Potboiler (17 page)

69.

As part of Pfefferkorn’s cover, meetings had been arranged with the government officials he would have needed to see had he truly been interested in exporting fertilizer. He stood among his fellow petitioners in the moldering hallway, waiting to be summoned by a squat woman more fit to guard the mouth of a cave. A one-armed Slav, his stinking greatcoat pinned at the shoulder and jangling with military decorations, whistled and smiled at the ceiling. The mewlings of a bundled child went untended by its vacant-eyed mother, eliciting clucks from a pair of babushkas fondling prayer ropes. Pfefferkorn wondered what business these folks could have with the second assistant to the deputy subminister in charge of animal waste. He had his answer when the troll lady appeared to crook a finger at him, and he gestured to the old soldier:
You first.
The Slav smiled, whistled, did not move. Nor did anyone else, and Pfefferkorn realized that he was the only one with an appointment. The rest had come inside to escape the heat.

“Comrade!” The second assistant to the deputy subminister in charge of animal waste greeted him with kisses that left wet trails in Pfefferkorn’s moustache. “Sit down, yes, please, sit down! I convey to you abundance wishes for prosperity and partnership between these our two nations. Yes, sit, please! No, I insist: I am standing. I sit too long, yes? It is not conducive for buttocks. What? Yes, yes. Please, enjoy. To your health.
Thruynichka,
ah? We say: first bottle for sick, second bottle for well, next bottle for dead, four for alive again. Ha? Ha? Ha! To your health. I am please to receive application for export of waste. To your health. Unfortunately, I must report: this application is incomplete. Yes, ten thousand apologies . . . to your health. There is lacking application fee, there is lacking documentation of statement of purpose, affidavit of disloyalty unaffiliation, many else. Process requires to initiate from top. Please refrain from sadness. To your health. What? No. Expedite is impossible, impossible. What? No. Impossible. What? Shall I consult? It is not impossible.” He pocketed the bribe. “To your health, ah?”

Pfefferkorn stumbled drunk into the burning noonday sun, negotiating fetid streets aswarm with dogs, cats, chickens, goats, children, factory workers, farmers, pickpockets, soldiers, and peasant women on prehistoric bicycles. Their motley faces told of centuries of invasion, subjugation, and intermarriage. Their eyes were narrow or round, ice-blue or muddy. Their complexions ran the gamut from saddle brown to translucent. Their bone structure was fine, it was rough-hewn, it was hidden beneath clumps of flesh or tenting skin drawn tight as a snare drum. So many faces, alike only in their fixed expressions of distrust and resignation. So many faces, but none the one he sought.

Carlotta, he thought, I’ve come for you.

One block on, a crowd had gathered to watch three men in shirtsleeves fixing a spavined haycart, dissipating disappointedly when the jack did not fail and nobody was crushed to death. He turned down an unpaved alley that opened onto a wide, potholed boulevard festooned with posters touting the virtues of manual labor. Thatch-roofed huts with crude goat pens and wilting garden plots abutted Soviet-era concrete block monstrosities.
MINISTRY OF FACTS,
Pfefferkorn read.
MINISTRY OF MUSICAL EDUCATION, MINISTRY OF BOOTS, MINISTRY OF LONG-CHAIN CARBON COMPOUNDS
. It was easy to identify the state’s priorities. The
MINISTRY OF SECURITY
was shiny and imposing, as was the
MINISTRY OF POETRY
. The lobby of the
MINISTRY OF ROOT VEGETABLES
was capacious enough to house a fifteen-foot fountain. In the cracked storefront of the vacant
MINISTRY OF TRAFFIC CONTROL
was a poster memorializing the martyred Zhulk, with the slogan
THE REVOLUTION LIVES ON!

