A Young Scoundrel

Chapter 2

They're climbing over the stone wall which separates Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko Park from the Kharkov Zoo. Naturally, they could simply buy tickets – for just one ruble twenty kopeks apiece – but the youths consider it a point of honor not to pay to enter "their" territory. The Zoo is a traditional playground for Ed and Genka, as for all the other members of the "SS": the painter, Vagrich Bakhchanyan; "The Frenchman," Paul Shemmetov; "Fritz" Viktorushka; and Fima, nicknamed "Dog." Every member of the "SS" is in some way out of the ordinary. You couldn't call the "SS" a typical group of young people…

In Kharkov the August sun is pitiless. Nonetheless the two young men are wearing suits of the "dandy" style, introduced by Genadii and formerly championed by members of the foundry-workers' guild, and nowadays by the poet, Ed. Usually, once they've made it through the broken glass atop the stone wall, the kids jump to earth among the jungles of the Zoo, weaving through gigantic tussocks of steppe-grass and burdock, nut-trees and other August exuberances, then descending into the ravine by a little path which only they know, passing by an old oak which grows at the bottom of the ravine, and coming up out of the ravine right next to the "Tavern." Its ancient sides, having once been covered with paint which started out as a reddish yellow, lean against each other. The young men's shoes are covered with the pollens exuberantly packed in several years'-worth of Ukrainian grasses – the heavily fertilized, crude, mighty Ukrainian grasses of the field across the way. Genadii is holding a package of bottles. Vodka. In the "Tavern," they don't officially sell spirits.

Climbing up the path after his friend, Ed wipes his face with a handkerchief. From time to time they overtake a thick cloud of midges, which try to draw as many milligrams of blood as they can from their quickly-moving prey. Gena and Ed constantly wave their arms, or the cigarettes they're smoking, to repel the raids. Dripping sweat but unperturbed, they take the path to the summit and go on, along a narrow path between carefully-planted flowers, to the front of the "Tavern." As if greeting their arrival, from the depths of the Zoo sounds the roar of a tiger.

"Zhul'bars," states the poet.

"Sultan." disagrees Gena.

On the open veranda of the "Tavern," all by herself, doing something with the chairs, is "Auntie" Dusya. A big, strong woman in her thirties, with a red Bulgarian face, but still "Auntie." "Hey, look vat showed up! Genochka showed up!" she exclaims joyfully. And why wouldn't she be glad? The dandy, Genochka, gives her more in tips than she gets in a week of serving eggs, sausage with peas, or chicken to visitors to the Zoo.

"If you please, Dusya, put this in the freezer!" says Genka, imitating his father, a former Colonel in the KGB and the Director of a Trust. Like his father, Genka addresses everyone with the formal pronoun. This is his own idea of chic. And Genka doesn't swear, which distinguishes him from Ed's many other friends, who curse non-stop.

"I am certain you have met Eduard Limonov, Dusya…?" Genka stares, with a certain patronizing irony, at Ed.

"Sure, you've had your friend here with you, Genochka…"

"Certainly, Dusya. But since then he's changed his name. Please take note: 'Eduard Limonov.'"

Eduard didn't change his last name, Savyenko. It's just that the "SS" and some other friends – Lyonka Ivanov, the poet Motrich, Tolya Melekhov, were sitting with Ed and Ann in their room, playing, out of sheer boredom, a sort of literary game, and they decided they would live in turn-of-the-century Kharkov and be poets and symbolist painters. And Vagrich Bakhchanyan made a rule that they all had to think up appropriate last names for themselves. Lyonka Ivanov decided to call himself Blanket. Melekhov became Breadman. And Bakhchanyan decided that Ed would be called Limonov. The game ended, they all went home, but the next day, while introducing Ed to a painter-friend from the newspaper "Leninist ____________________," at the Automatic, Bakhchanyan referred to him as "Limonov." And has called him that ever since. And it turned out that Genka really liked the nickname. All the young "Decadents" in the Automatic now call him Ed Limonov. The nickname stuck, and now even Ed himself doesn't call himself Eduard Savyenko much anymore. He has remained "Limonov." Nobody calls Lyonka Ivanov "Blanket" anymore; nobody calls Melekhov"Breadman" any more; but Ed remains "Limonov." Besides, for reasons even he doesn't understand, Ed himself likes "Limonov." His real name, the very common, ordinary Ukrainian family-name, "Savyenko," always depressed him. So let it stay "Limonov."

The two young men are sitting at a table on the veranda, so that they can look out at the pond, and the swans and ducks swimming around on it. The "Tavern" is definitely the most picturesque restaurant in Kharkov, which is why Genka chose it as his headquarters. From the pond wafts the smell of muddy water. Two workers are lazily pulling a hose and just as lazily starting to sprinkle the heavy flowers.

"Well, what shall we have to go with our vodka, Comrade Limonov?" Genka takes off his jacket and drapes it over the back of the chair. He rolls up the sleeves of his immaculate white shirt and loosens the knot of his tie.

