The List (Списанные)
by Dmitry Bykov
Click here to read the author's biography
Click here to read a synopsis
***
Sample translation by Hugh Aplin
PART ONE
AN ENUMERATION OF REASONS
1.
At Vnukovo, the scriptwriter Sergei Spiridov, who was flying to the Crimea for a children’s film festival with the picture The Little Miracle, was detained at the border.
Spiridov said hello to the genial blonde border official, proffered his overseas passport to her (he could have gone on his internal one, but Sviridov liked to think he was showing work abroad) and prepared to wait. The procedure usually took no more than a minute. However, the blonde peered at the document, checked with a weighty Talmud and then with two lists in polythene folders, and then made a telephone call to someone and read out Sviridov’s details. It wasn’t this that alarmed Sviridov, but the look she fixed upon him after these procedures. Usually in the case of an unforeseen hold-up – it could be anything, maybe your surname matched one that was under suspicion – the border officials looked sheepish: we’re all friends, it’s a formality. But now Sviridov was being looked at with an expression that was only too familiar to his genetic memory: ‘Are we going to confess, or carry on deceiving the security services?’
‘Is something the matter?’ Sviridov asked with a repulsive ingratiating intonation.
‘Everything will be explained,’ replied the official, whose geniality had evaporated in an instant. Sviridov was well aware of the way this could happen. Nice people weren’t employed in such posts, nor would they themselves go for them.
‘But what is it?’ he asked, still equably. ‘Is there something wrong with my document?’
‘Move aside and wait,’ she said, already with irritation. ‘They’ll ring back in five minutes and you’ll be through.’
‘And who is it that has to ring you back?’
‘Stop getting in people’s way!’ she said, raising her voice.
Sviridov stepped aside, letting a sweaty mum with a sluggish little boy of about three go by. The scriptwriter’s helplessly spread-eagled passport stayed lying in front of the official. It was clear that there was no getting away from it for Sviridov now, he was going to remain standing aside. He was tied to his passport. Thank God he wasn’t flying with the rest of the group: there would have been no end to the taunts. ‘I always knew Sery was untrustworthy; He’s got drugs in his belly, miss, check his belly!’ The film critic Losev went by, an unpleasant man with a past in NTV. He had presented a cinema news programme on the old NTV called Where to Go, a title he himself had made jokes about tirelessly. He was a slippery type – one of those who are always criticising the authorities, but who never get into trouble for it. After NTV was broken up, he quietly got himself a job on Central TV, but continued to go around in the halo of a victim of persecution.
‘What’s wrong, Seryozha,’ he said sympathetically, ‘won’t they let you out of the country?’
‘As you see,’ Sviridov replied vaguely, not wanting to be candid.
‘What, don’t you know who he is, miss?’ Losev asked the border official. ‘He’s the most trustworthy chap, scriptwriter for the series The Ruin of the Fatherland. Didn’t you watch it?’
‘Go on through,’ the official told Losev ungraciously, firmly stamping his passport, plump from the visas that were stuck in it. Losev was never away from international festivals, the bloody aesthete.
‘OK then,’ Losev pronounced with concealed triumph, gave Sviridov a wave and went by.
Two more people went by, and one of them caught Sviridov with a heavy suitcase – of course, he could do that now…
‘Miss,’ Sviridov gave a timid reminder of himself, ‘my flight’s in half an hour. The gate will be closing soon.’
‘You should get here earlier,’ the official predictably replied without looking at him.
‘But can I know what this is all about?’ asked Sviridov in exasperation.
‘You’ll be told,’ she repeated.
‘What, may I not be able to leave at all?’
‘That’s right,’ she replied calmly. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘For what?’
‘For checking. Clear out of the way, citizen.’
So then, it’s ‘citizen’ now as well. Sviridov grew angry. Fear began to be supplanted by irritation: ultimately, he didn’t know of anything he had done wrong. Why should he have to answer for idiotic failures in their system? They can’t catch Ulman, but a scriptwriter they can!
‘If I fail to leave for the festival, you’ll be personally responsible for it,’ he threatened. The official didn’t do him the honour of replying.
