“You’re not a mushroomer, Alexei?” I said.
Alyosha reclined in his chair and looked away, like such nonsense was beneath him. “It’s too easy here. Last time I went, I got five baskets in one hour. There isn’t any challenge. What’s the point?”
“Alyosha’s enjoyment is complete only when it involves suffering,” Lenny said.
I turned to Valentina. “A very nice home you have, Valya. Did your family build it?”
“No, I bought it from the former ambassador to Denmark. The family dacha my papa left to my sister, Nina—this genius’s mother. It’s down a ways, in Aprelevka. But Nina’s vacationing this week on the Black Sea. That’s why this one’s hanging around here like a stray dog.”
“Aprelevka?” I was surprised. “That’s where the old military dachas are, or were. Was your father a general?”
“A komdiv. Division commander. But there’s no trace of the old Genshtab anymore. It’s been taken over by our new Brahmins. Alyosha! Haven’t you shown Yuliy Leontevich to his room yet? Well, what kind of hosts are you? Come along,” she said, getting up. “You’ll get the tour.”
I followed Valya upstairs, with Alyosha carrying my bag like a valet while I admired the furniture. “Sure, I got a few of Papa’s things,” Valya admitted when I asked her about the carved wood antiques. “Including that little watch,” Alyosha said, pointing to a mahogany grandfather clock on the landing. “A real Teutonic treasure, not like the fakes the Germans palmed off after the war on every dumb Vanya in combat boots.”
“Your father was an important man if he managed to bring that into the country,” I said.
“I can’t complain about the way I grew up.”
“Regular vacations in Crimea?”
“Yalta. Sochi.”
“A family driver.”
“You bet. He’d drive Nina and me to our classes at MGIMO. I was so embarrassed by it.”
For all my resplendent grades as a boy, I had never even entertained the notion of being admitted to a school like the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, where only the high-ranking Party people could place their sons and daughters, in preparation for diplomatic posts all over the world. The school was not even listed in the regular handbook of Soviet institutions of higher learning. “You couldn’t have been the only two students at MGIMO who got driven to class.”
“That was more Nina’s style. I couldn’t stomach that whole clubby atmosphere.”
“Is that why you didn’t end up a diplomat like your sister?”
“This delegation, that delegation. Not for me. I sat quietly at Vneshtorg.”
I was getting a clearer picture of Valya, who, for all her Party pedigree, had the heart of a speculator. I couldn’t help admiring her for eschewing the advantages she’d been born into, turning her back on the Soviet career ladder, and instead quietly staking out a mid-level position at the less prestigious Ministry of Foreign Trade, which nonetheless afforded her plenty of opportunities to travel to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and return with suitcases full of nightgowns, shoes, and pantyhose that she could peddle, at a profit, among her acquaintances.
Alyosha had set my bag in the guest room.
“You’ll sleep like a baby tonight,” Valya said. “I’ve never slept on a better mattress. This bed is better than the one Putin sleeps on. Not because he can’t afford it, but because his ass wouldn’t know the difference.”
Alyosha winced as if in pain. “I told you not to speak that devil’s name around me!” And then the two of them left me alone.
After visiting the bathroom, I took a look at the music collection on the shelves (Andrea Bocelli, Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti), as well as the many foreign books. I was certain this was the room Alyosha’s mother, Nina, slept in when she spent nights at Valya’s. On the small writing desk were notes written in a looping feminine hand. On the wall hung an enlarged black-and-white photograph of a beautiful, bright-eyed angelic boy of five or six. After a moment of looking at the photo I experienced a strange jolt of recognition: it was Alyosha Alcoholic.
I stared at the photo for a long time, thinking, until Valya’s auctioneer voice called everyone down to lunch. I followed the smell of grilled meat out through the veranda to the side of the house, where Lenny and Alyosha were standing around a square grill being loaded with pork chops by a broad-shouldered Georgian in a jogging suit. This was evidently Zhorik, in the grip of some ebullient argument with Lenny over the best way to marinate meat. Zhorik was taking the position that the best results came from marinating in vinegar, and Lenny insisted on a concoction of kefir and lemon juice. “What kind of Jew are you?” Zhorik challenged. “Don’t you know your people don’t marinate meat in milk? It degrades the fibers!”
“Here he is, our honored guest!” Zhorik said, spotting me. He shook my hand heartily with his right while holding on to the handle of the weighty grill cage with his left. If he really was an “invalid,” then he was the most robust and vigorous of the breed I’d ever met. Valya came out onto the porch. “Alyosha, come in and help me move this table.”
But her nephew didn’t hear her, or pretended not to. He’d inserted his earbuds deep into his ear canal in order to keep listening to Ekho Moskvy on his portable. “Look at him!” she shouted at the others. “A normal person listens to one, maybe two favorite programs! But this one can’t take those things out of his ears. The personality of an addict!”
“Darling, don’t be upset; the meat is almost ready,” said Zhorik.
Lunch was laid out banquet-style in the dining room. I noticed that Katya was doing all the serving for Lenny, sprinkling dill on his potatoes, refilling his shot glass. He seemed to take for granted that he should be so serviced. He had swallowed down an entire bowl of pelmeni dumplings, which Valya had set out as the starter, and was already halfway through another. Whenever Katya heard some subtle grunt of hunger from Lenny’s direction, she responded by loading another eight dumplings onto his plate. He caught me looking at him and said, “What?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe you should pace yourself,” I suggested.
“It’s all healthy, it’s all natural,” Valya objected. “Why aren’t you eating? What, you don’t like it?”
“It’s all delicious. I’m just not very hungry.”
“What are you, an animal, that you only eat when you’re hungry?”
I caught Lenny’s eye again. You’re letting them stuff you like a goose, I wanted to tell him. But even if I could, there would be no point. In some kind of protest against me, he seemed to be aggressively plowing through his second portion of dumplings. Then he dropped his eyes and made a few meager coughs to suggest he wasn’t feeling well. “Poor fellow, you must have caught a cold in your night in the lockup,” said Valya. She turned to me. “It’s a crime, the way they can throw a person in jail for nothing.”