The Lucrezia Borgia European Marriage Center: The Third Novel in the Michael Fridman Trilogy

By Grigori Gerenstein

San Gimignano in Tuscany is a place where the wandering Jews longing to belong becomes especially acute. Here among the shadows of the past and real descendants of those shadows, he finds his peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491800164

Grigori Gerenstein

Grigori Gerenstein was born in Russia, from where he immigrated to Israel in 1973 and then on to England in 1976. In 2004, he returned to Russia, where he lives now, working as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswire and a number of other international news services. In 1975, Grigori’s collection of short stories The Fall and Other Stories was published by Harper & Row in New York. He has published a number of books, including a collection of Russian stories, The Terrible News, A History of the British Bank of the Middle East, and The Ahasfer Game, the first novel in his Michael Fridman trilogy (by a POD publisher). In 2003, he won the Royal Geographical Society’s Journey of a Lifetime award. Grigori made a BBC documentary and spoke to the Royal Geographic Society on his journey to the Russian Arctic Circle town of Norilsk, where most of the world’s precious metals are mined. Grigori served in two armies, the Soviet army and the Israeli army, and has been engaged in a variety of professions, including scientific research, street cleaning, lexicography, jazz playing on a trumpet, competitive cycling, metal and oil trading, journalism, as well as acting in the theater. He went through a few failed marriages before hope triumphed over experience and he found the woman who could make him happy, which was the reason why he returned to Russia, the place he had made such an effort to get away from. Grigori has completed his Michael Fridman trilogy (Adventures of the Wandering Jew), including The Ahasfer Game, Armageddon According to Mark, and Lucrezia Borgia European Marriage Center, and is halfway into his fourth novel, Machiavelli’s Boss Boris. His main interest is people as products of their history and culture. In our everyday life, whether we are conscious of it or not, our outlook on life, our very grip on reality, and our decisions are determined by everything that has happened in the history of our civilization, and we ignore its lessons at our peril. As one of Grigori’s characters puts it, “If the boy is the father of the man and his culture is the mother, the boy should be married to his culture. Otherwise, the man they produce will be an illegitimate bastard.”

Book preview

THE

LUCREZIA BORGIA EUROPEAN MARRIAGE CENTER

A NOVEL BY

GRIGORI GERENSTEIN

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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©

2013 by Grigori Gerenstein. All rights reserved.

Cover Art is a reproduction of the Pregnant Madonna fresco by Piero della Francesca.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/25/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0015-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0016-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

PART TWO

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

PART THREE

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

PART FOUR

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

To Rosa, Isabel and Yulenka

with all my love

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

H ELLO, MY DEAR. LET ME introduce myself-I am the author of this story. And you, I presume, are the reader. I believe these things are important to establish before we go any further. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had in the past because I neglected the simple basic rule of telling a story—let them know at the outset who is who. I am the author and I will stand no nonsense from reader or character alike. Otherwise I’ll be sent from pillar to post by my characters on all sorts of hair-raising errands while my readers will be taunting me with remarks like we are not excited and your anecdotes don’t make a publishable novel. Believe me, I am not inventing this for effect. It really happened. Anyway, now that we have established who we are, I feel free to get on with the story at hand. The reader is free to throw down the book and switch the telly on. The characters will have to bear with me to the bitter happy end.

A man with blocked nasal passages was lying on his marital bed, spreading himself rather freely on the subject of God’s inability to design a couple of simple nasal passages. He was about to make a further few strong remarks to his wife, when she said in a kind of ironic tone of voice,

For someone you don’t believe in, he looms rather large on your mental horizon, Sasha.

He does indeed, Alexander Brut admitted. If he wants me to believe in him, he should produce some evidence of his existence. Curing me of the flu would be good for starters. As it is, he’s a convenient fictional device. You Christians have us Jews to blame for everything. We use God for the purpose.

Well, as you know, I am not blaming Jews for anything, although a Christian. I wish you’d stop harping on it, she objected.

She was not lying; she was indeed a Christian, although like most English men and women, she went to church out of habit. Sasha’s origins were Russian Jewish, which entitled him to reserving a place for himself on both sides of the religious divide, just in case.

I am a man in a state of extreme physical discomfort, Sasha muttered. A bit of sympathy would be appreciated.

Poor darling. I suppose you’re in no state to hear the news that I received a call today from Michael’s stepdaughter Clara. She is concerned about him.

Oh, the famous Labor MP, Sasha quipped. What’s her worry? Is he turning too conservative for her taste?