Though it was late afternoon by the time he staggered out of his next meeting, with the auxiliary advisor to the acting chief of the standards division of the Ministry of Volatile Mineral Colloids, the sun was still high in the sky, the heat as enervating as ever. Pfefferkorn eased himself down to the curb and put his head between his knees. With respect to
thruynichka
consumption, the auxiliary advisor to the acting chief of the standards division of the Ministry of Volatile Mineral Colloids made the second assistant to the deputy subminister in charge of animal waste look like a lightweight. Pfefferkorn had no idea how he was going to find his way back to his hotel. He decided to sleep on the sidewalk. It was roughly the same temperature outside as it was in his room. No harm done, he thought. He curled up. Inside of a minute a pair of soldiers was hoisting him to his feet, demanding his papers. He produced his tourist pass. They ordered him to the Metropole and, when he started off in the wrong direction, took him by the elbows and dragged him there. He reeled across the lobby, scattering a klatsch of aged hookers and crashing into the front desk hard enough to jar the portrait of Zhulk on the wall.

The desk clerk readjusted it. “Monsieur has had a pleasant daytime, I am hopeful.”

“Messages for me?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“No, please.” The clerk vacuumed the money up his sleeve, handed Pfefferkorn his room key, and gestured toward the dining room. “Please, monsieur must partake of evening buffet.”

Chinese businessmen were monopolizing the samovar. Eager to put something in his roiling stomach, Pfefferkorn browsed the offerings, settling on root vegetable cake with goat’s-milk cream-cheese icing, cut into two-inch cubes and distributed by a dour woman wearing rubber gloves. She refused to give him more than one piece. He started to reach for cash.

“Ah, friend, no, no.”

The speaker was a burly man in a grimy tweed sportcoat. In one hand he held a chipped plate piled precariously with root vegetable pierogi and smothered in a yellowish sauce. The other arm encircled a briefcase. He grinned, making three new chins. “Allow me.” He spoke to the cake lady in rapid Zlabian. Pfefferkorn picked out the words for “industrious,” “generosity,” and “honor.” The cake lady looked annoyed. All the same, she snatched Pfefferkorn’s plate and added a second hunk of cake, shoving it at him as though giving up a pound of flesh.

“You must know,” the man said, guiding Pfefferkorn to a corner table, “Comrade Yelena is perhaps the most duty-conscious woman in all of West Zlabia. She has been inculcated with the strictest principles. A double portion represents a desecration of all she knows.”

“How’d you change her mind?” Pfefferkorn asked.

The man chuckled. “First, I instructed her that it is not proper to work without a smile. Then I reminded her that the cake ration for tourists is set at two per day, and because you were not at breakfast, you are entitled. Next, I provided examples of our benevolent Party leaders going without in order to feed the hungry. Finally, I informed her that I would in any case donate my ration to you, so that you might enjoy the full warmth of West Zlabian hospitality.” The man smiled. He set his briefcase on the table, opened it, and withdrew two shot glasses, cleaning them with the corner of his coat. He uncapped a flask and poured. “To your health.”

70.

Fyothor was his name, and if his clout with the cake lady and the freeness of his speech were not enough to mark him as a ranking Party member, the cell phone was. It rang continually throughout their conversation, which lasted long after the restaurant had officially closed. Pfefferkorn tried to pace himself but Fyothor kept pulling flasks from his briefcase.

“To your health. But tell me, friend, your room is acceptable to you? The Metropole is the finest our humble nation has to offer. Not up to American standards, perhaps, but comfortable enough, I hope.”

“I’m not American,” Pfefferkorn said.

“
Akha
, I beg forgiveness. So you said. Excuse me.” Fyothor answered his phone, spoke briefly, hung up. “My apologies. To your health.”

“You knew I wasn’t at breakfast,” Pfefferkorn said. “How.”

Fyothor smiled. “I am a man whose business it is to know such things. And besides, I was there, you were not. It is elementary logic, yes?”

“What is it you do, exactly,” Pfefferkorn said.

“You should ask instead what I do not do.”

“All right, what don’t you do.”

