friend Krysztof, a large, easygoing retired athlete, would come over too, and we would drink and smoke grass. Once Stanislaw couldn't restrain himself and started stroking Natasha's hair; she looks about twelve, gentlemen — you know, a small, blonde, rosy-cheeked creature with a white ass.

"Give her to me, Edward," Stanislaw said, as if joking.

I knew he wasn't really — I'd seen how hard he struggled to get back his lost connections again. But as the cunning and wise Oriental Ghupta had said, "If you're gone from New York for a month, all the girls are gone and have made other arrangements for themselves." It will be the same after our deaths, brothers, I wanted to say cheerfully to both Ghupta and Stanislaw — a few days after our deaths all our girls will have found new dicks for themselves, and the livelier ones will have made other arrangements the very same day. Nature leaves nothing of our sentiments behind, and all is reduced to dust and ashes, regardless of what you hold on to or use as your foundation.

"Take her," I said to Stanislaw. And I asked Natashka, "Would you like to go to bed with Uncle Stanislaw?" My girls are all very well trained now, and Natashka looked inquiringly at me.

She didn't need Stanislaw; she needed me, who could calmly send her off to the Pole's bed or anyone else's. He wasn't a bad sort, the Pole, and probably was a good lover, but she was mine. I didn't want her to go to bed with the Pole, and she said, "No, I don't want to."

As soon as I stopped paying attention to them, to my girls, they completely changed the way they behaved with me, and inflicted scenes of jealousy and outraged love on me, although without any response on my part. They love me and reproach me now, and are afraid of losing me. Whereas before it irritated them when I asked them where they went without me and whom they were seeing, now they get angry that I don't care at all what they do outside the confines of the millionaire's house — whether they're fucking somebody else or not. When they start telling me what they've been doing, my face clearly shows my boredom, as a result of which as a rule they suddenly stop in dismay and ask me, "Don't you care, Edward?"