You’ve always been unkind to Michael Fridman, Sasha. Quite undeservedly, I should say.

Oh, do shut up, Penelope, Sasha cried in his habitual way. What did she want?

Well, she said he had refused to come and hear her key policy speech in Parliament, which she found quite disturbing. She said it was the most untypical behavior for the Wandering Jew. Michael has buried himself and Lydia in that tiny flat in Moscow, and they refuse to come out, claiming they’re as happy as two bugs in a rug. Clara finds it quite disturbing and suspicious, and I must say, I don’t blame her.

What am I supposed to do about it? Sasha argued. I’m sick.

You will not be sick forever, Penelope disappointed him. You should go and visit them, see how they are.

Why don’t you go, he parried cleverly. If you are so concerned that you can’t leave them alone.

I am going on a tour of the United States, remember? Then I have the festival in Bologna. I’m only scheduled to play in Moscow in February. No, you should go. He’s your oldest friend.

After all these years Sasha still wasn’t used to being married to a major international star piano player. His father’s advice to slap Penelope about a bit when she got stroppy still sounded like an eternal reproach in his ears.

The guy is trouble, he muttered. Every time he pops up there’s trouble.

How can you say that, Sasha, his wife protested. You know perfectly well that you are the one who makes trouble, and Michael always gets you out of it.

Oh, darling, please don’t start. Not now, Brut moaned mockingly, pulling the duvet over his head. What kind of face do you expect me to present to the world when it’s being constantly shamed from behind by you?

The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face, Penelope said with some gusto.

Just look at you standing by my sickbed quoting Thackeray at me, the patient lamented. I didn’t expect such mental cruelty from you. You know perfectly well what I think of Thackeray.

Now let me explain who the suspects are so far.

Alexander Brut, an immigrant to Britain from Russia of some twenty winters past, whose achievements as a brilliant political commentator and adviser to many a prominent statesman in the land, be it Tory or Labor, do nothing to quench his constant urge to bolster his self-esteem by bamboozling extra-or ultra-marital females into committing acts of indiscretion with him in his bed, the very bed he is suffering on now. While enjoying his relative freedom during his wife’s frequent absences, Brut dreads the advance of old age when Penelope’s two-hundred-concerts-a-year career comes to an end, affording her the leisure to call him to account for his treason, or worse still, cast him into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. One good thing about advancing age, though, is that Penelope has stopped going on and on about having babies. Her talk of babies used to scare the shit out of Brut, invariably bringing on nightmares of his father, an opinionated tough nut whose idea of a successful weekend was to empty a bottle of vodka, slap son and wife about for a bit and then snore for some twenty hours unless woken by the slightest noise, which naturally required some more slapping about to be done.

Penelope Protherough, a daughter of a British earl and wife to the above Brut, whose extraordinary musical talent has propelled her to the very heights of fame and fortune. Crashed by Brut’s enormous ego at the early stages of their connubial extravaganza into losing her nerve and abandoning her musical career to serve as a mere secretary to a wine merchant, Penelope was rescued from the ashes of her former self by Michael Fridman, the Wandering Jew, and by Nina Bergman, the kind witch (who will enter the story at a later stage, I promise).

Michael Fridman, another Russian émigré, who has taken it into his head that he is Ahasfer, the Wandering Jew, and whose adventures while under the influence of this fantasy have provided material for a number of novels and plays, as well as a five-Oscar Hollywood blockbuster.

Lydia, wife to Michael Fridman, a woman who can make a man happy and does so.

Clara, Lydia’s daughter from a previous marriage, a Moscow-born and bred Oxford graduate who has fallen in love with England in general and one English trumpeter in particular to such a degree that she has made herself a member of parliament to be in and near the objects of her love.

CHAPTER 2

I T WAS DECEMBER THE 30TH 2009. Alexander Brut was standing at the crossroads between Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street and the Garden Ring in the very heart of Russia’s capital Moscow. All around him there was the bustle, the expectation of happy times of the last day before the New Year. Brut had arrived in Moscow in a foul mood, still tormented by his poorly-designed nasal passages. He had not arrived straight from London. He had arrived from the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Neither of these two localities would’ve been Brut’s first choice of the place to be in the festive season, but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. In Chechnya Brut had acted as a member of a group of observers sent by the European Union to oversee local government elections. The place was muddy, still ravaged by war, and full of devious people who never said what they really thought. Brut had been enraged by the inability of his fellow observers to see that. That bunch of liberally-minded Dutchmen, Germans and Britishers, blinded by the sight of a newly-built shopping center, just couldn’t help waxing poetical about the advance of democracy and triumph of market economy and such rubbish while being sold porkies all the time by the very people who funded terrorists with the proceeds from that very shopping center. Brut didn’t claim he understood all the niceties of local politics, but he knew in his gut that the people who run the place, for some reason known only to themselves, believed that war was much more to their financial advantage than any kind of peace.