‘Do you hear me?’ he asked.
She picked up her telephone and dialled a three-figure number.
‘Number five?’ she said. ‘I’ve got a man here threatening me. I’ll be responsible for something, he says. Yes, kicking up a row. Come and explain who’ll be responsible for what. Because he’s being a bit, you know. Yes. Good.’
She hung up and raised a triumphant gaze to Sviridov.
‘You’ll have all the answers in a minute,’ she said. ‘The major will come and give you all the answers.’
A major of some unknown service in a white summer uniform was already heading towards Sviridov. He had leapt out like a devil from a snuffbox through a concealed door under a staircase – from a slit through which the untrustworthy inconspicuously fall; behind the door there could be a communal cell, a torture chamber, anything.
‘This one?’ he asked the official through the glass wall of the cubicle, indicating Sviridov and not doing him the honour of addressing him. The fat girl nodded gleefully.
‘Through there,’ said the major, pointing to the door.
‘But why, exactly…’
‘Shall I call for the guards?’ the major asked in a bored voice. Sviridov realised that the joking was over. He shrugged his shoulders and followed the major through the inconspicuous door.
There was nothing awful there – a workspace, a chair, a desk, a little couch. The only thing reminiscent of a torture chamber was the standard murky carafe of yellow water that was evidently metallic in flavour. It’s the only kind torturers refresh themselves with – no other restores their torturing powers.
‘Take a seat,’ said the major, who himself sat down at the desk and returned to solving the crossword in the newspaper Son-in-law.
‘May I know what my problem is?’ asked Sviridov after a minute’s pause. They would be making an announcement about boarding at any moment.
The major raised his pale eyes to him and looked at him from under his brows in silence for a time, expecting that the victim would fail to withstand the hypnosis, would feel ashamed, would cast his eyes downwards and sink into remorse. But Sviridov looked straight ahead, defiantly, and the major was compelled to break the silence.
‘You’ll have it explained to you.’
‘By whom?’
‘The people concerned.’
‘Do you understand, I have to leave today…’
‘We understand you have to. We have to and you have to. A check’s being carried out. Depending on the results of the check you’ll either leave or…’ The major paused. Sviridov froze. ‘Or you won’t.’
Sviridov had guessed even before that these people had much greater control over his plans than he himself had. No shake-ups or changes of name could strip this service, instantly identifiable by the intonations, of even a tad of its rights. The major continued with his storming of the crossword. After five minutes or so he raised his rather pale eyes to Sviridov once more and asked:
‘Soviet Russian writer, author of the story “The Exchange”. Eight letters.’
‘Trifonov,’ Sviridov answered obligingly. The major nodded, as though the question were a part of the check. Strange, thought Sviridov. Maybe he’s giving me to understand that he doesn’t consider me an enemy? Would they think of asking an enemy who the author of the story “The Exchange” was? An enemy would be sure to mislead them. But maybe my having read Trifonov is a crime in itself? Maybe this is a Cheka agent’s special test crossword? Seven-letter explosive beginning with ‘h’. Hexogen. Right, come this way. Even in the present difficult circumstances his head continued to generate plots. Suspicious people of an anxiously mistrustful stamp make the very best scriptwriters – they’re forever busy with the scripts of the imagined intrigues being woven against them.
At this point the telephone on the major’s desk rang and there was a lengthy interruption to the solving of the test crossword. The major drew complicated zigzags on the newspaper, listened with indifference and from time to time nodded.
‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Good. Aha. No, here. Quietly. No, doesn’t look like it. Very well. I see. Green. No, yesterday. From the west. Forty-seven. Fourteen. Aha. Good. Aha.’
It goes without saying that Sviridov listened to all these rejoinders with special attention, hoping to discern in them the solution to his fate, but not the colours, nor the figures, nor the parts of the world had anything at all to do with him. ‘Aha, a spy from the west, looks forty-seven, green with fear, the bag weighs fourteen, aha, put him away for good, aha,’ he reconstructed mechanically, astonished at his own calmness. The horror of the situation hadn’t sunk in properly yet.
