Vodka (32 page)

An oblong of tables in the middle of the room made an island of food. There was green sorrel soup with rye bread; silver-gray salted herring, its meat bright, succulent and soft; beet juice flowing through the diagonal cuts of onion bulbs sculpted as flowers; open cakes of cottage cheese and jam; and rose-shaped petals in cheese, cinnamon and poppyseed. Alice picked one of each, determined not to miss out on anything. Lev laughed.

“I
knew
you were a connoisseur,” he said. “When it comes to mixing vodka with food, you can take the high road—caviar, smoked murlofish, veal Apraksin—or you can take the low road: herring as bony as you can find, and Ukrainian fatback, pink as a baby’s butt. Both paths are equally worthy of respect. Whichever one you choose, you’ll find tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, cabbage and sauerkraut. All are honest, upstanding chasers, as beautiful as any Grecian urn and as virtuous as a pre-Nabokovian teenager. You know why vodka goes so well with food, Mrs. Liddell?”

“I’ve no idea.” She cocked her head playfully. “Enlighten me.”

“Because so many foods are suitable base materials for vodka, that’s why. You can use anything with a starch content that can be converted to sugar: barley, rye, maize, wheat, beet, onion, carrot, apple, pumpkin, bread … even chocolate.”

“Chocolate vodka. Imagine that.” Alice whistled.
“Two addictions in one.” She looked around for Lewis, saw that he was deep in conversation with Bob, and beckoned Lev closer. “Can I have a word? In private?”

She found it impossible to tell what, if anything, was hidden behind his nod. He led her out of the living room—a troika of bodyguards started to move with him, but he waved them away—and into his study. Alice felt impossibly daring.

There was an old bureau against one wall and a green leather sofa opposite, darkened and shiny with age. The study led not only back to the living room but also through to Lev’s bedroom. Through the half-open door, Alice could see his bed. It was enormous, of course. Alice wondered who shared it with him. He wasn’t married—Arkin had told her that wives were banned under the
vory
code—but there was bound to be someone. Or many someones; most Russian bosses expect their female employees to sleep with them as a matter of course.

She imagined him in that bed with his lovers, and jealousy jagged briefly through her.

“My car’s been stolen,” she said.
“Our
car. My husband’s and mine.” She felt it both absurd and necessary to emphasize Lewis’s involvement, even though the evidence of her marriage was there on her finger and in the next room. Lev took a pad and pen from the bureau.

“Give me the details. Make, color, registration number, where it was stolen from.” As she gave him the information, he wrote in quick, jerky strokes. “No problem,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. You’ll have it back within the week.”

“I’m very grateful.”

He smiled, but his eyes gave nothing away. “I’m sure you are.”

Suddenly and unusually, Alice could think of nothing to say; or rather, she could think of many things to say, but none of them seemed at all appropriate. Lev lit a cigarette, holding it along the length of all four fingers, the way workmen do.

“It’s a great party,” Alice said, cursing herself for sounding so prosaic.

“It’s a proper Russian party, that’s why. American cocktail parties are barbaric. There’s nowhere to sit, nothing to eat, and they stop after one or two drinks. That’s worse than torture. Parties are like sex—why start if you’re not prepared to go all the way?”

“Why indeed?” Alice said, but she felt it sounded pompous rather than flirty.

There was another pause, even more awkward than the first.

“Your husband’s out there,” he said, gesturing that she should go ahead. She set her face into deliberate neutrality as she walked back to the living room.

“Everything all right?” Christina said.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You were gone a long time.”

“Who are you, Christina, the KGB? We had a few details to sort out, that’s all.”

“Details?”

“Yes, details.” A childish defensiveness stopped her from telling Christina about the car; it was none of Christina’s business what Alice was doing. “Shop talk, boring stuff about the distillery, stuff best done quickly and without interruption.” Alice knew she was gabbling. Don’t give so much information, she thought, it makes
you sound guilty. “That’s all,” she concluded lamely.

Lev was nowhere to be seen. Alice understood and appreciated his delicacy; it might have raised questions had they emerged together, and such questions were … well, out of the question.

Josh was clinging to Christina’s legs. “My ear hurts,” he said.
“Still.”

“I know, darling,” Christina said. “Mom’s trying to find something to make it better.”

