Verbatim, nicht verboten

Before he can stop me, before I can stop me, I grab his hand. I hold up my left hand, thumb hidden, four fingers extended, just like in Orwell’s book. “How many fingers am I holding up, Vinston?”

He doesn’t understand me. Doesn’t understand my English. Doesn’t understand who is Vinston. I repeat in Russian. “Four,” he says finally, his whole little sardine body trembling.

“And if the Republican Party says that it is not four but five–then how many?”

“Four.”

I begin twisting his fingers. He cries out in pain. I am bearing down on him, hating this, hating this. “Pyat’!” he cries in Russian. “Five!”

Trying to keep back the welling tears in my own eyes: “No, Vinston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?”

He breaks free and runs down the vast green lawn segregating our bungalows. “Baaaaaa-buuuuuu-shkaaaa!“

— Gary Shteyngart, Little Failure (2014)

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