‘You’re free to fly,’ said the major lazily, hanging up, but still looking at Sviridov, as though restraining him with his gaze. He was doubtless waiting for a question.
‘And what was all that?’ asked Sviridov.
‘A pre-planned check,’ said the major.
‘Following what line?’
‘Our one,’ the major replied defiantly. Sviridov was evidently allowed to know about this now.
‘And what was found out?’
‘That everything’s in order,’ said the major, turning his eyes away. Everything was clearly not in order, and he wanted to leave a poisoned spine in the victim’s body. A festering victim would be tastier.
‘And specifically?’ Sviridov insisted. He knew that such situations had to be scraped out, scooped out in full, the way a wound is scraped out: the least ambiguity could poison everything, produce roots, shoots, and turn into a huge episode involving detention.
‘And more specifically,’ the major replied with the same defiance, ‘you’re on the list. And so you’re subject to additional checking.’
‘On what list?’ Sviridov asked uncomprehendingly.
‘Now that I can’t tell you. It’s beyond my authority. Go, the plane will be leaving.’
Sviridov rose, picked up his suitcase and laptop and ran to the border official’s box. His passport lay in front of her as before, and she was already stamping it.
‘Well?’ she said with her former geniality. ‘And what was the point of being rowdy?’
‘I wasn’t rowdy,’ said Sviridov. It was important to sweep the false formulations aside here too, otherwise, somewhere deep in his dossier, which was certainly being kept at some white-uniformed level of authority, the entry would remain: behaved rowdily at the airport. And that’s suspicious, especially if he was behaving rowdily when sober. ‘Choose your words carefully, please.’
The official was silent. Such minor pinpricks didn’t affect her. She proffered him the stamped passport.
‘And what list am I on, may I know?’ Sviridov articulated, less confidently than he would have liked.
‘Are you starting again, citizen?’ the plump girl asked, threateningly now, and took hold of the telephone receiver, but Sviridov didn’t wait for the major to make a second appearance, and slipped headlong into no man’s land.
PART TWO
A SCHEDULE OF PROPERTY
1.
‘Dear friends!
We all find ourselves on the list. Its objective and origin are unknown to us. In order to survive in this situation, the best thing is for us to stick together. Would all who have already been informed of their inclusion please respond. Our plea to others is not to register. It is very important for us to reconstruct the list in its entirety, for that will allow us to guess at its true objective. Leave your name and contact details below. Do indicate your age, that is important. The list’s first meeting is planned for the last ten days of July. Look for news in the ‘News’ section.
Yours sincerely,
Svetlana Viktorovna Bodrova, contact telephone number…’
THE LIST
Karnaukhov, Igor Vladimirovich, b. 1967
Semyonova, Nadezhda Grigoryevna, 1958
Salomatin, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 1941
Golyshev, Kirill, 1990
Burtseva, Yelena Danilovna, 1972
Matveyeva, Irina, aged 16
Sergei Shevchenko, 23
Svyatoslav Vladimirovich Mirsky, 1955
Lurye, Grigory Naumovich, 1959
Krotov, Konstantin Mikhailovich, 1948
Noskevich, Galina, 19…
There was no obvious pattern.
Sviridov gave a deep sigh, and in the white box at the bottom he rattled off: ‘Sviridov, Sergei Vladimirovich, 1979’.
Of the fifty-seven people who had registered, he found one of his own age – Paramonova, Yelena Maximovna. A good thing it was a girl. The list was probably drawn up with the aim of finding everyone an ideal partner. Of crossing the forty-eight-year-old Semite Lurye – probably a bald patch, a moustache, a pipe, scepticism – with the fair-haired Belorussian Noskevich, 19. To all appearances shy, unexpectedly passionate in bed, jealous, cooks, does the laundry. Lurye has a Moscow residence permit, Noskevich an inexhaustible capacity for childbearing, their offspring are bald, passionate, sceptical, do the laundry. And for me, the girl of my own age, Paramonova, I always liked girls of my own age. He was slow moving the cursor over to the word ‘Add’ to the right of the white box. Including yourself in a list, even for a reservation at the cinema, is always a bit scary: one click – and someone else’s laws have started applying to you. More than anything, Bodrova’s list was reminiscent of the awful listings of the executed that were published in the Moscow evening paper by the society ‘Memorial’ at the beginning of the nineties, or of accounts of German punitive operations – but in any list there is a sense of doom: identified, calculated, noted. If the listing of goods in an Internet store simply breathes satiety and prosperity – pick whoever you want, everyone’s happy to offer themselves for sale – any human inventory, even a list of accepted university applicants, smells of chlorine. It’s the animation that’s terrible. But there’s nothing to be done, everyone’s on lists from birth. He clicked, and added himself as number fifty-eight.
