The Last Hiccup (6 page)

“You're lying,” the maître d' said.

“Believe what you want to believe.” Sergei started to walk away. “Do not blame me when your patrons become sick all over your ballroom floor.”

He was halfway out the front doors when the maître d' came up behind him and petitioned Sergei to find the contagious man. The doctor Namestikov, his lies accepted as fact, felt a great satisfaction until the maître d' insisted he change from his blue suit jacket into a more formal black jacket.

“No,” Sergei said. “People will assume that I couldn't find a matching pair of pants. These colors look ridiculous next to one another. I'll be a laughing stock in a mismatched suit.”

“Nonsense,” the maître d' said. He helped Sergei off with his coat and into the formal black jacket. “You won't be inside but for a moment anyways. If I were to allow you to wear blue, you would draw even more attention to yourself.”

Sergei insisted again but the man was adamant. The only way Sergei would be allowed into the great hall was if he was wearing a black jacket. With extreme reluctance, Sergei slipped the jacket over his shoulders. Its sleeves carried with them the pliant odor of whiskey and Croatian perfume. Sergei pressed out the wrinkles against his chest and allowed the larger of the two guards to brush the dust off his shoulders, then he stepped past the ice sculpture and into the great hall. It was difficult for him to maintain an air of dignity, what with the mismatched clothes, the soaking-wet loafer and the undeniable suspicion that he'd forgotten to properly trim his ears of all errant hairs, but Sergei soldiered on past the women in evening gowns dipping cake into the cheese fondue and the politicians congratulating one another as they smoked cigars. He made his way past the extensive buffet table without giving a thought to pinching a snack when he stopped at the last tray of desserts.

Before Sergei lay an extravagant safari scene with lions carved out of truffles and peacock-shaped pineapples. Everywhere Sergei looked a new treasure was to be found, from apricot trees to candy-stick villagers drowning in the chocolate mousse quicksand. The very sight of this sticky-sweet smorgasbord was overwhelming. Sergei's eyesight, never an issue during his adult years, started to fail him the longer he stared at the dazzling whites and bright oranges. The air wavered as though it were hot inside; the skeletonized shapes of the sugars crystallized into an onslaught of garish glittering opulence and at the same time grew murky, fragmented. Suddenly the table vanished, a mass of refracted light mobilized in its place. Sergei felt dizzy. A painful swell developed in his chest as an epidemic of panic threatened to overtake him. Sergei hunched forward and placed his hands on the table, his thumb dipped into a pool of blue gelatin. Oh, how he longed for the warm, insomnious comfort of his bed. Why had he ever left home? What purpose could it serve to accost his rival here in this place where he so clearly did not belong?

With a shudder, Sergei turned to leave and was met face-to-face by Alexander in all his black-tuxedo glory. As though a chandelier had fallen from the ceiling, Sergei's eyesight returned in a sudden crash. Alexander gasped in surprise. The two men stared at one another in staggering astonishment, taking turns opening their mouths with nothing emerging, the air between them forming a vacuous stupor before finally Alexander spoke.

“Your jacket doesn't match your pants.”

Sergei lowered his eyes in a descending arc toward his torso, his gaze focusing on each fuzzy piece of lint and microbe of bacteria left behind by the innumerable souls who, trapped by destiny or desperation, had been forced against their wills into the confines of this black prison. Sergei wanted to turn around right now and bolt from the ballroom. Only his body refused. His legs took root in the ground, his arms constrained as those of a lunatic wrapped up in an asylum. Sergei paused and stammered. He briefly considered an honorable suicide through some sort of staged accident involving perhaps an attack by an outraged animal or a tragic yet credible fall from a great height, before feeling within himself a surge of adrenaline. Deep from the kidney gland it mobilized, the first gush invigorating, the second and third sending stabbing swells to his brain. At that very moment in front of the dessert tray, he found in himself a strength he had never known. He would stand up to this torment. Out of all the moments in his life, this would be the one he would finally seize. No longer would he be forced to live under the crushing weight of Alexander's shadow. No longer would he endure a sleepless night as his nemesis's voice careened about his head. Sergei mobilized his courage, composed himself and then spoke plainly and clearly.

