I enjoyed the regularity and predictability of Yulya’s visits. It was easy to arrange my days around our encounters and I appreciated not having to deal with the logistics of bringing a new dyev home, sending text messages back and forth, the initial exchange in Pyramida and all that work.
Besides, the clandestine nature of her visits – the fact that she came to my flat to cheat on her boyfriend – made me think of The Master and Margarita. I saw myself as the master and this notion gave our entire arrangement a certain literary quality, as if Bulgakov himself were giving us his blessing.
I found Yulya Karma attractive but, despite my efforts, rather unresponsive in bed. She would lie on my couch, naked, relaxed, smiling, but hardly moving or moaning, waiting patiently for me to finish. At first I tried to be creative but after a few attempts I gave up.
Yulya’s breasts were large and heavy but, once she was fully undressed, so were her thighs and her buttocks. I never mentioned this to her – I really didn’t care – but she would bring it up herself often.
‘I was so much thinner before,’ she said one of the first times we met.
‘You are thin.’
We were lying naked on my couch, which I had recently covered with blue washable fabric. Through the balcony, the summer breeze carried the sounds and smells of traffic into my flat.
‘I could eat whatever I wanted,’ she said. ‘Really, I never used to put any weight on. I was so thin, you should have seen me. Now, even if I starve myself for a week, I can’t get rid of the extra kilos. I hope it’s just a phase.’
‘Perhaps you could join a gym,’ I said, staring up at the wall, my eyes fixed on Ganesh.
‘You think I’m fat?’
‘Not at all, I like your figure. You are very sexy.’
‘Thanks. I don’t have time to go to a gym.’
One day, at the end of our two hours, Yulya was slipping into her jeans when she told me she had started to visit a masseur twice a week. The masseur, she said, massaged her thighs for an hour to release the excess fat and redistribute it within her body. I told her that this method of losing weight was unknown in the West and that, to me, it didn’t sound very scientific. She insisted that these massages were the latest fashion in Moscow, but I found myself wondering if this was true or if the masseur was perhaps just another guy she was also fucking on a fixed schedule.
21
ON WARM EVENINGS THE air inside my flat became stuffy and I’d have to open the balcony doors. If there was a breeze, the air from the street was fresh, but, when the evening was still, the smoke from the grill at Scandinavia reached my sixth-floor balconies and the entire flat smelled of burnt animal fat.
The summer terrace at Scandinavia, I’d learned, opened every year as soon as the last snow of the season had melted. At first, when the evenings remained chilly, they provided blankets and mushroom gas-heaters but, as the days got warmer, the blankets disappeared and the clientele, mostly expats, flocked to the terrace, attracted by cold beer on tap and hamburgers that were grilled until midnight.
The Exile said Scandinavia made the best burgers in town.
Sometimes, when I walked into my building, I would see guys I knew from football chilling out on the terrace. I’d have to stop to greet them and, if I wasn’t alone, they would ogle my companion, usually nodding in approval – an approval I had not sought, and which annoyed me, really. Later, at night, from my living room, with the balconies open, I could hear their voices which by then would be drunk and loud.
I enjoyed it when Lena spent the night. She brought me old soviet films that she’d seen a hundred times, comedies usually, the jokes mostly lost on me, and when she saw that I didn’t laugh she would pause the film and try to fill in the cultural and linguistic nuances she thought I was missing. I found her explanations interesting because they revealed, if not Russian thinking per se, at least a great deal about soviet aesthetics. But, despite Lena’s efforts, I rarely got what was comical about the scenes, which to me seemed clown-like and childish, and at a certain point I had to pretend that I, too, found them funny so that we could move on and watch the rest of the film.
At night, before falling asleep, we would lie reading on the couch. She was always nose-deep in some spiritual book or self-help manual, Lena, about the power of meditation or compassion or friendship, and every time she encountered a new concept – an insight she found revealing – she would read it aloud to me, hoping that I’d embrace it at once as she had, and she would get pissed off when I teased her and didn’t take her books seriously. It seemed to me that most of Lena’s books talked about the same crap – about refusing temptation and attachment and material pleasure, about how we all needed to focus instead on the spiritual world around us.
We also listened to music.
One afternoon, in early August, Lena and I were lying naked on my couch, listening to an album I had recently bought at the Gorbushka pirate CD market. The sun was setting over Moscow. Orange sunlight poured into my living room, over the coffee table, the couch, the wall tapestry. Bathed in the evening sun, Lord Ganesh almost came alive. It felt good to be there with Lena, calm and quiet.
The balcony doors were open. In between songs, I could hear the permanent roar of the city, mixed with the chattering of people and the clinking of glasses that came from the Scandinavia terrace, but also, at some point, the distant sound of sirens.
I was enjoying the album, a pirate compilation from an indie rock band I’d recently discovered. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Ganesh, his elephant head and twisted arms looking mystical under the warm sun-rays. It was in these moments of serene nudity that all my senses were at their most receptive.
‘I love this album,’ I said.
‘Very nice songs.’ Lena had her head on my chest and one leg between my legs.
