Fifteen Minutes

What is this?  I don’t know.
  February 21, 2005

Bach on the record player; wine in the glasses; around the dinner table, the guests: a writer, a copywriter, an underwriter, an undertaker, an actor, an actress (no relation), a graduate student—and Ivan Pavlovich, accountant, with Anna Andreyevna his wife seated to his right and chatting up the hostess.  A charming evening seasoned with pleasant conversation—a sort of a masterpiece of a sort of an art.  Everybody has had a little bit to drink: cheeks are flushed and eyes sparkle with the happy warmth that only alcohol in the right amounts can produce.  The guests are relaxed and friendly.

“You wouldn’t believe how often this happens to me,” says the writer.  He is telling a story to which the rest are listening with amusement, although most of them really do not believe it.  “Just this past week, another guy comes up to me and claims I based a character on him.  ‘My friends love your book,’ he says, ‘but it makes me out to be a total jerk!  Now everybody makes fun of me.  I should kick your ass for that.’  His exact words!”  The writer lets out a chuckle—his voice is a rich chocolaty baritone—and looks around the table for approval.  He finds it, beams and continues: “I don’t even know the schmuck.  Some random guy off the street.  Can you believe it?”

The guests laugh politely and nod.  Can you believe it, indeed?  How obtuse.  Slouching in his chair, Ivan Pavlovich laughs and nods along with everyone, although he has stopped paying attention to the conversation.  He plays with his fork, sniffles, glances at his wife, then at his watch.  He tries to figure out how long it should be before they leave.  Another half an hour, perhaps.  He rubs his nose pensively and decides to go for a piece of the cake.  The writer meanwhile raises his finger and proclaims: “Characters aren’t real.  The easiest thing to do is to create a character out of nothing.  Poof!” he demonstrates with his hands, “and a hero is born.  But they all insist that it’s their wonderful personages I plunder.  People are vain, I can tell you that much.”  He shakes his head and sips from his glass.

“Don’t you  think it’s easier to look at real people around you than try to invent somebody completely new?” asks the actress.  Unlike Ivan Pavlovich, she has been listening keenly.

“Sure,” the writer agrees.  “But the point is, I never use just one person.  My characters are mixes, never exact replicas of actual people.”

“Too bad,” says the actress.  “It’s fun, trying to get somebody just right.  Take Misha, for example.  He’s a genius at that.  He can nail anybody—I mean anybody—after observing them for just fifteen minutes.”

The actor smiles at the compliment and looks away, at some point beyond the guests’ faces.  His patrician features are calm; he looks almost bored.  Fame surrounds him like an invisible envelope and lends gravity to his already imposing upright figure.

“Yours is a different art,” says the writer with a shrug.  “Imitation and fiction intersect somewhere, I suppose.  But they’re not the same.”

“It has nothing to do with the art,” the actor says suddenly.  These are the first words he has spoken in a while, so everybody listens.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s just my talent,” the actor explains.  “I don’t choose to be a good impersonator because acting requires it; I act because I am a good impersonator.”

“Excuse me,” says Ivan Pavlovich, fidgeting.  “But how well can you impersonate somebody after knowing them for only fifteen minutes?”

“Well enough,” the actor assures.

“You must be joking.”

“He’s very good,” says the actress.

“What if the person sits still and doesn’t do anything?”

“Then I don’t do anything—their way.  There are many different ways of sitting still.”

The graduate student smiles nervously and suggests: “What if it’s another actor trying to impersonate you impersonating him?”  The actor grunts and says nothing.

“Anybody want more tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“How about being dead?” asks the undertaker.  “You can’t tell me there’s more than one way to play dead.  Anybody should be able to do that.”

“There are little things peculiar to the dead that are hard to capture,” says the actor.  “The way their eyes don’t move or blink, or the way they crumple to the ground with no regard for pain.  Your chest can’t swell; your fingers can’t twitch.  It’s not as simple as it seems.”

“Very interesting,” Ivan Pavlovich chimes in again, “very interesting.  So how long do you need to observe someone who’s dead before you figure them out?”  The actor arches his eyebrows and does not respond; eventually Ivan Pavlovich smiles, embarrassed, and looks away.

“My dear,” Anna Andreyevna chatters to his right, “I simply love this china set.  Where again did you—?”

“Anechka!” the actor suddenly calls to her.  Everybody stops and looks at him; Anna Andreyevna frowns in puzzlement.  His voice sounds different, nasal and whiny; his figure has lost its stiffness, dissolving into a flaccid slouch.  He is rubbing his nose in distress and his eyes stay resolutely on the white tablecloth, avoiding contact with anyone.  “My socks, Anechka,” he whines once more.  “Why haven’t you washed my socks?  How will go to work without clean socks, dear?”

A look of recognition breaks on Anna Andreyevna’s face.  She puts her hand to her mouth and giggles.  “Heh,” says the writer.  “That’s pretty good.”

“It is; it is,” the actor agrees nasally.  “Isn’t it?”  He rubs his hands together and winks at Ivan Pavlovich.  The people around the table are laughing and nodding.  Not bad.

Ivan Pavlovich, beet-red, surveys the other guests with dismay.  His eyes return to the actor and he blanches: his own face is staring gleefully back at him.  Holding an ugly yet familiar smile, the actor sniffles; this sends the actress into spasms of laughter.  She sounds loud and vulgar but her smile is bright and full of excellent teeth.

* * *

On the way home, Ivan Pavlovich sulks.  Anna Andreyevna tries in vain to engage him in a conversation about the guests’ relative merits; it is only when she mentions the actor’s name that Ivan Pavlovich perks up and listens with barely suppressed anger.

“Such a lovely fellow,” Anna Andreyevna says.  “So talented.”

“I don’t understand what you see in him,” he huffs.  “He’s a cheap clown, if you ask me.”

“Oh, Vanya!”  Anna Andreyevna stares at her husband in astonishment.  “You’re not still mad at him for that parody bit he did, are you?  It was quite good.  I don’t know how he knew about the socks, but it was spot-on.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.”

“So I’m laughable,” Ivan Pavlovich says with a scowl.  His wife sighs.

“He really must have gotten under your skin for you to get so mad.”

“I don’t want to talk about this any more,” he declares and maintains, for the rest of the trip, the proud, accusing silence of the injured.

Later that night, when his wife is fast asleep, he is standing in front of the bathroom mirror whispering to himself without even noticing.  He probes his face with his fingers and tries to make grimaces to match the various moods to which he fancies himself prone.

“No, no, no,” he mutters, “it’s me who sees right through you; yes, right through.  Don’t think you fooled me even for a minute.  There’s more to someone than verbal tics.  What the hell do you know, anyway?”

A horrible image suddenly occurs to him: somewhere, miles away, the actor standing in his bathroom in the same posture and poking his face farcically, and whispering lines into the mirror that match Ivan Pavlovich’s lines word for word.  He is aping Ivan Pavlovich’s faces and chuckling madly.

Ivan Pavlovich shakes his head, curses, and decides it is time to go to bed.  He retires to the bedroom and tosses and turns for a long time, unable to sleep.

< | Stories Archive | >