Praise God, for it is done.
Whereupon Nero Golden also exclaimed loudly, “Shut the doors,” and his sons rushed to the French windows, and whereas I understood this to be a practical response to the wind and the driving rain, Vasilisa and the priest understood it differently. The beard shook, the tent surrounding it trembled, excited Russian words emerged, and the new Mrs. Golden triumphantly translated and paraphrased them, “Shut the doors against the rain, but there is no need to close them against the demons, for they have been driven out of my husband, and they will never return.”
Whatever took place that morning—and I was deeply skeptical about the exorcism’s authenticity—it is certainly true that there were no more nocturnal walks for Nero, no more weeping on summer lawns. As far as I know, the phantoms of the two women did not appear to him again. Or if they did he controlled his feelings, turned his back on them, and did not mention their visits to his wife.
From his sanctum, that evening, came the sounds of his Guadagnini violin, playing—only adequately—Bach’s powerfully emotional Chaconne.
On the Monday evening when the trouble began Nero Golden accompanied his wife Vasilisa to her preferred Russian restaurant in the Flatiron district for a dinner in honor of Mikhail Gorbachev, who was visiting the city to raise funds for his cancer charity. They were placed at the table of honor alongside the émigré billionaire with the artistically inclined wife, and the émigré billionaire who had bought his way into the newspaper business just when the newspaper business was going out of business but who fortunately owned a baseball team as well, and the émigré billionaire with a big stake in Silicon Valley and a wife with a big stake in silicon as well, and at other nearby tables were lesser billionaires with smaller boats and soccer teams and cable TV networks and wives who were not quite as impressive. For Vasilisa Arsenyeva, the girl from Siberia, her presence among this elite group was proof that her life was finally worthwhile and she insisted on taking photographs of herself with each of the Russian grandees (and of course their wives also) to text to her mother at once.
Before they left home, when she was fully dressed and looking almost criminally attractive, she knelt at her husband’s feet, unzipped his pants and serviced him slowly and expertly, “because,” she told him, “when a man like you takes a woman like me into a room like this one he should know where he stands with her.” This was an unusual miscalculation—and she was usually good at sexual calculation—because it had the effect of making Nero Golden more suspicious, not less, so that at the restaurant he watched her every movement like an increasingly bad-tempered hawk, and as the food circulated, the herrings in red coats, the beef-stuffed cabbage golubtsy, the vareniki, vushka and halushky Ukrainian dumplings, the veal pelmeni, the stroganoff, the vodka infused with gooseberries and figs, the blinchiki pancakes, the caviar, his jealousy increased, it was as if she was serving little pieces of herself up to all the men present, on little red paper napkins, to be eaten with a little two-pronged cocktail fork, like a yummy little canapé. Of course, at this top table all the men were with wives, so everyone behaved with discretion, the billionaire with the artistically inclined wife told him he was a lucky man to have captured “our Vasilisa,” the billionaire with the unsuccessful newspapers and the successful baseball team said, “she is like our daughter.” The Silicon Valley billionaire with the silicon wife said, “God knows how you got her,” and made a lewd gesture with his hands suggesting something big inside the pants, but everyone had had plenty of vodka, so no offense was intended or taken, it was just man talk. But after a while he noticed that she was waving at people across the room, and they were waving back, and all of these people were men, in particular one man, a youngish man, tall, muscular, maybe forty, with hair oddly, prematurely white, wearing aviator shades even though it was night, a person who could be a tennis coach or—this was, for obvious reasons, Nero Golden’s ultimate term of disapproval—a personal trainer. Or maybe a hairdresser, a homosexual, which would be fine. Or, yeah, maybe another billionaire, younger than these other guys, one with, for example, a large red yacht built at the Benetti shipyard in Viareggio, Italy, and a fondness for one-and-a-half-million-dollar hypercars named after Quechua wind gods, and fast girls to go with them. That was a possibility that could not be ignored. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’m just going to salute my friends.” Then she was gone, and he was watching her, the hugs, the air kisses, nothing improper but something smelled bad over there, maybe he should go and inspect these friends, these so-called friends. Maybe he should take a closer look at that blonde he couldn’t see properly, that guy’s date, that petite blonde with her back to him, he could see the musculature of her arms, yes, he remembered her, the bitch. Maybe he should just rip her fucking head off.
