Chapter 32 – Anna the Beautiful
After downing the first glass of wine, Slev dialed up Gwen and reported the news. Gwen said, “Holy shit!”
She told Roger, who dialed up Jinny, and told him. Jinny said, “Holy shit. Way to go guys.” He told Guignard, who said, “Holy shit.”
Back on Sullivan’s Island the women continued making the chicken stew. They had to get it into the pot so it could get its full eight hours of cook time. That didn’t take long. Most people who love wine find it hard to drink just one glass. There’s just something odd about that. So after the first glass of wine was gone, and the stew was in the pot and on the stove, the glasses got filled again, and the two and a half Russians sat around drinking. It was a beautiful day in charming Charleston.
The story, or something, had excited Anna because her tongue got loose as she got loose. “Do you guys have a doctor here yet? I know you’re new to Charleston, but sooner or later everyone needs a doctor for something. I have one that’s good for people my age. Maybe she would be good for you, too. I’ve been to her four times, and I really like her. I actually like going to her, and I like hospitals too. There’s so much going on in that place. Action all over. People running around with strange instruments in their hands. I’d like to work in a hospital.”
Slev got up while listening, went to a cupboard, and got a can of cashew nuts. She took off the top and went to pry off the airtight seal when Anna lunged forward with a hand and stopped her. “Don’t. Cashews and chardonnay don’t go together. If you eat cashews you can kiss your wine goodbye. And this is good chardonnay. Don’t ruin it.”
Constantine asked, “How do you know that?”
“I tried it once. I thought cashews have to go with chardonnay, because they are the same color. And I love cashews. But they don’t.”
Constantine had to check this out for himself, considering Anna’s age, so he pulled the seal on the can and popped a small handful of nuts into his mouth, which he followed with a sip of wine. He looked at Anna and then Slev. He ate a few more nuts, and then another, larger, swallow of wine. He made a face. “She’s right. Damn. Wine is gone.”
Anna looked pleased, and went on, “But I don’t think I should be a doctor.” Slev asked why? “Because once you’re a doctor, you’re always a doctor. Doctors are so good, that once they start doing good things, helping people, they can’t stop. They’re doctors the rest of their lives.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Slev asked.
“Nothing, just that I don’t think I can do just one thing. My feelings overwhelm my thinking. Sometimes I want to travel to the Med and feel like a Sicilian. And sometimes I want to go to Israel and work for them, like my grandfather. But then I want to feel like Duke Ellington playing piano. Sometimes I want to wear silk dresses made by someone famous, and then the next day I want to work on one of the Mars projects as a squint.”
“What’s a squint?” asked Constantine.
“That’s a word from a TV show. It means a scientist. Like someone who looks through a microscope all day, or at a computer.” Anna finished her second glass of wine, and eyed the cashews. “Right now, my thinking and my feeling are always at war, so I don’t know what to do with myself. I want a third glass of wine, because it’s so good, but if I do, I’ll fall asleep later, and won’t be able to drink wine tonight with this great chicken stew. So my mind says don’t drink another glass, go eat the cashews. That’s the story of my life.” She looked at the two older people, and sighed. Both Constantine and Slev thought she was quite beautiful, sitting there, confused about life. She could have been their daughter. As it was, she had been in bed with Slev.
Anna poured herself another glass of wine, but didn’t drink any of it. She just looked at the greenish amber colored liquid, and thought of working in the Champagne region of France as a vigneron, growing chardonnay grapes and making wine. Then she thought about America, and maybe she would be an FBI agent. She knew how to operate a gun. And she had found Constantine’s story of shooting the local yokels in the legs exciting.
“Do you know Catherine had a sister who was more beautiful than her? Can you imagine that? I can’t. Catherine is like the women in old Italian paintings - supernaturally beautiful. How could someone be more beautiful than her? Her sister died when she was young, but I read somewhere that she was more beautiful.” Anna picked up the glass and held it up to the kitchen window, trying to look through the liquid and see the ocean. She put the glass down on the table and said, “I’ve been trying to figure out what Catherine thinks about me. What I should do? I wonder if her feelings and thoughts collide, like mine do? She doesn’t act like she’s confused.” Anna reached across the counter and pulled the can of cashews to her, but she didn’t eat any. “Maybe Catherine is confused, like me, but just doesn’t show it. She always looks regal and kind. And beautiful, of course. If I knew she was confused, then I wouldn’t worry so much about me being confused. I would just go out and do some of the things I want to do, like play piano.” She looked at Slev. “You’re beautiful. Are you confused?”
“No,” Slev answered.
Anna looked at Constantine. “Are you confused?”
“No,” he answered.
“Oh, that’s good. You know, I can’t decide whether to drink this delicious chardonnay and get sloshed, or eat the cashews and wait till tonight to drink more wine with the stew.” She looked out the window at the gray distance line of the ocean. When she turned back she looked at Constantine and said, “Are you going to shoot my grandfather?”
