Red Russia

by Tanya Thompson

  The Sun and the Moon and the Wheel of Fortune: you could not ask for better.

  The future is a circle completed. The future is whole. It’s round with life. It’s a ball of fire. A guiding light by day and a beacon at night. No one will be lost. No one could get lost.

  The future is so rich with reward, it makes me smile.

  The expression doesn’t please Peter.

  He asks, “What have you got to be happy about?”

  He asks, “Is this the stupid shit your mother taught you?”

  He swipes the cards from the table, saying, “Put the filthy things in the trash.”

  I made the mistake of laying out the cards across from him.

  Then I make another mistake with an attempt at levity. “If only my mother had taught me how to steal silver from Tiffany’s.”

  It isn’t funny, and he doesn’t smile.

  But then, the last time I saw Peter smile he had just woken from his rather unexpected 36-hour bender on vodka and hypnotics.

  He woke in a state of bliss.

  And why not?

  Besides being extremely well rested, the last incidents he recalled were taking two Tylenol and watching his fiancée fall down a flight of stairs. The final details his brain was able to commit to memory occurred at Demyan’s house, after the respectable consumption of some forty-odd shots of vodka but before his ignoble first meeting with Konstantin; and also before Demyan threatened to tattoo him with his teenage crimes, and before Volikov revealed the kompromat of his corporate crimes, and long before his blundering fiancée involved him in a crime that was still smoking as he opened his eyes.

  None of those dangers existed in Peter’s mind when he woke in the blue room of Konstantin’s castle. A gentle breeze moved the air, and he was still happily oblivious to the reason why. He puzzled briefly over the unfamiliar ceiling and then smiled to see me at his side.

  He doesn’t smile to see me anymore.

  He hasn’t smiled since rising from the bed and looking out the shattered windows.

  He didn’t smile when I said, “You might be wondering…”

  He wasn’t smiling when he asked, “Where the hell am I?”

  When the police confiscated our passports, and Volikov started negotiating with M&H for our release, all remnants of Peter’s humor died like the Polar Bear.

  Smashed, bashed, dashed, and then utterly burned to ash, I don’t think Peter’s appreciation for the absurd will ever rise again.

  Especially not while we’re under house arrest in Moscow. Granted, it’s a swank four-bedroom apartment in Patriarshy Ponds sort of arrest, but it’s still arrest. It’s detention. State custody. Custodial supervision. It’s either M&H signs the contract, supplies the money, and forfeits voting rights, or Peter and his innocent fiancée go to jail.

  That’s how the negotiators refer to me: the innocent fiancée.

  Just a devoted translator.

  No idea what was happening.

  A victim of circumstance.

  Blameless.

  But in the six months since we’ve been held, Peter has learned different.

  So has Volikov.

  And Demyan.

  And Konstantin.

  My seven voting shares are long gone.

  Which isn’t as bad as Konstantin wanting to kill us over the Polar Bear.

  Or Demyan’s return to jail.

  Or that Volikov is the only thing that stands between us and death, and jail, and, not incidentally, the airport.

  Not that Peter is in any big hurry to leave. His Finnish, Swedish, and German investors think he’s willfully, dutifully staying in Russia. They think he’s a hardworking entrepreneur, overseeing the restructuring of Konstantin Imperiya and guaranteeing contracts to buy below market price. Sure, he’s hard as hell to reach, but such is to be expected when he’s out in the far flung reaches of Berenik’s cellular dead zone, or so he tells them.

  And anyway, Peter is confident M&H will eventually sign and pay because they’re in no position to refuse when Peter knows their business, or, more accurately, their secrets.

  “Same exact thing,” Peter tells me.

  And with a forest the size of Mongolia, or if that’s too abstract, the size of Saudi Arabia, or imagine the United Kingdom times five, or a forest as big as the states of Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah combined, with a forest that size, the fire did little more than swallow Boise.

  As Peter likes to say, “The Russian timber industry is a drunk virgin about to be fucked by the football team.”