6.
He wasn’t destined, however, to do any work. No sooner had he sat down at the PC than his mobile started trilling.
‘Is zat Mr Sviritov?’ asked a German female voice, flattening the consonants in such caricature fashion that Sviridov decided at once: it’s a practical joke.
‘Zat is,’ he confirmed with a grin. ‘And you who are?’
‘I am Tessa Gombrowitz, Münchener Zeitung correspontent. Mr Sviritov, you speak English?’
‘A bit,’ said Sviridov.
‘Oh, great. So listen.’ Sviridov’s understanding of what followed was haphazard – the telephone, the accent, his want of practice translating the spoken language – but for some reason Tessa Gombrowitz had become interested in his work and wanted to do an interview with him that very day, as she needed at all costs to be in time for the edition the day after tomorrow. She wouldn’t entertain so much as the idea of a refusal, and merely wanted to clarify whether he was prepared to come to her office or wanted to receive her at his place.
‘But I’m at the dacha,’ Sviridov attempted to wriggle out of it. ‘At my dacha.’
‘It’s not problem, I’ll be there. I have a car with a driver, please tell him how to rich…’
‘Hello,’ a man’s deep bass rang out in the receiver at once. ‘How do we get to you, which highway?’
‘There’s no need, I’m already getting ready to go home,’ said Sviridov, retreating before the pressure. ‘Come to Profsoyuznaya in three hours’ time,’ and he gave the address.
So, he thought, it’s all going to script. Everyone wants a piece of the action. First thing the locals, by evening non-locals. The driver’s sure to be a KGB man, and she’s sure to be in on it. A joint agreement: she writes for the Münchener or whatever it is Zeitung, he makes those she visits known and keeps track of them. Everyone’s happy. But it would be a pity to die just like that – at least let the West know what’s going on. What have I actually got to lose? Officially there’s no ban for the moment on contact with foreign correspondents. Come on, let’s see who this Tessa is.
He got himself ready to work again: in spite of everything, he would at least get a couple of pages done in the three hours that remained until the appearance of the correspondent and the KGB man – but the mobile began its demanding trilling once more, and Sviridov identified the number of Orlikov’s secretary’s office. This is the end, he realised. Now we lose everything.
‘Sergei Vladimirovich?’ inquired the pederastic voice of the secretary. Orlikov employed only pederasts as secretaries – not because he himself belonged to that stylish caste, but because women didn’t know how to be as servile when replying ‘Vyacheslav Petrovich is busy’ or ‘How should I announce you?’. Orlikov’s secretary worked seven days a week, lived at his cottage in the capacity of a servant and didn’t balk at doing work in the garden. ‘Vyacheslav Petrovich would like to speak to you. Are you free?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Sviridov replied brightly. A healthy rage was coming to the boil inside him. This was the best state to be in for conversations with Orlikov.
‘Seryozh,’ he heard Orlikov’s soft, domineeringly democratic bass. ‘Now what on earth are you doing.’
‘Yes, Vyacheslav Petrovich,’ Sviridov repeated the question, ‘what am I doing?’
‘Well, as if you didn’t know. What on earth is it you’re joining? They had me on the carpet yesterday over Delyagin, and now you.’
‘And what is it I’m joining, Vyacheslav Petrovich?’ Sviridov asked innocently.
‘Listen, stop it!’ Orlikov grew angry. ‘Stop this idiotic pretence. Do you know who I had a call from today? I had a call from the TV channel. And they’re already getting close to the point there where it’s either you or the programme.’