Slev didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and looked at her husband. Constantine picked up his glass and took the last sip of his second glass. He was glad he hadn’t had any more than that, because he was afraid of how he might answer if he had drunk more alcohol. It wasn’t more than a few hours since he and Henric had been thinking of fucking with Stirg, just for the fun of it. Now he had this woman sitting near him, who just had finished saying some very interesting things. Twenty-seven years old, trying to figure out life and discussing it openly, with older people, intelligently. Here was a young person talking about Duke Ellington and Champagne and the FBI. The world was her oyster. And now she was asking him if he was going to be a big piece of sand in her oyster. Jesus. Was this woman Russian or American?
When Constantine said he wasn’t confused, he spoke truthfully. But now he began to question himself. What was going on here in charming Charleston? He was hanging out with Gwen June, who kept him entranced. He had Pmirhs Stirg breathing down his neck, and his wife was changing in strange and interesting ways, with the Deneuvian stuff. And he just had shot three guys. He tried to remember if he ever shot three guys in Saint Petersburg? No. He had been present when three guys got shot, but he didn’t do any of the shooting. Did all this amount to confusion? He got up from his stool and went to the window. There was the Atlantic, separating him from St. Barths Island. He looked back at Anna, and then out the window. No, this was interesting stuff, exciting, but not confusing. Thank god.
He came back and sat down on the stool. “Henric and I thought of challenging your grandfather. We’re both retiring from business, but we’re not tired tired, so we need something to do.” He said this matter-of-factly. “We thought we would challenge him, since he challenged us. Her,” he said, pointing to Slev. “And the others. Us.”
Slev thought, Christ, now what?
Anna nodded, matter-of-factly.
“Henric might be disappointed if I tell him I don’t want to go after your grandfather.”
Anna nodded. Slev waited.
“I think your grandfather is going to come after us, so maybe we’ll just wait for that. Not start something sooner. Because of you. If….when….he comes again, all bets are off. You understand that. Right?”
Anna nodded, and started talking again. “You know the difference betwee
n Saint Petersburg and Charleston? In Charleston, strangers are polite. In Saint Petersburg, people are more like New Yorkers; they don’t make a lot of eye contact. How often do Charleston women, who are strangers, call you ‘Hon’? That happens to me about twice a week. ‘Ok, Hon’, they say at the supermarket checkout line. I really love that about Charleston. If they call me that, I wonder what they call their boyfriends? What’s better than ‘Hon’?”
Constantine nodded, and said, “The other day I got something at a McDonalds drive-through, and when I paid, the woman called me ‘Baby’. She was a black woman, and she could see me in the car, she could see I’m an old white guy, and she called me ‘Baby’. She said, ‘Thank you, Baby.’” He looked at Slev with a look of wonderment.
Slev said, “You went to McDonalds?”
“I think Charleston is a place where I can get un-confused,” Anna said. “I can decide if I want to be an FBI agent or play piano or go to France and make wine. It’s maybe a good thing that I’m not so close to my grandfather now. Maybe I have to focus. That’s going to be fun. Making a decision. I haven’t done that yet. Make a serious decision. The last real decision I had to make was whether to climb the stairs of the June’s house that night, and I didn’t get that one very right.”
Slev and Constantine listened to Anna very closely. They appeared to be relaxed, but were attentive, and they could see what was going on inside her. Slev saw ‘no fear’, and this enthralled her. Twenty-seven, confused about big questions, but no fear about the future. Lovely.
Anna was animated, looking out the window, down at the wine glasses, at the can of cashews, and at them. Constantine saw alert eyes. Eyes like Gwen’s eyes. When Gwen got hot, emotionally or intellectually, Constantine always saw a glint in her eyes, like light refracting off wine glasses sitting on a white table cloth. Maybe Anna would develop that same glint as she got older. Constantine hoped so.
Every day was a good day for Anna. If it was hot it was good, and if it was cold it was good. If it was early morning she was ready; if it was late at night she was willing. Anna wasn’t hyperactive in an annoying way, just passively alert, almost all the time. Questing.
She said, “Did you ever read any books by J. P. Wodehouse? He has a character that is an English upper class guy, doesn’t work, plays piano sometimes. This drives his butler nuts, who’s a snob. The butler wants his boss to play classical stuff, but the guy plays pop stuff. This was just after World War II. Did you see the piano in my grandfather’s house? It’s beautiful. A Bosendorfer. He bought it for me because he likes to hear me play, and it’s one reason I go to see him. I try to play like I think the character in the Wodehouse books would play. Cheerfully. Slow, but up tempo at the same time. Did you know that Scott Joplin said ragtime should never, ever, be played fast? One reason maybe I shouldn’t be an FBI agent is I wouldn’t be able to play much. Those guys run around the country all the time, doing stuff, which I know is dull sometimes, but also exciting some times. They do that job for the excitement part, but also for their country. Most of them, anyway. I suppose I could practice piano early in the morning, in the motel lounges. I’d be staying in motels all the time.”
Slev and Constantine listened to all this. Anna was beautiful. A total lack of self-consciousness. Then Anna started talking about clothes, about how people in the movies made in the 40s and 50s and even 60s would dress up to go on vacation. The men wore sport jackets and ties when they were getting on ships to cross the Atlantic. The women wore dresses to go on vacation. Today, Americans dress like slobs. Russians too. All the time, slobs. Anna said she was going to start wearing more dresses. Screw what other women were doing, or not doing. Screw the devolution of dressing.