Alice felt angry sympathy for Josh. Few of the expats who came to Moscow brought their children. They thought the city was too rough and harsh for their offspring, which was ridiculous; Russians dote on children more than virtually any other people in the world. How many kids of his own age would Josh get to know here in Moscow?

“He’s had an earache for more than a week, poor lamb,” Christina said. “You can’t get any proper medicine in this place.”

“Let me have a look at him,” Lewis said. “I’m sure I’ve got some stuff at home.”

“Medicine? For an earache?” Lev chortled. Alice hadn’t even heard him approach. “You don’t need
medicine
for an earache.” He nodded toward one of his bodyguards, who went into the bathroom and came back with a wad of cotton. Sitting on the floor, but still towering over Josh, Lev soaked the wad in vodka and held it up in front of Josh’s face. “This won’t hurt, I promise. You trust me?”

Josh nodded, lips tight with determination. Alice wanted to hug him.

“Vodka?” Lewis’s voice was thick with condescension. “What good’s vodka going to do?”

“Which ear is it?” Lev said.

“This one.” Josh pointed to his right ear. Lev pressed the cotton wool against it. He could have held Josh’s entire head in one enormous hand. “Best cure in the world,” Lev said, as Josh grinned up at him with the fearlessness that only small boys have for their new friends, no matter how outsize.

“That’s ridiculous,” Lewis said.

Lev bestowed a smile of beatific equanimity on him. “You don’t need medicine in Moscow, Dr. Liddell. Vodka’s the cure for all known ills. Stomachache? A glass of salted vodka. Flu? Peppered vodka and a hot bath. Fever? Rub vodka all over your body.” He looked at Josh again. “You hold that in place for an hour, young man, and you’ll feel right as rain. But whatever you do”—he lowered his voice conspiratorially—“don’t drink it.”

Alice called for silence. The guests applauded her; Harry whooped as though cheering a home run in the ninth. Alice turned to him. “I like you, Harry. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.” She quelled the laughter with a smile and an upraised palm. “It makes me very proud that America, my country, is helping a great nation back to its feet,” she said. The Russians clapped even louder than before, not least for the quality of her Russian. “So, on behalf of all my colleagues at the IMF, I’d like to propose a toast: to Lev’s generosity in hosting this magnificent party, and to his guests’ gratitude that he’s doing so.”

It was a good toast, eloquent and heartfelt, and they applauded her for a third time. When everyone had inhaled, drunk, exhaled, reached for some orange juice
and chewed some herring, Lev raised his own glass. “To Mrs. Liddell’s beauty,” he said simply.

Lewis looked proud. Alice glanced quickly, daringly, at Lev, and then away again, smiling as the guests cheered. But it was not the admiration of the crowd that intoxicated her; rather, it was the rapture of one. It was Lev who kindled the flame in her eyes, Lev who curved her lips into their bow of pleasure. She tried to restrain these giveaway signs, but they appeared on her face of their own accord. The blow had fallen. The room was crowded, but Alice felt as though she was alone with Lev. And if there was something terrible and cruel in his charm, so too was there in hers, and the uncontrollable radiance of her eyes and her smile burned him as he drank. Every moment bound them closer, every moment suffused Alice with joy and fear as it pushed her nearer the gate of the unknown.

There were more toasts and still more, all of them accompanied by cries of
“pey dadna!”
—“Drink to the bottom!” One called for world peace; another for eternal friendship; a third for exuberance, enthusiasm, eloquence and grandiloquence. Alice was first to finish every toast and first to refill.

“The way that lady drinks,” Alice heard Svetlana say, “her guts must be on fire.”

“If they weren’t before,” Rodion replied, “they will be now.”

Lewis touched Alice on the arm. “I’m going home,” he said.

“Are you in a bad mood?”

“Not at all. Just tired. And sober.”

Harry staggered up. “You should stay here and defend
your wife’s virtue.” He gestured toward Lev. “I think he’s got his eye on her.”

“That brute?” Lewis snorted. “I hardly think he’s your type, is he, darling?”

He was gone before she could answer, which was just as well. What would she have done—laughingly agree with him, betraying the bond she and Lev already had, or tell Lewis the truth: yes, Lev was her type, and it angered her that Lewis was too stupid to see that. No, not stupid—
complacent
, that was it, that was what tore at her. All Lewis wanted was an easy life, which was his choice. But what was life if it was easy? She felt sure Lev could tell her a thing or two about what it meant to really live.