  Peter wants to be captain, but for now he’s content to still be in the starting lineup.

  You didn’t actually think any of the players in this game were nice, did you?

  We should all be long past such illusions by now.

  There’s no one to root for here. Go home. Leave your memorabilia in the trash by the doors. Or throw it on the ground. Environmental concerns are not paramount.

  “Earth first,” as Peter says. “We’ll gang rape the other planets later.”

  And on Earth, Russia is the girl everyone wants to date. She has quick access to Europe and Asia, and coming-of-age soon is her best-friend-forever the Arctic.

  “Now the Arctic is the wedding we’ve all been waiting for,” Peter says. “Before the reception is even over, the bride’s white dress will be torn from her body.”

  In preparation, Peter is using the time to learn Cyrillic.

  And teaching him is the only use he has for me now. I’m trying my best to thwart his success and retain value, but he’s a fast learner when motivated.

  What’s driving him at the moment is the new timber contract, and a complete lack of trust in me.

  He will never trust another translator again.

  “Ever,” he adds. “In fact, make that to infinity.”

  I’ve liberated him.

  Sometimes the freedom even earns me a few caustic words of gratitude. “I am one hundred percent thankful we met. Really, I am.”

  On the Wi-Fi disabled laptop provided by the State, he reads the new agreement between Konstantin Imperiya and M&H Enterprise in the original Cyrillic.

  Frowning, he swivels the laptop to face me and frenetically runs the cursor over the passage: В случае мокрое дело, акции, принадлежащие совету директоров, передаются назначенным кандидатам.

  With difficulty, he reads aloud, “In case of…”—мокрое дело—“…shares held by the board of directors will pass to designated candidates.”

  He highlights the unknown words: Мокрое дело.

  “Mokroye delo,” I say. “It means wet work.” But that’s literal. In context of what he’s reading, it’s murder.

  If we weren’t in a digital black hole, he’d be able to look it up online, but we have no phone, no broadband, no satellite. We’re allowed no communication with the outside world without prior authorization from the warden, which is to say Volikov, and because Volikov is in hiding from Konstantin, the prior part of that authorization makes the whole thing moot. The only time Peter talks with his investors is when I give the guards Bitcoin and they give Peter their phones.

  Still, better than Demyan has it.

  An admirable thief in law in every way, he lived the code inked on his skin—vor vora kroyet, a thief covers another thief—and took whatever blame there was to be taken for his brothers.

  Once more before the courts, he assumed guilt for destruction of property, arson, and the only illegal firearm found on the property: the RPG that accidentally killed Isaak.

  Yes, that’s right: accidentally.

  It was all an unfortunate accident. I made a sworn statement saying as much. As did Felix, and Konstantin, and every other witness.

  Except Volikov.

  Volikov isn’t the sort of man to make statements that require signatures.

  The rest of us—no matter what we s
aw or actually remembered—swore Demyan had no idea Isaak was in the shooting range. What sort of lunatic would be?

  The special investigator wanted to know, “What sort of lunatic fires at targets with an RPG?”

  And we all pointed at Demyan. He’s the sort. Have you seen his tattoos? A veritable outlaw with no respect for convention. Take him away.

  It’s the way he wanted it.

  For Felix, Demyan accepted the charge of common corpus delicti, more-or-less the equivalent of involuntary manslaughter.

  It’s not all bad. He’s getting a promotion in the guild and stars tattooed on his shoulders, then hopefully, when he’s released in six years, he’ll quickly overthrow Konstantin to become Pakhan. An outcome that would be ideal for Peter and me. (Well, honestly, mostly just me.)

  Until then, we’re relying on Volikov for protection, which is far from ideal as both Konstantin and Demyan want him dead. And both for the same reason: it’s only for Volikov’s insistence that someone be held accountable for Isaak’s death that Demyan is in jail.

  Only the Devil might imagine what shades of red Demyan is seeing now, but I bet it was pretty close to oxblood his first night in jail. Before the family could even welcome him home, he’d organized six thieves on motorbikes to shoot up Volikov’s car.

