scene. If she had come up with something witty or smart enough—as she had at Chez Toi—the whole thing would never have developed. She wanted nothing more than to get away from this restaurant and its load of Russians. Sergei couldn’t coax anything out of her, either. She was too dispirited.
After a few minutes of getting nowhere, Sergei called over the big hefty maître d’ or whatever he was and had a little conversation with him in Russian. Then he smiled again at the six misshapen goons and goonygirls before him and said in Russian and then in English: “You’re very lucky. Marko has a nice table for six for you. You will be very comfortable.”
Sheepishly, warily, without a single word, the six got the message and got up and followed Marko, who led them to a distant destination in a far corner of Gogol’s capacious floor. Sergei leaned toward Magdalena and put an arm around her shoulders. “Now, this is more like it… a nice table for two.” He laughed out loud in the spirit of “Oh, what fun we’re having!”
::::::Well… no and no, my dear Sergei. There are not two of us, there are three: you, me… and Humiliation, who occupies the other eight seats. And no, I wouldn’t call this fun, particularly. All these roaring animals in this place haw-haw-haw-haw-hawing, these louts and their girlfriends, dressed, overdressed, over-the-top-dressed in musty styles and hairdos, these drunken louts with their rude animal vitality only too eager to seize the weak or unwary and have fun pulling her wings off, laughing all the while at the way she struggles… Oh, Zhytin the great Number Five—he’s brilliant at it! Brilliant! A past master! What? Didn’t you see it? My God, you missed a classic demonstration! But you can see the remains of her right over there… she’s the little Cuban papaya at that table for ten that’s nearly empty—empty in an otherwise jam-packed place like this! At a prime hour like this! Empty! She’s a shamed and empty shell. Nobody wants any part of her except for our renowned papaya collector, Korolyov… He’ll take her papaya and do whatever he wants with it and then throw it out like roadkill… Just feast your eyes! You can’t miss her! She’s alone at that huge table, except for our papaya connoisseur, and he doesn’t count, of course… Yes! Take a look! What’s worse than death?… Humiliation!… whereas her tablemate, Mr. Sergei Korolyov—he’s feeling so good about himself. He thinks he can jolly her up, and why not? He’s on top of the world! His spirits could hardly be higher! That’s how a man feels when all he has to do is make an appearance… and todo el mundo jumps up from its chairs and comes rushing over to pour warm grins all over him and attend to his every whim. Even better, no doubt, is to see the fear on other men’s faces when they cross him in any way… they’re terrified, as if they fear for their lives—they actually cringe… the way that vile vile vile vile vile man cringed the moment Czar Sergei barked in a certain way—
—oh, Sergei is in Seventh Heaven right now… He’s content to stay at this table all night… at this huge table for ten, just him and his little chocha with a vast white flashing sequined sea before them. You can’t miss him! There he is! The mightiest man in the hall!… He can’t even begin to understand her misery, can he… Please, my handsome savior, please get me out of here… out of the sight of a thousand shaming, pitying, shunning eyes… but no-o-o-o-o-o, he has to put himself on maximum display, doesn’t he… Behold the Czar!… of Russia’s Hallandale, Florida, heartland.::::::
Finally finally finally finally—and this finally felt like finally, after five years of sheer torture—finally Sergei suggested leaving and heading off to the big party on Star Island. His departure was like his arrival… the fawning, the bear hugs, the loud nothings in the ear, and Sergei standing up seven feet tall and expanding his chest as he watched them jump… Magdalena? She no longer existed. They looked right through her. Only the big side of beef who ran the place even said so much as goodbye… and that much, no doubt, only because he thought it might ingratiate him with the Czar, who had brought the little slice of papaya with him.
17
Humiliation, Too
::::::At the very beginning, as soon as he said “What