Potboiler

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.