  True, the objective was to shoot up the car and Volikov, but Volikov’s car—from the armor in the panels to the glass in the windows and right down to the honeycomb tires—is bullet resistant.

  Escaping with his life, Volikov doubled his guard.

  During those first tumultuous months, Konstantin also proved he was still red in tooth and claw.

  With no idea Demyan was after his crown, and with retribution his right as a disrespected Pakhan, Konstantin orchestrated a show of revenge Moscow hadn’t seen since the 90s.

  It started when Volikov’s brand new bullet-resistant car exploded on a city street. I’m told by the guards that shredded metal and upholstery draped the power lines for weeks, and the honeycomb tires remain four black puddles on the pavement.

  They tell me his home waterline was poisoned while he slept, and his private club torched while he ate.

  Odorless methane filled his office and killed five in an explosion the news reported as a gas leak.

  Finally, Volikov went to ground, but not before trebling both his and our guard.

  Our guard because of our part in the Polar Bear’s demise.

  Did you think we could drag a bleeding body out of the castle and stuff it in a Studebaker shitting rainbows without anyone noticing?

  Relax. If you did, I wouldn’t fault you for it. I thought it was possible. But I also thought our luck would return when we ditched the corpse and the numbers in play stopped being four and eight and changed to three and nine. Didn’t help a bit in the end.

  Maybe it was the numbers, but in retrospect, I think the problem was not thinking big enough. The situation required blue-sky action, column-shaking leadership, 360-degree innovation. Everyone in the house should have been drugged, from the brothers to the staff to the women hired for the weekend.

  In the bedrooms on the second and third floors, Alyona’s friends—entirely too sober and aware—noticed her gaily driving off with the two Americans and the bloody remains of a Bratva.

  And the sorority of whores has no code of ethics such as the thieves in law.

  Alyona sold herself to Konstantin and then her friends sold her again.

  Now, with both Konstantin and Volikov gunning for her, Alyona is also in hiding.

  Peter doesn’t care because Peter doesn’t know who the hell Alyona is. He’s only heard of her through me, and nothing I say can be trusted.

  “For all I know,” he says, “this woman doesn’t exist.” And further, all he wants to know is, “What the fuck do wet works have to do with who gets control of the board?”

  He rereads the contract on the screen. “In the case of wet work, shares held by the board of directors will pass to designated candidates.”

  Slamming closed the laptop, his voice rises with irritation. “What the hell are we talking here? Plumbing? If the toilet backs up, do we lose our shares?”

  “It’s a euphemism from Bureau Thirteen of the KGB, which was also informally known as the Department of Wet Affairs.”

  “Sex?”

  “Well, they did enjoy playful capital punishment and strict executions, but their true passion was public assassinations.”

  Three quick blinks and an angry scowl later, he demands clarification, “Wet for spilling blood?”

  “I suspect in the context of the agreement, it would cover all contract kills, regardless of spillage.”

  “Think this is funny?”

  “Just pointing out it’s not all sniper rifles and razor wire. Russians love their radioactive poisons, as well.”

  “Sweet fucketty fuck, is this actually the sort of shit Russians have to cover in a contract?”

  “Did you actually bring us here without knowing that?”

  Peter opens the laptop again. Glaring at the screen as though hate alone might turn Cyrillic into English, he demands, “Have you read this?”

  “How could I when you won’t let me near it?”

  Shoving the laptop across the table, he orders, “Read it and tell me what fuckery I’ve missed. And don’t fuck with me, Sibyl. I goddamn mean it, just tell me what it says.”

  “All of it?”

  “The shit between the lines. The tricky bits. You’ll recognize it. That’s the language you speak.”

