Make Russia Great Again: A Novel Read online

  A big finish. A real roof-bringer-downer. But at the moment, my sole thought was: Katie. Find Katie. This Putin invite required urgent, massive, full-on centrifuging.

  I reached her on her cell. We had to scream, the cheering was so loud. Thousands of energized Republicans, stamping their feet in unison. (Actually, a bit scary.)

  “HERB? WHAT THE FUCK?”

  “I DIDN’T KNOW!”

  “JESUS. OKAY, I’M ON IT!”

  With my Secret Service guys leading the way, I made for the spin room. The message queue on my cell phone was an endless scroll of “WTF?”s.

  A huge TV monitor displayed: TRUMP: MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN? MSNBC assholes. Another monitor showed Secretary Mike Pompeo, sitting next to Mrs. Pompeo, with a frozen smile. He looked like the progeny of Tony Soprano and Humpty-Dumpty.

  My phalanx of Secret Service guys opened a path through a maze of microphones and cameras and shouts of “Herb! Over here! Mr. Nutterman! What about the Putin invite?”

  We pushed on, boats against the tide. Another giant monitor showed Mr. Colonnity and Mr. Fartmartin. They looked as though they’d eaten something that now wanted to come up. But they were doing their best. The caption said: NO, CORKY, BIGGER. WAY BIGGER THAN NIXON GOES TO CHINA. WAY…

  I reached the spin room and spotted Katie. She was dressed to kill in a figure-clinging, slinky outfit of sparkling red, white, and blue sequins. A bit drag-queeny, but killer.

  “Herb. Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “I know,” I said. “But we have to run with it.”

  “Does Putin know? Please don’t tell me they’re pulling him out of bed. Why does he do this? I love him, but sometimes, Herb, I want to kill him.”

  Katie’s magnetos were firing, the turbines starting to spin. A distant look came into her eyes. She looked like a droid, booting up. She went into rehearsal mode, speaking to herself.

  “It’s historic. Huge. More than huge. It’s very, very, very… big. How many presidents would have the confidence… to… do… this? Answer? None… This makes Nixon in China look like going out to get milk at the 7-Eleven. What do I think? I’ll tell you what I think. I think we’re in the middle of a very major historical moment, is what I think. Everyone here tonight in this… spectacular Spectrum Center… in Charlotte… has to be thinking, Wow, guess I’m part of history now. History is taking place. Took place. Is still taking place. How often does that happen? Answer: not every day. Or even every other day. This is a major historical… thing. Donald Trump just won the election… The way I see it, this election is over. And out. If I were Loser One and Loser Too I’d seriously be considering killing myself right about now.”

  Brava. I wanted to stay and watch the actual performance, but more important was finding out what was happening at the Kremlin. Had Mr. Trump run this by Mr. Putin? What if Putin had learned about Placid Reflux and wasn’t in any mood to be mollified by a state visit? (My understanding is that Slavs can be very sullen and pouty.) A terrible vision came to me, of Putin, stripped to the waist, his firm chest muscles glistening with sweat from chasing wild boar, rifle in one hand, the other hand raised, flipping Mr. Trump the bird. Not a good optic.

  I got Pompeo on the phone. He growled at me and launched into a This is no way to run foreign policy lecture. I told him to shut the fuck up and find out what the deal was at the Kremlin and call me back. He hung up in a huff.

  “Herb!”

  I turned. Squiggly. Senator Biskitt.

  He put his sweaty little face unpleasantly close to my ear. He smelled of hair tonic and bourbon. He moistly whispered, “You might have given me some warning about this. Holy kamoly. It’s one thing to deny that he messed with our election. But… this? Lordy. My people really don’t give a hoot, either way, really. But some of them are gonna be asking why we have to put him up at the damn White House. Heck, reason we got all these military bases in South Carolina here is because of Russia. By the way, someone oughta point out to him Charlotte is in North Carolina.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for this.

  “Well, Senator,” I said, “maybe if you’d gotten the Glebnikov Act repealed, as you promised, the president wouldn’t have had to resort to extreme measures to make Putin happy.”

  His little face fell.