‘You know what,’ I said, ‘I’m going to give you this CD. You can have it.’
‘Why?’
‘A present.’
‘What for?’
‘You just said you like it.’
‘I do. But it’s your CD.’
‘This is a pirate copy,’ I said. ‘I bought it in Gorbushka. But I really like it so I’ll buy the licensed CD in the official shop.’
‘Why would you buy a licensed copy of a CD you already have?’ she said. ‘Licensed CDs are very expensive.’
‘I know, but it feels different. When I really like an album, I prefer to have the original thing.’
For a few seconds we remained silent, listening to the music. Abruptly, Lena untangled herself from my body and rolled away from me, facing now the back of the couch. Her blonde hair, cut short at her neck, shone brighter in the sun.
I could hear more sirens howling in the street, louder now, closer – an unsettling sound, but, back then, a sound unrelated to my own pain.
‘Strange about those sirens,’ I said.
Lena didn’t answer. She was covering her eyes with an arm.
Lena was crying.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing. It’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK, you’re crying.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Is it something I said?’
Lena got up, stomped to the other side of the room. She took a tissue from her handbag, blew her nose, came back and sat on the other side of the couch, staring at the sunset. She was still naked, but now out of my reach; biting the golden cross on her chain.
‘Maybe something bad happened in the street,’ she said. ‘An accident.’
‘Lenushka, tell me, what’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess I’m just stupid.’
‘Is it about the CD?’
Silence.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘Yes, Martin, it’s about the CD.’
For a few seconds I tried to understand the situation. Then I moved along the couch and held Lena’s han
d.
‘Lenushka,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not going to give you a pirate copy. I’ll buy two copies of the original CD, one for me and one for you.’
Gazing out through the balcony, Lena shook her head slowly, in silence. Then she turned to me.
‘Martin, I don’t want your fucking compact disc.’
‘Lenushka, what’s wrong?’
‘Why the hell would I need a CD that you have?’
She stood up. The rays of setting sun illuminated her beautiful breasts and sparkled on the golden cross than hung above them.
‘Has it crossed your mind,’ she said, failing to hold back her tears, ‘that maybe one day we could move in together, you and me, as a real couple, and then we would not need two copies of the same album?’
The next day I learned about the sirens. A bomb had gone off at the perekhod in Pushkinskaya, about two hundred metres away from my building, killing thirteen people and injuring more than a hundred. The news on TV showed images of broken glass, people screaming, a pool of blood. It seemed the blast, which I hadn’t heard, had occurred at the southern entry of the perekhod. The police said it was the work of Chechen terrorists.
It felt unreal to see the mayhem on TV when all the action had been taking place only a minute away from my building. The bomb had exploded in the very heart of Moscow, a few steps from Pushkin’s statue, on the route I took almost daily, the route Lena had probably followed, before the explosion, to get to my place. I wondered if, at the time of the bombing, people on the Scandinavia terrace had noticed what was going on on the other side of the building, while they were drinking beer and gorging on the best burgers in town.
For a few days I avoided the underpasses at Pushkinskaya. I would cross at street level, using the zebra crossing on the Boulevard. The first time I went back to walking through the perekhod, I saw a plaque on the wall commemorating the victims and, from that day on – and for the rest of my stay in Moscow – every time I passed by there would be flowers and candles on the ground under the plaque, and I would be forced to remember the day I failed to hear the deadly explosion from my flat – the day thirteen people were killed in Pushkinskaya and Lena thought we didn’t need two copies of the same CD because maybe we could move in together.
And yet, other than the plaque and the flowers and candles, everything in Pushkinskaya looked exactly as it had before the explosion. Muscovites rushed in and out of the metro, stopping at the kiosks to buy knock-off watches, sunglasses and chocolates. Up at ground level, young couples met beneath Pushkin’s statue, exchanging flowers and kisses, as they had done before the explosion, and as they would keep doing, I imagined, for many years to come.
22
ON 12 AUGUST, LESS than a week after the bomb in Pushkinskaya, a Russian nuclear submarine sank in the North Sea with its entire crew on board.
I only learned about this the day after, while I was watching the news on TV. It was early in the morning and, despite the bright light coming in from the balcony, I was yet to reach a state of complete wakefulness. I lay stretched on the couch, in my underpants, drinking coffee. As far as I understood from the news, the submarine was now lying at the bottom of the sea, the survivors trapped inside the hull. The Russian president, who had decided not to interrupt his holidays by the Black Sea, had ordered the deployment of a rescue team.
I finished my coffee, turned off the TV. After a cold shower, I put on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt and took the stairs down to the street. I had agreed to meet Stepanov for breakfast at the Starlite.
It was a lovely summer morning. The sky was clear, the air fresh. As I walked towards Mayakovskaya, I found myself thinking about the Russian sailors who, at that very moment, were trapped underwater, with little oxygen, probably in darkness. When I reached the Akvarium Garden I found it prettier than ever. It was all green and full of life – a smattering of red tulip-like flowers had sprouted around the Apollo fountain at the back of the park.
