‘It’s so economically worded,’ said Kanyuka five minutes later with false admiration. ‘ “For the systematic violation of academic discipline”—you can’t argue with that.’
They were examining the sheet of paper I had taken down from the departmental notice board, turning it over in their hands and passing it along to one another. The sheet, which had been clean and white a moment before, grew creased as it passed from hand to hand. It was deteriorating before our very eyes, and yet it was full of power—even now we could scarcely hold it. We had been expelled.
Natasha was standing by the board and watching us silently. She was watching us, and we were all trying to understand which one. And what she was thinking about. What exactly. She was watching, and Korostishevski and Kanyuka were both trying to look cheerful and carefree. Kurochkin frowned pensively and rested his cheek on his fist. Mishka Reingarten attempted to speak.
‘Well, sure,’ he said to Kanyuka, ‘we’ve been truant for two months. Do we have doctor’s certificates? No. That means we’ve been truant. We’re being expelled for truancy.’
‘We weren’t truant. We were in gaol. Although, now you mention it, perhaps we could get certificates? I hear the KGB issues them.’
‘Volodymyr Street?’ asked Kurochkin with surprise. ‘Certificates? Who told you that?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Kanyuka in some confusion. ‘I just heard it somewhere.’
‘You should try to remember where,’ advised Kurochkin warmly.
‘That’s enough,’ said Sashka Korostishevski softly, and they fell silent. We could see it all. We were being expelled, but at least it was only for truancy. They didn’t want to make a big deal of it—call meetings, expel us from the Komsomol. They could if they wanted to. But they were expelling us gently—and that was well and good. It left us the possibility of studying elsewhere. It could have been worse.
2004
Kurochkin’s secretary caused a commotion in the office and just about disrupted an Important Meeting. When he couldn’t get hold of me on my mobile (we’re under orders to keep our mobiles switched off when we discuss that holiest of holies—‘milk yields,’ better known as ‘revenue’), he started dialing the bosses. ‘Davidov is in a meeting,’ said our patient office managers to Kurochkin’s persistent secretary. ‘You can leave a message if you want to.’
‘I’m calling from Parliament—the Finance and Banking Committee. Davidov is being summoned as a matter of urgency to a meeting of the committee.’ ‘Summoned as a matter of urgency’ did the trick. Maybe our office is American, but the managers are local. They know better than to deal with the authorities if at all possible and immediately passed responsibility to the brass. They told Malkin.
Stephen Malkin was top dog at our branch. He had returned the night before from Memphis, Tennessee, where there had been a great pow-wow of regional managers at our fizzy giant’s head office. The head honchos were explaining the party line on per capita ‘milk yields.’ As far as I could see, nothing had changed—it was still all about profit. But it was necessary to expound on the topic at least once a quarter in case we forgot. Malkin had brought back a box of DVDs of the Memphis meeting and gave one to each of us. Now he was doing his best to convey the chief’s exhortations to consider night and day whether we were doing everything we could for the good of the company. Malkin talked, and we took notes—or, in truth, pretended to, and it was inhumanly boring at that.
Every time I attended one of these meetings I recalled with a shudder of nostalgia my army political indoctrination of eighteen years before. Twice a week we were assembled by battery commander Major Razin, who dictated at length from a Partyapproved training manual. The battery commander was short in stature, with two dozen iron teeth gleaming darkly from his mouth. He himself was a die-hard Stalinist. Whenever he came across the leader’s name within the approved text he grew inordinately excited and forgot all about the training manual and the political classes. ‘We couldn’t have done it without Joseph,’ he cried exultantly. ‘Wherever you look—there he is. We’d have got nowhere without him. That’s because he was the head—he and he alone thought for everyone else, for the entire country. Not long ago our pay went up. That’s good, isn’t it? Don’t you think they did the right thing? Well, what do you suppose Joseph did? He lowered the prices. One’s as long as the other is broad, eh? But if you look closely … when they raise wages, we pay more taxes. But what about prices? Eh? Eh? That’s right. Because he was looking after the people.’ We loved these monologues—they revealed the weakness of a strong man, and we thought of the battery commander as a strong man. Then we just took it easy. There was no need to take notes on these monologues. And Stalin was the last thing on our minds.
