‘Ergh, I’m sorry.’ I rapidly walk away, feeling his exasperated glance on my back.
Nervously, I head back to the kitchen trying to summon a professional smile for a couple of nerdy-looking interns passing by … too nerdy … like maniacs might look … Am I the only woman behind the closed mahogany doors?
Distressed, I quickly walk into the lavender-and-citrus-scented five-star ladies’ room, which is double the size of Richard’s apartment. I take a seat on a classic soft beige sofa with carved decoration more suitable for Louis XIV’s chateau, and nervously try to distract myself with Facebook posts.
A quarter of an hour later the door opens, and a tanned, foxy, full-lipped blonde on ultra-high stilettos shuffles her skinny legs across the slippery marble floor. She wears a red miniskirt and a white shirt unbuttoned inappropriately low, providing a generous view of her Silicon Valley.
‘Hi, I’m Katya.’ I quickly get up and approach her, offering a handshake.
‘Olga,’ she breathes in a low, husky voice, barely touching my fingers. ‘I had such a long journey. It’s just unbelievable. I spent forty minutes on that crap …’ She pulls mouthwash out of her bag and vigorously rinses her teeth, using up the remains of the bottle.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ I say politely.
‘You’re the new sales girl, right?’ Olga asks, drenching herself with Chanel No 5.
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to smile through the suffocating cloud of her fragrance.
‘You’re gonna be sitting next to me.’ She unemotionally retouches her makeup.
‘Can you show me my desk?’ I repeat impatiently.
‘One moment,’ she says, slowly putting more red lipstick on her already scarlet over-botoxed lips, puffing them into the mirror, leaving me hanging like an idiot, checking my phone.
Eventually, she is done and slowly walks out, passing Dima’s desk, touring the trading floor with her undulating hips, until they eventually land at the desk right by the window with the impeccable view of the Russian president’s residence.
Languidly, Olga shows me my desk right next to hers and, throwing her Louis Vuitton bag onto the wide windowsill, emotionally types something on her pink phone.
I roll into the office chair and attentively observe my three black screens lazily starting up.
People gradually fill the room. The majority are either skinny graduates or unfit men with bellies and huge attitudes, squeezed into expensive suits. A couple of chicks in short skirts and heels strut past, but no one seems to pay any attention to their bold, expressive outfits. In a London office someone would already be getting a cold shower …
At some point, when everyone seems to have stopped wandering around, the door opens and a moderately overweight person enters the floor with a rapid, masculine gait, focused completely on a cell phone conversation, covering the speakerphone with a palm:
‘Dima, start buying quietly.’ I hear female whispers. The eye makeup and accurately groomed eyebrows suggest it is a woman … and everything about her screams she means business.
‘How much, Val?’ he whispers back.
‘Just buy. I’ll tell you when to stop. Quietly!’
‘OK.’ Dima quickly places the bids on his numerous screens.
‘Yes, Ivan Petrovich,’ she says courteously into the phone, ‘you’ve bought four hundred million dollars vs rouble at the rate of …’ She looks at one of Dima’s screens. ‘24.36. We’ll confirm the rate of 24.38 to your bank and settle the difference as usual … correct … through your Cyprus entity,’ she says joyfully.
I quietly use my iPhone to work out the two kopeks’ difference in the rate on four hundred million dollars. Three hundred thirty thousand dollars is the margin for Ivan Petrovich, whoever he is.
‘How much have you bought?’ she firmly asks Dima.
‘Six hundred twenty million dollars. Blyat, I overbought!’ he exclaims, fuming, ready to put the blame on Val at any second.
‘It’s OK, Dima. Don’t be such a pussy. In five years’ time you’ll look at this rate and regret you did not buy more.’ She calmly switches on her computer. ‘What is the average rate?’
Dima leans back, putting his hands behind his head. ‘24.3450,’ he proudly says, taking the credit for making a quarter of a million dollar net profit. ‘Shall I park it to Valkyrie or book it as a profit to our London office?’