  “Now hold on. Just hold on. I worked my dang butt off, wrangling votes for that. Are you telling me the president blames me for not convincing the US Congress that the end of the world is at hand on account of we don’t have enough of some metal no one’s ever heard of?”

  “You can make your”—I almost said “pathetic”—“excuses to him in person, Senator. Meanwhile, the train of history is leaving the station.”

  I don’t know where that came from, but it had a stately ring.

  I left Squiggly perspiring and probably in need of more bourbon as the microphones and TV cameras closed around him like a swarm of locusts. There was something biblical about it.

  Huge roar. I looked up at the stage. President Trump and Vice President Pants were standing with their families. A Niagara of red, white, and blue balloons cascaded from the rafters. The speakers boomed out Beyoncé: “Proud to be an Ameri-caaaaaan, where at least I know I’m freeeee…”

  Time seemed to stop. As Katie had said, history was happening. And I was in it. Whatever was going on at the Kremlin, I stopped caring. I stood there, taking it all in, proud—yes—to be an Ameri-caaaaaan.

  My transcendent moment of schmaltz fizzled as I resumed thinking about what might be going on at the Kremlin. I felt light-headed.

  My phone vibrated. Pompeo.

  “It’s a go,” he said. “Next time, fucking warn me.”

  I exhaled. I felt my heartbeat resume normal sinus rhythm.

  * * *

  The Kremlin issued a statement the next morning: President Putin “graciously” accepted President Trump’s invitation “in a spirit of mutual cordiality and respect.”

  Comrade Zitkin, meanwhile, denounced the invitation as an act of “heinous interference” in the upcoming Russian election.

  It seems we’d come full circle: everyone was interfering in everyone else’s election. A brave new era in democracy.

  * * *

  I’d told Judd under no circumstances to bring me further transcripts of phone intercepts. I felt dirtier and dirtier with each one I read. It was like going to a peep show. (Not that I have even been to a peep show.)

  But by this point I did want to keep up with Anatoli. It’s hard to explain, but somewhere along the line I’d conceived a feeling of—call it—friendship for him. I know it may sound preposterous. Still.

  So when Judd alerted me to a transcript of a TV interview Zitkin had done—that I did want to read. Anatoli hadn’t gotten much coverage in Russian media since he won that first election; the Kremlin had seen to that. This interview was on some Moscow cable channel show that aired at the non–prime time of 3 a.m. The Kremlin censors must have been asleep.

  HOST LEV SCHMETNIKOV: Welcome to this week’s episode of Bez Raznitsy. [“Whatever”] I am of course your host, Lev Schmetnikov, and tonight my guest is Anatoli Zitkin, chairman of the Communist Party. Welcome, Comrade Zitkin.

  ANATOLI ZITKIN: Thank you, Comrade Schmetnikov. I compliment you for having the bravery to have me on your show. The Kremlin has effectively banned me from appearing on our news outlets. Since this is a live broadcast, I hope that you have barred the doors, in case the organs of state security wake up and come to break them down.

  L. S.: That’s funny. May I call you Comrade?

  A. Z.: If you like. To be honest, I find it condescending to be called Comrade by non-Communists. But if you are feeling Marxist-Leninist inclinations, then by all means call me by this fraternal appellation.

  L. S.: Well, shall we get right to it?

  A. Z.: All right. Unless you prefer to spend our hour together talking about the weather.

  L. S.: Ha! That’s good! Okay, so, how do you explain that you got more votes than Putin in
the last round? All the polls had you sixty points or more behind.

  A. Z.: Thank you for this question. There are two explanations possible. The first is that it was a miracle sent by God. I am an atheist, but should this turn out to be the case, I will take up religion, opiate of the masses or not. The second possibility is that it was some nondivine form of intervention. A computer hacking. By who? No one seems to know. President Putin has exculpated his friend President Trump. Anyway, why would America want to make Russia Red again? Meanwhile, Putin seems eager to blame Ukraine. Perhaps for reasons that will become clear in the days ahead.

  L. S.: How do you mean?”

  A. Z.: Well, it’s a nice pretext to invade the rest of Ukraine, isn’t it? Did I say “invade”? Sorry. I meant “liberate.”

  L. S.: You’re going to get us both in trouble.

  A. Z.: Let’s hope President Putin is asleep. Though we are always being told by his press secretary how hard he works. But if he is watching, then I wouldn’t, if I were you, give any speeches from the lobnoye mesto in Red Square.