‘Well, if the question’s already being put like that…’ Sviridov drawled.
‘Can’t you understand?’ Orlikov didn’t find it easy to drop the image of a democrat. ‘I don’t want to lose a capable man, I’m not one of those who, at the very first signal…’
‘Vyacheslav Petrovich,’ said Sviridov, lowering his voice meaningfully. ‘You do realise that such questions aren’t discussed over the phone.’
‘Mine isn’t tapped,’ Orlikov replied, but he was now audibly on his guard.
‘Well, that’s yours that isn’t tapped,’ Sviridov continued. ‘So I can’t tell you everything, but generally speaking, having known me for some years, you might be able to guess with whose blessing I find myself on this list.’
Orlikov paused.
‘What’s the matter with them there,’ he grumbled. ‘Can’t they let people know beforehand?’
‘Vyacheslav Petrovich,;’ said Sviridov reproachfully, ‘can you picture with whose blessing the scriptwriter of Special Forces gets onto such lists?’
‘But you’ve left Special Forces,’ Orlikov reminded him.
‘And can’t you guess why?’
‘Yes, I can,’ Orlikov growled, although he didn’t have a clue.
‘Well, then. And if I’m there and I’m trusted – can’t you guess why that’s necessary, no? I hope we won’t be coming back to this conversation?’
‘Anyway, get them to call the channel,’ Orlikov requested after a pause. ‘People there don’t know what’s going on…’
‘Oh yes,’ said Sviridov. ‘Vladislav Yuryevich’ll drop everything at once and ring the channel’s management: forgive me, you’ve got this man Sviridov working there as a scriptwriter on The Relatives, well then, he’s been put on the list deliberately, he’s my informant, pass it on to everyone. That’ll be interesting, won’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Orlikov admitted. ‘Well, some document at least…’
‘What, are you kidding?!’ Sviridov exclaimed, squealing like a woman. ‘How do you picture it?! Stalin writes to Hitler: please don’t go being nasty to my little chap, Stirlitz is the name?’
‘All right, get on with your work,’ Orlikov gave his permission and hung up.
Sviridov took some time to recover himself. Thanks to a sudden inspiration he had just beaten off the latest assault and saved his income – whether for long or not was uncertain. One thing was evident – the idiocy of what was happening. It turned out that it could be exploited. That gave him a chance. Everyone was working through the play in slipshod fashion, rejoicing at the first opportunity of getting out of the worst bits of their roles. Comrades, can I not strangle Desdemona today? Here’s my medical certificate, I’ve got high blood pressure. Sod you, don’t strangle her, give her a kick and she’ll keel over by herself. As a matter of fact, she has high blood pressure too. The lion goes round to all the animals with a list: antelope, you come to me for breakfast tomorrow, capybara, you’re nice and fat, you’ll be for lunch, and you, hare, you’ll be a light supper, so I don’t have nightmares. The hare: can I not come? All right, I’ll cross you off.
The right approach on the list was evidently to behave brazenly: I’ve been included not because I’ve been rejected and cursed, but because I’m allowed. Generally, you ought to behave here as though everything were allowed, because an inverse relationship develops, and everything really will be allowed. I assume that a brazen trio like ‘Glory to Russia’ was guided by the same principle. The most important local law is that they really don’t bear you any ill-feeling, they don’t have any grievances against you on principle, as long as you don’t make too much of a fuss, and you’re not a Georgian or a Jew. Consequently, they shape their attitude to you not a priori but on the basis of your behaviour: if, having been cast into the list like everyone else, you behave in a bossy way, like the boss of this ghetto, as if you’re quite at home in the stinking cattle-pen into which everyone is squeezed by their decision – then you will indeed be the boss, they’ll make you the kapo, they’ll give you a whip with a blue handle (they themselves have red-handled ones, you can’t earn them, they’re issued by birthright). From this there followed some entertaining moves applicable to The Island, and Sviridov again tried to work, but Tessa arrived quicker than she had said she would.