But then Gorbachev was making conversation, “So now, Mr. Golden, with your lovely Russian wife you are one of us, almost, I would say, and I can see you are a man of consequence, so allow me to ask you…” Except that this wasn’t Gorbachev talking, it was his interpreter who was called maybe Pavel, peering over Gorbachev’s shoulder from behind like a second head, and speaking so soon after the former president that he was almost in lip sync, which meant either that he was the greatest, fastest interpreter ever, or that he was making the English up, or that Gorbachev always said the same kind of thing. In any case Nero Golden in his immense and mounting irritation at Vasilisa’s behavior wasn’t going to allow himself to be interrogated by the guest of honor and interrupted him to ask a question of his own.
“I have business associates in the city of Leipzig, formerly in GDR,” he said. “They told me an interesting story and I would be pleased to hear your comment.”
Gorbachev’s face became grave. “What is the story,” his second-head Pavel asked.
“During the unrest of 1989,” Nero Golden said, “when the protesters took refuge in the Thomaskirche, the church of Bach, the chief of the East German Communist party, Herr Honecker, wanted to send in troops with machine guns and kill everyone and so much for the revolution, it would be gone. But because of the proposal to use the army against civilians he had to call you for permission, and you refused it, and after that it was only a matter of days until the fall of the Wall.”
Neither Gorbachev nor his second head said a word.
“So my question is this,” Nero Golden said. “When you received that phone call and were asked that question, was your refusal instinctive and automatic…or did you have to think about it?”
“What is the purpose of this inquiry?” Gorbachev-Pavel said with grim faces.
“It is to raise the question of the value of human life,” Nero Golden said.
“And what is your view on the subject?” the two Gorbachevs asked.
“Russians have always taught us,” Nero said, and now there was no mistaking his deliberate hostility, “that the individual life is expendable when set against reasons of state. This we know from Stalin, and also the poison-tipped umbrella murder in London of Georgi Markov and polonium poisoning of KGB refugee Alexander Litvinenko. Also, this journalist hit by a car, that journalist also accidentally deceased, though these are of secondary concern. Regarding human value, the Russians show us the road to the future. In this year events in the Arab world confirm, and will soon further confirm this. Osama is dead, I have no problem. Gaddafi is gone, poof, let him go. But now we will see that the revolutionaries, their end too will come soon. Life itself goes on, unkind to many. The living are of small importance to the business of the world.”
The table was silent. Then Gorbachev’s second head spoke even though Gorbachev himself said nothing. “Georgi Markov,” the second head said, “was Bulgarian.”
Gorbachev answered very slowly, in English. “It is not an appropriate forum for this conversation,” he said.
“I will take my leave,” Nero answered, nodding. He raised an arm and his wife at once rose from her friends’ table and followed him to the door. “Magnificent evening,” he said to th
e room at large. “Our thanks.”
WIDE SHOT. MANHATTAN STREET. NIGHT.
A YOUNGISH MAN, tall, muscular, maybe forty, with hair oddly, prematurely white, wearing aviator shades even though it is night, a person who could be a tennis coach or a personal trainer, walks with his date, a petite BLOND WOMAN with a resemblance to another personal trainer, down Broadway toward Union Square, past the AMC Loews at Nineteenth Street, past ABC Carpet, past the third, penultimate location of the Andy Warhol Factory at 860 Broadway and then the second location, in the Decker Building at Sixteenth Street. Considering their solitude, the absence of security, he is probably not a billionaire, and does not own a large red yacht or a one-and-a-half-million-dollar hypercar. He is just a guy alone with a girl in the city after dark.