“Nothing!” Fyothor’s laughter rattled the silverware. “To your health, eh? This is the highest-quality
thruynichka
. You must be careful, friend. Most people make their own at home, it is like drinking bleach. My uncle is famous for his blend. Most of his neighbors are blind. To your health.
Akha
. Excuse me.”

As Fyothor took the call, Pfefferkorn downed the rest of his cake. It tasted vile but he needed to soak up some of the alcohol—to retake the reins of his mind. A man like Fyothor could have any of a hundred different motives. He might be angling for a bribe. He might be a standard-issue Party minder. He might be secret police. He might simply be a friendly fellow, although in Pfefferkorn’s estimation this was depressingly unlikely. Of greatest interest was the possibility that Fyothor was the point man Pfefferkorn was waiting for. If so, they both had to tread lightly. By law, membership in the May Twenty-sixers was illegal, making the exchange just as dangerous for them as it was for him. Should he be caught, the United States would disavow all knowledge of his existence and activities. He mentally rehearsed the identification codes.

Fyothor closed the phone. “Ten thousand apologies. This device . . . We have a word,
myutridashkha
.
I believe in English you say ‘both a blessing and a curse.’ You understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“To your health. You know, this is a word with an interesting history. It comes from a name, Myutridiya.”

“The royal doctor,” Pfefferkorn said.

Fyothor’s mouth opened. “But yes! Friend, tell me: you know
Vassily Nabochka
?”

“Who doesn’t.”

“But this is wonderful! To meet a new person is rare. To meet a new person who is also a lover of poetry, this is like finding a diamond in the street. Friend, I am so joyful. To your health. But tell me: how is it that you have come to know our national poem?”

Pfefferkorn said that he was an avid reader.

Fyothor beamed. “To your health. You must know, then, the many idioms we take from the poem. We say, ‘Sluggardly, like the dog Khlabva.’”

“‘Happy, like the midget Juriy,’” Pfefferkorn said.

“‘Redder than the fields of Rzhupsliyikh,’” Fyothor said.

“‘Drunker than the farmer Olvarnkhov,’” Pfefferkorn said, raising his shot glass.

Fyothor threw back his shaggy head and roared with laughter. “Friend, you are a true Zlabian.”

“To your health,” Pfefferkorn said.

Fyothor uncapped a fourth flask. When he next spoke his voice was tremulous. “But you see, friend, here is the essence of our tragical national fate. Our wondrous heritage, it is also the cause of abominable bloodshed. If only the great Zthanizlabh of Thzazhkst had understood the dire consequences of leaving it in a state of incompleteness—but alas, we are doomed, doomed. . . .” His phone rang. He looked at it and slid it back in his pocket. “
Akha
. Let us speak of happier things. Tell me, friend, you come for business, yes?”

It was a credit to the thoroughness of Pfefferkorn’s training that, despite being sloppier than he had been since the Nixon administration, he was able to describe in pitch-perfect detail the purpose of his visit to West Zlabia, starting with his twenty-two years of experience in the fertilizer industry and ending with his visit to the auxiliary advisor to the acting chief of the standards division of the Ministry of Volatile Mineral Colloids.

Fyothor shook his head. “But friend, no! I know this man. He is a worthless fool, a lazy ignoramus whose only talent is for opening his palm. No, I insist, you must allow—” His phone rang. Again he returned it to his pocket unanswered. “My wife. Excuse me. But tell me: with whom do you meet tomorrow?”

Pfefferkorn named the functionaries he had appointments to see.

“Imbeciles, all of them. To speak with them is to spit in the ocean. You must allow me—
akha
.” Fyothor checked the caller. “Excuse me. My wife, again.
Tha.
Tha. Akha,
ontheshki uithkh Dzhikhlishkuiyk, zhvikha thuy bhonyukhaya.
” He snapped the phone shut and smiled sheepishly. “I regret that my presence is required at home. Thank you for a most enjoyable evening, my friend. To your health.”

71.

