Gary Shteyngart - The Russian Debutante's Handbook

“Stalin had very nice whiskers,” Grandma encouraged her boy. “Now, let’s drink, everybody! To Vladimir, our bright American future!”

Plastic cups were raised. “To our American future!”

“To our American future!” Mother toasted. “Well, I had a long talk with Vladimir this week, and I think he’s sounding more mature.”

“Is that true?” asked Dr. Girshkin of his son. “You told her you would become a lawyer?”

“Don’t peg him, Iosef Vissarionovich,” said Mother, using Stalin’s patronymic. “There are a million mature things Vladimir can become.”

“Computer,” Grandma grunted. She considered computer programmers as men and women of immense power. The Social Security people were always checking their computer whenever Grandma braved a call to their offices, and they had the power to ruin her life!

“There you go,” said Mother. “Grandma is crazy, but wise in her own way. I still say, though, you should be a lawyer. You were such a convincing little liar at the debating society, even with that horrific accent of yours. And I know it’s no longer polite to talk about such things, but I must say the money is tremendous.”

“I hear Eastern Europe is where you make the money these days,” Vladimir said with a knowledgeable air. “This friend of mine, his son owns an import-export business in Prava. A Russian fellow by the name of Groundhog…”

“Groundhog?” Mother shouted. “Did you hear that, Boris? Our son is cavorting with some Russian Groundhog. Vladimir, I expressly forbid you to associate with any Groundhogs from this day forward.”

“But he’s a businessman,” Vladimir said. “His father, Rybakov, lives in a penthouse. Perhaps he can get a job for me! Why, I thought you’d be pleased.”

“We all know what kind of businessman calls himself Groundhog,” Mother said. “Where is he from? Odessa? An import-export business! A penthouse! If you want to be in real business, Vladimir, you have to listen to your mother. I’ll help you get a management consulting job at McKinsey or Arthur Andersen. Then, if you’re a good boy, I’ll even pay for your MBA. Yes, that’s the strategy we should pursue!”

“Prava,” Dr. Girshkin mused, brushing stray drops of Coca-Cola from his whiskers. “Isn’t that the Paris of the 90s?”

“Are you encouraging him, Stalin?” Mother threw down her hot dog like a gauntlet. “You want him to join the criminal element? Maybe he can be a consultant to your medical practice… Help you defraud our poor government. Why should we have only one crook in the family?”

“Medicare fraud is not really a crime,” Dr. Girshkin said, clasping his hands in a professional manner. “What’s more, my love, all my new patients are paying for your goddamn dacha in Sag Harbor. See, Volodya,” he turned to his son, “there’s a whole wave of Jewish Uzbeks on the way from Tashkent and Bukhara. Such sweet people. So new to Medicare. But it’s just too much work for me. Last week I put in forty hours.”

“Too much work!” Mother shouted. “Don’t you ever say that in front of Vladimir. That’s where his cult of sloth originates, you know. That’s why he’s keeping company with some Groundhog in his penthouse. He has hardly any role models in this family. I’m the only one who truly works in this house. You just slip your claims into the mailbox. Grandma—you’re a pensioner.”

Grandma took this to be her cue. “I think he’s getting married to a shiksa, ” she said waving an accusative index finger at Vladimir.

“You’re being crazy again, Mother,” said Dr. Girshkin. “He’s dating Challah. Little Challatchka.”

“When do we get to meet Challatchka?” asked Vladimir’s mother. “It’s been how long? Almost a year?”

“How impolite,” said Dr. Girshkin. “What are we… savages, that you’re ashamed of us?”

“She’s in summer school,” Vladimir said. He uncovered the dessert plate full of imported Russian candies from his childhood, the chocolaty Clumsy Bear and the caramel-fudgy Little Cow. “All day long, taking classes,” he mumbled. “She’ll finish medical school in record time.”

“She really is inspiring,” Mother said. “Women seem more adjusted in this country anyway.”

“Well, to women,” said Vladimir’s father, raising his cup. “And to the mysterious Challah who keeps our son’s heart!” They toasted. It was time to set the hamburger meat aflame.

AFTER IT WASover, Mother lay in her mass-produced four-poster bed, nursing a bottle of rum, while Vladimir paced around her enormous berth lecturing on the topic of the day: Sensitivity to African-Americans. One black marketing director was about to be sacked, and Mother wanted to sack him “in the new, sensitive fashion.”

In the course of an hour, Vladimir pitted everything he learned during his stint at the progressive Midwestern college against Mother’s peerless Russian racism. “So what are you telling me?” Mother said when the lesson was over. “I should bring up the middle passage?”

Vladimir tried again to paint the big picture, but Mother was drunk. He told her as much. “So I’m drunk,” said Mother. “You want a drink? Here—wait, no, you might have gotten herpes off that girl. There’s a glass on the dresser.”

Vladimir accepted a glassful of rum. Mother grabbed a post and hoisted herself up until she was on her knees. “Jesus, our Lord,” she said, “please shepherd helpless Vladimir away from his tragic lifestyle, from the legacy his father bequeathed him, from the pauper’s flat which he calls home, and from this criminal Groundhog…” She put her hands together but started to tip over.

Vladimir caught her by one shoulder. “That’s a pretty prayer, Mother,” he said. “But we’re, you know…” He lowered his voice out of habit: “Jewish. ”

Mother looked at his face carefully, as if she had forgotten something and it had gone into hiding beneath one of Vladimir’s thick brows. “Yes, I know that,” she said, “but it’s all right to pray to Jesus. Your grandfather was a gentile, you know, and his father was a deacon. And I still pray to the Jewish God, the main God, although, I have to say, he hasn’t been helping much lately.

“I mean, what do you think?” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Vladimir. “I guess it’s all right. Do you feel good when you pray like that? To Jesus and to… Isn’t there something else? The Holy Something?”

“I’m not sure,” said Mother. “I can look it up. I got a little brochure on the subway.”

“Well, anyway,” Vladimir said, “you can pray to everyone you want, just don’t tell Father. With Grandma losing her mind, he’s been more into the Jewish God than ever.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing!” Mother said. She grabbed Vladimir and held him against her tiny frame. “We’re so much alike underneath all your stubbornness!” she said.

Vladimir gently detached himself from his mother and reached for the rum, which he drank from the bottle, herpes be damned. “You look good now,” Mother said. “Like a real man. All you have to do is trim that homo ponytail.” A teardrop formed in the corner of her left eye. Then one in the right. They overfilled and commenced to flow. “I’m not crying hysterically,” Mother assured him.

Vladimir looked over his mother’s peroxide-blond curls (no longer was she the Mongolka of Leningrad days). He surveyed the running mascara and soaked blush. “You look good, too,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she sobbed.

He took out a tissue from his pants pocket and handed it to her. “It’s clean,” he said.

“You’re a clean boy,” she said, blowing her nose ferociously.