May 30, 1995
Tuesday
12:20 p.m.
I’d been living a measured life, until they unwound the bandages and shoved a mirror under my nose.
I froze...
Magnificent!
The same face as before, but with more weight to it. Visually, ten years older. Stern, handsome. Yes, definitely handsome. Huh, the chin seemed to have come forward and turned massive. My bite had changed, my jaws were still awkward to move. When they fitted the upper and lower bridges, the orthopedist warned: the first three days would hurt. I didn’t expect it to hurt this much! I howled like a wolf while the teeth settled into place, as if invisible wipers were using crowbars to widen the space for new canines, molars, and tusks. The pain subsided, and what emerged was a chin heavier by a good five kilos and a blinding smile. Ah, how brilliantly white my grin was. It hurt to look at. And what about the ears? Phew! Pressed flat against the skull, like the ears of a frightened kitten — exactly as I’d dreamed while studying my jug-eared reflection in my previous life.
A real hunk!
Zhorik confirmed it and dragged me out for a drive around town!
He poured a bourbon anesthetic into me and we sped off to pose for Polaroids at places I’d only dreamed of before: the LAPD, the letters on the hill, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades, Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, Century City. The last stop was Fox Plaza, also known as Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard. Zhorik suggested a run to Santa Barbara, but I refused. Never watched the show, didn’t know anyone there.
Scratching our heads and realizing that no trip to Los Angeles would count among life’s personal achievements without a beach selfie, we headed to Malibu Lagoon Beach — the one from Baywatch. We posed for a photo by the lifeguard hut, grabbed a burger on the boardwalk, and drove home.
On the whole, Los Angeles was a disappointment.
Disappointing the same way Moscow had disappointed me in my youth. The films I’d watched as a teenager convinced me Moscow was my city, that my life was there, among the stars of the Soviet screen, cruising the Garden Ring in Zhiguli Sixes, living on New Arbat, sporting Czech clothes. Reality turned out to be a dull, ordinary place: a metro full of office workers and students, a room in a dormitory, Indian jeans, Uzbek T-shirts. The Kremlin, Arbat, and other sights I’d seen in films flickered by like tourist attractions, obligatory to visit once and having nothing to do with everyday Moscow life.
I felt the same in Los Angeles. I’d landed in a conglomeration of two-story settlements and vacant lots with oil derricks, nothing like the fairy tale from the thousands of videotapes I’d watched. Zhora explained that’s just how it is: all those movies with the Los Angeles skyscrapers are filmed downtown. Everywhere else in the city, it’s forbidden to build residential buildings taller than two stories.
Why? Because a three-story mansion might block a neighbor’s view of the ocean. Or whatever it is the neighbor’s looking at. Made sense, actually — I wouldn’t want to stare at my neighbor’s wall instead of the promised ocean. So the city of dreams sprawled outward instead: settlements, industrial zones, and wastelands.
Back at the bungalow, I hit the bottle while listening to Zhora: we’re flying out tomorrow, we ought to buy out the designer shack, but with mortgage rates the way they are these days it’s a jackal’s game, tomorrow we hand the Porsche over to Kiryukha, nothing left to do here, we’ll turn it around back in Russia, the guys promised to help privatize a couple of industrial cripples for a small cut…
Zhorik said a lot of things.
I fell asleep, digesting the doctor’s orders not to get caught in the sunlight: the scars would show white through a tan. Good thing I was heading to Moscow, where the sun was a rare guest. Bad thing was, the photo in my passport had nothing in common with my current face. Would the border guards even let me back into the country?