She was about forty-five and looked like Ellen Burstyn at the time of Alice. She was wearing a light-blue, short-sleeved dress which set off her evenly dark complexion. In her youth she must have been pretty, sturdy and dimpled, but now she was stretched. She had been to Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, had interviewed senators, had won the Prize of the Union of German Towns for a book of interviews with Turkish Gastarbeiter, entitled Aliens, but Still People. The film of the book had been shown at the Berlin Film Festival within the framework of the programme ‘Getting to Know our Eastern Neighbour’. Following her closely was the panting driver (no surprise, he had the appearance of an executioner – a potato of a nose, a beer-drinker’s neck). He was lugging a heavy canvas sack with sharp corners poking out of it. Tessa probably went to do interviews with all her things, afraid to leave equipment at the office: they’d nick it, the barbarians.
Gombrowitz radiated positive energy. It suddenly occurred to Sviridov that it would be a good thing to ask her to wash the floor, because, you know, he never found the time – that would be useful. She would have done it for the sake of a colourful detail for her future sketch – but he restrained himself.
‘I found out about you from ze newspapers,’ she instantly adopted an informal tone. ‘May I continue in English?’
‘Yes, of course.’
Her English was not much better than her Russian. She had read about the list in a newspaper. She was interested in all the people on the list, and she was hoping for Sviridov’s help in establishing contacts. It was clear to her that the government had driven itself into a blind alley and now faced the direct need for mass repressions, because discontent in society was ripening. She was interested in understanding the mechanism for the formation of the list, and she had grounds for assuming that these were discontented people who had been incautious enough to ‘speak out heaven knows where,’ she explained in Russian. Her personal friend, a Bundestag Deputy from the State of Rheinland-Pfalz, had informed her confidentially that the list had been compiled long ago, but had come to the surface only now, and had some very high-ranking people on it, ja, ja. So that Sviridov wasn’t alone. And, it goes without saying, thanks to the Eenternet? she had familiarised herself with some of his publications, with his film reviews, she had watched one episode of Special Forces, had noted that the critics detected social criticism in his works, and thus she saw no particular reason to be surprised. It was all standard, it should have been expected long ago.
‘I did expect it,’ Sviridov blurted out.
‘Oh! You had reason?’
Reluctantly, hating himself for the vulgar desire to conform to other people’s clichés, he talked about the inevitability of a ‘whoa’ after every ‘go’, about the alternation of thaws and freezes as Russia’s most important law – and it was all so tedious and oft-repeated that he lost the thread and omitted entire links: so be it, it didn’t matter. All in all, something of the sort should have happened long ago. But why the list had been compiled specifically the way it had, by what criterion they had all been selected – he had no idea, and he was relying on her perspicacity.
‘But it’s exactly as then!’ Tessa exclaimed. ‘It was exactly the same then, and no one understood why! But they were all people who weren’t prepared to repeat things after everyone else, who were better than everyone else by perhaps just a tiny little bit, but it was that little bit that was decisive! Look, they’re all ordinary people, aren’t they, or else very high-ranking bosses, but the middle class of the bureaucracy is quite untouched, as then! The enforcer is the same. Then too, it was either some part at the top that suffered, or else the helpless at the very bottom. You just have to understand who compiled the list, and I’m in almost no doubt which organisation alone can do that here. Yes?’
She winked, and Sviridov immediately felt himself to be complicit in an anti-Russian conspiracy. After what had happened in the morning, however, it was all the same to him. All attempts to be loyal end the same way, but if you were rude out loud and friendly with foreign correspondents, they might take fright and not touch you.
‘I’ve brought a contract, and this is what I’m asking,’ she continued, smiling and shaking her wheaten hair; in her white-teethed youth this manner was probably even charming. Tessa was indefinably and inexorably reminiscent of the PR woman at the children’s centre who had forbidden Sviridov to go out onto the stage to collect his prize. They were the same age, weren’t they, they might have holidayed together at the same centre then exchanged pointless letters. And both of them lied all the time, every second, and that was why the dimples had gone. ‘I’m asking you to write a sort of diary. About how you’re on the list, about how today they didn’t allow you here, shut you in there, how you were subjected to this and that. It’ll be a diary from inside the list. You’re the one person in the list with literature, with talented literature, I want to draw up the contract. We’ll make transfers to your account, the money’s good.’
