Republican Party Reptile(13)
Alexei wanted to talk about rock V roll. His English was no worse than the average Rolling Stone reviewer’s. “Abba—too nothing. Hard rock! Yay! Led Zeppelin! Yay! And Kiss!! I most like—hard, hard rock! You know of Time Machine?” He was very excited that an American recognized the name of the top Russian rock group. “Good like Beatles. But is best hard rock America, yay! Is only too bad always rock stars so many dying of too much liquor and”—he shot a glance at the president—“and of other things.”
Boris wanted to talk about cars. In his opinion Russia needed much, much faster cars. “I want fast car,” he said.
The Americans wanted to talk about peace and Soviet-American relations.
We went to the boat-deck music room after dinner with about ten Americans, mostly leftists, and Marya to help translate. There was one lady among the leftists I had not noticed before, though she was markedly ugly. It was not the kind of ugliness that’s an accident of birth but the kind that is the result of years of ill temper, pique, and petty malice. These had given a rattish, shrewish, leaf-nosed-bat quality to her face.
The president said, “We are thankfully welcomed of being here. English ours is not so well. But is practicing now you with more.” Then each of the Russian kids introduced himself and said his profession as best he could.
The ugly woman took aim at Alexei and said with great acerbity, “How many women construction workers are there in the Soviet union ?”
Alexei tried to answer. “Is construction worker training in mostly male, men I am meaning, but is also some girls if. . .” He got no further.
“Girls?!” shrieked the old bitch. “Girls?! We don’t call women girls! That’s an insult!” The Russian kids stared at her, mystified. The hag turned on Marya. “You explain to them that calling women girls is a demeaning thing to do.”
Marya said something placating in Russian. The president tried a halting apology, but the ugly woman interrupted. “One thing I’d like to know.” She glared at Alexei’s denim trousers. “Why do young people all over Europe, even in the socialist countries, pick up that awful American popular music and those sloppy blue jeans?”
Marya made what sounded like a pained verbatim translation. All the Russian faces in the room froze into the great Russian public face—serious but expressionless, part poker face and part the face the troops made on You’ll Never Get Rich, when Phil Silvers asked for volunteers.
It isn’t easy to get a sober Russian to do anything on impulse, but I took Marya by the cuff and convinced her we’d better get some beer from the bar. The room was still silent when we returned. The president wouldn’t take a drink, but the rest of the Russians seemed glad enough to bury their faces in beer. The ugly woman sat smugly, still waiting for a reply. The other Americans were getting embarrassed. Finally, the woman’s husband spoke up. He was wearing his running shorts and Kenneth Patchen T-shirt again. “What is the cost of housing in the Soviet union as a . . .”
Something had to be done. I stood up. “I think it’s very unfair for us to monopolize the comradeship and international goodwill of these Soviet young people,” I said. “There is another group of Americans in the lounge who are eager to discuss Soviet-American relations with our guests, and—”
“Oh, yes!” said Marya, and she began to point to the hallway and chatter in Russian. The New Mexicans were a little surprised to see us, but their hospitality didn’t falter.
“We are thankfully welcomed of being here,” said the president. “English ours is not so—”
“The hell with that,” said Tom. “Play us a song on that thing.” And it was a pretty good song, and Sue Ann even got him to have a drink when he finished.
SATURDAY, JULY 24
There was another peace conference under the shade deck, and this time it was the Russians’ turn to speak. I was slightly late, due to sheer reluctance. Mrs. Pigeon was opening the session. “It is better to get these answers from Soviet experts than from our press,” she was saying as I walked in. I walked back out again and had a beer. Actually, I had three.
When I returned, Guvov, the buffoon, had wound up his speech and was answering a question about whether Solzhenitsyn was just a bad writer or a spy too. He was wearing a hilarious pair of ersatz Levi’s with TEXAS JEAN printed on a salad-plate-sized plastic patch on the ass. “Solzhenitsyn painted the Soviet union only in dark colors,” he said. The leftists clapped vigorously. “Criticism,” said Guvov, “leads to the problems of democracy.”