The Funeral Party

TWELVE

The landlord of the building was a louse. Alik was his first tenant and had been a thorn in his side for almost twenty years. He had moved in just as the place fell into the man’s hands and the lofts became vacant. The run-down former factory district of Chelsea, vividly described in the writings of Alik’s beloved O. Henry, had become increasingly fashionable. Next to it stood Greenwich Village, with its bohemian social life, its narcotic delights, its cheerful clubs and night-life, which spread out to the adjacent districts. In the past twenty years the price of accommodation had shot up at least tenfold, but Alik’s rent was fixed and he still paid only four hundred a month, and was constantly late with it too.

The landlord lived in one of New York’s wealthy suburbs and left everything to his superintendent, a paid job which combined the duties of both janitor and house-manager. The “super” here was called Claude, and he had worked in the building virtually since its occupation. Claude was a highly original man, half-French with a complicated history. From the stories he told Alik, Trinidad would surface, with an ocean yacht, and North Africa, with dangerous hunting-trips. Most of it he probably invented, yet one had the impression that his real life was no less interesting, and Alik would fill in the gaps, telling everyone he was a great card-sharp, that he had been arrested and imprisoned in a Turkish jail and had escaped in a hot-air balloon.

Twice, when things were particularly difficult, Claude, who wasn’t without artistic and philanthropic interests, had bailed Alik out by buying his paintings. There aren’t many superintendents who buy art. As well as this, Claude loved Nina. He would drop by to chat with her and she would make him coffee and occasionally lay out cards for a silly fortune-telling game, “find the queen.” Not knowing a word of English when she arrived in this country, she had immediately started learning French. This peculiar idiocy was typical of her, and it was probably the reason Claude loved her so much. He too had his peculiarities, and unlike everyone else he preferred Nina to Alik.

Visiting usually in the first part of the day, Claude saw an element of strict order in her chaotic and disorderly life. She would get up at about one and utter a weak cry. Alik would make her coffee and take it into the bedroom with a glass of cold water. This was when he was working, so he rarely spoke to her then. She would come round slowly, take a long bath, anoint her face and body with various creams sent by a friend from Moscow—she didn’t recognize the American ones—and pass a brush endlessly over her renowned hair; in her youth she had worked for several years as a model at one of Moscow’s fashion houses, and she could never forget this marvellous time in her life.

Putting on a black kimono, she would shut herself in the bedroom again with some delightfully foolish activity: laying out patience maybe, or piecing together a huge jigsaw puzzle. It was usually then that Claude arrived. She would receive her guest in the kitchen and they would drink tiny cups of coffee, one after another. At this time of the day she was unable to eat or drink alcohol; she was terribly weak, and didn’t even have the strength to start smoking until evening, when she had eaten something and poured her first vodka.

Alik would finish work at around seven. If they had money, they would eat in one of the little restaurants in Greenwich Village. Alik’s first years in America were his most successful; there weren’t so many Russian artists living in New York then, and he even enjoyed a small following.

From the start of her life in America Nina was crazy about everything oriental, and they would visit various Chinese or Japanese restaurants. Alik, of course, knew the most authentic ones. Before going out for the evening she would spend a long time dressing up and putting on her make-up. She would generally take her cat Katya with her on these outings. Pale-grey, with yellow eyes, Katya had been brought over from Moscow with all the proper papers, and was also mad: what normal cat would lie for hours across someone’s shoulder, her paws languidly dangling down?

If guests came over they would order pizzas from the café downstairs, or Chinese food from their favourite restaurant in Chinatown, where the owner knew them and always sent over a small present for Nina. People would bring beer or vodka; there wasn’t much hard drinking then. “It’s the climate,” Alik used to say. “There’s no hard drinking in this country, only alcoholism.”

It was true: by Nina’s third year in America she was an alcoholic, even though she didn’t drink much, and her beauty became even more startling.

The landlord had arrived in the city the previous day to put his affairs in order. He docked Claude’s pay for a garbage fine, and demanded Alik’s immediate eviction on the grounds of his three months’ arrears. Claude tried to defend his oldest resident, citing his terrible illness and apparently imminent death.

“I’ll see for myself,” the landlord declared, and Claude had no option but to take him up to the fifth floor.

It was eleven o’clock and things were in full swing as they got out of the lift. Nobody paid any attention to the bulky old man with the pink, chamois-leather face. There was none of the rowdy merriment and specifically Russian drunkenness he had expected; instead, a large crowd of people were huddled in front of the television. He looked around. He hadn’t been up here for a while. It was a good apartment; fix it up and it would fetch at least thirty-five hundred, maybe forty.

“He’s a fine artist, this guy,” Claude glanced at the canvases stacked against the wall; Alik never liked hanging up his paintings, his old work got in his way.

The landlord peered briefly at them; a friend of his in Chelsea had run a cheap boarding-house here in the twenties. It was more of a flop-house really, and he had let all sorts of riff-raff in, impoverished artists, out-of-work actors. Somehow the place had survived the depression. A few times, out of the goodness of his heart, the man had let his artists give him paintings instead of rent, and he had hung them up in the hall. Years passed, and he turned out to own a collection worth a dozen boarding-houses. But that was a long time ago; times had changed, artists were two a penny now. “No, no, I don’t want any of these paintings,” he decided.

Nina saw Claude at the entrance and wandered over to him with her elegant, unsteady gait, preparing some French phrase for him. But she didn’t have the chance to use it, because Claude said, “Our landlord’s here on business.”

Nina displayed an unexpected command of the situation. Muttering something to him she darted to Libin, grasped his head in her hands and whispered urgently in his ear: “Our landlord’s here, the super brought him. You must make sure they don’t get near Alik. Please, I’m begging you.”

Libin quickly took in what was happening and went over to the landlord grinning imbecilically. “We’re all a little bit concerned, there’s a political coup going on in Moscow, you see.” He spoke as though he were prime minister of some neighbouring state. As he did so he pushed them towards the lift with his belly. They didn’t resist. By the lift he finally stopped smiling and said very distinctly: “I’m Alik’s brother. I apologise for the arrears, I paid all the rent yesterday and I guarantee it won’t happen again.”

Now the damned Irishman will start ranting, Claude thought. But without saying a word the landlord pressed the button of the lift.