“The coordination of my ensemble is none of your concern. I have sought you out tonight on a matter of great importance, of our young patient Vladimir . . .”

“Yes, yes, the hiccups. That is fine,” Alexander said. He seemed uncharacteristically anxious. His eyes shifted around the room.

“No, old friend, it is not fine. Our patient has hidden from us a depravity of mind, not a lunacy as I suspected, but a villainous immorality verging on pure, unbridled evil.”

“Evil, you say?”

“Something sinister and vile resides in his soul. He's hidden it from us all along. In all my years, I've never seen anything like it . . .”

Alexander placed his hand on the small of Sergei's back. “We can discuss Vladimir's case at the hospital on Monday. You should leave now.”

“No!” Sergei pulled away. “You will not send me home. I will be heard.”

From nearby, partygoers turned toward Sergei's raised voice, their faces ranging from curiosity in the far corners to disapproval closer to the buffet, culminating in the outright condemnation on the face of a woman Sergei had accidentally bumped into, forcing her sausagey fingers to impale the lemon tart she'd been in the process of selecting. From the foyer, the maître d' and his two doormen came marching through the crowd. Sergei had very little time.

“I beg of you,” Alexander said, “you must leave. You were not invited.”

Alexander's entire countenance had an air of suspicion about it. Sergei had never seen him so nervous. During his day-to-day activities at the hospital, in his dealings with patients, even the difficult ones with the troublesomely incurable afflictions, Alexander always maintained a firm air of formality, never joking, at all times securing his emotions behind a reserved wall of poise and self-assurance. In his hasty attempt to usher Sergei from the ballroom, Alexander's pupils had dilated. His brow glossed with the first showings of perspiration. Alexander's hands shook — the very hands that that afternoon had reached inside the open chest cavity of a patient and with delicate precision massaged the patient's atrioventricular valve, saving the patient from a major hemorrhage and almost certain death. These hands, the steadiest in all the republic, were trembling in Sergei's black and blue presence.

At last
, Sergei thought,
I have the best of him
.

“What's the matter?” Sergei said. “Has the physician finally been failed by his steady hand?”

Before his rival could respond, a familiar aroma rose in volumes to the embattled doctor's nose. So faint that no one save Sergei could discern it from the buffet's miscellaneous odors, it flowed to him like a wave, this enchanting elixir created by the merging of a sumptuous lilac perfume with a natural skin scent so intoxicating it could have come from only one woman — Asenka. Sergei's ex-wife approached the two men from behind. The doctor Namestikov forgot all about Alexander and turned to see Asenka's ageless beauty, her wide shimmering blue eyes. Sergei's heart skipped a beat. He remembered instantly why he'd fallen in love with her. All of the moments he'd spent agonizing and blaming himself — smashing heirlooms in his office late at night and curling up in tears on his bathroom floor — were instantly forgotten. She was within a meter of him now. Oh, how Sergei wished she would run up and embrace him. All would be forgiven.

But she did not embrace him. Asenka sauntered straight into the waiting arms of his rival. At this moment, exactly seven months, one day, nine hours and four minutes since Sergei had begun working with Alexander, his ex-wife placed a kiss flush on Alexander's lips.

“Hasn't Alexander told you?” she said. “We're in love.”

Astonished, Sergei's brain slowed to a Neanderthal crawl. His synapses fired with lethargy. It was as if Sergei's body were somehow striving to keep his soul from grasping how truly belittling this moment was. The desperate look he'd initially given Asenka now reeked of weakness. How crudely obvious he had been, displaying his dopey-eyed pleadings before the entire room. Sergei looked from Alexander to Asenka and back to Alexander again. His rival's face flushed with embarrassment. Alexander even appeared contrite. In the recesses of his mind, Sergei thought perhaps somehow he could one day understand Alexander's role in all of this. But he could never forgive Asenka for what she'd done — for what she was doing even now at this very moment. Just the sight of her, with her full-length white gown accentuating the magnificence of her every curve, her long gloves and dark smoking pen, those wondrous bright blue eyes — everything about her enraged Sergei. He hated her magnificent cheekbones and chiseled pert little nose. He hated her very existence.