But what had really upset Brut was the Gypsy lady. Filthy, smelling of bad wine and flushing a gold tooth at him, she importuned Brut just outside his hotel in Grozny, demanding that he submit to her fortune-telling services. Disregarding his objections, expressed in that mighty idiom especially designed by the Russians for such an occasion, she showered him with the usual clichés, one of which being that his life would be changed out of recognition by a meeting at a crossroads.

Brut could hardly suppress a sardonic smirk, standing as he was at a crossroads in central Moscow, so utterly alone in the midst of the excited pre-New Year crowd of shoppers and theatre goers. He could not imagine meeting anyone in that hostile city that had done him nothing but harm in his youth, let alone anyone who could change his life out of recognition. His twenty years in London had insulated him enough from the Gypsy charms of his former motherland. He would have a quiet dinner by himself at that Chinese restaurant across the square and then give a closer thought to the idea that had stirred in his mind of having a tryst with call girl.

Brut raised his eyes, focusing inadvertently on a huge poster decorating the front of the philharmonic concert hall next door. Why he looked that way was more than he could tell, but he knew without the shadow of a doubt why he couldn’t take his eyes off that poster. Mark Sirotsky, the star international violinist, beamed at him from the poster, backed up by a crowd of smiling members of the Moscow Radio and Television Symphony orchestra. Sirotsky was holding his violin, the very Stradivarius that he, Alexander Brut, had been instrumental in procuring for him in the distant past. The menu boasted such goodies as Felix Mendelsohn Violin Concerto and Scottish Symphony. The conductor was Bezukhov Bergman, a rather strange-sounding name to a Russian ear, but all the more intriguing.

The box-office lady found Brut’s request hilarious. A ticket for Sirotsky and Besukhov at this late juncture, just some twenty minutes before the curtain-up? You must be joking. It was sold out weeks ago. Here Brut found that some skills, acquired when a youthful music lover in Moscow, were still alive in his memory. He came out of the box office and stood outside, looking like a moneyed foreigner desiring to attend tonight’s performance. Soon enough he was approached by a tout, a sickly-looking youth looking suspiciously like the box-office lady, almost certainly her son. They did business.

Besukhov and Sirotsky strode out on the stage in a display of purpose and energy that made Brut think of a pair of itinerant magicians at a village fair or a Francis Drake bringing gifts from distant lands to his Faire Queen. These two merchants from another world displayed their wares with skill and brilliance, evoking a beauty that was not to be found in day-to-day existence, but resided dormant in peoples’ hearts as a distant memory of a lost paradise. The audience went ecstatic.

Brut went behind the scenes in search of the artists’ dressing room. He embraced Mark, still steaming from his exertions. Mark showed no surprise at Brut’s presence at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. For a man who travels from city to city, turning his soul inside out at every stop, all places become alike, all faces a vaguely familiar blur.

What was that cadenza you played? Brut asked. I never heard it before.

I know, Mark replied smugly. What did you make of it?

Oh, I liked it, Brut assured him. Modern man’s nostalgia for the Romantic age. Quite poignant.

It’s a present from Michael Fridman, Mark explained. He commissioned it from his step-father Mark Schtirlitz.

Jee, that must’ve cost him a pretty penny, Brut remarked, unable to resist the urge to trivialize generosity, especially when it came to Michael Fridman. Mark Schtirlitz doesn’t come cheap these days, I’m sure. But then, I suppose, what’s a few grand to a rich man?

Michael you mean? Mark asked, wiping his armpits with a moist cloth. Well, the thing is he’s not rich any more. In actual fact he’s as poor as a church mouse.

You’re talking rot, Mark, Brut corrected with a laugh. Michael is one of the richest men I know, and I do know a couple.

Not anymore, Mark insisted, still busy with his armpits. Didn’t you know? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t, it all being so hush-hush.

Know what for God’s sake?

Michael’s given all his money to an orphanage. He hasn’t got any left.

Brut felt like he’d been dealt a blow to the solar plexus.

All of it? He cried. Why all of it? Couldn’t he keep some for himself?

Well, you know how these things are-in for a penny, in for a pound. Rebuilding an orphanage is a costly business, especially as there wasn’t much to be rebuilt in the first place. I believe Michael still owes some builder a few thousand bucks.