‘Book six tickets of twenty million to sell to Valkyrie and four tickets of thirty million dollars for our London bank to buy from Valkyrie, two points higher on each deal. Keep the book clean. I don’t want any unallocated millions left over,’ she instructs, looking for something in an Hermès Birkin trophy bag that many would die for. ‘I’m off for a coffee downstairs and to interview the new nanny,’ she says, getting up. ‘Ah, and don’t forget to forge the cash-in agreements for Ivan Petrovich for the last month,’ she commands.
Just like everyone else, I am trying to stare at my computer as Val passes by my desk on her way to the exit. But my screen is still starting up, making me involuntarily look around for something else to stare at.
She quickly notices me and slightly deviates from her route. ‘Hi,’ she says in a super friendly tone. ‘You must be Katya. I’m Valeria – head of trading here.’
‘Yes, hi. Nice to meet you.’ I return a friendly smile, standing up for a handshake.
‘Welcome on board. Always nice to have people from London to shake up this Land of Nod we have here in the Sales Department. They’re completely useless.’ She glances at a guy with a gleaming bald head who’s just appeared, dressed in an expensive-looking gray suit with a flashy pink tie. He proudly rattles a large, heavy box.
‘OK,’ Valeria says abruptly. ‘I’m running late. Katya, let’s have lunch later on this week. On Thursday,’ she shouts, confidently walking out, completely ignoring the bald guy.
He is slightly shorter than me, and unlike most of the crowd here, seems to be spending a lot of time in the gym. The relief of his biceps is visible through the shirt, but nothing like Richard’s, of course.
‘The client I just had breakfast with was so grateful he gave me this selection of the best and most expensive bourbons.’ He puts the box down, swelling with pride. ‘If you are good to a client, the client is good to you. That’s what I call a great client relationship. I’m Sergey, by the way,’ he says, with a rather naughty smile that reveals his ultra-white bleached teeth.
‘Nice to meet you, Sergey.’ I put a professional smile on, reaching out to receive a strong handshake from his cold, well-moisturized hand with perfectly polished nails. ‘Let me settle in and we will discuss the clientele,’ I say professionally.
‘I know everyone on this market,’ he says arrogantly. ‘I have done really good business so far and have a few deals in the pipeline I’m working on.’
‘Can I see the pipeline, please?’ I cast my eyes slightly downwards into his ratty eyes.
‘All the client information is in the internal systems,’ he retorts, picking up the box with the bottles and moving it to Dima’s desk. The two of them start laughing, staring at me.
I hide behind my switched-off screens so they don’t see me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ST KATHERINE
The day goes by very slowly when there is nothing to do. It is like watching paint dry, with Big Brother Sergey checking up on me all the time. I wait till he gets on the phone and sneak out to the receptionist.
Amazingly, she has transformed from a pale, mole-like creature into a beautiful princess with a full face of makeup, nicely done hair and cleavage spilling from a sexy peach-coloured top.
‘Hi,’ I say with a big smile. ‘I wonder if you could give me the IT support phone number? My computer isn’t starting up.’ I ask in the nicest way possible, realizing it will be useful to have her on my side. It would be too embarrassing to involve Bruno in such a small issue. If I want to have any career growth here, I need to be able to solve this kind of problem on my own.
The receptionist sulkily gazes at me and moodily drawls: ‘Three seven zero five.’
‘Thank you.’ I smile gleefully. ‘You look very different, I like your top,’ I flatter.
‘Thank you, I always change in the office. It would be too much to look like that on the minibus I take,’ she smiles. ‘I can call someone to come over to your desk,’ she suggests, suddenly willing to help.
‘That would be fantastic,’ I gratefully say.
Some time later, a friendly, semi-doable IT guy in a blue shirt and jeans comes to install my systems. He asks me about London and I cheerfully articulate how great the city is: its restaurants, bars and parties. In turn he tells me about the most recent party he went to – his wife’s grandfather’s birthday. The fact he is married worsens my mood slightly and I listen with much less enthusiasm to the story of the big family celebration in their dacha, with the usual salads drowned in mayo, roasted chicken and baked potato. Olga turns away with disgust as she hears the menu. Without noticing her, he moves on to the topic of his son’s first tennis lesson, beer drinking on Fridays with friends and weekend visits to his parents in the suburbs. I would kill myself if it were my routine.
