Our Friend Larry

Then he thawed out, also started to joke and smile and I wondered at how easy our communication was. We had much in common - our age, our old parents we took care of, the same questions interested us: for instance, why Russia was such an unhappy country resembling no other state. The only difference between us was that we lived inside that wonderful country, and he, in spite of all his sympathy, still looked at it from the outside.

The chronological history of his visits to Russia was as follows: first he arrived to meet a girl with whom he corresponded, but their meeting as well as their previous correspondence was more like romantic monologue that Larry led with himself. For the second time he arrived to meet her again, but she turned out to be married to his happy Russian rival, and after our common sufferings and persuasions he got acquainted with another woman. For the third and the forth times he arrived rather because of the business that he was going to start in Russia. It is even difficult for me to explain what for he has arrived for the forth time, I know only that again I hear now on phone his sad "Hello!".

To digress from the chronology he fell in love with Russia from his first visit. Leaving for the first time, seeing "Zaporozhtsy's" rusting under snow, destitute babushkas selling something near metro stations, mud and ruins of outskirts which we passed by driving to the airport, he told us in his broken Russian: "I love it all!" with such an expression as if he found here something invaluable. As to us, we lost $200 that day, turning around in the airport parking lot after seeing Larry off, having touched and rumpled a "Zhiguli" riding behind which we did not notice, being overfilled with emotions.

To have a foreign friend in Russia is considered good - according to public opinion a foreigner from a prosperous country (especially from America) should have wide possibilities and should help his Russian friends any possible way. Larry had no special possibilities, our friendship was firstly lit up by the euphoria of an extraordinary event: it was so interesting for us to sit with him in our kitchen, to talk imagining how far from each other we were born and how differently we lived, but see, now we are sitting side-by-side and recalling who of us did what at this or that time and what we all thought, and how different these memories are!

But romance soon comes to its end and in real life each Russian accepting a foreign guest at home knows how much courage, endurance and patience both need in Russia. For the second time Larry came to St.Pete in summer, in June, during heat when asphalt was ready to melt and everyone who could saved themselves at the dachas. As he was already one of us we settled him at my mother's, in her small, neglected, remote from the centre flat, with trucks roaring under the windows, burning hot in the sun, not having time to get cool during a short and hot white night.

Larry's luggage was lost in the airport, my mother had neither automatic washing machine nor conditioner, Larry had to wait for a bus to get to the centre for half an hour under the burning sun and then he had to crush in it for half an hour more to get to the metro. Let alone that the girl whom he came to see turned out to be married. Soon Larry understood that life in St. Petersburg in hot summer, without conveniences habitual for America, without mental comfort might be not only unpleasant, but even unbearable. Once we met in downtown and he told me that he could not bear it any more and that he wished to change his ticket and fly back to America before his time, and we walked down along all Nevsky in complete silence and frustration searching for the office of the necessary airline company, but the ticket exchange did not work out. And then I found a flat in the centre with a washing machine for him, but as soon as Larry moved hot water was switched off there and having felt in full all imperfection of life in Russia under cold showers Larry flew home soon.

I am often taken by people. The first person I fell in love with even in my childhood was our neighbour in a communal flat, a young officer's wife with a heavy bunch of hair on the back of her head, always in some unusual fur-coats and hats. I fell in love with this bunch, with her fur-coats, hats, statuettes in her room, with her sideboard which was all covered with some unusual figurines, with the green magic eye of her radio receiver from which English speech flew -- she taught English at school. Maybe just then the desire to learn English appeared in my mind.

Later, in the university I fell in love with an old one-armed professor of antique literature who lectured shaking the chalk in his only hand with such a passion that he himself could be taken for if not the main thunderer, but at least some additional deity.

When my son was little and did not pronounce half of consonants I fell in love with his speech-therapist, half-crazy woman obsessed by leaving for astral space, telling me either terrible stories like one of blood-test stolen in the day-hospital, or strange dreams like God threw peas from the sky, said: "Eat and be healthy" and she had eaten one.

All these people disappeared from my life long ago and I have even forgotten how their voices sounded, but our friendship with Larry which had started from the similar animation, later passed through arguments, quarrels and different ordeals, still continues.

