At Another New Restaraunt
For a limited period of time I’m capable of being halfway cheerful and outgoing, so I accept Lionel Tannenbaum’s request that I dine in his stead for the eXile. Tannenbaum is claiming some Jewish holiday or other requiring exemption from sushi-discussion duties. So there I am at the hole-in-wall sushi bar SAMURAI on Bolshaya Bronnaya, just down the street from my palatial penthouse in one of the renovated pre-Revolutionary residential buildings overlooking Patriarch’s Pond.
I’m wearing a two-button wool gabardine suit with notched lapels by Gian Marco Venturi, cap-toed leather lace-ups by Armani, tie by Polo, socks I’m not sure where from. I’m joined that night with Tanya, who is now sitting across from me prattling on about a very large Faberge egg she thought she saw at the Metropol, rolling around the lobby of its own accord or something. The first five minutes after being seated are fine, then the drink I ordered touches the table and I instinctively reach for it, but I find myself cringing every time Tanya opens her mouth. I notice that Boris Nemtsov is eating here tonight, but refuse to mention this to Tanya.
I suggest a toast, but not she’s not listening, because some height-deficient academician named Paul with many advanced degrees and wearing a three-button wool houndstooth suit, a spread-collar cotton oxford shirt, suede shoes, and a silk tie, all by Garrick Anderson, whom Tanya pointed out once after we’d had a fight at Club XIII and called “gorgeous,” and whom I had called “a dwarf,” walks over to our table, openly flirting with her, asking where he might find a short-term apartment rental at “MARKET” prices. I tell him to fuck off, but not before noticing that the cigar he’s about to light is an imitation Cuban.
Already Tanya’s back poring over the menu. “What were we talking about?”
Trying to remember, I say, “I don’t know. You were talking to the dwarf.”
“Paul is not a dwarf, Patrick.”
“He is unusually short, Tanya,” I counter. “Are you sure he wasn’t at your Christmas party”—and then, my voice lowered—“serving hors d’oeuvres?” “Waiter?” I call to someone passing by. “Another drink? J&B?” I point to my empty glass, upset that I phrased it as a question rather than a command.
“Don’t you want to find out what happened today?” Tanya asks, displeased.
“With bated breath,” I sigh, totally uninterested. “I can hardly wait.”
“The most amusing thing,” she starts.
I am absorbing what you are saying to me, I’m thinking. I notice her lack of carnality and for the first time it taunts me. Before, it was what attracted me to Tanya. Now its absence upsets me, seems sinister, fills me with a nameless dread. At our last session, the psychiatrist I’ve been seeing asked, “What method of contraception do you and Tanya use?” and I sighed before answering, “her job.” Dimly aware that if it weren’t for the other guests I would take the plastic chopsticks on the table and push them deep into Tanya’s eyes and snap them in two, I nod, pretending to listen, but I’ve already phased out and don’t do the chopsticks thing. Instead I order a pint of Sapporo ($5.50).
“Isn’t that amusing?” Tanya asks.
Casually laughing along with her, the sounds coming out of mouth loaded with scorn, I admit, “Riotous.” My gaze traces the line of women at the bar. Are there any I’d like to fuck? Probably. The skinny, barely teenaged waitress busily computing a bill on the last stool? Perhaps. Tanya is agonizing between the seafood salad and caviar. “I’m desperate for some caviar,” she says. “Honey?”
“No,” I say.
“Why not,” she asks, pouting.
“Because I don’t want anything that’s from a can or that’s Iranian,” I sigh. She sniffs haughtily and returns to the menu.
The minutes tick by. Eventually, we order a pair of decent-sized sushi assortments for $34.50 and $39.50, both of which come with passable miso soup. The sushi is OK, although certainly overpriced. I stare at the platter for a long time and when I ask for another beer, our waiter reappears with a pepper shaker instead and insists on hanging around our table, constantly asking us if we’d like some. Once the fool moved to a new booth, I wave the manager over and ask him, “Could you please tell the waiter with the pepper shaker to stop hovering over our table? We don’t want pepper. We haven’t ordered anything that needs pepper. No pepper. Tell him to get lost.”
I try to down some of the sushi, though the telltale squishiness of the salmon and tuna makes this difficult. By now, I’m wondering what train of thought could have let me to this: spending more than an hour in this dreary wood-paneled eatery with needy Tanya and her supposedly innocent conversational segues.
So I order a cab for Tanya and, having sent her on her way, note that my gold Rolex indicates the perfect time for visiting the slave market on Mamonovsky Pereulok and procuring 2 or 3 victims to make the evening less of a washout. I’ve got a pirate copy of the new U2 CD at home which I’m looking forward to exploring in greater depth.