Malkin was nothing like Razin. He looked like a hamburger: plump buns, spirit of democracy, big smile on display. In his callow American youth Malkin had studied at the same college as William F. Hume, president of the board of directors of our little shop, so whenever when he came across the name Hume in those management documents that showered on us like incessant rain from Memphis, Tennessee, Malkin would get as excited as Major Razin. He would completely forget about the documents and volubly hold forth about that down-to-earth American guy, Bill As He Remembered Him. We didn’t hold it against Malkin. Without this chatter Important Meetings would have been a lot harder to bear. I don’t know what the others were thinking while they listened to Malkin, but I had long since stopped listening altogether. I would look at Malkin and wait—for the moment his synthetic smile gave way to a Razinesque iron grin and those immortal words would resound: ‘That’s because he was the head—he and he alone thought for everyone else.’
On this occasion Malkin was shot down before he gained altitude. His eyes had not yet misted over, his voice had yet to quiver in pride and excitation. He had only managed a solemn recitation of the signature on a management directive when one of the office managers slunk into the room like a silent shade trying not to detach itself from the wall. Malkin twitched, smiled broadly and—burying his irritation deep inside—eyed the manager, who redoubled his pace to cross the room and bend over the chief’s ear. Malkin heard the fellow out. For a moment his brows vaulted indignantly then smoothed out again, and Malkin assumed a stock smile. He gave a curt nod and a rapid reply. I was allowed to go.
A minute later I was talking to Kurochkin on the telephone, and within fifteen minutes I was turning off Three Saints Boulevard on to Kostel Street where he lived. Rush hour was starting, and the city centre was packed with cars, but I was able to avoid the worst of it by taking quiet back streets. If I’d gone by Volodymyr Street or Kreschatik Boulevard it would have taken me until evening.
Kurochkin was standing in the doorway to his living room. ‘Comprador,’ I said, ‘what have you brought this country to? There are so many cars in the city you can hardly shove your way through them. If people keep growing poor at this rate, we’ll need double-decker roads.’
‘And a car park instead of the Monastery of the Caves.’
‘There’s not much room there.’
‘We’ll expand it, make it deeper. Install air conditioning, plumbing and electricity.’
‘Nothing is sacred to you, is it, Kurochkin?’ I sighed with disappointment.
‘Nothing,’ said Kurochkin. ‘It’s my habit to drink the blood of Christian babies in the morning instead of juice, and I like to nibble on the relics of the monastery’s saints.’
I imagined Kurochkin in the kitchen with a glass of blood and a brown leg of Saint Nestor the Chronicler on his plate. At the very thought my stomach rebelled, and I began to gag.
‘Ah, I see that’s making you queasy,’ Kurochkin observed, ‘but I kid you not. Some guy actually has suggested modernizing the caves. I’m going to turn the scheme down tomorrow, but in a couple of days all the papers—all the papers he owns—will start smearing me with shit. Just wait and see.’
‘All right,’ I said vaguely, ‘although you don’t exa
ctly look intimidated. Just a few days ago I read that you’ve been declared the Ukrainian government’s sex symbol.’
‘Ah. Don’t read the gutter press before lunch, doctor.’
Of course you didn’t have to read it—Kurochkin wouldn’t look any less attractive. Around twenty years before, someone, probably Kanyuka, had called Kurochkin the ‘human numeral 1.’ Long and skinny, with a prominent nose, chin and Adam’s apple and a stomach you could feel his spine through, he aroused the pity and compassion of every woman the wrong side of thirty. He was fed by the ladies from the lunchroom, the cleaning ladies, the mothers and grandmothers of his friends and acquaintances—and my mother especially. I seem to recall Kurochkin being remarkably omnivorous. As the years went by he grew heavier. Beneath his light artificial tan one could now detect a tender layer of flab. The former ‘numeral 1’ was nowhere in sight. Kurochkin was smooth and sleek, and if not for his regular bouts with iron weights he would have looked more like a 0. A lean, fit 0.