In the autumn after that hot summer he arrived again to our great surprise. To the question "what for?" he replied that he had come to investigate possibilities of Russian souvenirs' import to America. He gave the impression that the romantic period was over and the time of real serious business had come. I must say that previously he had never been occupied by any kind of business and he had no disposition to it at all working all his life as an employee for different computer companies. But something attracted him to Russia, he himself confessed that he felt alien in America. I think firstly it was the possibility of compassion -- Larry was deeply taken by the topic of social injustice: he looked at beggars with pain, he always gave alms to them. He was indignant at rich new Russians rushing along the streets in their Mercedeses, he often asked me if I hated them and I shook my head saying that I did not care. I think that during the Russian Socialist Revolution of 1917 Larry would stand on a barricade with a red flag and a rifle in his hands. Or, maybe he would lack enthusiasm because he was also a good lazy-bones -- he was always late everywhere and he usually overslept everything. And he was also a sceptic -- if I offered his to admire any human action or creation he immediately found explanation which belittled both of them and, grinning, he admitted that he had already appeared in the world as an old sceptic like that.

However, he himself was also capable of actions -- he could give his last money to an unknown person, and later he could be frustrated not because of loss of that money, but just worrying if a person to whom he did that great favour would not think wrong of him.

This person was another woman, Olga, to whom I introduced him during that first hot summer in St.Pete to shatter his grief because of loss of his sweetheart and partly having also selfish considerations -- to get him off my hands because Larry's languor and sufferings in Russia often were not easy to accommodate in our very tense life. Often feeling guilty that our friend sat alone in the evenings in my mother's stuffy flat I asked him to come, he came, brought beer, we drank, chatted, he left and then I sat long after midnight with urgent translations. When Larry started to spend evenings with Olga it became easier for me as I could work settled down as previously. I must say that Larry objected to be introduced to someone else -- in response to my offer to try he suggested me to try to lift a chair and explained that a chair might be either lifted of left as it was. And, of course, he was right, he knew himself, he knew that being a taciturn person shying from people he became completely attached drawing together with someone, he never abandoned any attachment by his own will and never said "no" to anyone.

His new acquaintance, Olga, came to St.Petersburg from the provinces: she rented a flat, worked, brought up her son on her own. She was from that circle where men drink, sometimes come to blows, have mistresses, are in a whirl in suspicious business. Olga looked at beggars to whom Larry so much liked to give coins without any pity, she said they all were idlers lazy to work. She herself worked much -- she was the chief accountant in two companies. She also thought that a person working well and much had the right to relax and have a good time: she loved simple pleasures of life -- watching sensual movies, having a drink with her family or girlfriends, she liked pop-music, she had never taken a serious book in her hands and immediately switched off radio having heard even a sound of political news. Larry's romantic aspirations and his great love of Russia were vague and alien to her, she dreamed about a reliable husband, about a real, own home, about a strong family, she dreamed to have one more child. She regarded America as a symbol of reliability and normal stable life in which, unlike in Russia, dreams come true.

And something did not turn out, did not stick together in their relationship: Olga's simple and clear ideas of life did not fit in with complicated, inexpressible Larry's strivings. He would come to me, complained at the senselessness of being, he told me that he could not find a common language with Olga's cheerful boy, hockey-player, that he did not believe in general that people were capable of understanding each other and if there was a simple and painless way to stop all that meaningless bustle he would choose it. And I was frightened: Larry's dead body lying in the bottom of the Fontanka river haunted me, I called him in the evenings checking if all was well, and seeing him off to America next time I experienced conflicting feelings -- on one hand all our family had become so much attached to him that we all missed him, on the other hand I sighed with relief because the circle of our problems became smaller with the absence of Larry.

And really, we have got more problems when Larry took the decision to start business in Russia. He explained that decision that it justified his methodical stay in Russia from the point of view of common sense -- he could spend more time with Olga and her son trying to understand without fuss and hurry if they could ever become a real family. But it seemed to me that it also gave him the possibility to be where his soul strained, where, he thought, people were kinder and more sincere and where they lived though harder, but more naturally and with lots of events.

His love of Russia was the topic of our passionate arguments. Having come shortly after the crisis of August 1998 Larry felt pity that he could not come earlier: he shared how much he wished to be here to go through all the ordeals together with Russians. To which I objected that in reality Russia and Russians felt neither hot nor cold because of such an event as his arrival, that he lived here as an American tourist, changed dollars at more profitable because of the crisis rate and always had a chance to move off and to fly back to America if there was any real commotion. I told him that if he was really so much fond of Russia nothing prevented him to tear up his American passport and to ask for Russian citizenship as a refugee, or not even to tear a passport, but to start working as a volunteer in a children's orphanage where teachers did not stay longer that half a year because of awful psychological loads, miserable wages, hard conditions, and if he managed it all then I would believe in his solemn declarations.