Music is playing. Unexpectedly it is a Bollywood song, “Tuhi Meri Shab Hai,” and the lyrics are subtitled. You alone are my night. You only are my day. The song comes from a film released in 2006, starring Kangana Ranaut. The name of the film is Gangster.
NARRATOR (V/O)
According to The New York Times, homicides in America reached an alarming peak in the 1990s but are now near historic lows. There are fears that the heroin epidemic and a resurgence of gang violence may push the numbers up again in some cities: Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas, Memphis. However, more optimistically, in New York City there has been a twenty-five percent year-on-year decrease.
The man in the aviator shades and the woman with the highly toned arms are crossing the park now, walking between the statue of George Washington and the entrance to the subway station.
The song continues, growing louder, with no need for subtitles:
SONG
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
As the YOUNGISH MAN and the BLOND WOMAN pass the subway entrance, a SECOND MAN comes out of it, moving fast, wearing a motorcycle helmet, pulls out a handgun with a silencer, shoots the YOUNGISH MAN, once, in the back of the head; and as he falls and the BLOND WOMAN opens her mouth to scream he shoots her, too, very fast, once, between the eyes. She falls straight down onto her knees and remains like that, head bowed, kneeling, dead. The YOUNGISH MAN lies facedown in front of her. The SECOND MAN walks away quickly, but not running, to the corner of Fourteenth and University, past the chess players’ zone, still holding the weapon. There are no chess players, it’s too late at night. There is however a MOTORCYCLIST waiting for him. He drops the gun in the trash bin on the corner, gets on the man’s motorbike and they leave. Only now, when the motorbike has gone, do POLICE OFFICERS emerge from the squad cars stationed around the square and move quickly to the kneeling woman and the fallen man.
Cut.
INTERIOR. NERO GOLDEN’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.
VASILISA is fast asleep in their large bed with its ornate, gilded rococo headboard. NERO’s eyes, too, are closed. Then, in an EFFECT SHOT, he “steps out of his body” and walks to the window. This ghost-self is transparent. The camera, behind him, sees through him to the heavy drapes, which he slightly parts, to look down at the Gardens. The “real” NERO continues to sleep in his bed.
NERO (V/O)
I say this while I am still in full possession of all my mental faculties. I know that at a later point in my story the soundness of my mind will be called into question, and perhaps rightly so. But that is not now, that is not just yet. There is still time to admit my foolishness, and to accept also that it reflects poorly on me. To have my head turned so easily by a pretty face. I understand now the depths of her self-interest, the coldness of her calculations and therefore of her heart.
The ghost-NERO walks calmly back to the bed, and “sits down” into the “real” NERO, and then there is just one NERO, with his eyes closed, beside his sleeping wife.
Her cellphone begins to ring, on “vibrate.” She doesn’t wake up to answer it.
It vibrates a second time and this time NERO, without moving, opens his eyes.
The third time, VASILISA wakes up, groans, reaches for the phone.
She comes fully awake, sits straight up in bed, and with her free hand clasps her cheek in horror. She speaks rapidly in Russian into the phone, asking questions. Then she becomes silent and puts the phone down.
For a long moment they remain as they are, she sitting up with horror on her face, he lying back calmly with his eyes open, looking up at the ceiling.
Then, slowly, she turns to look at him, and her expression changes. Now the only emotion on her face is fear.
They do not speak.
Cut.
