Who Is Martha? by Marjana Gaponenko

paperwork. What he expected from the Academy was for them to call the embassy and speak to the director of the visa department and persuade them that he was a special case. He entreated them to do so. If informed that no exceptions could be made, they were immediately to go on the attack and make use of his membership in the Academy of Sciences and his doctorate and honorary degrees.
    Levadski received his visa within two weeks. When he turned the key in the lock, a thin leather suitcase between his legs, it was as if the rumbling in his stomach was calling out to the silence in his apartment. “I am not coming back,” he said to the oval porcelain plaque with the number 107 on his door. With a bad conscience he got into the elevator. He was leaving his home like a wife he never had. He turned his back on his apartment, his apartment that welcomed him on a daily basis, warmed him, embraced him. True, he’d had to cook himself, but the apartment was there for him and surrounded him day and night, in silent selfless love. My God, Levadski thought, what has become of me? A traitor! An egotist! By the time he stepped out of the elevator Levadski couldn’t care less about his egotism.
    In the taxi, he inspected the visa in his passport with a magnifying glass. It loomed even larger in size than the one he had been given in 2002. Security precautions, thought Levadski, are getting tighter.
    “Traffic jam,” said the taxi driver. Levadski was happy that, as was his habit, he had set off far too early. He was happy about his hat and his walking stick, leaning against his thin leg like a gaunt grayhound. In order not to look out the taxi window, and to avoid becoming unnecessarily melancholy, Levadski opened his wallet. A beautiful credit card beamed at him like an oriental beauty through the slit of her veil. What a kerfuffle over such a small item! Levadski thought. Luckily, it had been sorted quickly. Levadski had only applied for the credit card the previous week. He received it shortly after the courier had arrived with his passport and visa. Let them say what they like about bureaucracy!
    “We are on the move,” the taxi driver announced ceremoniously. “An accident with a few fatalities.”
    “Wonderful,” Levadski said and started counting the knuckles on his hand with the handle of the drinking stick; he counted them clockwise and counter-clockwise. He continued to count them until they passed the spot of the accident.
    At the airport the crowd took no notice of Levadski’s smart outward appearance or his considerable age. For the last time, he thought, and dived into the swathes of people who smelled of sweat, perfume and onions. Half an hour later, Levadski was washed up on the banks of passport and customs control. His drinking stick got through the checkpoint without causing a stir. Levadski followed suit. My God, he thought, sitting on one of the hard metal benches in front of the departure gate, One way, and no coming back! To calm himself he unscrewed his drinking stick, threw his head back and drank the contents of the glass tube: Cognac. Make: 3 Star Odessa Cognac. For the last time, Levadski thought, a native comestible.
    “What’s that?” a child who’d appeared out of nowhere asked.
    “A drinking stick, my dear boy,” Levadski replied.
    “I am not a boy,” the child growled. “Where did you get the stick?”
    “In a shop at 5 Victory Avenue. Do you like it?”
    “No. But my father does,” said the child and pointed at one of the customs officers standing with his legs spread apart, who, so it seemed to Levadski, was winking at him in a friendly manner with the muzzle of his gun.

VIII
    ON N OVEMBER 6, 2010, L EVADSKI LANDED IN V IENNA . It was a Saturday and shortly after four. “Hotel Imperial please,” he said in a cracked voice to the broad, cobra-like back of the taxi driver.
    “Oh, Imperial,” said the taxi driver, his leather jacket squeaking. “You know it’s the best hotel in