Gary Shteyngart - The Russian Debutante's Handbook

“Hey, man,” he kept repeating, and Vladimir fondly recalled his high school days when he and Baobab and the rest of them were always stoned and would spend the day mumbling: “Hey, man… don’t eat that thing, man… that thing is for later, man…” Oh, the innocence of those days, that brief period in the Reagan/Bush era when the sixties had returned to American high schools in force. The stooped posture, the half-closed eyes, the hundred-word vocabulary. Oh.

The hippies were introduced, their names sliding in and out of memory. The pièce de résistance, the bong almost a meter in length, was wheeled around for the guest of honor. Larry bent down to light it while Vladimir sucked on the rancid mouthpiece, then passed it to Morgan who tackled it like a good sport.

SATISFIED, VLADIMIR TOOKher arm and they floated back into the main room, scarcely remembering to tell the “we’ll be right back” party lie to Larry Litvak and company. Here, there was another crush around Vladimir and his date, this one consisting entirely of tall, elegant men in chinos, wire-rims, and nose rings plying Vladimir with drinks, mentioning by name Cagliostro and (surprisingly) PravaInvest, then cheerfully prodding their women friends into the foreground for brief introductions. This whole setup was reminiscent of a nineteenth-century ball in the Russian provinces, when the local society men had spotted the general arrived fresh from Petersburg and then closed in on him full of platitudes and talk of business, toting their beautiful wives behind them as a sign of their own rank and good breeding.

The year 1993? Well, such anachronisms could have been a sign of the much-discussed Victorian revival. And while it was shocking for Vladimir to meet these non-Bohemians who wore their nose rings out of fashion and not rebellion, it struck an old, aristocratic chord in him (for in the early twentieth century the Girshkins had owned three hotels in the Ukraine) and he responded with a mounting sense of noblesse oblige: “Yes, pleased to meet you… Of course, I’ve heard of you… We ran into each other at the Martini Bar at the Nouveau… Such pleasant circumstances… This is Morgan, yes… And you are?… And this is?…”

Of course, being under the liberating influence of a meter’s worth of dope quickly added hilarity to the proceedings, setting Vladimir’s mind at ease as he floated above the masses and their babbling and screeching and clucking. Soon his Russian accent emerged in force, lending Count Girshkin an aura of authenticity, which left the fair representatives of Houston and Boulder and Cincinnati twice enamored of the small poet and businessman around whom all of Prava’s expatriate world would now seem to revolve.

He felt Morgan tugging at his sleeve, no longer amused at being marginalized. “Let’s find Alexandra,” she whispered and, whether she meant it or not, touched Vladimir’s ear with her balmy nose.

“Let’s,” Vladimir said, and he put his arm around her and squeezed the broad Ohioan shoulders, so healthy and amenable to squeezing.

They broke through the cordon of well-wishers and arrived at the bergamots which, swaying from the winds of a distant fan, scratched at Vladimir’s face until he stopped to look stupidly at his arboreal assailants as if to say: “Don’t you know who I am?”

Behind the little trees they saw a long, satin couch flanked by similar recliners on which the Crowd had decamped along with several martini decanters and entire carafes of curaçao. They sat laughing and passing judgment without stop at those around them like some hastily assembled Style Council. Occasionally they entertained outsiders who approached with little bundles of paper bearing words or drawings, and sometimes with little computer disks. It seemed that the upcoming first issue of Cagliostro had swelled their heads nicely; a frontal assault by Mexican bees would have proved superfluous.

Cohen spotted them amid the shrubbery: “There he is! Vladimir!”

“Morgan!” Alexandra shouted with something like awe, determined to raise the standing of her newfound friend.

The couple approached and a glittering sky-blue divan was rolled out for them as if by the Devil’s command. Alexandra kissed Morgan on both cheeks, while Vladimir shook hands with the boys and sweetly kissed Alexandra on one cheek, and was kissed, in turn, on both.

The boys had outdone themselves, channeling the glam-nerd look into a formal direction: ash-brown sports jackets and shirts of mourning hues with morose little ties snaking down to their bellies. Alexandra wore a new taupe riding jacket, evidently from one of Prava’s more accomplished antique shops, beneath which was her customary black turtleneck and matching tights.

But one was missing from the group. “And where is Maxine?” Vladimir said, biting his tongue as he remembered that the Expat Dating Committee had already slated the Girshkin-Maxine nuptials for early next spring, and here he was, playing the field with Morgan.

Sure enough, as soon as he mentioned Maxine, a look passed over Morgan’s face, the look of a child lost in a crowded train station, and Larry’s party was, of course, infinitely stranger than any of the world’s train stations and just as crowded. “Maxine’s taken ill,” Alexandra said. “Nothing serious. She’ll be up on her feet tomorrow.”

The “up on her feet” business was evidently meant to discourage Vladimir from attempting any change in the woman’s verticality. Clearly, Alexandra had told Morgan everything she needed to know about Vladimir’s steamy nonaffair with Maxine.

The situation was unwittingly defused by the excited Cohen who hadn’t seen Vladimir in a couple of days and all but jumped on him. “My friend needs to step to the bar,” he shouted, roaring drunk. “You girls talk among yourselves.” Vladimir looked back at Morgan, worried about leaving her behind. Fortunately, the sight of two attractive women, Morgan and Alexandra, chatting with gusto had the effect of keeping potential suitors at bay. The predatory young men of Prava were easily confounded by the phenomenon of women making do without them.

At the bar, a tiny affair jutting out of an oak bookshelf filled with the collected works of Papa Hemingway, the patron saint of the expatriate scene, the irrepressible Cohen attempted to fix Vladimir a gin and tonic by spilling vodka all over his new imported loafers. When informed by the laughing Vladimir that gin not vodka went into a gin and tonic, Cohen spilled that on him too.

“So, you’ve been tying one on,” Vladimir said.

“I’ve been tying one on for the past five years,” Cohen said. “I’m what in the liquor industry is called an alcoholic.”

“Me too,” Vladimir said. He had never given the matter much thought, but the words certainly rang true.

“Well, let’s drink to that!” cried Vladimir in an effort to shoo away the approaching discomfort, and they clinked their glasses.

“Speaking of tying one on,” Cohen said, “Plank and I are ready for a major bout with the bottle tomorrow. To the finish!” He winked in the direction of the bar.

“I see,” Vladimir said. He saw Cohen and Plank as two pugilists duking it out, slow-motion, with a sweating bottle of Stoli in some sort of performance-art piece.

“You care to join us? None of this shit. Just the three of us. The men.” Then, without warning—and when did he ever give warning?—Cohen threw his arms around Vladimir and squeezed hard. By this time the lights had been dimmed to the degree where the two of them looked like yet another couple on the express checkout lane to bed. The frightened Vladimir peeked out from within his friend’s grasp and tried to maneuver an arm free to signal to the crowd and Morgan that this was not his idea of a good time, but he was hard-pressed to think of the appropriate signal. Anyway, Cohen soon let go and Vladimir saw to his welcome relief that a critical mass had been reached in the room and nobody gave much of a damn about anyone else, really. Even unabashed homosexual sex with the accompanying grunts broadcast over the stereo system would probably go unnoticed for several minutes.