No, Oleg never saw any bills. He didn’t know anything.
• • •
Oleg was surprised when the war really stopped. You get used to it.
You lived, first, in a time of peace. In the beginning you thought, Oh, this can’t possibly start. Then you thought: When it starts it will probably last a few more days, and then things will clear up, because everything felt like a bout of bad weather, and bad weather can’t last forever. Then there were all the negotiations, the peace talks. They were held often, organized by big, important international players, so he counted on them producing results, eventually. Yes.
But they didn’t.
Then, after a year, he started thinking the war would never end, because there was no way for it to stop. So many people died, so much territory was lost, you couldn’t stop now, you needed to win it all back for this to make sense. It’s like poker, when you lose big and you still have something to play with, because it is inconceivable, he thought later, how there were always more soldiers there to fight. The deeper people are in war, the more normal it becomes for them to take risks, everything becomes normal. Peace becomes increasingly unlikely and every agreement between the warring sides seems senseless. Wait a minute, after all those casualties we’re supposed to sign this? Such a despicable compromise. To let them have that city there, and the next one, and the big valley, and the mountain where a schoolmate of mine, whose funeral I attended, was killed, as was another coffee-shop buddy of mine, such a fun bastard to be around. So now we should just let them have it all because the political shitheads finally reached an agreement?
Hell no! Nobody should sign peace agreements like that, said everyone who was speaking out, as well as the media. Hell no! Anyone who signs this had better not come home.
It was inconceivable to think the war would ever come to an end.
Then the Americans managed to maneuver them into an agreement.
This miracle confounded Oleg.
He thought about it for a while.
He could consider himself lucky to get out of it all alive and without, like Vili, tormentors who think you owe them something. This way, with his unique business acumen and the connections he’d made, he had the know-how to start up a new business any time. He just needed to step out of the limelight, to slip into oblivion. He needed to try to reposition himself in a more appealing line of work. He remembered everyone he’d met, all he’d heard, how he’d talked about how to pull off various scams at dinners and revelries, and, all things considered, he’d accumulated good insight. He knew about more than just weapons and began to cultivate sidelines. Maybe the other things weren’t as lucrative, but they were not as vile. What mattered was who he knew.
Then for years he lurked at the perimeter of international smuggling, as a relatively small fish, working with shady governments, with counterfeit merchandise producers, with tobacco pouring in from legal factories as unmarked surplus, with everyone who had the merchandise but no receipt to show for it, or, for whatever reason, their accounts were blocked. He was guided by the following maxim in his work: cover your tracks, be agile, minimize risk. Most of the time he just connected people, without ever seeing the merchandise. Mostly he communicated over the computer, using encrypted mail from Vienna, Rome, or Berlin, from suppliers in short-term rentals.
The turbine business meant a return to work in the war-torn regions, and this made him edgy; he spent days mulling it over. Still, this was a big deal. This was not just an odd job, he could wrap up his career with this.
He’d been contacted by people working for the Colonel, the leader of a country which had imported technology in the old days. The two countries had been on good terms back then, allies in the international non-aligned movement. The Colonel’s country was a little peculiar. Oleg didn’t really understand their system, but the international world order didn’t like them. They were under an international embargo, accused of fostering terrorism, but, as Oleg saw it, the main thing was the Colonel hadn’t adjusted to the new post–Cold War circumstances. Perhaps the Colonel needed to bow his head a bit, but Oleg guessed the man bowed his head only to snort coke.
The Colonel’s country was rich in oil, but hadn’t been able to modernize its technology for decades due to the embargo, and its power plants still used turbines from the old days. They needed, as soon as possible, a turbine that had been made in N., they informed Oleg. They’d bought turbines from there while the countries were on friendly terms, and their entire system was not equipped to facilitate newer models. They needed one that was exactly the same as the old one they’d had.
They wrote this down for him and underlined it: the 83-N.
“All right, I’ll see what we can do, I’ll have a look. We can deliver it to the port there.” He was referring to a port in a neighboring country. He’d already arranged for the Colonel to purchase a powerful radar apparatus and it had come through there. They’d been pleased.
Straightaway, Oleg sat at his computer and started searching the Internet. But there was not a single word about the turbine factory.
“Wait, it seems the factory no longer exists.”
“We think so, too.”
He started laughing.
“That’s your part,” they said. “We buy it, you obtain it for us.”
“So, what? You’re thinking I should go over there and restart the entire factory for a single turbine?”
“A turbine is no small thing, especially one as unique as this. When we discovered that the factory no longer existed we adjusted the price accordingly.”
They told him what they were willing to pay. He was stunned.
“I’ll have to look into this some more, but I’m skeptical,” he said. He, himself, was not sure whether he was bluffing. Nothing about the proposition seemed doable. But on the other hand, if it were this would be the gig of his life. He could find a place to settle down and start gardening. Change. Maybe even start a family. He had already been haunted by such thoughts.
