From
A Vodka and Broads:

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     "In one thing you are absolutely wrong," he continued his reflections aloud. "In your attitude to the English language. The dust of your motherland should be brushed off no later than on the Aeroflot plane, and here you should immerse yourself from the first day in the local population. And even if you want to get drunk here, I would recommend getting drunk with Americans. At least your English would improve."

     "How can you say that I'm not getting immersed? You've seen how many female representatives of the local indigenous population I fucked!"

     "I know them, your local females. They are alcoholics, bums, and wackos. Tell me, did you ever try to calculate your chances of achieving success? I am not talking here about picking up women, but about greater goals. Think about it; statistically speaking, half of the human race belongs to the female sex. And half of this half, that is, a quarter of the entire human population, is stopping you from advancing, without even lifting a finger, just by its physical presence. Conclusion: it does not matter where you go, under what regime you find yourself-every fourth human being interferes with your reaching your goal. You were lucky or unlucky that you were born a Casanova. What is important is how we use those assets that we brought into this world-with a sense of purpose or without it. . . . You should learn from Vladas," Tiurikov pointed to the sofa in the opposite corner of the room.

     The sofa belonged to the Lithuanian, but Tiurikov never had a chance to see him. Vladas worked simple jobs with complex schedules just to save ten thousand dollars for his move to his beloved Sweden. His variant of parting with the Soviet Union was one of the riskiest; in the winter he crossed the border somewhere in the region of the Finnish marshes. Avoiding the Finns, he reached Sweden and asked for political asylum. Sweden seemed to have taken him in, but a certain emigre from Russia had got him confused. "What is Sweden," he used to say, "with its all-pervading socialism? We did not run away from there to step into socialist shit again. But America-yes; there, an enterprising person is able to find real capitalism and unrestricted possibilities." Who could voluntarily deny being enterprising? Persuaded, the Lithuanian left for America and enterprised for some time feverishly wherever he could; yet, everywhere he invariably went bust, and finally began to remember with tenderness the delights of Swedish socialism.

     "Vladas does not go after millions, but stubbornly, persistently, and patiently pursues his goal. Look, you are drinking, and what is Vladas doing? Vladas is making money to go to his beloved Sweden. Once there, he'll look around and he'll stay, regardless of the toughness and impossibility of getting a break in their emigration policies. And I have a suspicion about what he'll do to become a Swedish citizen. He'll go to a god-forsaken place on the shore of a beautiful fjord; there, he'll meet a girl, exactly like the one every man is dreaming about from the time he is born. Of course, she will be a blonde, as almost all Swedish girls are, and her eyes will be, of course, blue. Imagine, you are going somewhere along the fjord and a Swedish girl is walking towards you; her hair is light, the color of platinum, it smells of flowers, warm milk, hay, and snow; the smell of her hair can drive you mad, and her eyes can kill you on the spot. . . ."

     Tiurikov paused to make Vampukha feel even more acutely the huge difference between the strumpets of Los Angeles, from whom he could get AIDS (if he already hadn't gotten it), and the angel living on the shore of the fjord.

     "But Vladas won't be picky. He'll stop any girl to ask her a question. For instance, he'll ask how deep is the fjord or what kind of bird is flying above. Pretty girls like nature, everybody in Sweden knows English, so their conversation probably will work out and soon the girl (if not the first then perhaps the tenth) will become his wife. . . ."

     Vampukha moved in his thoughts to an inflatable mattress floating on the water's surface, and he looked at Tiurikov as if he were a cloud. He was listening to the babbling of his friend's words, but did not try to understand their meaning. Tiurikov decided to shake him up:

     "I'm curious about what are you thinking when you don't have money to go out? You don't only drink and write your novel, do you? Share with me your latest ideas. And perhaps teach me something; for instance, what, in your opinion, one needs to do to become rich quickly?"

     One needs to become the tsar, Vampukha would have said if the conversation had taken place a week earlier. Well, even then he wouldn't have said that; he'd have bitten his tongue no matter how much he'd had to drink. Tactful Tiurikov wouldn't have laughed at every crazy idea, but the idea of becoming the tsar would prove too much even for him.

     "One needs to get married," answered Vampukha. "However, not to a poor Swedish beauty, but to some rich old woman. It is fashionable now for women to have a much younger lover. Consider the discussions on TV shows: she is fifty, he is nineteen, and they love each other, like Romeo and Juliet; what do you say to that, ah? I am forty-eight, so add thirty more, and my partner should be seventy-eight. The older, the better; ninety would be perfect. Think about the situation of that old woman. She has plenty of money, but she is lonely; she wants some attention and understanding. Her servant changes her light bulbs, but can you compare a tender male hand to the hand of a maid from Guatemala? I will change the light bulb, jump off the chair, pat her on her grey-haired head and kiss her parchment-like hand. As in a nostalgic old movie. I will drop in front of her on my knees and tenderly look for a long time in her colorless short-sighted eyes. . . ."

     "But tell me why," interrupted Tiurikov, "there are many aged and lonely women millionaires in the world, but there are even more young and nice poor men? Why don't they, I'd like to know, run into each other?"

     "Because young poor men are stupid. They are afraid that people will gossip, 'We know, we know why he needs the old woman.' Or they are fussy. Idiots! They should be fussy about poverty and their stupefying, low-paying jobs. Instead, here you have a nice granny who will give you tasty morsels, dress you, take you to Florida, Hawaii, or Carnegie Hall. In general, why shouldn't one look at it this way: I did not marry an old hag, but found myself a granny?"

     "So why don't you have a granny yet?"

     Vampukha smiled mysteriously.

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