Gary Shteyngart - The Russian Debutante's Handbook

But, apart from his intimate needs, his anger at Morgan continued to grow apace, the lust and hurt sometimes working at cross-purposes and sometimes, as when he had to perform in bed, working in tandem. He felt powerless. What could he do to convince her that she loved him and not Tomaš, that she must renounce her murky secret life in favor of normalcy, affection, and arousal, that one must always be on the right side of history, eating roast boar at the Wine Archive instead of freezing to death in the Gulag?

But she wouldn’t understand him, stubborn Midwestern girl. So he worked on two fronts: To alleviate his lust, he crawled into bed beside her, but to alleviate his hurt, the best he could hope for was revenge. The best he could hope for was a certain double date. Hence when the Groundhog called to announce that Road 66, the restaurant in the Food Court of his townhouse estate, was ready to dish out hot curly fries in exchange for American dollars, Vladimir happily accepted on Morgan’s behalf.

THERE WAS ONEterribly cute thing about Morgan: Despite being nominally upper-middle-class, she owned only one formal outfit, the tight silk blouse she wore on her first date with Vladimir. Everything else in her closet was rugged and “built to last,” as they say in the States, for unlike Vladimir, she did not come to Prava to be the belle of the ball.

When they pulled up to Road 66, Morgan nervously tugged on the sleeves of this important blouse to make sure it covered her body just right. She smudged at her lipstick for the third time and scratched a front tooth for no apparent reason. “Shouldn’t it be called Route 66?” Morgan asked, upon scrutinizing the flashing restaurant sign. Vladimir winked mysteriously and kissed her cheek.

“Hey! Stop it,” she said. “I’ve got blush on. Look what you did.” She reached for her purse once again and Vladimir had to fight those unproductive feelings of tenderness as she blew her nose and repowdered her cheeks.

“Well if you, Morgan Jenson… ever plan… to motor West,” Vladimir sang as they walked arm-in-arm past the ten-acre gravel ditch that would soon become an American-style mall and toward the restaurant’s giant neon pimiento, “just take my way… that’s the highway… that’s the best.”

“How can you be singing?” Morgan said, once more blotting at her lips with a napkin. “I mean, we’re having dinner with your boss. Aren’t you, like, scared?”

“Get your kicks,” Vladimir crooned as he pulled at the door handles shaped like two plastic rattlesnakes, “on Route… Sixty-six.”

An awesome vista of cheap mahogany and American-themed tackiness greeted them, as the restaurant, just like the song, wound its way “from Chicago to L.A.… more than two thousand miles all the way,” with tables marked St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Flagstaff, “don’t forget Winona… Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino…”

The Groundhog and his girl were holed up in Flagstaff tonight. “Volodya, I got the cactus!” the Groundhog shouted to Vladimir across the vast restaurant. The Flagstaff table was indeed graced with a mighty glowing artificial cactus, much more imposing than, say, the ridiculous six-foot Gateway Arch of St. Louis or the deserted Geronimo Trading Post several tables into Arizona.

“They tell me there is always a waiting list for cactus,” the Groundhog soberly informed them in English while the introductions were made and the chocolate milkshakes ordered. As part of his Western training, Vladimir had forced the Hog to buy ten black turtlenecks and ten pairs of slacks from a specialized slacks company in Maine, and tonight the Groundhog looked like he was headed for a liberal-minded Upper West Side Thanksgiving dinner. As for the love of his life, Lenochka, well, an entire novel could be written about her, so there is only time to discuss her hair.

Let us say this: in the early 1990s, the Women of the West were favoring short cuts, pageboys, and curt little bobs, but Lena continued to celebrate her hair in the old Russian style. She refused to commit to wearing it either up or down, so she did both: A great mane crowned her shoulders, while an additional fifteen pounds of violent strawberry hair was pulled up by an enormous white bow. Beneath the cascades of hair there was a mil’en’koe russkoe lichiko, a pretty little Russian face with raised Mongolian cheekbones and a pointy nose. She wore exactly the same turtleneck-and-slacks outfit as the Groundhog, giving them the look of honeymooning tourists.

The Groundhog kissed Morgan’s hand. “Very much pleasure,” he said. “Tonight Lenochka and I practicing English, so please to correct Groundhog expression. I think in English I am called, eh, ‘Groundhog,’ but dictionary also saying ‘Marmot.’ Do you have such little animal in your country? Vladimir say everyone must speak English now!”

“I wish I remembered my Russian from college,” Morgan said and smiled in encouragement, as if Russian was still a global language worth learning. “I know a little Stolovan, but it’s just not the same.”

They were seated, the couples facing each other, and the Groundhog made himself appear manly by ordering food for everybody—garden burgers for the ladies and ostrich burgers for the men. “Also, three plates of curly fries with hot sauce,” he demanded of the waitress. “I love such shit.” He smiled broadly to his companions.

“So…” Vladimir said, unsure of how to get this little Revenge Dinner started.

“Yes…” Groundhog said and nodded at Vladimir. “So.”

“So…” Morgan smiled at Lena and the Groundhog. She was already cracking her knuckles under the table, poor thing. “So how did you two meet?” she asked. A great double-date question.

“Mmm…” The Groundhog smiled nostalgically. “Eh, is big story,” he said in his broken but strangely adorable English. “I tell it? Yes? Good? Okay. Big story. So one day Groundhog is in Dnepropetrovsk, so he is in Eastern Ukraina, and many people are doing to him bad thing and so Groundhog is doing to them also very bad thing and, eh, time goes tick tick tick tick on the clock, and after two revolvement of clock needle, after forty-eight hours passing away, it is Groundhog who is alive and it is enemies of him who are… eh… dead.”

“Wait,” said Morgan. “Do you mean…”

“Metaphorically speaking, they’re dead,” Vladimir interjected somewhat half-heartedly.

“So,” the Groundhog continued, “is finished bad business, but Groundhog still very lonely and very sad…”

“Ai, my Tolya…” said Lena, adjusting her bow with one hand and directing her milkshake straw with the other. “You see, Morgan, he has Russian soul… Do you understand what it is, Russian soul? ”

“I’ve heard about it from Vladimir,” Morgan said. “It’s like…”

“It’s very nice,” Vladimir said. He gestured for the Hog to continue, knowing full well where his employer’s little tale was headed. Very nice, indeed.

“So, okay, lonely Groundhog has nobody in Dnepropetrovsk. His cousin kill himself last year and Dyadya Lyosha, distant relative, he die from drink. So is finish! No family, no friend, nothing.”

“ Bedny moi surok, ” said Lena. “How do you say in English… My poor Groundhog…”

“You know I can totally understand you,” Morgan said. “It’s so difficult to go to a strange town, even in America. I went to Dayton once, I was in a basketball camp…”

“Anyway,” the Hog interrupted. “So Groundhog is alone in Dnepropetrovsk and his bed is very cold and there is no girl for him to lie down on, and so he is going to, how do you say, publichni dom ? The House of the Public? You know what this is…?”