They conferred quietly among themselves in Arabic. Then they made some calls.
“Look,” said the main contact, “we’d buy a second one, we’ll need it. Same price. Now go out into the field and investigate the matter.”
He thought they must have been prepared for the two-turbine offer from the start.
So, two outdated turbines that are not made anywhere anymore, not even in little out-of-the-way N.
It’s incredible what’s sought after in the world.
Now he knew, having investigated the matter in the field, that this was technically doable. The factory was surprisingly well-preserved. They’d protected the machines. Sobotka knew the entire process and could be trusted. If they weren’t able to make some of the machines work, Sobotka said, they’d need parts from abroad or produce them themselves. Sobotka gave him detailed instructions, and Oleg made some inquiries. Doable. All in all, it might be even easier that he’d expected.
He just needed a small loan.
• • •
He reached the tennis court at the last minute and the game started. He was so relaxed he forgot he should be missing balls. He thought losing would come naturally but it didn’t, and by the second set he was so far ahead that it was going to be difficult for him to blow the match with grace. Then he’d have to win and Ajderovitsch would be in a foul mood and pack up his things and say, “Bye-bye.”
Once before, at the end of the war, Oleg had screwed up, right after he’d found a connection to bring in some scary rockets, and Prime Minister Izvolski spotted him.
He was asleep in a hotel room at the time after an unplanned night of revelry, and he got a call telling him Izvolski was inviting him for a tennis game, which he, of course, accepted, because being invited was, usually, an invitation to move up through the ranks. But he was hungover and decided to get more sleep first. He did not plan well, and when,
upon waking, he saw he might even be late, he decided not to go back to his apartment but to phone his girlfriend at the time and have her hop in a cab and bring his racket and clothes to the club, but she was furious because of his partying and they fought over the phone. By that time it was too late to go out and buy new gear. So he went to the club emptyhanded, furious, and somehow, last minute, he managed to scrounge a pair of sneakers (the rest was easier), and he showed up on the court in ridiculous getup, thirty inexcusable seconds late. He was supposed to be there early and wait. He was so pumped that he beat the prime minister 6–0, 6–0. He’d forgotten they were only to play two sets. When he saw Izvolski look at him while putting down his racket, muttering—only then did he realize the game was over. Four of Izvolski’s bodyguards watched Oleg closely, in disbelief, as though he were in such a state that they thought he might do something even more outlandish, like a bona fide assassination.
That was the end of his career in the system.
Now he was playing against a bank director, one from a small Austrian bank with which many things could be arranged, a bank that had developed major business deals on the post-socialist margins, probably because the Austrians did everything differently here than they did at home.
The cost for reopening the factory far outstripped Oleg’s resources; he needed the loan, people had already started working, and he was up 4–1.
Bouncing the ball on the court before his serve, he tried to concentrate on close misses, which can be tough to pull off if it’s not your lucky day.
He aimed for one a few feet outside the line, swung the racket, hit the ball, and—unbelievably—it ended up in play again, on the very line. Ajderovitsch couldn’t catch it, but he did stretch out to try and almost fell.
I hope he doesn’t throw out his back, Oleg thought. Aim for the bottom of the net next time, dumbass!
7
NIKOLA WATCHED THE people working at the factory, which was no longer blanketed in dust. He saw how Sobotka guided them from one machine to the next and ordered a detailed inspection before the machinery was tested, so decaying or worn or broken parts wouldn’t ruin the functioning parts when the machine started up. Everything needed to be carefully disassembled and cleaned or oiled, and everything that looked suspicious had to be thoroughly examined. Sobotka said that replacements might be found because spare-parts storage held generous supplies, and they had left it neat when they left. The only problem was that the spare parts had been kept in an outside storage shed, the roof of which had fallen in under the weight of snow and needed to be cleared, this being the job of what was called the roaming squad, while Sobotka’s crew was known as the engineering squad, though not all of them were engineers.
The roaming squad was under Erol’s leadership. They had already cleaned the main building and replaced all the broken glass and bad vents. The engineering squad repaired the electrical wiring and Branoš’s facilities squad managed to get the central heating system up and running, so the factory was no longer drafty and Nikola spent more time in the factory hall with the workers, instead of alone in his bare office, where he surfed the Internet using USB Internet sticks, though he was having problems with the mobile wireless connection, which was disrupted by every little puff of wind. The landline was due to be up soon. They just needed to find where the cable was disabled, or whatever the problem was.
At first, once Nikola was left at the factory without Oleg, he’d regularly reached for his Xanax; at times he felt unsafe among these people whose looks lacked the softness he was used to, and whose hands had done who-knows-what during the war. But he did not allow himself to show this. Later, he began feeling that his fears were actually due to his almost childish sense of abandonment, dropped here at the end of the world, where no one from his circle of friends would ever show up. Still, over the last few days, perhaps in part because Oleg managed to secure the loan—with great difficulty, as he said—Nikola felt he was on safer footing, and now that he dropped by the big hall and could understand what Sobotka was saying, they began coordinating the roaming and facilities squad together and he started to follow what they were doing.
