For vodka I have only respect. Here is how I acquired it. Two summers ago I went to a party and brought with me a bottle of Stolichnaya. Good stuff, I was told. Nudged along by a spirited young lady, whose boyfriend’s party this was, I drank a good part of that bottle. She drank the rest. She kept telling me all the while, “Hey, you are lagging behind!” As we went along, she looked more and more attractive to me. When we polished off the old bottle, we started dancing. My recollection of the remainder of the party is rather dim, but I know that we created a bit of a scandal on the dancing floor. No matter how hard I tried, I could not remember how far we went. This I consider a real loss. That is another story, though. When I realized that things were becoming difficult to handle, I decided to leave. And so I did. I have no idea how I got home, but I remember stumbling and swaying, hitting things or holding onto them, and rolling on the pavement a couple of times. Judging by the shape of my clothes the next day, the journey home was quite an adventure. It must have been around four o’clock in the morning when I reached my apartment building. My recollection of the events surrounding my entry into the building is extremely poor, to put it mildly. Judging by what happened to my clothes, again, it appears that I had a nap in the elevator before I finally got to my floor. At any rate, when I reached my doorstep, I started fumbling for the keys. At that point I established two things, and in that order: first, I had no keys in my pockets; and second, I had no pockets either. I was standing stark naked in front of my door and patting my flanks. Realizing that something was amiss, I returned to the elevator and went from floor to floor in search of my clothes. At long last I found them outside the front door of the apartment building, neatly folded and stacked on top of each other. Upon some effort at what could pass as a reconstruction, I guess that I had mistaken the front door for my bedroom door, which would explain the nap in the elevator. The elevator floor is carpeted, and it is quite possible that my nap was rather long. Luckily for me, no-one was around this early in the morning, and, to the best of my knowledge, my first real experience with vodka thus passed unnoticed. But my respect for this mighty spirit will stay with me forever.

To Benedict Erofeev

Addendum I (March 25, 1994)

She was very blond and pale, from Norway. I think she was studying biochemistry at Harvard. Try as I may, I cannot remember her name. It was very short, very Scandinavian. She would rarely say a word, but she would often flash knowing little smiles while other people would be talking. There was something enigmatic and vaguely feminine about her, but she was hardly a looker. Thus it was especially surprising to become her toy for the evening. Later on I would bump into her from time to time in and around Harvard Square in Cambridge, but she would always behave as though she did not know me, or as though she wished to avoid any contact with me. That would puzzle me over and over again. What did I do that night? Why did I do it? How did I do it?

Addendum II (April 16, 1994)

While Lauren, Dorian, and I were strolling along the crowded Queensway earlier today it flashed through my mind that her name was—Guri. Guri!