Harry and Bob were singing, so out of tune that it took Alice a few moments to work out what the song was: “Sweet Home Alabama.” Americans are loud, boisterous drunks. Russians are more serious, drinking until they fall with dignity, like trees. Alice realized she was the exception that proved the rule. She sat in a corner, cocooned in a fluffy vodka haze. Josh was asleep in her lap. She clasped her arms under his neck and felt his breath slide over her skin. Lev sat heavily down beside them.

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

“Just tipsy.”

“Tipsy? The amount you’ve drunk, you should be paralytic.”

“Hard head.”

“A Russian’s like a sponge, you see. You don’t know his true shape until he’s soaked.” Lev pressed Alice in the hollow of her throat, taking what seemed like elaborate care to avoid touching her breasts. “Do you know why I agreed to privatize Red October, Mrs. Liddell?”

“Because I brought the tax police in.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps. Up to a point. But you have to look deeper, you have to
understand
—and I think you do, or at least you have the capacity to. You remember the first time you came into my office? You brought graphs, statistics, market research, forecasts, projections, this and that. None of it meant a thing to me. Russians don’t trust figures or facts; to us, they’ve always meant lies. We respond to feelings, Mrs. Liddell,
feelings.
We don’t think like you do; therefore, we don’t act like you do. There’s so much about our psyche you must consider: our attitudes to money, our fears about being drawn into another ghastly social experiment, our anxieties about your motives.”

“I can assure you, my motives are entirely honorable,” Alice said, and was glad that they were talking for now on professional rather than personal terms.

“What does America’s western frontier mean? Freedom and opportunity. But when we Russians look to
our
west, we think of invasion and terror. We remember Napoleon, we remember Hitler. Our suspicion of the West is …
ancestral.
You simply cannot overestimate it. We’re afraid that even the most innocuous statement can set terrible events in motion. You remember Gromyko?”

“Of course.” Andrei Gromyko was the veteran Soviet foreign minister whose dourness had earned him the nickname “Grim Grom.”

“Well, a Western diplomat once asked Gromyko whether he’d enjoyed his breakfast. Gromyko considered the question for hours, turning it over in his mind, examining it from every angle for hidden meanings, innuendos, dastardly capitalist plots … and eventually
replied with a single word. You know what that was?” Alice shook her head. “‘Perhaps.’”

Alice laughed. Not a polite tinkling laugh, but a throaty cackle that had Christina swiveling in remonstration. Lev looked from Christina to Alice in amusement. “She doesn’t approve of you,” he said.

“She’s got a banana up her butt.”

“Such a charming son too. She’s one of those who looks down on the natives?”

“You got it.”

“It’s a common failing among your compatriots, Mrs. Liddell. Always thinking you’re best, and lying when you’re not.”

“Lying?”

“Armstrong. The moon.”

“What
are
you talking about?” Alice couldn’t tell whether he was being serious.

“Who put the first satellite in space? The first dog? First man? First woman? Who made the first unmanned lunar landing? We did, the Russians.” Russians, not Soviets, Alice noted. “Sputnik, Laika, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Luna Nine …” Lev rattled the names off as though taking roll call. “And yet we’re supposed to believe that suddenly, on the hardest mission of all, the Americans turn it around? Tchah! You faked the moon landing, just as you faked all your so-called scientific discoveries. Who invented the lightbulb?”

“Thomas Edison.”

“Wrong! Alexander Lodygin. Who flew the first aircraft?”

“The Wright brothers.”

“Wrong again! Alexander Mozhaisky, a full decade before. What about the radio?”

“Marconi.”

“Alexander Popov—everyone knows that. Why else does the sun rise in the east and set in the west, if not as evidence that the Russians are superior?”

Alice circled her finger at her temple. “You’ve gone nuts,” she laughed. She’d decided to assume he was joking whether he was or not.

“Do you respect me?” he asked.

“Of course I do.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.” Alice knew that the American imprimatur of recognition and respect is precious to all Russians, no matter how much they deny it. Russian serfs and American slaves were freed in the same decade, the 1860s, a time when the number of millionaires in Moscow and New York was about equal. It’s the progress that both nations have made since then that makes the Russians so twitchy. The more threatened Russians feel, the more prickly they become. They show the same kind of backhanded respect to the Germans, the mortal enemy with whom they fought toe-to-toe on the eastern front. The Russians reserve indifference only for the little nations, the Frances and Britains.