These were not the best feelings of mine, of course, but I was irritated by his idleness -- he could hang about shopping all day long or watch TV. I was irritated by his spoilness and irresponsibility -- he could easily not go where he promised because of interruptions with traffic or bad weather. I was irritated with his real indifference to the city in love to which he confessed so many times -- once we wandered with him under the rain looking for the necessary bank, but even under the rain I was happy to have an opportunity to walk again around hundred times walked all over and so much beloved centre of the city, but he moaned and whined, and I blamed him and said that all Americans were like that, that they did not really care for our culture and everything that was no concern of theirs, and he laughed quietly and agreed.

As to his business in Russia, both Olga and I hardly imagined absent-minded, shy Larry in a part of a businessman. But Larry assured us that he had thought over everything well, that his business would be maybe firstly modest, but still a success, it only remained to embody some small details. There was the rub -- in spite of his repeated visits to Russia Larry was too lazy to learn Russian seriously, that's why all the details -- setting a company, purchasing and packing goods, negotiations with the customs should be embodied by the same Olga and I. Snatching time from her two jobs Olga sat on phone, then she ran with Larry through different instances. I also used almost all my friends for Larry's needs. But Larry's business-ideas somehow died just after Olga and I embodied them -- he had no time for the customs, he did not bring his souvenirs out of Russia, my friend invited by him for the part of his accountant turned out to be unnecessary as well as his newly set up company itself. Larry explained it that each one of his not fulfilled endeavours involved so many unexpected measures here that it all did not find room in his head accustomed to American regulations and standards. But I thought that Larry's original desire to do business in Russia was not too strong, he fought with himself considering it necessary, but lacked will-power and was always happy with each pretext to give up.

And it all was crowned when Larry left for America with samples of souvenirs, and after long doubts and hesitations poked with them to the only store where they were immediately rejected. Larry became so upset by it all that he stopped all further attempts and replied to our perplexed questions why he did not try to offer souvenirs to someone else, that he experienced great difficulties contacting unknown people.

That time brought us together with Olga. During our long phone conversations we were in turn indignant at idle, spoilt Americans unlike us having so many opportunities, but missing impressions and coming to Russia to play the fool and to distract people, even without it exhausted by life, from their business. We wondered how strong their economy was (and guessed -- why?) if hard work according to some of its representatives' opinion came to doing in a month what we here managed to do in a day. We also complained that we here worked hard at ten jobs simultaneously, not feeling pity for ourselves, aged faster, died sooner, and all that had no more or less visible result both for ourselves and for the society. Olga and I promised each other that we would never more continue encouraging Larry in his childish endeavours, that it was time to finish all that silliness. Looking at souvenirs which Larry gave us, which have not even seen the ocean, but generously adorned the walls of our flat instead, I promised Olga that I would tell Larry finally what I really thought of his business. Olga complained at complete uncertainty in their personal relationship with Larry and threatened to take courage to finish it all.

And I don't know about Olga, but I started to feel pangs of conscience after our conversations like that. I remembered Larry, all his look and everything connected with him, I was perplexed from where and how he appeared in our home in general, but that was the fact -- Larry was ours, he came just to us, he gave gifts to us, he looked at us as if he expected that we would tell him something that would reply to all the questions put up in front of him by his life.

I thought about general indifference of both animated and inanimated world -- I remembered a long row of Americans to whom I interpreted -- similarly smart, smiling, endlessly remote and alien people, communication with whom resembled juggling with standard blocks of phrases, and I smiled recalling Larry.

Once I was at the dacha and did not reply to his email, but he did not know it and imagined that he had offended me with his joke, and worried, and suffered apologising many times for nothing. He was so much afraid to offend other people, he preferred to be offended himself, and it made him resemble us, Russians, like we were described by Dostoyevsky and like we often really were.

He never used any advantageous situation and never took a profitable opportunity, he rather preferred to be used himself. Once in the beginning of his acquaintance with Olga Larry thoughtlessly quoted a phrase heard somewhere that it was impossible to marry all the women one felt pity for. Then, later, having known how few chances Olga really had to arrange her life here, in Russia, Larry grew serious and gloomy and seemed to become more declined to that serious step.

And I have thought that maybe it is too much to demand from good to be also efficient: it is enough that paintings, sunsets, poems or quiet kindness of Larry just exist in the world.

And when Olga called me again before Larry's arrival and told me that she had rented a suitable flat for him and was going to move his washing machine and numerous bags and baggages there, I detected the same guilty intonations in her voice too.

And fulfilling my promise given to Olga to write to Larry finally what I really thought of him I wrote that we all missed him, waited for him and would be happy to meet. And when Larry immediately responded that he was going to try to import Native Americans' costume jewelry to Russia this time, I sighed and added that, of course, we promised to help in it too...