‘Actually,’ said Sviridov gloomily, ‘this could make my position worse.’
‘Oh, no!’ she began shaking her hair decisively. ‘Then too everyone thought that contact could make the position worse. But nothing could have made their position worse, it had been decided when they had appeared on the list. It doesn’t matter which one: then it was that one, now it’s a different one. And then too people knew that they were on the list, and they were left at large to see how they’d behave. And nobody rebelled, fled, they were all prepared. I want you to tell what it’s like living on the list.’
‘You think my fate is decided? And everyone else’s too?’ Sviridov had taken fright and for that reason grown angry. Tessa stroked his hand with the lightest of European touches – that was doubtless the way she stroked the skeletal children of Africa, suggesting they talk in detail for a news report about the hunger pangs in their stomachs.
‘I don’t know what your fate is. I know that for the moment it can still be altered. If you tell of it for everyone, perhaps it will be easier for all, for the whole list.’
Aha, we already know the psychology of the natives so well that we’re putting our trust in their ineradicable collectivism.
‘I’ll try,’ said Sviridov. ‘But I need guarantees.’
‘Copyright?’ asked silly Tessa.
‘I need guarantees in the event of my position getting worse. If, after publication, I become the object of a witch hunt, or start getting called in to a certain place, or my position gets worse – you have to help me leave. Political asylum or something, I don’t know.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that, of course!’ exclaimed Tessa. ‘Of course I’ll give it a try! It’s very difficult for us now because of problem migration, you know, but my Deputy acquaintance in Bundestag helped, naturalisation for Turkish, Kurdish, perhaps Jewish line too… You not have Jewish line?’
‘No,’ snapped Sviridov.
‘Well, that can be resolved. As a whole that can be resolved. We’ll take a look at it. And then look, I know you have – that everyone has – a problem with work. Here, to tide you over, simply from I and the newspaper. It’ll be like an advance.’
She indicated the sack. The driver, who had all this time been sitting vacantly on Sviridov’s couch, untied it and displayed to Sviridov the rich interior of the gift. There was a very great deal of wurst in polythene packs, cans of minced meat, packets of cocoa powder – a month’s dry rations for Gargantua.
‘I can’t take this,’ Sviridov fretted. ‘I’m not starving, and I’ve still got a job…’
‘Well, you can understand for yourself what will happen with job,’ she smiled more enchantingly than ever, and Sviridov realised that his final dismissal was extremely desirable for her as a topic. It would be a good thing too if he were murdered like Litvinenko, preferably in such a way that he took quite a long time to die, for a good series of news reports. Thallium, beryllium, I don’t know, bernoullium. Of course Tessa Gombrowitz didn’t like him. She sincerely wanted him to die, in poverty and torment. But she needed him, and he could see no grounds for scorning the conjuncture. He couldn’t rely on people who liked him now. The people who liked him were few and powerless. He needed to cling on to Tessa, her Deputy from the State of Fuffel-Pferd, her food sacks of wurst. The listed have no right to be liked, that was a gift from the gods, above and beyond the price-list. You had to count on the people who needed you as a scarecrow. And the fact that I’m needed as a scarecrow in the unsightly games of the unsightly Tessa – well, sorry, Homeland. I didn’t do anything to you, you started it, so don’t be offended now.
They agreed on the following Thursday. By Thursday Sviridov would have stocked up on impressions and written two thousand words about the first weeks of being on the list. The money would go into a foreign currency account. Tessa planted a noisy kiss on his cheek in parting and flitted off, without ever ceasing her little conspiratorial laughs. She was followed by the driver, ideally enigmatic, who had not uttered a single word in an hour. Sviridov opened a can of mince, fried it up in the frying-pan and sat down to dinner. Home delivery, well I never!
But he wasn’t destined to have a quiet dinner either – sumptuous surprises just kept on raining down. It was as if the list were recompensing him for the black patch, displaying its unexpected advantages. His mobile trilled again, and Sviridov heard the velvety, mysteriously self-important voice of a man who was clearly ringing on a serious matter: such a man wouldn’t exert himself over one that wasn’t. This was doubtless the way Professor Vyshinsky spoke.