REGARDING MICE AND GIANTS, PERCENTAGES, AND ART
Apu Golden heard about the large gathering of protesters against the arrogance of the banks which had begun occupying an open space in the Financial District and when he went down to look, wearing a Panama hat, khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt so as not to stand out too much, he found himself enchanted by the carnivalesque character of the crowd, the beards, the shaven heads, the lending library, the kisses, the odors, the passionate activists, the crazy old coots, the cooks, the young, the old. “Even the policemen seemed to be smiling,” he told me, “well, some of them, let’s be truthful, some of the others were the usual Cro-Magnon you-cross-the-road-to-avoid-contact-with-them types.” He liked the visual and also literary aspects of the event, the recitals of poetry, the placards made from old cardboard boxes, the cutout fists and V-signs, and he was impressed most of all by the support being given to the protesters by the mighty dead. “So wonderful,” he told me, “to see Goethe lying down among the sleeping bags, G. K. Chesterton standing in line for soup, Gandhi wiggling his fingers in the form of silent applause called up-twinkles—or actually of course it’s Ghandi because nobody can spell anymore, spelling is so boozhwa. Even Henry Ford is there, his words rippling through the crowd via the technique of the human microphone.” I went down there with him because his giggling enthusiasm was infectious and watched with admiration the speed and accuracy of his pencil as it captured the thronging scene, and yes, sure enough, there in his drawings were the immortal ghosts among the crowd, Goethe pompously pontificating, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,” and “Ghandi” reciting his old chestnut, “First they ignore you, then they blah blah blah, then you win.” “He never said that,” Apu pointed out. “It’s just an internet meme, but what to do, nobody knows anything, like I said, knowing things is boozhwa too.” Chesterton and Henry Ford in their tailcoats seemed incongruous here but they too were given respectful audience, their sentiments being right on the money, so to speak, “An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended,” old G.K. opined, “on finding defenses for the indefensible conduct of the powerful,” and H. Ford standing by his assembly line cried out, “If the people of this nation understood our banking and monetary system, I believe there would be a revolution tomorrow morning.” “It’s impressive,” Apu said, “how the internet has made philosophers of us all.” I personally preferred the cardboard declamations of an anonymous thinker who seemed motivated primarily by hunger, “One day the poor will have nothing left to eat except the rich,” he admonished us, and on another cardboard speech bubble he expressed the same thought more pithily. “Eat a banker.” This thinker wore an Anonymous mask, the mustachioed smiling white-faced Guy Fawkes face popularized by the Wachowskis in V for Vendetta, but when I asked him about the man whose face he was wearing he admitted he had never heard of the Gunpowder Plot and did not remember, remember the fifth of November. Such was this would-be revolution. Apu sketched it all.
He showed this work in a space run by Frankie Sottovoce on the Bowery, a “grittier” environment than Sottovoce’s Chelsea galleries. It was a joint show with Jennifer Caban, the most prominent artist-activist of that argumentative instant, who, at one point during the opening, lay full-length in a bathtub full of fake money; and they were soon both acclaimed and derided for their
partisanship. Apu resisted the bathtub photos and also the partisan label. “For me the aesthetic aspect is always primary,” he tried to argue, but the zeitgeist wasn’t listening, and in the end he surrendered to the descriptions that were imposed on him and the measure of political celebrity they conferred. “Maybe now I am famous on more than twenty blocks,” he mused to me. “Maybe now it’s more like thirty-five or forty.”
In the house on Macdougal Street Apu’s new agitprop notoriety was accorded scant respect. Nero Golden himself said nothing, neither praise nor damnation, but the thin line of his lips said as much as speech would have. He left it to his wife to let rip. Vasilisa on the living room floor surrounded by glossy home decoration magazines paused in her work to give Apu a Russian earful. “Those beggars in the street, making noise and filth and for what? Do they think the power they are attacking is so weak, it will quail before the rabble? They are like a mouse that stamps on the foot of a giant. The giant feels nothing and doesn’t even care to squash the mouse. Who cares, really? The mouse will run away soon. What will they do when winter comes? The weather will crush them. No need for anyone else to waste effort. Also, they have no leaders, this peasants’ army you love. They have no program. Therefore, they are nothing. They are a mouse without a head. They are a dead mouse that does not know it is dead.”