  Fair enough. But have you noticed someone isn’t speaking jargon? House arrest with a person you loathe can have such effects. Especially in those early months when one of you is coming off a decade of pills, and the other offers motivation in the form of “Dive deep to deep six the pain point,” and “Winners never quit, quitters never win,” and the one that finally broke me: “Mind over matter. Stop minding and it won’t matter.” Never mind the full-abstinence abrupt-withdrawal let-me-tell-you-what-I-really-think fits of honesty, it’s the insomnia, it’s Russia in winter, sunset at noon, and the promise of perpetual midnight with someone who says, “Don’t watch the clock. Do what it does: keep ticking,” that truly gets one talking. I don’t think I spared him a single detail.

  By month three, Peter had been cured of artifice, me of pills, and each of the other.

  At this point in our forced cohabitation, nothing either of us says can hurt, and as the only thing I’ve not read twice in the house is the instructions on the shampoo bottle, I’m more than a little pleased to read the contract.

  It’s a fairly straightforward ass beating of Morris & Hugo.

  They pay to rebuild the sawmill for which they receive the fuck-all rights and profits of ordinary shareholders in a private Russian company.

  Under the wet work clause, Isaak’s shares are appointed to Volikov.

  Of interest, Azart is still in the game for ten percent.

  With Demyan in jail, I suspect Felix might also be a secret board member of the offshore company, and if they too had a wet work clause, and assuming all three thieves in law within the Zomanov Bratva, excluding Konstantin himself, were in collusion, then the Polar Bear’s shares were returned to Azart (because Alyona definitely did some wet work on him [Christ, how I wish I could still blame my humor on the drugs]).

  The new contract gives Konstantin twenty-one shares and thirty percent of the board against Volikov’s thirty shares and fifty percent. Demyan’s ten shares and twenty-percent control allows him to swing the votes. The arrangement makes the wet work clause a veritable gold-and-vellum invitation to kill. Let’s make it a surprise: No RSVP required.

  Morris & Hugo have thirty-nine shares, but no voting rights, no place on the board, no purpose other than investment for ransom.

  “There’s no mention of the paper mill,” I say.

  “It’s off.”

  “They’ve dropped the paper mill?”

  “Under those terms, there’s no
incentive.”

  But what an opening.

  For the first time in months, I get a glimpse of the Sun. I see the Wheel of Fortune shining under the rays of the noon Sun, and glowing by the light of a full Moon

  I see hope. I see prosperity. I see the future.

  The Sun is the promise of a new beginning.

  The Moon is me, my home, my fate, my life, safe in the sky.

  And the Wheel of Fortune turns. It’s always turning.

  Mind you, it’s not always good with the wheel. But my luck has been on the downward spin, so the only way for it to go is up. And it doesn’t have to turn much to elevate the likes of me. See, the ups and downs of everyone’s life depend on the size of the wheel.

  Great fortunes rise on a great wheel. The ascent is dizzying, the view from the top glorious, but the fall is sickening, the circle is huge, and it’s easy to get crushed at the bottom.

  Small lives: small turns. Little fortunes: little loss.

  Big lives: big turns. Colossal fortunes: colossal crash.

  Konstantin, Volikov, Morris, and Hugo are all in the midst of a terrifying dive.

  It’s the size of the wheel.

  Peter is scrambling not to be crushed by the weight of it.

  My life is small, so the fall didn’t hurt.

  In fact, I’m already in line for another go.

  There’s no minimum height to ride. It’s open all night. It turns in all weather. You too hold a ticket, and you’re riding with us whether you like it or not.

  It’s not a threat, it’s a journey.

  Let me tell your fortune.

  You enter the fair as a Fool. You walk under the Sun and the Star and the Moon. You dine with Emperors and study with Hierophants. You leave Lovers like Hanged Men scattered across the Universe. You play with the Magus and fall from the Tower. You race in the Chariot to hide from Death and become a Hermit. The Empress lures you out with love, then the Priestess spikes your drink. You’re taken by the Devil. You make Art. You Lust. You Adjust. You enter the Aeon, and there, at the end, a stranger tells your Fortune.

  The end.

  RED RUSSIA: black and white