Gary Shteyngart - The Russian Debutante's Handbook

“I’m Canadian,” Harry whispered.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Vladimir shouted, grabbing him by the folds of his oversized rugby sweater. “Don’t even go there, pal.”

AND LATER, INthe rank Nouveau bathroom, where the piss of the English-speaking world mingled on the chipped marble, Vladimir personally applied minoxidil around the Arctic outposts of Harry’s remaining hair, while a lone, smashed New Zealand tourist looked on, one hand poised to reach for the door in case things went too far.

By this point, Vladimir was rocked from side to side by waves of pity. Oh, that poor Harry Green! Oh, why was embezzlement so cruel? Why couldn’t rich people just spontaneously give money away like that nice Soros fellow? Vladimir even leaned over to kiss Harry’s wet brow like a concerned parent. “There, there,” he said.

“What do you want me to do?” Harry said, wiping his scarlet eyes, blowing his tiny twisted nose, trying to regain the quiet dignity that, before this wretched evening, had been his signature. “Even if I do grow back my hair, that’s only half the battle. I’ll still be old. I’ll still be a… What did you call me?”

“An interloper.”

“Oh, God.”

“Harry, my sweet man,” Vladimir said, recapping the minoxidil bottle, his portable fountain of youth. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”

“What? What?” Vladimir looked at Harry’s reflection in the mirror. Those huge red eyes, the freckled chin, the receding gums. It was almost too much. “What are you going to do with me, Vladimir?”

AND TWENTY MINUTESlater, winding through the darkened streets around the walls of the castle, the parapets coming in and out of the corners of vision, Beethoven’s Seventh blaring off the CD player, Vladimir held the checkbook steady on the crying Canadian’s lap. To be honest, Vladimir was shaking a little, too. It was hard to come to terms with what he had done. But this wasn’t really the worst kind of crime, now was it? They were going to print a literary journal! A journal with Harry’s name prominently displayed. It was all part of the familiar cultural Ponzi scheme practiced the world over—from third-rate dance collectives to those idiotic creative-writing programs. The participants put in their time and money, dutifully attended each other’s kazoo recitals and poetry readings, and by the end of the day the only ingredient missing from their enterprise was the actual talent (much as a regular Ponzi scheme lacks the actual cash). Still, was it so terribly wrong to give people a little hope…?

“PravaInvest will do for you what cultural relativism did for me,” Vladimir said, patting the soft head resting warmly on his shoulder. “Now, two hundred sixty shares is not a lot. I’ve got a couple of Swiss going in for three thousand. But it’s an introduction to the global continuum. It’s a start.”

“Ooh, if only my father knew where his lousy money was going!” Harry laughed. “I can’t wait to fax him that Cagliostro journal. And pictures of that hospital in Sarajevo! And the Reiki clinic, too!”

“Now, now,” Vladimir said, as the car’s headlights illuminated an archway carved into a castle wall, beyond which the Lower City was repositioning itself so that its spires would lie directly at Vladimir’s feet. “Let’s not be spiteful, Harry.” And he gave his new investor a pleasant squeeze, then ordered Jan to set a course for Harry’s villa, where his gurgling friend, reeking of minoxidil and self-love, could be deposited for the night.

And that was that. The cash register opened, the digits turned, the sun rose once again over Prava.

“YES, THE FULLquarter-million,” Kostya said, confirming yesterday’s wondrous news, as he fell on his knees before the young tsar and kissed his hand with his dry, chapped lips.

“And ten percent of it is mine,” Vladimir said. He had not intended to say it out loud, but to stifle a sentiment like that was not possible.

“The Groundhog said he will give you twenty percent as an incentive,” Kostya said. “Can you lunch with him after church?”

“Of course!” Vladimir said. “Let’s hurry then! Jan, start the car!”

“No expensive car, please,” Kostya said.

“Pardon?”

“We show our piety on the way to church by taking public transportation like the rest of the congregants.”

“Oh my God! Are you serious?” This was a little much. “Couldn’t we just take a Fiat or something?”

Jan smiled and twirled the car keys around his meaty forefinger. “I’ll drive you gentlemen as far as the metro station,” he said. “Now be good Christians and kindly open your own doors.”

THE METRO WASdesigned in the Lenin’s Starship motif: the walls chrome-plated in futuristic shades of that socialist-friendly color, ecru; the cameras at the edge of the platform recording the reactionary tendencies of the passengers; the Soviet-built trains that inspired many an Ode to Moving Metal from besotted Slavs around the bloc; the recorded voice of some sturdy, no-nonsense Heroine of Socialist Labor over the public address system: “Desist in entering and exiting! The doors are about to close.”

And close they did, as fast as lightning cranked out of some totalitarian power-station out in the woods. Look! Everywhere Vladimir turned—Stolovans, Stolovans, Stolovans! Stolovans in Prava, of all places! Dobry den’, Milan! Howdy do, Teresa? Did you get a haircut, Bouhumil? Panko, stop climbing on the seats!

The wagonful of these “Stolovans on the Move” rumbled toward the Tavlata. At the Castle station they picked up some British grade-schoolers in uniform who swiftly moved to one corner and behaved themselves like good little gentlemen. They were disgorged at the Old Town station, the last outpost of Tourist Prava, and were replaced by teenage locals with out-of-control acne, polyester leisure suits, and high-tops.

On and on they went. The distances between the stations got progressively longer. The bored teenage boys were now making slurping sounds to one of their girlfriends, a tall pimpled beauty in a Lycra skirt who took out a book and busied herself flipping through the pages, while a babushka waved a fist the size of a beefsteak tomato at the boys and shouted something about their “unsocialist upbringing.”

“Hooligans!” Kostya said. “And on a Sunday, too.” Vladimir nodded and pretended to doze off. At his present rate of ascension he could foresee a time when it would be possible to tell Kostya the Angel to bugger off, and to let his debauchery and projected lechery assume the sum total of his waking hours. But he had to have a friend in the Russian circuit, a shield from Gusev and the merry men with the Kalashnikovs out in the lobby. Everyone held Kostya in high regard, this Vladimir knew. When Kostya went to church, it was as if he went to church for all of them. Plus he knew something about computers—you could never underestimate that.

And then, while Vladimir never enjoyed the huffing and puffing sessions beneath the sun, and the craziness with the ten-pound dumbbells, he was aware of a new physical vitality that went along nicely with his new big-man-on-campus image. For instance, he was straighter, and, as a consequence, taller. His breasts, the objects of Gusev’s merriment, which had at one point reached such a state of disrepair that even Vladimir himself had started to find them mildly arousing, were slowly being shaped into two hard little mounds suitable for flexing. His lungs were in better order, too—he didn’t leave a trail of mucus behind after each lap; when smoking hashish he could keep the smoke in longer and let it percolate among the nooks and crannies of his asthma-scarred villus.