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Read Russia 2nd pass:Layout 1 5/2/12 1:03 AM Page 37
B a s i l e u s / 37
acquaintances and their acquaintances’ acquaintances the story of what had
happened, and the story was liked rather than not. A group of performance
artists sent a delegate, the well-known Vasya Sadov, to Mr. K to express their
delighted admiration for the performance and invite him to burn dollars publicly
in the Museum of Modern Art. Vasya was taken under his big white
arms and flung out of the house onto the lawn.
Ertel met Mr. K in late autumn, at the private Rhinoceros Club, to which
he was regularly invited as a guest by Mr. T, who had developed a liking for contemplating
the contents of a vintage bottle in the company of the taciturn German.
Mr. K joined them unexpectedly, as if he had materialized out of thin air.
This materialization, however, was a substantial one that jolted the table, shifting
the tableware along one place and setting the drinks in the glasses swaying.
“So what are you cooing about here, my long-nosed doves?” K said in
greeting to his old acquaintances. “Fuck the lot of them!” he declared, punctuating
his toast with a wave of the dolefully glugged carafe of vodka that he
had brought with him.
K’s appearance had changed quite dramatically. He was now almost completely
bald, but he had grown a beard that looked like the spongy roots of
the curly thatch he had lost so suddenly. This relocation of his hair made his
face look as if it had been turned upside down, and every now and then his
red eyes were flooded with stressful tears—which did not, however, have
anything to do with his feelings.
“Being charitable to the widow, are you? Eh, Vova? Come on, tell me
about it, I’m interested!” said Mr. K, jabbing the melancholy T in the shoulder.
“Take money to her, do you? Do you give her a lot?”
“That’s a commercial secret,” T replied imperturbably, polishing the
stem of his glass with his flat fingers.
“A secret? So that’s how it is . . . But why do you go running round there,
if that’s not a secret?”
“It’s easier for me that way,” T declared in an entirely transparent voice,
leaning back on his chair and gazing up at the ceiling.
“Well, and how about you, mister knackerman?” asked K, turning to
Ertel.
Ertel shrugged without saying anything. Mr. K seemed to have reached
the state in which everyone can be spoken to familiarly. He was not a client
of the workshop. The hunters said that he squeezed a shot out of a pistol
with both hands, shooting down at his feet and jumping high in the air. Ertel