Eventually, he disappears, leaving me with the client information system displaying the virtual millions of dollars of profits.
Bruno’s email distracts me from counting Sergey’s scarce revenues.
‘Dear Katya,
Congratulations on your first day at Swiss Bank. We are very excited to have you on board. In order to introduce you to our key customers we have arranged a drinks reception with clients on our terrace on Thursday, 21st August, which our senior management and myself are going to attend.
Hope you are settling in well,
With cordial regards,
Bruno Füssli.
MD, Head of EMEA sales and trading’
‘Do you know about the drinks next week?’ I ask, turning to Olga.
‘I’ve already called the Kremlin,’ she says in an undertone, pouting in front of her phone screen.
‘You called the Kremlin?’ I ask, puzzled.
She sets her phone down, looking pissed off. ‘You see, we are here,’ she points down at the red desk with an index finger adorned with pink nail art. ‘And the president is there.’ She points towards the red walls.
‘OK,’ I blink at her with my natural eyelashes.
‘Our veranda is an ideal place to attack our president from … and Prime Minister Putin,’ she says assiduously. ‘They’re clever, they’ve got security all the time, everywhere.’
‘They think we’ll attack them?’
‘Well, we need to let them know we’re having the reception, so the snipers don’t shoot,’ she says casually.
‘I see,’ I say, impressed. Richard would love this kind of stuff.
I message him on my way out of the building for a sit-down lunch – something a sales person in a bank in London could only dream about.
The sun is burning, forcing me to hide away from its heat in the shadows of the nice white restaurant, which has an open patio and white couches and pillows. I sip a freshly made lemonade under a gentle, refreshing jet of mist, helping me forget about the office predicament. The light lunch comes to the same price as a middle-range dinner in London but it’s worth every penny … the atmosphere, the service and the glam.
The rest of the day I spend with the HR director, filling in all sorts of forms and papers.
‘Can I really only work only eight hours a day, as my contract says? There is no opt-out form?’ I ask the bright brunette HR specialist in disbelief, who looks exactly like the nude Miss August on the calendar in front of me.
She nonchalantly nods and continues, staring at herself in a small portable mirror.
I leave the office with everyone at 6 p.m. sharp, taking a quieter route via smaller streets home to avoid the traffic on Tverskaya. A beautiful white church with golden domes on the way attracts my attention. The sign on it says it is named after Saint Katherine.
I cautiously open a heavy, noisy door into the cold, dark, incense-smelling marble space with no pews and numerous gold-framed icons on the walls. It feels like an oasis, saving me from the outside heat. The window above the altar spreads light throughout the room, making the heavy golden frames of the icons and the candle stands shine.
Mesmerized, I walk towards the altar.
‘You cannot be here with an uncovered head and shoulders.’ I hear a strict male voice from the dark left-hand corner before an old man in a black robe emerges.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ I say, moving back. ‘My name is Katya … Ekaterina … It’s Saint Ekaterina’s church, right?’ I ask into an obscure silence, almost ready to leave.
‘There are scarves in the basket by the entrance,’ he says in a friendly tone.
‘Thank you.’ I humbly take a scarf and put it on my head.
‘Have you been baptized, Ekaterina?’ The priest in a cassock with a long auburn beard and long curly hair in a ponytail walks towards me.
‘No. My mother was a communist …’ I answer pitifully.
‘I see,’ he says, looking warmly at me with his deep hazel eyes. ‘When was the last time you prayed?’
‘Hmm, I don’t know … I think I was eleven,’ I reply, and a memory of my childhood painfully pierces through my head.
‘Why so long ago?’ he asks gently.
‘Well, it’s a long story …’ I murmur.