  L. S.: You’ve run for president now, what, three times? Why do you keep running?

  A. Z.: To annoy President Putin. And as you saw from my speech in Red Square, it seems to be working.

  L. S.: And if you win the runoff election? What will be your first order of business?

  A. Z.: To restore Russia’s wealth to its proper owners. The proletariat.

  L. S.: Ah, yes. We haven’t seen much of them lately, have we? Where is their wealth currently?

  A. Z.: In Swiss bank accounts. Cayman Islands bank accounts. Cypriot bank accounts. London real estate. The Trump Tower in New York.

  L. S.: Well, good luck with that. And Putin? Will you arrest him and put him on trial?

  A. Z.: What, “Lock him up”? No, that’s America, not here. I will thank him for his service and wish him a good retirement. He’ll be eligible for a pension of thirty thousand rubles a month. [five hundred US dollars]

  L. S.: Let’s hope the president is sleeping. [laughter] So what do you make of this invitation to Washington?

  A. Z.: Well, one good turn deserves another. Putin got Trump elected. It’s only right that Trump should return the favor. Russians seem to be very impressed that Vladimir Vladimirovich has been invited to Washington. He has “hit the big time.” It’s nice to watch this romance between them. If I didn’t know that Putin is so butch, I might begin to wonder, you know.

  [INTERVIEW ENDS HERE—BROADCAST INTERRUPTED]

  I. As Mr. Trump exclusively referred to the Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees.

  II. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but Mr. Trump preferred this canine variation.

  33

  Mr. Trump was riding high, delighting in the outrage the Putin invite had wrought among the coastal, wine-sipping, bed-wetting elites, now huffing and puffing that it just proved Putin “had something” on Mr. Trump.

  What other possible explanation could there be, they whined and mewled on MSNBC and CNN, for inviting a journalist- and dissident-murdering dictator to the White House? Trump must be impeached again! Katie had a ready-to-go sound bite if it came to that. To this gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, Mr. Trump serenely tweeted: “YADDA YADDA YADDA! Socialist Dems and Enemies of the Peeple can’t stand that I am creating a New World Order and making the WORLD GREAT AGAIN! Suck it up, Bitches! George Soros will soon be rotting in hell with John McCain!”

  I know, but he just couldn’t help himself.

  In his defense, he really did believe he was making the world a better place. I’m no Henry Kissinger, but the world is one complicated enchilada. Meanwhile, I’ll cop to some schadenfreude: it was satisfying to watch the mainstream liberal establishment tie itself in knots.

  Alas, our elation was short-lived. Leave it to Enemy of the People Number One—I refer of course to the New York Times—to declare “Aha!” when the videos of Mr. Trump and the Miss Universe contestants stopped popping up on Facebook.

  Pleased as I was by the cessation of the pageant of carnality, the optics were far from ideal. Oleg was playing a clever game. By stopping the videos, he made it look like Putin, having been bought off with a White House invite, had stopped the peep show. Anyone with a pencil could connect those dots: Trump invites Putin to White House. Putin stops posting Trump porn. Again the air was rent with howls of “Quid pro quo!” To this day, I shudder when I hear that phrase.

  “This looks terrible,” the president said. “You’ve gotta get Oleg to keep posting the videos.”

  No one ever said working for Mr. Trump was a walk in the park.

  “Sir,” I said wearily, “may I point out that Oleg is convinced that we tried to assassinate him? And thinks I connived in the scheme. He’s hardly inclined to do us a solid. Can’t you take this up with Mr. Putin? If he’s running the show, as you say he is, he must have the original of what’s on the thumb drive.”

  But Mr. Trump was strangely reticent.

  “No, no, no. Uh-uh. I don’t want to bug him about something like this. It’d just give him something else to hold over me.”

  Else? Oy.

  The president continued: “I not gonna have him gloating. Look, just tell Oleg we’ll get the fucking Globnikoff Act repealed in the second term. Tell him if he doesn’t start posting the movies—now—there’s not gonna be a second term. Because everyone will say Putin blackmailed me into inviting him to the White House. Tell him I’ll invite him to the fucking White House. Just get it done, Herb. This is very important.”