But, but, but, Brut stuttered, unable to absorb the news promptly. How does he live now?

Oh, they are just fine. At least that’s what they claim. Michael makes some money by journalism and translation, and Lydia earns her bit. They are quite a pair of busy little bees actually. They are learning Aramaic because they want to read some old scrolls in the original. Michael plays his trumpet a lot. Bezukhov and I are having dinner with them at their place tonight—should be great fun. His cooking is as good as ever. You should come with us and see them; they’d be ever so pleased.

Brut didn’t feel equal to facing Michael.

Thanks, he mumbled. I am not sure I can, though. I have a thing or two to sort out tonight. Give me their address, and I’ll try to come.

Brut didn’t stay for the symphony. He crunch-crunched to his hotel down the snow-bound Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, feeling sandbagged.

What Michael had done felt like personal insult to him, and, being a reflective man, Brut was attempting to analyze his reaction. He had to admit that he had always felt competitive towards Michael Fridman. They both had come from the same nowhere, and they had taken the world by the horns. Michael had always been important to Brut as a yardstick of his own worth. And now Michael had gone and done something Brut knew in the deepest recesses of his soul he would never be able to do. What really bugged Brut was the ease with which Michael did these things. He found his thoughts running out of control, groping for an ulterior motive in Michael’s actions, like pride or vanity. But he knew it was in vain. At that point Brut stopped in the middle of the white desert and told himself that Michael Fridman’s staggering act of generosity was sterling gold. Yes, it was exactly what it said on the label, an act of generosity, and Brut knew it.

Isn’t it funny, he thought. When someone gets lucky and makes a fortune, we all feel like crying, Hey, what about me? But when someone gives away all his money like that we all cringe and try to hide from some imaginary accusing finger and some indignant voice crying, Hey, what about you?

Such was the power of his cultural heritage that, despite all his skepticism and all his unbelief, Brut had a vision of himself facing some kind of Final Judgment. In his thoughts he feebly defended himself, pointing out the fact that, while his cultural heritage had instilled in him the fear of moral judgment, it had done nothing to provide him with a workable moral code by which he could live up to that judgment. Michael Fridman manages perfectly well without your famous moral code, the indignant voice seemed to jeer through the noise of the pre-New Year Moscow snowstorm.

Oh, fuck it all! Brut cried. This is fucking Dostoyevsky! I hate Dostoyevsky. I am a fucking Englishman, fuck you, you stupid Russian motherfuckers!

He marched into his hotel and demanded from the frightened guy at the reception the latest issue of The Moscow Times, where on the last page the telephone numbers of choice Moscow prostitutes could be obtained.

CHAPTER 3

I N THE TAXI MARK AND Bezukhov sang through the Mendelsohn concerto together, pointing their fingers at each other in places where they thought improvements could be made.

I need a new bow, Mark admitted. That flying staccato nearly went off the mark.

Michael welcomed them wearing a cook’s apron, a smudge of flour on the tip of his nose. He had a bit of a tummy now, and his hair was thinning on top, but his eyes shone like those of an athlete in mid-season form. Lydia handed to Bezukhov a bottle of wine to open and pour. Mark gave Lydia a hug and a bag.

Some goodies from Harrods, he said. Caviar, foi grass and two Bollingers.

You shouldn’t have, you naughty boy, Lydia chided him. All this fattening stuff.

All you need to be a good host, Bezukhov laughed, is a happy home. You two guys make me feel nostalgic for another age.

Funny you should say that, Mark said. You know who came to see me after the concert tonight? Alexander Brut, no other. He said the cadenza sounded like the modern man’s nostalgia for the Romantic Age.

Ah, the Romantic age, that’s what I meant, Bezukhov agreed. The age of innocence, when God was kind and just, and man did great deeds and aspired to be a hero.

I did a great deed today, Michael announced. The supermarket downstairs sells beef at 400 rubles a kilo. Four hundred rubles, I ask you! It’s eight quid. Outrageous. Well, I found a little shop in a side street not far from here. The same beef at 150 rubles! I’m quite chuffed about it. I hate giving money to these bandits. Do they think I am Rockefeller? I mean if someone robbed me of the money with a knife at a crossroads, they’d go to prison for that, right?

He got quite excited by the injustice, his face turning red, his voice rising above a comfortable level and threatening to keep rising further.

Darling, perhaps you should see about your Boeuf Bourguingon, Lydia put in tactfully. And don’t forget my salad.

Michael obeyed, marching to the kitchen and still seething with indignation.

