MOSCOW, June 27, 2004 – Today I’m eating humble pie.
Not a la mode.
I can no longer afford it.
I’ve been had. Conned. Manipulated. Fucked. But good.
If only it were the first time. If only it were the last.
The week I had spent with the two Andreis -- Drushka and Gooby -- had been Edenic. Sleeping nude three in a bed, a big 20-year-old Russian uncircumsized pickle on one side, a 22-year-old on the other. Sex before dropping off to sleep. Sex in the morning. Loving, hugging, kissing, joshing.
Our nicknames for each other were Little Honey (Drushka), Big Honey (me) and Medium Honey (Gooby).
I was a little angry at Yegor for being so paranoid. “I don’t trust him,” he had said the first night they came, when he had refused to sleep under the same roof with Gooby.
“He’s a friend of Shurik’s. We have an old Russian proverb: Show me your friends and you show me yourself. I don’t trust him,” he reiterated.
Yegor just doesn’t understand. Andrei and Shurik aren’t even friends any more. They don’t even talk to each other. If only he would stay and be a part of our Eden.
But he had been adamant. When are they leaving? He would ask.
I couldn’t kick them out on the street. I couldn’t live with myself, I told him. They were planning to go to Zheleznogorsk soon. In the meantime, I was missing Yegor, but a little angry that he was separating himself from me and my ménage a trois.
Friday afternoon I had a class at 5 p.m. at Corning at nearby Mayakovskaya Metro Station. We were out of nearly everything. “You can go shopping while I’m at my class, and I’ll be back about 7,” I told Gooby, Middle Honey. I went into the closet in my bedroom, reached into the inside pocket of one of the old sports jackets I had brought with me from America, and fished out 500 rubles from the 00 - 00 I had stashed there. A good hiding place, I thought. Nobody would think to look here.
I put the 500 rubles in my pocket, wandered around a little, then took it out of my pocket, gave it to Gooby, and left for my class.
When I returned at 7, they were gone and the door was unlocked – they had no key. Probably still shopping, I told myself.
I called Gooby on my mobile phone. No answer. I called Drushka. “Where are you?” “We’re skating,” he said. That’s strange, I thought. Their skates are still here. Maybe he’s using Yuri’s?
“Don’t forget to get some pita bread and milk,” I reminded him.
“Okay.”
I called again. “When are you coming home?”
In about an hour.
Another hour. They didn’t return.
Yuri arrived and wanted to borrow a tie for an interview the next day. I went to my closet and found the tie hanger. As I was fumbling with the tie, just for reassurance it I stuck my fingers into the inside coat pocket.
There was nothing there!
They never returned, of course.
By this time it was almost 9 p.m. I called Yegor. He was still giving his English lesson. Come home immediately after your lesson,” I instructed him.
“Why, what’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you after you get here.”
“Tell me now,” he demanded.
“The Andreis stole my money. They said they’re coming back, and if they do, I’m going to call the police and I’d like for somebody else to be here.”
“Okay, I’ll come home as soon as my lesson is finished.”
A few minutes later, Anton called.
“Yegor said they stole your money.”
“Yes, but they said they were coming back, and if they do I’m going to call the police.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
I was a little pissed that Yegor’s immediate reaction had been to call Anton. I had wanted to have an intimate conversation with Yegor first. Underneath my shock and dismay was a layer of elation that the barriers had been removed between Yegor and me and I wanted to tell him that – alone.
A few minutes later Anton arrived with his Belgian friend Alex, who had returned from St. Peterburg a couple of days before. Soon afterward, Yegor arrived.
I recounted the sequence of events. “How did they know where your money was?” asked Anton. Yegor replied that a couple of nights earlier, when he his teeth were hurting again, I had given him money -- 0 – for the dentist, and while I was standing at the wardrobe and while Yegor was counting the money, Yuri stuck his head in. “Get out of here,” we had both shouted.
As we recounted the event, Yegor got up from the couch where we were sitting. I heard him and Yuri conversing. When he came back, Yegor said he had asked Yuri if he had told the Andreis what he had seen. He denied it, but said he had told “someone not in the apartment” that I didn’t want him in the room when I was there.
I had given Yuri sanctuary knowing that he was an idiot, but thinking he was a harmless idiot. The fact that he would tell anybody anything that had transpired in this apartment made me furious. He was still an idiot, but not a harmless one. “Okay, that’s it. He’s out of here. He’s gone. I got up to go tell Yuri, but he had already left the apartment – to go for a walk.
Then Yegor told me that the first night they had been here, he had heard the two Andreis talking about taking drugs – hashish, it turned out. I was again furious. “Why didn’t you tell me? If I had known they were taking drugs I would never have let them stay here the first night.”
“You heard them. I thought you understood.”
