Free Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart Page B

their door, and by evening “finishers” came to strip their apartment of its electrical wiring and plumbing fixtures. Rouenna’s mom draped her with a blanket to protect her from the winter cold, and by nightfall their building joined the parade of torches lighting up the northern bend of the Harlem River. Fortified by the quiet submission of the poor, they trooped over to a homeless shelter that had been recommended to them by other relatives in similar circumstances. Eventually some Methodists won their trust by feeding them. They found her mother a job sweeping city streets, and one of the younger, more mobile grandmothers was set up selling sweet ices on a street corner (the men of the household had long since fled). The Methodists helped them fill out applications for the new government housing that was then slowly revitalizing the Bronx. By the nineties, Rouenna’s family had climbed into the ranks of the lower middle class, their meager but ever-growing worldly goods racing ahead of their obliterated urban psychologies. And then I came along, the “rich Russian uncle sent by God” who had taken such interest in their daughter’s development. Little did they know who was saving whom.
    “I know you’re all heartbroken over your daddy,” Rouenna said as she worked the hump, “but I gotta say, he didn’t do right by you.”
    “He didn’t love me enough?” I asked.
    “He drags your ass to Russia, then he kills the Oklahoma dude, and now you can’t leave. My family may be fucked up, but at least we look out for each other. When I told my moms you was Jewish, not Methodist, she was like, ‘Long as he treat you good.’ ”
    “It’s different in Russia,” I said, kissing one of Rouenna’s hands, which was cradled beneath my chin. “Here a child is just an extension of his parents. We’re not allowed to think or act differently from them. Everything we do is to make them proud and happy.”
    “Whatever,” Rouenna said. “Why don’t you just do what makes
you
proud and happy and let your dead father rest already?”
    “You know what that would be, sweetie?” I asked.
    “You wanna bust a nut in me?”
    “I want to do some laundry.”
    Like all Jewish boys growing up in Russia, I’d had all of my earthly needs (save one) taken care of by my mother, but after Rouenna moved into my gargantuan Financial District loft, she exposed me to a new experience—the Laundromat. At first I insisted that a professional laundress wash our socks and underwear, but Rouenna taught me there was something simple, methodical, and pleasing about doing it yourself. She taught me all about temperatures and detergents and how to treat “delicates.” After the drying machine stopped spinning, we would roll up our socks together. She would make perfect little balls out of the socks, and when we got home, it was such a pleasure to unroll them and put on a warm fresh pair. I’ll always associate self-laundered socks with democracy and the primacy of the middle class.
    I took Rouenna down to the cellar. A laundry was already in progress. My manservant, Timofey, was supervising a young new maid as she sorted through my tracksuits and loincloth-style underwear. “Yes, that’s how we do it here,” Timofey was saying to the maid, nodding sagely. “That’s just how the master likes it. What a good girl you are, Lara Ivanovna.”
    I chased away the servants, threatening to beat them over the head with my shoe (it’s a little pantomime I do with the staff; they seem to enjoy it). “Thanks for FedExing me the fabric softener sheets, Rowie,” I said. “We don’t have the good kind here. I can’t get enough of this ‘outdoor fresh scent.’ ”
    Rouenna was looking over the control panel of the new washing machine I had airlifted out of Berlin. “How does this work, boy-o?”
    “The instructions are in German.”
    “Duh, I can see they’re not in English. Show, don’t tell.”
    “What?”
    “Show, don’t