43: Despite my apprehensions . . .
43: Despite my apprehensions . . .
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy,” Chapter 2 concludes
Despite my apprehensions about Mr. Lodkochnikov’s temper, I felt comfortable in the Lodkochnikov household, and I would have wanted to return to it again and again even if Raskol hadn’t had a sister. As it happens, he did. Her name was Ariane. She lurked in the shadows like a dream. Her hair and eyes were dark, and the aura of sexual desire when she was in the room was so strong at times that it filled the air like scent and made my head reel. I’m not sure whether it came from her or me.
Mr. Lodkochnikov kept Ariane on a short tether. She was permitted to go to school only because Mrs. Lodkochnikov insisted that she go. But she was something of an outcast there, and one of the prime objects, perhaps the prime object, of the drooling, uncouth lust that high school boys have down so well. Though Mr. Lodkochnikov allowed her to go, he insisted that she come directly home each day immediately after school, and her mother had to report to him the time of each day’s return. Ariane knew what happened if her father was annoyed, so she was generally at home on time. Once in a while, a boy from school would walk her home, or follow her home. If either of the Ernies saw him, the fellow was made to listen to a disquisition on the respect that ought to be accorded Lodkochnikov women and generally didn’t show up again.
As I recall, on most of my visits Ariane would be prowling around the house in a slip, rubbing against door jambs or running her hands over her hips and purring. In hot weather, she wore tiny cotton underpants and a sleeveless undershirt. It was that outfit that she was wearing now, while she cleaned the spilled chowder from the floor.
Mrs. Lodkochnikov set the kettle in the middle of the table, and we served ourselves, using a saucepan as a ladle.
When Ariane finished cleaning the floor, she sat down beside me on the little bench that she and I shared whenever I stayed for dinner, wiggling into a spot that wasn’t really big enough for her, on the end of the bench, squeezed against Ernie’s packing case. Ernie wouldn’t move, out of sibling stubbornness, and I wouldn’t move because I wanted to feel the pressure of Ariane’s hip against mine during the meal.
I was so eager to announce the plans for our river trip that I spoke right up as soon as everyone had a full bowl.
“Raskol and I are going to travel the whole length of the Bolotomy, by boat,” I said.
Raskol’s father had been about to take a drink of beer from the large, heavy glass that he used. He stopped when I spoke and looked at me with surprise. Then he banged his glass on the table and leaped up from his chair. His eyes were wide, and he was breathing hard through flared nostrils. I thought he was going to knock me on the head and send me home. I cringed. He came around the table and lifted me out of my seat and crushed me against his chest.
“A journey!” he bellowed. “A voyage of discovery! Terrific! A great idea!” He carried me around to the other side of the table, where he lifted Raskol out of his seat. “By God, I didn’t think you had it in you!” He knocked our heads together playfully and dropped us onto the floor. “A journey is just what boys like you need.” He poked a stubby finger toward the Ernies. “You two should have done something like this. A river journey should be part of growing up! Think of Thoreau and his brother, whatever his name was, and what about Huck Finn and his old pal Jim, and I don’t know who else, river travelers all. Why, why,” he spluttered, and his eyes bulged, “growing up itself is like a journey. You understand what I mean?” His eyes bulged at me, and I nodded my head enthusiastically so that he would see that I had no intention of doing anything that he might not like.
“You understand?” he repeated.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, smiling like crazy and praying that he wouldn’t ask me to explain it.
He picked up his glass again and stomped around the room, gesticulating, flinging beer onto the wallpaper. “You start out,” he said, “as just a little trickle, and you go here and you go there, and you grow bigger and deeper, and you have to turn this way and that to get around rocks, and you have some grand times, and you have some awful times, and eventually—”
He swallowed hard, and his eyes misted over.
“—eventually, you come to the sea, and your journey is done, and you’re a river no more.”
The room was silent, except for Little Ernie, who snuffled and blew his nose into his napkin.
“Yes, sir, boys,” said Mr. Lodkochnikov at last, “a journey downriver is sort of, well, shit, it’s practically a universal metaphor for life.”
“Oh,” I began, “we’re not going to—”
“Yow!” screamed Ariane. She pushed herself back from the table with such force that she fell off the bench and onto the floor.
“What’s going on?” demanded her mother.
“One of those bastards kicked me!” cried Ariane, rubbing her shin and pointing across the table at Raskol and Little Ernie.
“Don’t you ever call your brothers bastards again,” bellowed Mr. Lodkochnikov, wearing a menacing look and reaching for his broom handle.
“I didn’t mean it, Daddy,” said Ariane, her eyes wide.
“All you kids are the fruit of my loins, and don’t you forget it,” he bellowed.
“Oh, yeah, we know that. Of course! Never any doubt about that,” and the like burst from each of the children, and it seemed prudent for me to join in, so I did.
Ariane squeezed herself back onto the bench, and she raised her leg over mine so that she could rub her bruise better. I let my hand fall onto her thigh by way of comforting her, and she rubbed her shoulder against mine.
“What were you saying, Peter?” asked Mr. Lodkochnikov.
“Hmmm?” I asked, with barely any notion now of anything in the room but the smooth inside of Ariane’s thigh, the flattened oval where our shoulders were pressed together, the smell of her hair, and the whimpering sound that came from somewhere deep in her throat.
“What were you saying about ‘We’re not going to—’?”
I looked at him with an empty smile. I had realized why Raskol had tried to kick me. Since his father had invested so much effort in elaborating the metaphor of a downriver journey, he hadn’t wanted me to tell Mr. Lodkochnikov that we were planning to go upriver, not downriver. I should have been able to think of something else to say, but I couldn’t concentrate very well, and so the only thing that occurred to me was: “We’re not going to take Ariane with us.”
For a very brief moment, Mr. Lodkochnikov looked flabbergasted. Then he said, “Damn right you’re not.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry, or anything,” I said, shifting away from Ariane and sitting up straight.
Mr. Lodkochnikov squinted his eyes and looked hard into mine for a few heartbeats. “We’ll get to work on a boat right away,” he said at last. “You came to the right man, boys. We Lodkochnikovs have been boatmen since time immemorial.”
[to be continued Tuesday, July 13, 2021]
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