The Big Green Tent (80 page)

“Sah-nee-a! Why do you resist? If you are so cold toward me, I won't marry you! But if you are a good boy, I'll just put you in my bra and smuggle you out as contraband!”

“Debbie, that wasn't our agreement! When we get married I'll be an ideal husband—you won't even see me at all!”

“No, no, I've reconsidered! I think you might suit me both in the kitchen and in the bedroom.”

*   *   *

The next day, Sanya took her by taxi to Sheremetevo Airport. They kissed when they said good-bye. Before she disappeared down the passageway, she waved her hand, clutching the red gnome cap, at him. Sanya went back home by bus. Outside, a snowstorm raged, and snowy porridge stuck to the bus's windows.

*   *   *

I won't go home. I don't want to go to Ilya's. I'll go see Mikha
, Sanya thought.

And then it hit him again. Mikha was gone. Anna Alexandrovna was gone. His mother was all but gone, too.

What is left is the unhappy Alyona, and Maya, and my mother, who is nothing like me; and the horrible Lastochkin. And a bit of music, that absurd circumstances deprived me of.
So Pierre must be right, and his only choice was to flee all of this. Or should he lie down and stare at the tapestry pillow again? Or, like Mikha?

He shuddered. Depression was stalking him.

*   *   *

Debbie arrived in Palo Alto without warning.

The California winter did not resemble the Russian winter in the least: 59 degrees Fahrenheit. While she was trudging up to the third floor, dragging her mink coat behind her, she tried to remember the formula for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius. She remembered precisely that in Moscow it had been minus 25 degrees Celsius.

She pushed on the door to the apartment. It was open. She called out from the doorway.

“Pierre! Russian minus twenty-five Celsius—how much in American degrees?”

Pierre knew the formula.

“Well, about minus thirteen.”

From the doorway Debbie flung her fur onto a chair, and it slithered onto the floor.

“Are you crazy? You should have called, I just got home! I might not even have been here,” Pierre said angrily.

“I just flew in myself! I don't need your old fur coat! It's totally useless in our climate, anyway! It's insulting, actually!”

“Wait a minute! Have you changed your mind? What's insulting? We agreed about all of this!”

On a small table stood a bottle of whiskey, already opened. Debbie rushed over to it. Pierre grabbed the bottle from her hand, and poured a third of a glass.

Debbie tossed off all of it, then slammed the wet glass down on the glass table with a dangerous, earsplitting crash.

“After all, he could marry me for real, couldn't he? Why not? Why doesn't he want to marry me?”

“Hold on, hold on. We had a formal agreement—the mink coat as an advance, and the money after the marriage takes place. What is the problem?”

Debbie quickly took another tack, and started crying.

“There's no problem. Just explain to me why I'm not good enough! He's the one who's not good enough for me: he's little, and he probably doesn't have a penis at all! And he's useless—and he has some weird profession!”

“Debbie, what does his penis have to do with anything? Or his profession? We had an agreement…”

“To hell with the agreement!” Debbie burst out. “What's wrong with me, Pierre? Why doesn't anyone want to marry me? Even your little Sanya? I am an independent, self-respecting woman! I don't give a damn about men! But why don't they want to marry me? Maybe I don't even need to get married! But why? I just want to know. Why?”

Pierre realized the whole endeavor might be in jeopardy. He picked up the fur from the floor and threw it on the couch. He poured two more glasses of whiskey. He sat down next to the large woman and placed a glass in her hands.

“Debbie, I can't answer for all men. You know yourself that you're an extraordinary woman. But everybody's different. I can tell you something about Sanya. Sanya is depressed. I told you he was an extremely talented person. He's special. Have you ever lost anyone who was close to you? In the same month, he lost his grandmother, who raised him, and his best friend, who committed suicide. He himself is … on the edge. He's just not up to marriage. And the problem is not with you. He has to save his own life.”

“Yes, but he could marry me, and I would save his life. Why doesn't he want to marry me for real? Not a fictitious marriage, but a real one?”

*   *   *

Now there was just one last chance.