"Maybe some chicken?" Uncertainty can be heard in the poet's voice. He's gotten used to deferring to the more elegant, experienced and self-assured Genka on this sort of question.

"Dusya, what's good today?" Genka turns to "Auntie" Dusya, who has once again come up on the veranda.

"Oh, Genochka… it's still so early; how…" Dusya twists her frace into a pitiful frown. "The cook still isn't here; we only open at noon. I could get you a little snack, and, if you want, I could make eggs with sausage. When the cook gets here, he can make you Chicken Kiev…" Suddenly, a peacock cries out, long and loudly. As if at this signal, the whole Zoo begins to cry, roar and howl.

"Well, what do you think, Ed? Should we have some eggs with sausage?"

"Let's."

"Dusya, make us some fried eggs with sausage. Six eggs each. With salt, but without lard – the way I like them. Bring them in the frying pan. And more vegetables, please – tomatoes, cucumbers…"

"Do you want your cucumbers pickled, boys?"

"Of course, Dusya, pickled. And a couple of bottles of cold lemonade. To wash them down with."

"I'll pour you a little decanter of vodka, shall I?" Dusya glances at Genadii's face.

"No thank you. It would be warm. Bring us two wineglasses and put a bottle on ice, please, Dusya."

The waitress leaves the veranda.

"Wonderful – eh, Ed?" Gena's fond gaze is directed toward the pond. Directly across the pond is the peacocks' aviary. Far away, among the cages, looms the huge bulk of an elephant. A draft suddenly wafts to the veranda the smell of dung and the nauseous smell of some musky beast. "Magnificent!" – And Gennadii's handsome face beams with tranquil delight. This is what he wants from life: a beautiful view, cold vodka, chatting with a friend. Even women are second-rate to Genadii. It's been a year since the beautiful Nonna, whom everybody thought he loved, appeared in his life, but even Nonna couldn't drag him away from his drinking sprees in the company of the "SS," from his trips to a restaurant called the Monte-Carlo, from strolling down Sumskii Street with Ed, from the pleasures of wasting time. Ed Limonov looks with pleasure at his strange friend. Genka seems to have absolutely no ambition. He himself has admitted more than once that he doesn't want to be a poet, like Motrich and Ed, or a painter, like Bakhchanyan. "You'll paint and write poems; I'll bask in your success!"laughs Genka. Celia Yakovlyevna and Anna consider Genadii to be Ed's evil genius – they think he makes Ed squander money on drink, and takes him away from Anna. But this view of theirs is explained, actually, by jealousy. It's true, of course, that now and then Ed spends, with Genka, the money they've made sewing pants. Not often. But he doesn't go out drinking with Genka all the time. In any case, the miserly sums – ten, twenty rubles – he spends with Genka don't compare to the amounts squandered by Genka. And that phrase, "squandered on drink" somehow doesn't capture the Magnificent Genadii Sergeevich's style. The last time they went carousing at the Monte-Carlo – an out-of-town restaurant in Pesochin, watering hole for the high officials and KGB elite of Kharkov – Genka went first in one taxi, showing the way, and Ed followed in another taxi, and behind him came another taxi, empty, which Genka hired solely for the style of it, to make up a a cavalcade. In his youth, Sergei Sergeevich had been a regular at the Monte-Carlo – until his stomach ulcer. Gennadii inherited the place from his father. The staff knows Genadii Sergeevich well, and always gives him the best table. Until he met Genka, Ed had only read of "best tables" in books. At the Monte-Carlo, the chickens wander around right outside the window of the best table, and you can pick the one you want and they'll make chicken tabak from it. The paradox of the Monte-Carlo consists of the fact that the truck drivers eat in the big room, right next to a big highway. But at the best tables, it's the good life…

Auntie Dusya brings them their snacks, vodka, lemonade and, for each of them, a sizzling-hot frying pan full of fried eggs. Genka gazes with pleasure at the heavily-laden table. With one hand he raises the wine-glass of vodka, and with the other his glass of lemonade. "Come on, Ed! – Let's drink to this magnificent August day, and to the animals of our beloved Zoo!"

"Right!" agrees Ed, and they gulp down the burning vodka. And instantly start drinking the lemonade. And grab the pickled cucumbers and eat the fried eggs, burning themselves…

"Well, Ed, did you get a good scolding from Celia Yakovlyevna yesterday?" Genka has decided to take a break for a smoke, disengaging himself for the purpose from what's left of his eggs.

"I swear to God, I'm fucked if I can remember!" laughs the poet. "I remember getting out of a taxi, and grabbing the doorknob, and then… it all goes blank, I can't remember a thing. What time was it, anyway? Two o'clock?"

"What do you mean, two? It was still early. You passed out early last night. But Fima and I carried on drinking at the airport.

"No way I passed out." The poet is offended. "I hadn't slept at all the night before, I was writing til dawn. Of course you're going to be tired after a whole night without sleep. You yourself threw up yesterday."

"I throw up a lot." agrees Gyenka calmly. "That's how the Romans did it. They'd throw up, then come back and drink some more."