Sergei's gaze drifted to Asenka's purse where, from out of the far corner, popped the head of the smallest dog ever bred in Russia. The blue Chihuahua, named for the subtle hint of indigo in its coat, had been banned by the government. At issue was the inbreeding process that produced a high number of deformities. To get that blue Chihuahua, the average litter of five dogs included at minimum four with unspeakably gross birth defects. This was the prize animal to escape the womb intact, the only one out of a hundred deemed fit for sale. It was a marvel of science that this little creature had survived. And all Sergei wanted to do was strangle it with his bare hands.

“Old friend . . .” Alexander said.

“Do not speak,” Sergei said.

Asenka let out a caustic laugh. “Sergei,” she said, “your jacket doesn't match your pants.”

A tempest formed within Sergei. His rage, simmering now for months, finally reached full boil. Asenka had kissed his enemy right in front of him! And he had accepted her embrace. Still she languished in his arms! Now she dared to take issue with what he was wearing? What he had been forced to wear? Good Lord, was there no limit to the injustice?

In a sudden spastic motion, Sergei ripped the black jacket off his body and threw it wildly to the ground. His eyes glazed over. He clenched his fists and stepped forward.

“Be reasonable,” Alexander said.

But Sergei was beyond all reason. He reached out and grabbed Alexander by the collar. Before he could throttle him, the two doormen took hold of Sergei and a small skirmish erupted. The doormen wrestled Sergei to the ground only to find they were unable to hold him there; so great was Sergei's fury that he struggled to his feet and made another unsuccessful lunge at Alexander. Asenka stepped forward and slapped Sergei square across the face, leaving a red mark that would last for days. Sergei, however, would not be deterred. He stumbled back against the buffet table, surrounded on all sides by the angry doormen, a befuddled Alexander and his malicious concubine. In the midst of it all, the maître d' was bellowing out orders to anyone who would listen.

Sergei was about to be overcome. In a moment of panic, he reached back and grasped the large punch bowl, still three quarters full of bright red juice and an assortment of fruit slices. He lifted it above his head and threatened the growing crowd.

“Stand back,” he said. “I will splash you all.”

“Think of what you're about to do,” the maître d' said.

“Yes, Sergei. Put it down,” Alexander said.

From the back, dozens of voices joined in.

“Don't throw it.”

“You'll ruin my dress.”

“For the love of God, man, you're at a formal function!”

Each of them pleaded with Sergei to set the bowl down. Every voice, that is, except Asenka's. She stepped to the front of the crowd and faced Sergei eye to eye.

“Do not fear, good people.” She raised her arms with authority. “Sergei will not throw the bowl. It's just not in his nature. He doesn't have the nerve to do it.”

Sergei stared straight at Asenka, who in turn looked back at him fearlessly. She was surrounded by a thicket of Moscow's elite, nearly two hundred of them now, all in formal attire, all out for an evening when Sergei had been expected to remain home in his bed, stewing about those who'd done him wrong. In his heart, he questioned whether he truly had the gumption to thrust the fruit punch on them. He'd lived his whole life strictly abiding by society's rules. That hadn't changed yet. Were he to set the bowl down, he still might be able to use his considerable charm to make light of the situation, to elicit a laugh from the swarming mass and perhaps even ingratiate himself with his hosts. It wasn't too late to turn back. Sergei could exit of his own accord. He could leave Alexander and Asenka to canoodle together in front of these bastards and he would be none the worse off. Yes, Sergei could have left with his dignity intact.

But what good is dignity when it is coated in regret?

In one fluid motion, Sergei raised the bowl to the rafters and dumped its entire contents over Asenka's pure white gown. He conked her over the head with the bowl for good measure. She screamed a bloody scream and then collapsed. Her dress turned red, pink and orange in splotches. Ice cubes tumbled into her bosom. Sergei stood above her triumphantly, his hands raised in a V, a jubilant smile stretched from ear to ear.

One second passed and then two. Then Sergei was tackled, his face planted into the ground. A mêlée ensued in which Sergei — kicking, screaming and even biting — was dragged out of the Isirk Ballroom.