*   *   *

“Debbie! Did it never occur to you … Ilya always had a lot of women. Mikha, his dead friend, was deeply in love with his wife. He never had any other women. But I've never seen Sanya with a woman at all.”

Debbie's eyes grew wide with sympathy.

“Oh, do you think he might be gay?”

“I don't know. I didn't say that. I just said that I've never once seen him with a girl or a woman.”

Debbie made a new decision: “That changes the picture. Then it doesn't hurt me. If he's not gay, then he's just afraid of women. And maybe he's a virgin?”

“I wouldn't rule it out. But that doesn't affect our agreement.”

Debbie calmed down and began to think about the future. She had an intriguing task before her.

*   *   *

“Well, tell me, how was your trip? How's Eugene?”

Debbie pulled a packet of photographs out of her purse.

“Here you go! Photographs! Eugene took them. They're funny. Pierre, the city is amazing! And the people are amazing! I was only there for four days, but it felt like I was there for a whole month. So much happened, and I saw so many new things! Oh, and did I say that the wedding is in four months? So long to wait! You have to wait in line to get married! And then we'll have to file Sanya's application with the U.S. Embassy. For a visa. And he'll have to wait for that, too; they explained it all to me.”

Debbie was a little tipsy.

“Listen, Pierre, I want to learn to speak Russian. Will you give me lessons?”

“Why do you want to do that? It will be expensive. You'll have to spend a lot of money on gas, driving back and forth. It's an hour and a half one way. I'll find you a teacher in San Francisco.”

“I need a good one!” Debbie pouted.

“Fine, I'll get you a good one.”

Pierre realized that his male honor would not be lost if Debbie would get good and drunk, and she was halfway there already.

He poured her another glass.

“I want Sah-nee-a! If I can marry him for real, I won't take the money from you.”

“But we made a deal about a fictitious marriage!” Pierre was doing his best to protect Sanya's liberty.

“What do I need the money for, anyway? I have money! I want little Sah-nee-a as my husband!” Debbie wailed, and burst out in hysterical weeping.

Looks like there's only one way out
, Pierre thought, and put his arm around her. Instantly she went quiet, and became pliant and limp.

Pierre didn't approve of adultery. He had sown his wild oats before he married, and he took his family commitments very seriously. But his wife and his daughter had been staying with his in-laws in Milan for the last three weeks. Moreover, he attributed his fall solely to his devotion to his Russian friend and the furthering of his friend's interests. Still, the lack of spontaneity of the situation did not detract from its pleasantness.

“If you marry Sanya for real, you'll owe me for both the plane tickets and the hotel!”

“No way! Whatever you spent is already gone. I'll pay you for the Russian lessons.” She placed her hands, holding them both in an obscene gesture, over her ample breasts. This was something she'd picked up in Russia.

“All right, if everything works out and we manage to get Sanya out of there, the tickets and the hotel are on me.”

They continued kissing gently, rounding out the session.

And now I have the added stimulus of trying to draw him out of his shell
, Debbie thought with satisfaction.

*   *   *

The wedding took place in May, as indicated on their application. It was a rainy day, which promised to bring the young couple wealth, according to folk superstition.

Debbie O'Hara was wearing a big white dress. Her hands held a round wedding bouquet of plastic flowers, which she had brought with her from America. She wore white high heels. Sanya wore a black corduroy jacket with a zipper and old blue jeans.

Eugene, wearing a tweed jacket and a tie, looked much more like a groom than Sanya did. Olga, Ilya, and Tamara were all there, dressed in their best attire.

The bride and groom stood side by side, and Eugene took a photograph. Ilya photographed them from the other side.

They entered a hall, the matrimonial holding cell. Several couples were already sitting there: two Africans with blondes, one Arab with a girl with oriental facial features, and several indeterminate Eastern European couples: Czechs or Poles. There was a line.