Whoever had searched Pfefferkorn’s room had made no effort to hide their work, throwing things around with such vigor that he assumed their real purpose was not to find contraband but to remind him of his vulnerability. If so, they were wasting their time. He already felt useless. He lurched about, picking up shirts, reinserting dresser drawers, smoothing the duvet. The contents of the topmost layer of his wheelie bag were dispersed, but the secret compartments had served their purpose: everything inside was untouched. With amusement he noticed that amid the chaos, the picture of Zhulk above the headboard had been straightened.

He felt in his pocket for the business card Fyothor had given him. It was printed in Cyrillic on thin paper. There was a name, a phone number, and two words.
. “Private tour guide.” Sure, Pfefferkorn thought. He tucked the card toward the back of the room copy of
Vassily Nabochka.
He uncapped the bottle of water on his nightstand and took a long, silty pull. He felt restless. He wanted to go knocking on doors. How long before he found her? A couple of days, at most. But his hands were tied. He had a script to follow, one both maddeningly constrictive and maddeningly vague. Contact could come at any time—tonight, tomorrow, the next day. He unbuttoned his shirt and reached for the fan.

It was still dead.

He lifted the phone and dialed.

“Monsieur?”

“Yes, this is Arthur Pfe—
Kowalczyk
in room forty-four.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“I asked for a new fan.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“The one I have is still broken.”

“I am sorry, monsieur.”

“It’s very hot in here. Would you please send up another?”

“Yes, please, monsieur. Good night.”

“Eh, hang on there, speedy.”

“Monsieur?”

“Have there been any calls for me?”

“No, please.”

“I’m expecting one, so put it through, no matter how late it is.”

“Yes, please. Does monsieur require wake-up?”

“God, no.”

“Good night, please, monsieur.”

He hung up and went into the bathroom to splash water on his naked chest. Across the bedroom, the clanking pipes started up again, loud enough to rattle Zhulk’s picture in its frame. He had no idea how he was going to sleep, unless the fan covered up the sound.

He shut off the tap and walked to the open window, stroking his moustache and letting the poisonous night air dry him as he gazed out at the squatting skyline. Somewhere out there was Carlotta. He spoke her name and the wind carried it away.

A memory came to him, unbidden. It must have been soon after Bill and Carlotta got married. Pfefferkorn had just started teaching, and he and Bill were strolling around campus.

“Promise me something, Yankel.”

Pfefferkorn waved assent.

“You haven’t heard what I’m asking yet.” Bill waited for Pfefferkorn to pay attention, then said, “If anything ever happens to me, you’ll look after Carlotta.”

Pfefferkorn laughed.

“I’m not kidding,” Bill said. “Promise me.”

Pfefferkorn smiled at him quizzically. “What could happen to you?”

“Anything.”

“Like what.”

“Anything. I could get in an accident. I could have a heart attack.”

“At twenty-eight.”

“I won’t be twenty-eight forever. Two-way deal: I’d do the same for you.”

“What makes you think I’ll ever get married?”

“Promise me.”

“Sure, fine.”

“Say it.”

It wasn’t like Bill to be so vehement. Pfefferkorn raised his right hand. “I, Yankel Pfefferkorn, do solemnly swear that in the event you kick the bucket, I’ll look after your wife. Happy?”

“Very.”

Did he have any idea then what he had been agreeing to? If he had, would he have still agreed? He decided he would have. It wasn’t for Bill that he was here now.

Where was his fan?

“Yes, hello, this is Arthur Pfffkowalczyk in room forty-four. I’m still waiting for my fan.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Is it coming anytime soon?”

“Immediately, monsieur.”

The clanking continued unabated. Zhulk’s picture had rotated almost thirty degrees clockwise. Pfefferkorn took it down, concerned it would fall on him in the middle of the night.

One consequence of poor infrastructure was an electrical grid that functioned sporadically, and a corresponding lack of light pollution. Having lived in big cities his entire life, he was unused to such brilliant skies, and he watched, dizzily transfixed, as the clouds scudded offstage, and he was treated to a spectacular display of shooting stars.