A waitress I knew by sight was setting up the terrace of the Starlite, opening the sun umbrellas and placing ketchup bottles and napkins on the tables. As I passed, she greeted me with a smile. ‘Your friend is inside,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’ I stepped into the diner and found Stepanov slouched at a corner booth, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses I’d never seen before, sliding eggs and bacon around a greasy plate.
‘Sorry, brother, I couldn’t wait,’ he said. ‘I needed something solid in my stomach.’
We shook hands and I sat opposite him. ‘You look like shit,’ I said.
‘Yeah, fucking great night.’
Because we’d met through the brothers, Stepanov and I always spoke in English. I found this slightly disconcerting, as if, by using a foreign language instead of his native Russian, Stepanov was trying to be something he was not. It was an unfair thought, I knew, because to Russian native speakers, my simplified version of their language would also sound artificial.
A waitress approached our booth. I ordered a salmon and cheese omelette and a cup of coffee.
‘Straight from the club?’ I asked.
Nodding, Stepanov forked a piece of egg into his mouth. ‘You should have come. We ended up in this new place, next to the river, on the south bank. They’ve installed a huge tent. It was real elitni, full of celebrities.’
‘Sounds good.’ I had decided to take a night off and stay at home. Now I wondered whether I should have gone out instead.
‘Plenty of models and actresses, all very exclusivni. Pasha Face Control on the door.’ Stepanov swallowed his last piece of egg and dumped his toast on the plate to soak up the grease.
‘If you want the best crowd,’ I said, ‘it’s gotta be Pasha on the door.’
‘He was on top form. He turned a minister away.’
‘Good for Pasha. A government kind of minister?’
‘The fucking minister of housing or social issues or something like that.’ Stepanov took a bite of bread and, still chewing, a sip of coffee. ‘He showed up with this great-looking baba, surely a prostitute. Pasha didn’t let him through, so the minister started to make a scene, shouting that he was going to call the president at the Kremlin, shut the club down.’
‘Pasha held his ground, I hope.’
‘Of course,’ Stepanov said, ‘but the minister kept on screaming that he knew everybody personally, the chief of police and all that. Pasha remained calm and said something like, “Sorry, your Excellency, but this is a private party.”’
‘“Sorry, your Excellency”?’
‘Yes.’ Stepanov laughed. ‘Can you imagine? So the minister got furious and took his phone and started to make calls. He shouted for a while, saying someone needs to cut the legs off this fucking kid, looking at Pasha, you know.’
‘Sure.’
‘But no one ever arrived. In the meantime, Pasha was letting other people into the club. We hardly had to wait.’
The waitress brought me a steaming mug of coffee.
‘Before I forget,’ Stepanov said, ‘this is for you.’ He placed a brown sealed envelope on the table.
I took the envelope and tucked it into the back of my jeans.
‘The deal with the Americans went through,’ he said.
‘Congratulations. Breakfast’s on me.’
Insight Investments International was a firm with no office – all business meetings took place in bars and restaurants. The Starlite was kind of our corporate headquarters. Stepanov was of the opinion that, being an American diner, the Starlite put Western investors at ease.
‘That last meeting went very well,’ Stepanov said. ‘You did a good job.’
‘Those guys seemed pretty interested.’
‘They were interested. It’s always so much easier to do business with Americans. Americans know how to make money. They trust people. Trusting mode is their default position. Unlike fucking Europeans. Europeans are always suspicious, thinking all Russians are crooks. They don’t get that fo
reign investors need our help to understand the local business environment.’
The waitress topped up my mug of coffee, which was almost full, and smiled at me.
I smiled back. ‘Spasibo.’
‘It’s normal that foreign investors are cautious,’ I said. ‘They better be careful doing business in this country. Russia is a lawless jungle.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ Stepanov said. ‘Russia might be a jungle, but even jungles have their own laws. There are many rules here. It just happens that they are different rules from yours, and most of them are not written. In the end our system is no worse or better than the West’s. Just different.’
I could see Stepanov was still drunk. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I said.
‘Anyway, foreigners are getting more reluctant to invest in Russia. The sweet chaos of the 1990s is over. They’re afraid of the new political climate, intimidated by all this posturing and nationalist shit from our politicians. It scares them off. So I want to start tapping into the local market.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oligarchs.’ Stepanov was pointing his fork at me. ‘They’ve got the real money these days. And they don’t know how to spend it. I’ve been looking into car dealerships. With the cash from Insight Investments we could set up an operation to import luxury vehicles from Europe.’
‘Not easy, I presume.’
‘There are ways. I found out I can avoid customs duties if the firm I set up is legally owned by a handicapped person. Some bizarre old rule. I just need to find a cripple to own the firm on paper. Of course I can let you into the business if you are interested. Oligarchs love to mingle with foreigners.’
‘Always happy to help.’
The waitress came with my omelette and a side bowl of chips I hadn’t ordered. ‘On the house,’ she said, in English, pointing at the chips with a smile.
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