"That Celia Yakovlyevna caught me right at the door. 'And where are you going,' she says, 'Eduard?'"

"And what did you say to her, Eduard Venyaminovich?"

"Out for some thread, Celia Yakovlyevna, I'm going to the store.' With my shoes in my hands. I wanted to get out without being heard."

"For some thread!" guffaws Genka. "Limonov went out to buy some thread!"

"Naturally Celia didn't believe me. But how is an intellectual woman going to argue with her Russian son-in-law? 'Then how come you've got your shoes in your hand, you drunk, if you're going for some thread? It's not a criminal activity, going for thread… '"

"She'd be ashamed to catch you in a lie. That's what comes of culture and education. A Russian mother-in-law would storm through the whole building, tear your sleeve off, dragging you back inside. It's a good thing you're living with a Jewish family… and Anna?"

"Yesterday Anna slept – and snored. She just opened her eyes and said, 'You got drunk with Genka again, you damned alcoholic!' and went back to sleep. And today I slept, once she went out."

"You need to get Anna some kind of gift." Genka frowns. "Ed, heading toward us are the first representatives of the goat-herd, who have already completed their morning excursion to the Zoo."

A family is coming to the "Tavern." Two children – boys of around ten – dressed, in spite of the heat, in blue wool thermal pants. The pants are too long; the cuffs, dragging on the ground, are gray with dust. The mother is powerfully built, surprisingly old for a mother with children of this age. Her hands and feet stick out awkwardly from her too-tight, too-short, white-and-blue polka-dotted dress. The father – who undoubtedly works in one of the many factories in Kharkov – is wearing a fake-silk yellow shirt and black trousers, sandals over bare feet, and carries in his hand a string bag. and in it something covered with torn-up and, for some reason, wet newspaper.

The morose children are the first up the steps. The mother after them. Having helped them climb onto the veranda, the father puts his foot on the first step. Genka stands up and sraightening his tie, assumes a stern look: "Comrades, comrades, entry prohibited! The restaurant is closed to the public today. Today is the All-Soviet-Union Convention of Bengal-Tiger trainers. Entry restricted to those with letters of invitation!"

The family leaves silently and submissively, dragging their string bag behind them. Ed even begins to pity the goat-herd family. "Why'd you do that to them?" he asks his friend. "Hell, they'd've drunk their lemonade, taken some sandwiches, and gone…"

"There's always noise from the goat-herd, Ed. Did you direct your attention to the children? Like little old men. Can you imagine how they would have gobbled, chomped?"

"You can't get rid of all of them… Now somebody else will show up."

"Dusya, please place on all the tables on our side of the restaurant a "Reserved" sign."

"Oh, Genochka, we don't have any signs like that!" whines Dusya. From beneath her feet, a big green grasshopper suddenly leaps, landing on the next table. This is the countryside; what do they know about signs? There's not even a toilet; visitors run to the ravine.

"In that case, write 'Reserved' on some pieces of paper, and put them on each table. Of course, your labor will be compensated."

Dusya goes off to obey her orders. Her obedience is explained not only by the fact that Genka passes her a five-ruble or ten-ruble note as she leaves, but by the fact that the little Zoo restaurant belongs to the restaurant network of his Papa, Sergei Sergeevich, and in this network Papa is Tsar, Papa is God. True, Papa has sternly forbidden Gennadii to abuse his official position to get better treatment, but the power-hungry Genka can't resist the temptation to "abuse" it. Power – that's what Genka loves, Ed suddenly realizes. Power is Genka's ambition. Genka wants to brandish enormous power.

"Genka, why don't you join the Party and become an important man – say, District Administrator?"

"Are you kidding, Ed? That's so fucking depressing – making a career as a communist. It's bad enough that it ruined most of my dad's life – crawling on his knees."

Even the fact that Genya swore testifies to his aversion to a Communist career. Genka is indifferent to ideology, Genka has no political views. What Genka wants from life is the "high": pleasure, adventure, romance. And what kind of "high" is there in wearing a hole in your trousers sitting at Party meetings? Genka's favorite film is "The Adventurers" with Alain Delon and Lena Ventura in starring roles. That's what Genka loves – treasure-hunting, gunfights, expensive restaurants, crystal, cognac, candlelight, champagne… Ed remembers Genka's dilated pupils after the film. They watched "The Adventurers" twice – Genka, Nonna, as beautiful as Genka, and Ed. Genka is as handsome as Alain Delon, "The Beautiful One," Bakhchanyan calls him. He's blond, six feet tall, light-blue eyes, a straight nose, a noble bearing. After "The Adventurers," they drank and wandered around for a few days, and were arrested one night on the runway-area of the Kharkov Airport while trying to get into a jet transport. What they wanted on the jet will remain an insoluble mystery, but it is worth noting that "The Adventurers" begins with Alain Delon flying through the Arc de Triomphe.

"Let's do it, Ed!"

"Let's do it." Ed looks fondly at his friend.