‘Any more mail today?’ he asked.
‘Not this morning, no. Nothing important, anyway.’
‘Good. You’ll remember this, of course …’
He put a print-out of the ultimatum in front of me. ‘Recent history has shown that there exists within Slovenorussia …’
‘I remember.’
‘It looks like he’s done what he said he would do and started a war.’
‘What do you mean he?’
‘Who else? Sasha Korostishevski, the Holy Roman Emperor.’
That was impossible. Kurochkin knew just as well as I did that Korostishevski could not start a war. In early October 1986, when all the active-duty troops in our conscription were being demobilized by order of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR and we old-timers were hurriedly pasting the last photographs into our demob albums, Sashka’s APC was ambushed outside the Afghan town of Herat and subjected to heavy fire. The tank burned up. So did Sashka and the rest of his crew. That is a fact, an absolute fact. No one was saved.
‘I see. You’re shadowboxing.’
‘Davidov! Yesterday his shadow stripped me of 90 million. And this is just the start.’
‘An impressive start,’ I agreed. ‘But try as you may, you won’t strip me of ninety million. Why don’t you tell me everything from the beginning.’
‘Okay.’ Kurochkin nodded. ‘But not now. I’ve got something to show you. Let’s go.’
‘I can just imagine. If I had any children I’d tell them never to drink my company’s cola and to steer clear of your surprises.’
We stepped outside. From the soggy plywood entrance to the Roman Catholic church a priest opened his damp arms to us.
‘Let’s take your car,’ said Kurochkin. He winced and turned up the collar of his coat. ‘Mine’s got about a dozen bugs in it. What dreadful weather. Three weeks into spring, and it’s as cold as New Year’s Day. What a country. Let’s get going.’
‘Where to?’
‘We’re going to lunch. I usually eat about now. The place isn’t far from here.’
Kurochkin apparently had lunch by the Golden Gates. We could have walked there in fifteen minutes. Instead it took us nearly an hour in the car. The whole of the city center was clogged like a blocked drain.
When I saw we were stuck and were going be stuck for some time, I said, ‘You should have brought your flashing lights. You do have flashing lights, don’t you?’
‘What do I want flashing lights for?’ he growled. ‘They just annoy people pointlessly. I’m sure you’ve blown a gasket or two when idiots with flashing lights get in your way. Why don’t you have a look at this while we’re waiting?’ He passed me the letter.
A polite gentleman who referred to Kurochkin as ‘my dearest Yuri’ wrote that this year unforeseen circumstances in world markets had prevented him from entirely fulfilling agreements concluded at his ranch three years before. The gentleman hoped Yuri would show the understanding befitting a wise statesman and gave assurances of his unswerving feelings of friendship. The writer of the letter gave his name simply as Michael. No surname, no position. Just Michael.
‘Is that your ninety million?’ I asked Kurochkin after reading the letter twice.
He tilted his head and didn’t say anything.
‘What does Sashka Korostishevski have to do with it?’
‘Can’t you see?’
‘No,’ I replied honestly.
‘You didn’t read it carefully. What’s this?’ he said and pointed to a couple of letters at the bottom of the page.
‘Y.T.,’ I read, and shrugged. ‘That could mean all sorts of things. It could be a printing glitch and not mean anything at all.’
‘A printing glitch!’ Kurochkin flared up. ‘A printing glitch worth ninety million dollars, eh? It’s not just Y.T., Davidov. No way is it just Y.T. Do you remember now?’
I did remember: Whenever we moved our troops, advanced or retreated, we had written ‘your turn,’ usually just ‘Y.T.,’ to confirm that we’d made our final decision. How eerie those letters looked in the letter from this unknown Michael—unknown to me but evidently well known to Kurochkin. Looking at the letters now, I felt something in the world change forever—some axis shifted, the stream of time changed course, even the sky abruptly changed color. Somewhere close at hand horns began to sound impatiently.
