Red Russia

by Tanya Thompson

  The goat screams, “Me~e~e~e~eh!”

  I invoke Christ, and Konstantin asks, “You have an idea to remove voting control from Maksim Volikov?”

  “Me~e~e~eh!”

  God in heaven.

  “Me~e~e~eh!”

  Don’t think about it, don’t think about, just get back to business and answer. “Yes, but to do it I need five of your voting shares.”

  “And I thought you understood me.” He slowly fills his lungs with air and then fills the air with a roar, “Lion has come!”

  “Jesus!”

  “Me~e~eh!”

  All lesser creatures dive for cover.

  Into the echo of the roar, I quickly babble, “Right, okay, understood.”

  “Me~eh.”

  I’d like to sit upright again so it doesn’t look like I’m cowering, but the Pakhan seems to have expanded. Pressed crooked against the arm of the couch, I try not to sound as terrified as the goat. “I honestly need one. One voting share and I can deliver Azart’s vote. With my other six shares, I can guarantee you voting majority.”

  Gazing into the lion’s pen, Konstantin is not particularly concerned with time, or the people under the tables, or the goat in the cat’s embrace. He watches the lion run its tongue repeatedly down the length of the goat’s spine, over and over, either savoring or grooming, it’s hard to tell.

  When the goat is down to a pathetic “Meh,” Konstantin finally asks, “If I give you one share and you do not deliver, tell me, little fox, what do you think will happen?”

  “Probably nothing pleasant.”

  “Do you know about the time the lion played cards with the snake, the bull, and the vixen? The lion was dealing, and he warned the group, ‘No cheating. I do not like cheating. If anyone cheats, she is going to get it right in her furry red face.’”

  Fortune

  The snake, the bull, and the lion have promised the vixen seven voting shares. This puts me in the coveted position of being able to swing a vote any direction I like.

  I’d hoped for ten—ten is such a nice number—but the minimum required was seven.

  You thinking lucky sevens? Wrong game. While sevens might be lucky in craps, they are not lucky in cards.

  In my deck of cards, the sevens represent the lowest degradation of every element. And as Konstantin Imperiya is a timber company, the seven voting shares are represented by the Seven of Wands, Valor.

  Oh sure, valor sounds heroic, but it’s the hero’s desperate last strike for victory, a dead man’s jab, the sort of flailing maneuver that invites tragedy.

  If I were the sort to believe in all this esoteric mumbo-jumbo, such an ominous warning would be enough to make me abandon the endeavor altogether.

  Thankfully, though, I’m a skeptic. A bit superstitious, yes, but a disbeliever nonetheless.

  And the rational thing to do at this moment is call in the lawyers and quickly get the shares dispersed.

  It’s the sort of thing Isaak would arrange.

  With the Quaalude still whispering, It’s all totally cool, I walk back across the rippling lawn for the conservatory and find Isaak sleeping upright on a cast-iron bench. At his back, two Bermuda palms almost touch the bougainvillea near the twenty-foot ceiling.

  I take a cast-iron seat beside a bromeliad and across from Isaak, and then nosily adjust the orchid on the table between us.

  If we were at the equator, like the surrounding environment suggests, the position of the sun would indicate it’s about 2:00 p.m., but in Russia in June, it’s just after seven. Still, anyway you look at it, it’s a bit early for sleep. I consider rearranging the orchid again but Isaak is instead woken by the splash of a picnic table entering the pool.

  He opens his eyes with a weary sigh and then looks a little spooked to find me smiling at him.

  “So anyway,” I begin as though he dropped off mid conversation, “if you would call the lawyers, we could have this whole deal wrapped up by midnight.”

  “And everybody goes home happy?” (Sneering opiate addicts are the Betty Davis drag queens of the drug world.)

  “I suppose not. The final deal was not exactly in your favor.”

  “Always the same with Maksim: I toil and suffer, and he profits.”

  “He is not a very nice man, is he?”