*   *   *

They sat without speaking. Sanya studied the faces of the couples about to be married. The Africans were most likely from the Patrice Lumumba Institute. One of them, a handsome, dark-lilac-hued fellow, pulled out a deck of cards and asked his bride whether she wanted to play. She declined. He began laying out a game of solitaire. A second young man, small and homely, was holding his bride's hand, admiring the paleness of her skin. He ran his finger across her wrist. The Arab man was older. His profession was unclear, but gold dripped from all his fingers. His bride was also covered in gold, and it was obvious that they were eager for the ceremony to be over. He put his hand now on her waist, now around her shoulders. She luxuriated in it. One Czech (or Pole) was reading a newspaper.

It's in Czech
, Sanya observed.

*   *   *

Debbie was visibly nervous. Sanya amused her with conversation. Finally, they were summoned into a long room. A red carpet runner led up the aisle to a table, behind which was sitting a stately woman who looked like the actress Alla Larionova, with a thick red sash over her shoulder—a smaller version of the red runner. The witnesses—Olga, Ilya, and Tamara, and Eugene, with his camera, were admitted through another door. Along the way they got rid of the local photographer. They also got rid of the Mendelssohn.

Then the rigamarole begins. The woman in the sash stands up. She announces:

“Citizen of the United States of America, Deborah O'Hara, and Citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Alexander Steklov, have applied to be married in accordance with the laws of our country…”

Debbie wants the wedding. Sanya wants to disappear. Debbie wants a honeymoon. Sanya wants to bury his head in the ground. Debbie wants a wedding night. Sanya wants to fall off the face of the earth.

Olga throws together a wedding party at her place.

Over the past six months, Debbie has learned to speak some Russian. She talks incessantly. Sanya remains silent, in both Russian and English. Toward evening his temperature shoots up, and a headache takes hold.

Ilya takes him to Chernyshevsky Street. Nadezhda Borisovna does everything that Anna Alexandrovna used to do: she presses a hot towel to Sanya's head, gives him sweet tea with lemon, and two Citramon tablets. As always, in such cases, his temperature is near 104 degrees. Nadezhda Borisovna continues to do everything that Anna Alexandrovna did in this situation. She covers his shoulders and chest with vodka, then rubs it in with a woolen rag. No, Anna Alexandrovna did everything much better.

Sanya is sick for the usual three days. Debbie spends these three days in Olga's apartment: the first day she sobs; the second she chats animatedly with Olga. And, on the third day, Ilya takes her to Sheremetevo Airport. Sanya languishes on Nuta's divan with his high temperature.

The farce called a “wedding” is over. The only thing that remains to be done is submit the application for a visa to the American consulate. And then wait, wait, and wait some more.

Eight months later, Alexander Steklov landed in New York. Pierre Zand met him at Kennedy Airport.

By this time, Debbie spoke Russian very well. She met Sanya a year and a half later at the lawyer's, after she had found a real fiancé for herself (also Russian, by the way), and she needed a real divorce to make him her real husband.

Debbie refused the five thousand dollars that she was supposed to receive for the fictitious marriage. She also refused to keep the fur. In the end, she got the fur anyway. Pierre kept the coat in cold storage in Palo Alto for a few years, and gave it to Debbie for her second, real wedding. By this time she had moved to New York, where winters are sometimes cold enough to wear a fur coat.

Sanya lives in New York, too. He teaches the theory of music at a world-famous music school.

Ende gut, alles gut.

 

EPILOGUE: THE END OF A BEAUTIFUL ERA

They met. They embraced—right cheek to right, then left to left. It was effortless. They were the same height. The woman's face was narrow, her nose aquiline; the man's face was angular, with high cheekbones and a snub nose. The rain suddenly turned white, and it began to snow. The wind blew from all directions at once, whipping itself into a breaker right above the square where they had agreed to meet. Cold moisture blew up from the bay, while, from the other side, from the river, the air seemed to blow stale decay.

“Doesn't it smell like Chistye Prudy, Sanya?”

“Not at all, Liza. Not in the least.”

He ran his hand over her hair. It was cold to the touch.

“Let's hurry. Are you cold?”

“I haven't had time to freeze yet. But it's damn cold.”

“I made you a tape of Beethoven's Thirty-second, Eschenbach's performance in Madrid in '86. You'll understand what I mean…”