‘I’m all ears,’ he says kindly.
‘When The Soviet Union collapsed my dad left for Siberia to make some money,’ I say, recalling eating crumbs from the table, and my mom condemning my dad for being unable to provide for the family. ‘I had been praying every day for him to come back safe.’ Suddenly, I feel the wind knocked out of me, forcing me to look away to take a few breaths and regain self-control, wondering why the hell the old man would care.
‘What happened?’ he asks, taking my hand into his warm pleasant grasp. Instinctively, I try to pull it out, uncomfortable with the touch, but he holds it tight.
‘What happened?’ he repeats in a stronger louder voice, squeezing my hand.
‘One night I was praying on my knees on my bed and my mom suddenly entered the room. She was very angry.’ I deeply exhale. ‘I quickly jumped under the blanket but she saw the movement … She dragged me out and harshly slapped me in the face. She thought I was masturbating, but I didn’t even know what that was!’ I whimper at the injustice of it. ‘What was wrong with praying for my father to come back, so we could have a happy family?’ I wipe away my tears, attempting a smile.
‘Are you married?’ he asks with concern in his voice.
‘No.’
‘I see … Katyusha, try to start with Sunday morning mass. It is a necessary exercise, and then God will lead you further,’ he says, caressing my hand.
‘Further, where?’
‘To humility … acceptance … love.’
‘What?’ I exclaim, not really buying this.
‘It is not a weakness, but power. It allows us to stay sober and not to get carried away with lust and greed,’ he says warmly.
‘I don’t know. I might fall asleep. I usually go out on Saturday night,’ I say, leaning back, sensing he is trying to convert me into a religious fanatic.
‘If you switch on your brain, you won’t. In time, you’ll find joy in the beauty and depth of the prayers and chants. Your soul, disfigured by sins, will find its peace,’ he says, beatifically. ‘Ask God to give you what’s yours. It won’t work with someone else’s. Spouses are bound by the secret of marriage and the desire to make each other happy. There is no room for manipulation and tricks,’ he says sincerely.
‘Sounds great, but I think I am actually OK,’ I say with my professional poker face, withdrawing my hand. ‘I have a great life and my soul is fine.’
I smile politely and make a quick exit, to complete the walk to my lonesome apartment.
In the evening I get a message
from Richard: ‘Any hot snipers yet;-)?’
‘Haha not going out on that terrace before the party. Should be good though,’ I reply.
‘I will be going to a friend’s BBQ in Lewisham on Thurs, way less glamorous.’
‘At least there’ll be no guns pointed at you;),’ I type, wondering if I should tell him about Valeria and the market front-running … He’d say it was to be expected and that I should print out as much proof as possible to report it to the FSA before someone else does, and that if I don’t report the market abuse, I’ll be at risk of losing my license. What if it all goes through? No bank would hire someone involved in a regulator’s investigation … and I need this job. ‘Found a St Katherine’s church on my way home. I spoke to a priest,’ I write instead.
‘That’s something you don’t do every day,’ Richard immediately responds.
‘For a reason! Always the same biblical dogma – humility and acceptance. What a piece of bullshit! It was clearly invented by some medieval sexist, to make women into ‘good’ wives who won’t break their husbands’ balls - and we still live by these rules? If God created man in his likeness there can be no room for humility and acceptance. It took a lot of courage to create the Earth, even more the universe. Complete opposite of humility,’ I passionately write.
‘I went to a Church of England school at some point … full of biblical pronouncements and piety … amusing when one considers the Church of England was only created to facilitate Henry VIII’s divorce … I loved making up rude versions of the hymns;-)’
‘“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not self-seeking.” Seriously? How can you accept yourself if you don’t know who you are? How can you find it out without self-seeking?’
‘Well, if you want to go down that route, remember we have Descartes, Kant, Hegel, so many architects who have created the assumptions sitting in our heads, but I guess there is never going to be a simple answer whether love is humility or courage. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, as usual:-)’
‘So what do you believe in: somewhere in the middle?’
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