An open laptop on the desk attracted Bezukhov’s attention. The screen was dark, busy saving energy. Bezukhov lifted a finger over the keyboard.

May I? He enquired.

Oh, do, please, Lydia said. Tell me what you think.

Bezukhov tapped the space bar, the screen came alight, and this is what he read:

There are places were the flow of life is slowed down to near immobility, impervious to the ravages of motion and passion, where you can leave a thing and find it intact and unmoved after many years, places you can rely on. In the life of a wandering Jew such places are scarce. Either he carries all he has with him or, if he leaves a thing behind somewhere, he should fully expect to find it displaced, damaged or lost altogether when he comes back, years later, to reclaim it. To a wandering Jew life is no building society where he can make a deposit of his loves, hopes, disappointments and old photographs, and expect to return after many years and find accrued interest sufficient to ensure an untroubled old age. You will ask, dear reader, why does he wander? Why does he choose to shift from place to place, leaving nothing behind and taking nothing with him? Well, the story that you and I have at our disposal is that he has done something terrible, and is being punished for it. A good story though it is, it is complete bollocks of course. Simply some people are made that way, they just can’t help wandering, that’s all there is to it. And helping people like that to give up this wandering habit is something any right-thinking person should aspire to. One way to do this is to set up a little box deposit business. You don’t promise any interest, just safekeeping. You’ll be amazed and pleased to see them come back. It is worth the effort, I can assure you. You will not find a more interesting person than a wandering Jew. Provided you are partial to a good story, of course.

The man is running in circles, Bezukhoiv said after a thoughtful pause. He’s run out of ideas and he’s running in circles. What a shame.

I’m in two minds about it, Lydia confessed hastily. We’re truly happy together. Michael is at peace, you can see that. Apart from the price of beef, of course. But it seems as if he had nothing to say anymore. I just can’t believe a person’s mind must be in turmoil to produce anything. Can’t a happy man tell a good story? True, Michael is quite busy with the orphanage but, apart from that, nothing seems to be happening in his life to make him hungry for writing. What do you think, guys?

We mustn’t let it happen, Bezukhov agreed. Michael’s stories were the leitmotif of my youth. We must think of a plan or a ruse to jerk him out of his happy lethargy. Come on, Mark, make a mental effort.

Well, actually I appear to have a vague idea. Mark mused. When I told Brut tonight about Michael giving all his money to an orphanage, he behaved like a man who’s just had the shock of his life. I asked him to come here with us, but he balked and his manner became evasive. I suspect he takes it personally, like it was some kind of judgment on himself. Well, history provides ample samples of the peculiar chemistry between Alexander Brut and Michael Fridman. Every time the two came together there has been some kind of imbroglio, usually initiated by Brut and resolved by Michael, resulting in the very pages that have so delighted us readers through the years. If we could think of a way of bringing them together now, I am confident new fiction would ensue.

Let’s sleep on it, Bezukhov decided as Michael came in with a steaming casserole of the stew. We’ll foregather again in the morning to make concrete decisions.

Bezukhov and Mark bedded down on the sofa in the sitting room. Bezukhov, totally spent by the happy activities of the previous day, slept the sleep of the just, impervious to Mark’s artistic snoring.

The morning proved two things. Firstly that Mark was right about the Brut-Fridman chemistry, and secondly that an imbroglio, usually initiated by Brut, had the inevitability of a steamroller speeding out of control down a steep incline.

The doorbell went off at six o’clock in the morning. Michael stumbled to the door, rehearsing expressions of indignation. Alexander Brut stood without, looking like a man who’s just had the shock of his life. His hair stood on end and his eyes bulged. He could easily be mistaken for the famous theatre director Stanislavsky about to cry, I don’t believe it! Michael laughed.

Something truly awful has happened. I’m in terrible trouble. I need help, Brut breathed defensively.

Everybody woke up and assembled in the sitting room, sipping Michael’s delicious coffee.

I met this woman, Brut began.

There he goes again, Michael cried. You know there was a period when we didn’t see each other for some years, and you know what were Brut’s first words when we met at last? Old man, he said, I haven’t had a fuck in three days. Can you believe the guy? Your whole life, Sasha, is a succession of mishaps originating in a meeting with a woman. I have a strong suspicion this particular ‘woman’ was a prostitute.

What if she was, Brut cried hotly. I’m telling you, I’d had a jolting emotional experience. I needed a fuck to calm me down.

Well, I expect some experts would disagree with the proposed treatment, Michael quipped. But do go on, don’t mind me.