becoming American meant appropriating the country’s vast floating wealth, a dicey process, to be sure, but not nearly as complex and absolute as this surreptitious body-snatching Vladimir was attempting. For what he really wanted to do, whether he admitted it or not, was to become Manhattanite Francesca Ruocco. That was his tangible ambition. Well-situated Americans like Frannie and the denizens of his progressive Midwestern college had the luxury of being unsure of who they were, of shuffling through an endless catalog of social tendencies and intellectual poses. But Vladimir Girshkin couldn’t waste any more time. He was twenty-five years old. Assimilate or leave, those were his options.
IN THE MEANTIME , all the kind attention he had lavished upon Fran must have embarrassed her. She gently removed his nose from her ear. “Let’s have a drink,” she said.
“Yes, yes, a drink,” Vladimir said. They took a cab downtown, and, at a Village sake bar, finished a half-magnum of sake and a thumb-sized plate of marinated squid. The total charge for this little indulgence, Vladimir noticed once the buzz of the liquor had subsided, was U.S.$50. This brought the day’s total on his part (including the guayabera shirt and janitor pants) to a little over $200—his allowance for two weeks. Oh, what would Challah say . . .
Challah. The Alphabet City hovel. The cheap spice racks falling off their hooks. The family-sized jars of K-Y lining the hallway. Was she waiting up for him on their sweaty futon, her lubricated baton at the ready? Was it time to go home?
He and Fran were standing outside the sake bar, both reeling a little from the drink and the squid, with Fran somehow steadier on her feet. After a few minutes of silence, she began slapping him playfully about the face and he went to great lengths to pretend he didn’t enjoy it. “Ouch,” he said in his best Russian accent. “Afch.”
“Would you like to sleep over?” she said, as easily as these things could be said. “My parents are making rabbit.”
“I’m very fond of game,” Vladimir said. And so it was settled.
10. THE FAMILY
RUOCCO
AND SO IT was settled for the rest of the summer, a summer Vladimir spent at 20 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 8E, the Ruoccos’ grand place overlooking Washington Square Park . . . A park which, if surveyed from the right angle (if you turned your back on the twin slabs of the World Trade Center), would convince you that you were looking at the venerable plaza of a European capital and not the Manhattan of a million opened steam vents and cars backfiring into the night—the grimy and fantastic Manhattan that Challah and Vladimir used to inhabit.
Not to mention the quiet graces of the family that came with this geography: the Ruoccos feasting, constantly feasting from the “gourmet garages” that were taking the town by storm. An avalanche of peppercorns and stuffed grape leaves in handsome containers, resting on real tables (the kind with four legs) on which candles were always lit and above which chandeliers glowed faintly on dimmers.
Within a few weeks, Vladimir was made into an honorary Ruocco. There was not even the hint of an embarrassed smile when the professors found him brushing his teeth in their bathroom at eight in the morning or escorting Francesca to the breakfast table. Yes, clearly the Ruoccos approved of Vladimir for their “developingyoung daughter” (as Mr. Rybakov would put it). But why? Had the recent fall of the Berlin Wall made Vladimir somehow timely? Did they sniff the swampy air of Petersburg intelligentsia out of his old work shirts? Was that why they begged to dine with his parents, perhaps expecting to break bread with Brodsky and Akhmatova? To their immense consternation, however, Vladimir made sure that this dinner was never to be. Oh, he could imagine it, all right:
MR. RUOCCO : So how do you feel about the new Russian literature, Dr. Girshkin?
DR. GIRSHKIN : Now I am only interested
IN THE MEANTIME , all the kind attention he had lavished upon Fran must have embarrassed her. She gently removed his nose from her ear. “Let’s have a drink,” she said.
“Yes, yes, a drink,” Vladimir said. They took a cab downtown, and, at a Village sake bar, finished a half-magnum of sake and a thumb-sized plate of marinated squid. The total charge for this little indulgence, Vladimir noticed once the buzz of the liquor had subsided, was U.S.$50. This brought the day’s total on his part (including the guayabera shirt and janitor pants) to a little over $200—his allowance for two weeks. Oh, what would Challah say . . .
Challah. The Alphabet City hovel. The cheap spice racks falling off their hooks. The family-sized jars of K-Y lining the hallway. Was she waiting up for him on their sweaty futon, her lubricated baton at the ready? Was it time to go home?
He and Fran were standing outside the sake bar, both reeling a little from the drink and the squid, with Fran somehow steadier on her feet. After a few minutes of silence, she began slapping him playfully about the face and he went to great lengths to pretend he didn’t enjoy it. “Ouch,” he said in his best Russian accent. “Afch.”
“Would you like to sleep over?” she said, as easily as these things could be said. “My parents are making rabbit.”
“I’m very fond of game,” Vladimir said. And so it was settled.
10. THE FAMILY
RUOCCO
AND SO IT was settled for the rest of the summer, a summer Vladimir spent at 20 Fifth Avenue, Apartment 8E, the Ruoccos’ grand place overlooking Washington Square Park . . . A park which, if surveyed from the right angle (if you turned your back on the twin slabs of the World Trade Center), would convince you that you were looking at the venerable plaza of a European capital and not the Manhattan of a million opened steam vents and cars backfiring into the night—the grimy and fantastic Manhattan that Challah and Vladimir used to inhabit.
Not to mention the quiet graces of the family that came with this geography: the Ruoccos feasting, constantly feasting from the “gourmet garages” that were taking the town by storm. An avalanche of peppercorns and stuffed grape leaves in handsome containers, resting on real tables (the kind with four legs) on which candles were always lit and above which chandeliers glowed faintly on dimmers.
Within a few weeks, Vladimir was made into an honorary Ruocco. There was not even the hint of an embarrassed smile when the professors found him brushing his teeth in their bathroom at eight in the morning or escorting Francesca to the breakfast table. Yes, clearly the Ruoccos approved of Vladimir for their “developingyoung daughter” (as Mr. Rybakov would put it). But why? Had the recent fall of the Berlin Wall made Vladimir somehow timely? Did they sniff the swampy air of Petersburg intelligentsia out of his old work shirts? Was that why they begged to dine with his parents, perhaps expecting to break bread with Brodsky and Akhmatova? To their immense consternation, however, Vladimir made sure that this dinner was never to be. Oh, he could imagine it, all right:
MR. RUOCCO : So how do you feel about the new Russian literature, Dr. Girshkin?
DR. GIRSHKIN : Now I am only interested
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