A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer Dubois

Aleksandr’s hands and missed. Aleksandr wondered momentarily whether the man could still see.
    “Brezhnev. He’s right there.” The man gestured toward the depression in the wall where Ivan and Nikolai were sitting, their smoke unfurling into dust-colored fronds. “He’s here. I promise you that. He’s everywhere.”
    Aleksandr disentangled himself from the man’s searching hands, from his long fingers that fluttered through the air as though playing an enormous pipe organ, and scrambled away in revulsion. At their usual table, Nikolai and Ivan were sitting with an enormous stack of newspapers between them. Blue overheard lights caught their vodka and splashed marine onto the table. Nikolai was scratching into an enormous notebook and laughing, his legume face contorting into strange creases. He was wearing a new leather jacket. Aleksandr was not sure he’d ever seen Nikolai laugh.
    “That man,” said Nikolai, gesturing to the man in the wheelchair, who still sat shrieking at his invisible audience, “is clinically insane.”
    “He’s a prophet, maybe,” said Ivan. “Descended from Rasputin. What say you, Aleksandr? Do you believe that stuff in the east?”
    “Please,” said Nikolai. “Give the boy a break. He’s important now, you know.” He stubbed his Iskra into the ashtray. It curled like a giardia against the others.
    “In the great Soviet states,” said Ivan, “no man is more important than another. So what’s the story with you, Aleksandr? Aren’t you famous yet? Shouldn’t you be off knocking back shots with Party officials? Getting to know a better class of prostitute?”
    “Okay,” said Aleksandr. Fuck Andronov. Fuck, quite possibly, everybody. “I’ll leave, then.”
    “Stay, stay,” said Nikolai solicitously. “Ivan, you must be gentler with the boy.”
    “You’re getting to be a pretty big deal, yes?” said Ivan blithely, ruffling the newspapers. “We just saw something about you. Nikolai, didn’t we just see something? In
Literaturnaya Gazeta
, yes? Is that possible, Aleksandr?”
    “I don’t know,” said Aleksandr. He hadn’t meant to sound asmiserable as he felt. He found himself putting his head on the table, letting his forehead absorb the cool of the wood. He imagined the tree that the wood came from—in a great forest on the Black Sea, maybe, its roots strangled by salt water, its pale green leaves shifting savagely in the wind. Maybe it came from the north. Maybe it was a small tree, demented by the lacerations of tundra gales, standing shriveled and bent against the odds. Aleksandr squinted and saw the bottles above the bar make a smear of watery gemstones.
    “Are you drunk?” said Nikolai. He turned to Ivan. “Is he drunk?”
    “That would be unprecedented. He’s clearly just lost his mind. Aleksandr, have you perhaps lost your mind?” In Ivan’s voice, Aleksandr noted a certain hapless tenderness, as though Ivan were an awkward father trying to handle a sickly baby. Aleksandr could hear Nikolai’s jowls stirring in curiosity.
    “I got expelled from the academy,” Alexandr whispered into the wood. He wanted to keep his face on the tabletop as long as he could. It was possible, he realized with horror, that he was crying.
    “I told you,” said Nikolai. He lowered his voice to a solemn baritone rasp. “I told you he was a bit unstable. I told you he didn’t warrant confidences.”
    “I’m fine,” said Aleksandr. “I am completely fine.” But his neck felt unbearably heavy, as though filled with sand or guilt. Had he been arrogant? He hadn’t thought so; he’d always been the one with an extended hand left out after his opponent had turned away in an odd swirl of disappointment and derision. But when he tried to think of going back to Okha—to live among his chickens and his sisters, to let Leningrad and chess become the ever fading memory of a dream or hallucination—he couldn’t quite stand it. He had to admit to himself that he’d