  “No, he is not.”

  “I am sorry. It was very unfair of him to take your shares. I wish I could help, but I do not understand business. I only translate.”

  “I speak English.”

  Well, fuck. “Does Volikov?”

  “You are only alive because he doesn’t.”

  “I suppose a thank-you is in order.”

  “I did consider...” And he looks far away while considering my death. “But!” He springs back to the moment with enthusiasm. “Because you recognize unfairness and express desire to help, I am sure we can keep you alive.”

  “Oh good.”

  “Do you know what I want more than anything?”

  “To get back to sleep? I’ll go now.”

  “I want Maksim Volikov in coffin.”

  “Please say you mean a Chevy Tahoe.”

  “I do not mean Chevy Tahoe.”

  “No, of course you don’t.”

  Isaak’s attention fades again into the distance. He might be listening to the violent splashing outside, or he might be straining to hear the gentle splatter of the nearby fountain where Adam, in glorious high-gloss gold, appears to be strangling Eve with Eden’s most troublesome snake. The two conspirators are not faring well. Head wrenched back, Eve’s open mouth is gurgling bubbles while looped tight around her neck the snake vomits water. Adam’s mouth is also open, but his is twisted with rage, much like I suspect Johnny Rotten’s mouth is twisted, so it appears Adam is bellowing, “Tebya ne ebut ti ne podmakhivai.”

  Rotten simply means, “Mind your own fucking business,” but it’s hard not to think Adam is being literal: You're not being fucked so don't wiggle your ass.

  [In case you’re wondering, the opposite of a euphemism is a dysphemism; and let’s just be clear, no nation on Earth competes with Russia at dysphemisms.]

  Isaak says, “I want Maksim buried under six feet of shit, under sea of shit, under sky of shit with black stars of shit in galaxy of shit.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of shit. I don’t know where to get that much shit. How about we just vote Mr. Volikov out of the business?”

  “How about I tell him how you translate?”

  “Or, like you said, we could talk with Farm Supply and see what they can source.”

  “I will allow you to steal my three shares for his life. Or I will keep my three shares and Maksim will steal your life. And unlike Maksim, I will not back-and-forth barter.”

  /r/thatescalatedquickly

  /r/instant_regret

  /r/todayifuckedup

  I’m going with TIFU: Today I Fucked Up.

  “So be it. Call the lawyers. Let’s get this done.”

  Isaak shakes his head. “They will not come with Bratva in condition they are.”

  “Which is?”

  “Conscious.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Drunk and conscious is problem. See, last lawyer to visit, Bratva force him into transparent drum, lock lid, and roll him into lion’s pen. Bratva enjoy this game of being batted around by lion. Screaming lawyer did not. Another time, Konstantin buys old Pershing tank. Big group of Bratva drop lawyer into tank. Of course, lawyer was angry and protesting, but Bratva say drive will only be thirty minutes. Three days later… You get the idea. There are many stories like this. Lawyers will not come if Bratva are conscious.”

  “Can you not just tell them the brothers are sober?”

  His answer is a look of withering disdain.

  “Asleep, then?”

  The look deepens.

  “Something?”

  “As soon as they hear that…” The room fills with the sound of breaking glass, the shout of “I will fuck the entire
first row at your funeral,” the splinter of wood, and uproarious laughter. “Lawyers will turn at door and leave. We will not get them back for days. Same amount of time it takes for this binge to end. You understand they will drink for days, yes?”

  In that case, I suppose it’s time to quote Dostoyevsky: Consciousness is a disease, a real utter disease.

  And I got a bag full of cures.

  * * *

  The only thing not to like about Dostoyevsky is he fervently believed in both God and free will, yet his works are a testament to Fate’s guiding hand guaranteeing the most tragic outcome possible. With Dostoyevsky, all small actions lead to one inevitable outcome, one unavoidable disaster, one’s inescapable destiny. God’s Will, not free will. He did not understand the two cannot exist together.