  Oleg was no longer taking my phone calls, so I had to visit Paul in jail again. I told him to tell Oleg a) we’re not the ones trying to kill you. And b) you need to call me, unless you want to spend the rest of your life vacationing in non-Interpol countries like North Korea and Kiribati.

  Paul reported that Oleg would “think about it.” Great. It was like dealing with a sullen teenager. Take all the time in the world, Oleg. It’s not like there’s any hurry. It’s only a presidential election.

  Meanwhile the president was calling me every ten minutes, demanding, “So?”

  I pointed out that Mr. Trump himself had a copy of the thumb drive with the eighteen videos. Why not just post them on Facebook ourselves?

  Mr. Trump adamantly shook his head.

  “No! Oleg needs to post them. It’s gotta look authentic.”

  Authentic? What, for the sake of cinema verité? I sensed there was some “undistributed middle” here. Which is to say—something missing.

  “Sir,” I said, “not to be obtuse, but I’m not following you. Why does it matter who posts the videos?”

  He said, “How’s it gonna look if some four-hundred-pound fat kid in his bedroom figures out the movies are being posted from the fucking White House? You’re not thinking at all clearly, Herb. This is very worrying to me.”

  He hunched his great shoulders together—Mr. Trump’s way of squirming.

  “Herb, what’s on the thumb drive is very personal.”

  I certainly didn’t know how to process that a) he wants the videos posted so a billion people can continue to watch him “interact” with the beauty contestants. But b) he doesn’t want to hand over the thumb drive to our IT people. Because what’s on it is “personal”?

  “Very well, sir,” I said. “But in that case, we’re just going to have to hope Oleg stops sulking and plays ball. I don’t see any other option.”

  “Lemme think about it.”

  Then it struck me: Was there something else on the thumb drive? I rebuked myself: Schmuck, why didn’t you view the goddamn thing? But then I thought: Um, nah. There’s a saying: “No man is a hero to his valet.” Some things Herb Nutterman would rather not see. I don’t consider myself a valet, but I preferred that Mr. Trump should remain my hero.

  Meanwhile there was plenty going on to keep us all busy. Let the liberal mainstream media obsess about the videos. Most Americans weren’t paying much attention. Sensible folks that they are
, they were going about their lives, concentrating on more pressing matters, like wall-hopping Mexicans, affordable opioids, to vape or not to vape.

  * * *

  Mr. Trump was highly focused on the Putin visit. There were many meetings. One in particular sticks in the memory.

  Present were myself, the president, Judd, Katie, former press secretary Beulah Puckle-Peters, now working with Pastor Norma in charge of evangelical outreach; and State Department chief of protocol, Lumpton Outersnatch IV.

  Lumpton looked like his name: eastern shore, Ivy League, lean as a whippet, beautifully dressed, shoes you could see your reflection in, bow tie, horn-rimmed glasses, inbreeding going back to the Jamestown colony, incredibly polite—but then he was head of protocol. (You don’t put rude people in charge of protocol.) Lumpton stood when secretaries came into the room with the coffee. He was very smart. He spoke Latin. I mean, he could carry on a conversation in Latin. I wondered: With who? How many people speak Latin? Aside from “quid pro quo”? Still—impressive.

  When Mr. Trump was introduced to Lumpton, he scrunched his face and said, “Who the fuck named you that? I don’t have time for that name. I’ll call you”—he gave Lumpton a quick up and down—“Twiggy.” I doubt Lumpton was thrilled to be named after an anorexic beauty icon of the 1960s, but being Mr. Protocol, he couldn’t very well tell the president to go fuck himself.

  As we filed in, Mr. Trump was finishing his midafternoon snack of two McDonald’s Double Bacon Smokehouse burgers and a sixty-four-ounce Diet Coke. He crumpled the wrappers into a ball and tossed it at the wastebasket. It missed, but he said, “Swish!” Mr. Trump once told me it was important to lie about the small things as well as the big things. “You gotta stay in tune, Herb.”

  “Michael Jordan told me I could’ve been a pro basketball player.”