“You know I don’t understand Russian conversations. I can’t believe you didn’t mention it before.”
“You speak Russian. You hear what you want to hear.”
That made me really angry. He was accusing me of intellectual dishonesty and of playing games. The rest of the evening was a bit frosty. The one good thing that came out of it was that Alex invited us all to visit him in Antwerp. Aha, free trip – no hotel bill! We can go to visit Yegor’s aunt in Duesseldorf, Germany, and then on to Belgium and Amsterdam!
Anyway, when it came time for them to leave, Yegor said he was going to the 24-hour dentist’s again. His ex-boyfriend Sergei would take him in his car.
“Do you want me to come back after that?” he asked.
I was still fuming.
“Maybe it would be better if you spent the night at Anton’s.”
Sasha showed up soon after they left for his beer, cribbage, and sex. But by then it was rather late. In my frustration, I had already started drinking the scotch that Kreutz had brought from the Dubai duty-free shop a couple of months ago, so Sasha joined me with a little scotch, He could see how upset I was.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’d rather not talk about it tonight. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
So we watched Greece beat France in the Euro 2004 Football (soccer) Championship.
I fell asleep with my arms around Sasha – my rock of Gibraltar. Always there, always dependable, always understanding and sympathetic.
On Saturday morning, yesterday, I had a student at 10; then Boris came at 11 and stayed until my next student came at 1:00. When she left at 2:30, I was at last free and Sasha was awake and alive.
Lena, my student, had also paid me in rubles, so we could go shopping -- the Andreis had left nothing to eat. But for breakfast I did manage to scramble together some grechka (groats - buckwheat), eggs, sautéed onion and unsalted tomatoes. It was actually pretty damned good.
Anton and Alex had returned while Lena was still here to pick up the vodka they had left the night before. “Where’s Yegor?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think he probably stayed at Sergei’s.”
I immediately started trying to call him on his mobile. “The subscriber is not available at the moment.”
Oh-oh. Why does Yegor have his phone turned off? Is he angry at me because I told him not to come back? But why won’t he at least talk to me – “Only even if it’s just to say goodbye,” to quote the title of a very popular song by the enchanting Russian duo, “Smash” – two beautiful boys with the voices of angels.
I started getting worried.
After a shop at the nearby markets we watched a DVD before Sasha had to leave.
I repeatedly called Yegor’s number. “The subscriber is not available at the moment.”
I called Anton. “Is Yegor there?”
“No.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.”
“If you hear from him tell him it’s very important for him to call me.”
Sasha left for his dacha and I was alone: No Yegor, no Andreis, no – nobody.
Why is Yegor doing this? Is he punishing me? Did I hurt his feelings so bad that he doesn’t want to talk to me? I don’t care about the damned money. I can replace that. But please, don’t take away Yegor. I can live without money. But I can’t live without him. “I will not let him go,” I had vowed in my poem.
I kept calling. I sent him an imploring SMS message. The report that it had been delivered never came.
I called some more.
I turned on the Sweden-Netherlands championship game – and waited.
About 9 p.m. the house phone rang.
“Hello, honey, I’m sorry I forgot my mobile phone at Sergei’s. I haven’t had it all day.”
Whew!
“Will you come back tonight?”
“If you want me to.”
“I want you to. I love you. I really miss you.”
“I’ll come.”
The “SMS message received” message came a few seconds later. I called him back: “Ask Sergei if he would mind bringing you home. I’m afraid the cops will catch you again.”
So he arrived about 11 p.m. I ordered Yuri (yes, he’s still here; I haven’t thrown him out yet) out. We turned out the lights and went to bed. We held each other for a long, long time.
I’m not destitute despite my devastating loss. I have 0 in dollars from my private students in my pocket. I left 0 in the bank. I should get about 0 from my private students this week, and 0 for my magazine editing, and I’ll get another 0 from English Exchange on the 7th of July, and an 0 injection into my pension account on the 14th of July. Seryozh owes me 0 and Slava owes me 0, though he probably won’t be able to pay any of it because he’s been off work for a month with hepatitis and Yukos Oil only pays him a percentage of his normal wages for sick leave. So he has no money right now.
Anyway, I figure that by the end of July, I’ll have accumulated 00 again after paying for rent and food – even without repayments from Seryozh and Slava.
So I’ll have the money to take my trip to Budapest without having to sweat, and even to send Yegor home to Dushambe while I’m in Budapest, which he announced today he’d like to do.
But I have no emergency cushion, and that makes me feel very uncomfortable.
And it’s taught me something else! I’m still a patsy and a soft touch for a good con – especially if it involves a big uncut Russian piska! Or maybe a pair of them!
But never again!
Unless….
Chapt. 69 – 1969 words
Columns :: Empty Pockets and humble pie
MOSCOW, June 27, 2004 –- Comments: Ratings: 
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