  Pushkin, on the other hand, equated divinity with madness. Or was it madness with divinity? Yes, that’s it: the visions of the schizophrenic were a blessing from heaven.

  Meanwhile, Chekhov and Gorky were analyzing Tolstoy’s dream of an infinite desert where his empty shoes were endlessly walking without purpose.

  Symbolism was rife in all these artists’ works.

  Religion, philosophy, symbolism, always the great thinkers of Russian literature were trying to make sense of the senseless.

  But Turgenev was such a nihilist he brought the word to Russia and introduced it to the Russian Revolution, saying, “A nihilist is a man who does not bow to any authority, who does not take any principle on trust, no matter how respected the principle is.” It’s no wonder Demyan has the man inked on his skin, but Demyan is not a nihilist.

  Nihilists do not join groups.

  There’s no worry nihilists (or anarchists) will ever take over the world because, based on their very principles, they cannot work together. Until we’re down to just a handful of humans, the world is safe from any demanding concepts such as self-government.

  Even so, both the Bratva and the thieves in law would like to call themselves nihilists and anarchists because they don’t support the established government, but they govern nonetheless, and you can’t be an anarchist unless you follow its rule. Crime and anarchy are no more synonymous than nihilism and existentialism, or fatalism and determinism; so many isms there was bound to be a schism.

  The break between the thieves in law and the Bratva is also down to the intricacies of philosophy, their style of government, and the application of law. They are very similar yet they remain uniquely different.

  Take for instance the definition of family: all thieves are from the same family no matter what Bratva family they serve, while the Bratva hold loyalty only to the family name.

  Demyan is a thief, loyal to all thieves, but he’s also a brother of the Zomanov Bratva.

  Now consider the rule of betrayal: a thief cannot betray a thief, a brother cannot betray a brother, but they can betray each other.

  As these two codes collide, the Bratva have it easy but the thieves have it hard. The Bratva only have brothers, but the thieves have in-laws. Family loyalties are stretched for the thieves.

  Demyan wants to take over the Zomanov Bratva for the honor of the thieves and in the name of his father. It would become the Zharkov Bratva with Demyan Zharkov as Pakhan.

  But for the council of thieves to grant a betrayal against Zomanov, also a thief in law, Konstantin must be stripped of his stars, and then, no longer a thief, Demyan is free to betray the Bratva for the greater good of the thieves.

  Terribly, morally complicated this family business is. Not nearly so simple as Kill the king, wear the crown.

  And in this game, there are a great many wills at play. The will of the thieves, of the Bratva, of the father—God’s Will will undoubtedly show its face before it’s over—the will of the silovik, the Red State, the government, the will that serves the family, the corporation, its citizens, and the good of the shareholders. In these conflicted associations, I am the only one serving free will, the will of the individual, the will of the anarchist, the free agent, the lone fox, the full moon. I am the only one willing to admit I am acting on selfish grounds, for myself and myself alone. And while it is intellectually honest, I can’t really advise it.

  There’s a reason humans are successful, and it’s because we cooperate in groups that benefit society.

  If you’re going to embrace one of the isms (nihilism, anarchism, existentialism, fatalism, determinism), you’ll be going it alone, so you damn well better be fully self-reliant. And finding out if you are self-reliant while deep in the midst of embracing a few isms is nothing short of stupid.

  It calls for a sober mind, yet I have no intention of facing this disaster straight.

  And I don’t think anyone else should either.

  We should all be as staggered as the goat still trapped in the lion’s pen.

  Half the Bratva are already there, and the rest just need a little push.

  I dig in my bag of pharmaceuticals for the final shove.

  Ambien—as in Salvadore Dali just painted my skull Ambien—should do very well.

  The Lovers

  Of all the misunderstood cards in the deck, the Lovers is second only to Death. Just as Death has nothing to do with mortality, the Lovers have nothing to do with love or sex or marriage or anything remotely sentimental.