‘Hey, keep your eyes on the road.’ Kurochkin brought me down to earth. ‘It’s almost evening on a Friday, and people are irritable. Come on, let’s get going.’
To the blowing of horns and invective of other drivers grid-locked alongside us, we slowly moved forward.
‘Kurochkin,’ I said, ‘you may be right.’
‘I wish I wasn’t, Alex,’ Kurochkin sighed. ‘You know this money doesn’t belong to me. Not to me personally. These ninety lemons are gone, but another ninety must not disappear. There’s no point in my telling you all the details, but you can be damn sure it’s being watched. Speaking of which, can you please keep the letter confidential? It’s not dangerous that you’ve read it, but please don’t broadcast it either. Maybe the bloke who’s been waiting for us the past hour at Rabelais will know what’s going on.’
‘What bloke?’
‘I said it’s a surprise.’
‘Another one? I thought the letter was your surprise. And who’s Michael?’
Kurochkin jerked his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Why not?’ I asked uncomprehendingly. ‘He’s playing against you, and you—’
‘He’s not the one playing, Davidov. Can’t you see that? He’s just a respectable man who’s been to Ukraine two or three times for all of ten hours, no more. He’s never even heard of our game and doesn’t know a thing about it. But somehow they’ve managed to make a move. Do you know what that means? Just think who it might be …’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said indifferently. The words ‘respectable man’ had lost meaning for me ages ago. It was just an abstract idea. Maybe Kurochkin thought he was a respectable man, but he was a nobody. It was a long time since I had trusted anyone’s judgment but my own. ‘Who do you think it might be?’
Kurochkin curled his lip. ‘At least we know it’s not their president.’
Our people are unswerving and steadfast in their contempt from afar for figures imbued with power, and, despite his previous incarnation as Deputy Premier, Kurochkin was no different. A friend of mine came to visit a few years ago—by that time he’d been living in America for around twenty years—the television was switched on and Clinton was being broadcast live, his cheeks and neck varying in hue from deep beet-red to floury-white and back to ripe beet again. He was giving testimony on his private life, and the whole world, billions of viewers, were appreciating his chameleonesque abilities.
‘Our wonderful president …’ my friend said knowingly and nodded at the television with the grimace of a man who’s bitten into a lemon. At that moment I recalled that in the happy days of pre-Rasputin St. Petersburg the public
had referred to the tsar as Our Colonel of Tsarskoe Tselo and probably pulled similar faces and winked. But as soon as such a citizen comes face to face with an important official, then for months afterwards he spouts butter and honey and contorts his spine into a studied faint bow. Even the words he uses change.
‘By the way,’ I said, checking myself abruptly, ‘Did you notice that the letters YT are in the wrong place? They’re not supposed to be in the letter itself.’
‘What do you mean “not supposed to”?’
‘Well, they’re not in the ultimatum, for example. Remember? You could transfer several documents in one move, but YT was used …’
‘That’s right. We put YT only on memoranda that listed all the actions taken in a turn … No,’ he interrupted himself and started laughing, ‘they have done everything correctly. If the entire move consists of this one letter, then there’s no need for a memorandum.’
‘But how do you know this was the last action in the move?’
‘They put YT where they did so that I wouldn’t expect a memorandum or any other documents.’
Once I parked the car on Golden Gate Street we plunged into the March mud and made our way to Rabelais. I was overcome by a sense of unreality, of the impossibility of what was happening.
The person waiting for us in the restaurant was Sinevusov. Almost as soon as Kurochkin had mentioned a surprise, I knew there was something I didn’t like. Now I knew why.
If I hadn’t seen the major again twelve or thirteen years before I wouldn’t have recognized him now. It had been a time of demonstrations and queues. Then we thought it appropriate to divide population into two groups: progressive and forward-thinking people like us who were demonstrating and fighting for our rights and freedoms, and people like them, the backward silent majority, fed at the hand of an inhumane regime, who stood in queues for vodka and liver sausage. Although the demonstrators needed vodka and liver sausage no less than those who learned about the demonstrations from the television news.
Y.T. Page 5