“It will take a while, but I don’t see any major problems,” said Sobotka.
Nikola wrote up a brief daily report, which Oleg expected to receive every afternoon. Nikola knew this was a way to keep him from falling into a rut; he wasn’t sure if Oleg was actually reading them.
After he’d sent that day’s email, he phoned Branoš to come to his office. Nikola found he was the easiest person to talk to because he’d worked abroad.
When they were done talking business, Branoš said, “I don’t know how much work you have to do, but some of us are going out for a drink after we finish up. The owner of the bar nearby is buying . . . You’re free to say no.”
Nikola felt a weight settle over him at these words because he didn’t know how close he should be getting to the workers. What had Oleg meant when he said “a polite distance”?
Then he thought that, no matter what, drinking in company was healthier.
“All right, and tell me why do they call your team the Plum Boys.”
“About something I did in Afghanistan, heh, heh . . . jokers.”
“Jokers? They usually seem so serious to me,” said Nikola, almost using the word “grim.”
“Maybe when you are around, sir. Sorry, Nikola. You know, you’re the director.”
“I won’t dampen the mood at the bar?”
“If you ask me, I think they’ve accepted you now,” smiled Branoš. “But no one wants to seem like they’re sucking up.”
Oh, so they are afraid of something. Good, Nikola thought.
“That’s our rank and file for you,” Branoš said. “Know what I mean by rank and file?”
“Our crew? Regular folks?”
“Well, yes, but there’s more to it. Like, if it turns out someone’s been kissing up to the boss, that’s a disgrace, and they won’t let the person hear the end of it. They also don’t like to see anyone putting on airs; they’ll make a point of bringing him down a notch or two. They’re fools, you know.”
Nikola thought this last remark—that they are fools—could be a test. If I agree, he thought, I might come off like a snotty prick.
“It’s not like I have so much power. You’re doing all the work.”
Branoš looked at him and tilted his head. “Well, yes. But no one minds.”
“Fine, we’ll pick up where we left off at the bar. Where is it?”
“Down the road, the Blue Lagoon,” Branoš said and gave a jaunty salute on his way out.
Then Nikola called Oleg.
“How’s it going?”
“Branoš was just here, one of the Plum Boys.”
“The Plum Boys? What’s that?”
“I wondered, too. And it got me thinking.”
“About what?”
“Well, look. I wonder if I shouldn’t take them out for a drink. Plum brandy for the Plum Boys? Maybe they’d smile more. Can we swing that?”
“Ha ha, Niks, you’re perking up, I see.”
“No, it’s that—it would be a gesture of goodwill. In various ways.”
“A gesture of goodwill? Don’t lie to me, the fresh air must be doing you good.”
“Come here yourself if it’s so great.”
“Somebody has to travel around looking for markets,” Oleg said. “Of course we can swing it. Pocket change. We want the grinning working class on socialist realist posters.”
“Fine, cut the crap. I’m off for drinks.”
“You don’t say! That’s great.”
Nikola hung up and aped Oleg’s voice: “The Plum Boys? Who are they?” You’d know if you’d been reading your reports, he thought.
• • •
He lay naked under the sheets, happily exhausted in the clean nest of gentle
fragrance, listening to the voice coming from the TV in her living room, a report on a business conference where they’d discussed cutting-edge technologies and reached the conclusion that only new-generation companies would survive the global crisis.
“And a few old-generation ones!” he shouted, signaling to Lorena that he was up.
Soon she appeared at the door, a brunette with an athletic figure and a symmetrical face, leaning mischievously on the doorframe.
“Hello, renovator,” she said, looking at him with a mildly teasing smile. “They haven’t a clue that old factories in the godforsaken sticks are actually the latest thing, eh?”
“They’re clueless,” he said. “Cutting edge? Who knew . . .”
She sat on the bed and then slid down onto her side. She looked at him, lounging on her hip next to his feet, her mane of hair flowing over the sheets.
“Can you explain to me what it is that you do there exactly?”
He knew it. She didn’t like the way he’d taken off right when she thought they were getting serious. She wouldn’t have liked it even if he’d been part of the NASA space program.
“I mean, why?”
I can’t explain, he wanted to say. He didn’t want to tell her the whole scheme; it was less risky this way. But he had to say something.
“I’m starting production,” he said. “I’m employing people.”
“And you said you told them to, how did you call it?”
“Self-organize.”
“That sounds almost like self-management. Where did it come from?”
Now he ought to come clean and admit that he and Nikola didn’t have a clue about running such a business, that nobody knew how to make obsolete turbines. Then she’d ask him why on earth they were making them.
“They do as they please. They’re the most efficient that way.”
“Most efficient?”
Efficiency was one of her catchwords so this for her was borderline insulting. She was getting ahead as a manager at a big pharmaceutical company, and they spent a lot of time on efficiency.
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