  The Lovers belong to Gemini, to duality and affiliation, association and combination, and as such, the Lovers represent alchemy, the synergy of substances, say something like vodka and sleeping pills.

  While alcohol and benzos are a dangerous combo on your heart, the main cause of death when mixing alcohol and Ambien is driving.

  Which means I’ll have to hide every one of these lunatics’ keys.

  Then drug the brothers without dosing any of the principal players required to sign.

  Then maybe arrange Volikov’s death.

  Then get Peter and myself out of Russia.

  Then break up with Peter, call off the wedding, and probably go into shameful hiding.

  Whoa. Slow down. One thing at a time.

  Prepare the Ambien.

  Hide the keys.

  Don’t worry, two things are safe. Everything up and until three is safe. I could even add to that list: drug the Zomanov Bratva.

  Prepare the Ambien. Hide the keys. Drug the Zomanov Bratva.

  Perfectly safe.

  I do realize, of course, the symbolic dangers of preparing the Ambien in the tower, but the actual alchemy will be done in the kitchen where the vodka bottles are stored.

  From the Tylenol bottle, I remove all thirty-six Ambien and leave the methaqualone.

  On the bedside table, I use the heavy shot glass from earlier to crush the white pills into powder. While each tablet contains only ten milligrams of zolpidem, the inactive ingredients weigh in at nearly half a gram, which makes for a hell of a pile. To ensure it dissolves quickly, I use the side of a credit card to continue chopping until the mound is sufficiently dust-like, then use the card to guide the powder into Demyan’s discarded cigarette packet.

  Granted, all the grinding is a little like the work of an alchemist… in a tower… but the real magic is when it’s added to the vodka. I’m thinking 360 milligrams of active Ambien dissolved in two one-liter bottles of vodka should render all that consume it unconscious, and then Isaak can call the lawyers to come.

  But, again, I drive beyond the headlights.

  It’s time to hide the keys so no one dies either beyond or behind the headlights.

  Man, that would be bad. Not the sort of guilt I’d want to live with.

  Before leaving the tower, I open my shirt and adjust my bra to lay the Ambien packet flush against my breast, near the heart, where the chakras return to the Tree of Life, at the place represented by the Six of Cups, because, well, you know, a bit of cabalistic safeguarding can’t hurt, and why risk being caught skulking around with a packet of white powder?

  In the spiral stairs, the echo of my descending footsteps is masked by an angry conversation be
low.

  I recognize Volikov’s educated voice. “Do not bore me with the details of how. Your brute methods are of no interest to me. Just get rid of her.”

  “You mudojoby,” ballsackfuckers, “have to realize it is not the nineties.” Undoubtedly Bratva.

  “It is better than the nineties. You are just not clever enough to notice.”

  “The fuck am I going to do with her?”

  “I do not care.”

  “And how the devil are you going to explain her disappearance?”

  “Quiet, someone comes.” But the hushed warning is still magnified inside the tower.

  “This is three cunts beyond stupid.” And the whisper is resonantly clear.

  “Go. Quickly. Now.”

  Rounding the last corner, Volikov stares expectantly up at me, but racing off through the main hall, I think I spot the bare head of what was previously the Polar Bear making for the cover of the conservatory.

  Volikov takes my hand and draws me down the last steps, and then, to prevent me from further studying the retreating figure, he positions himself to block the view. He says, “The brothers are about to have a rather medieval dinner outside, to which you are welcome, but if you prefer something less savage, you can dine with me.”

  His hands are cold. His fingers are thin and graceful, and his touch is so gentle it would not be felt except for the chill. The hands of a water sign.

  As the door of the conservatory closes, he releases his grip so his arms drop fluidly back to his sides, and he waits for an answer.

  But nothing about the offer is warm, and as I don’t particularly want to eat apples with a snake, not with what’s happening to Eve in the greenhouse, I say, “Peter is waiting for me.” But then, contrary to what is expected, I move for the front door.