‘Kindly forgive me,’ came the stranger’s bass, ‘could I possibly have a word with Sergei Vladimirovich Sviridov?’
‘Speaking.’ Who else had he expected to happen upon using his mobile?
‘It’s very, very good to talk to you. Vasily Borisovich Antonov recommended you to me, you doubtless remember him.’
Sviridov had heard something about Vasily Antonov, and not long ago either, but he had no idea where. A frightened man’s memory deteriorates – his brain has narrowed, focused on danger, it has no interest in anyone.
‘Could you remind me who he is?’
‘He was linked with you in a common project, it’s not important.’ The stranger said ‘pruject’. ‘He gave you the most positive recommendations. If you have the time at your disposal, you see, I’ll briefly explain…’
‘I have,’ Sviridov sighed.
‘Excellent, excellent.’ His voice was resonant, fruity, ripe. ‘To begin with, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Fishchinsky, Albert Mikhailovich. I’m now working – it’s not my fundamental business, in my fundamental line of business, so to speak, I am a financier…’
He spoke for a long time, mellifluously, magniloquently. His ‘pruject’ boiled down to a cycle of informative lectures on Russian history – ‘In the light of new conceptions, you understand…’ Vasily Borisovich Antonov, whom Albert Mikhailovich Fishchinsky knew from the very best angle from their having worked together (he had this verbal excess in everything, it was as if he became satiated with his own rumblings), had characterised Sergei Vladimirovich as an exceptionally gifted worker, capable of imparting dynamism and so on, you understand. It would be desirable to meet tomorrow, although the sooner, as you can appreciate, the better: it should all have been, so to speak, yesterday. Particularly since, as far as Albert Mikhailovich was aware, Sergei Vladimirovich was invited the day after tomorrow to a certain undertaking, to miss which was, of course, undesirable for him, and for that reason he did not dare, under no circumstances whatsoever did he dare to lay claim to his time. Tomorrow, then? Agreed? Excellent, excellent.
Sviridov had no recollection of any event, and wasn’t planning anything for the next day, but at that point it struck him. Good Lord, on the twenty-ninth of July he was invited to a meeting for veterans of the special services, to a round table in the ‘October’ ciné centre. Here was the invitation, in the desk drawer: shoulder, o Lord, to shoulder. How did Fishchinsky know about shoulder to shoulder? ‘Undertaking’ – that was clearly out of their lexicon. So am I included in a list for work on a series about national history? But what was Klementyev doing on it – writing an episode about the history of the Russian railways? And Bodrova? Nonsense. And in order to work on a historical series, did I absolutely have to be on a list, so that I could experience for myself all the joy of Russian history? That was, after all, how it had basically been made – with lists, and with subsequent dismissals. Not a bad method, like the way Mikhalkov locked everyone up on an estate for a week, and then, when they had all come to hate one another enough, shot An Unfinished Piece. Maybe that’s a lie, but if non e vero, then ben trovato.
He sat vacantly for some time yet in front of the switched-on computer, visited the list’s site – nothing new – looked at the news, all the time expecting something. Perhaps one more call. There it is: fear has made expectors of us all. Mandelstam, I think. It makes sense now. Why? Because fear moves you into a special category of weightless people, borne on the wind, whose lives depend on every call. You start doing something, but then there’s a call, and you don’t have to do it any more. The contract’s annulled, you’re dismissed. And in general, it’s a wounded, painful condition, in which you long passionately for sympathy. Someone will call – and console you, it’s a human voice, after all. Or, on the contrary, they’ll say the most terrible thing – but then at least you won’t have to wait for it.
¬¬¬
Fishchinsky proved to be like his voice – huge, velvety, imposing; he wore gold spectacles and a tie with a fish design. There was probably an ironic diminution there, an allusion to his surname – you know, don’t be afraid, I’m not so frightening. He had large hands with gingery little hairs on the fingers, pale-ginger hair, combed over his bald patch, and long flews.
‘Hello, good sir,’ he boomed, smiling broadly, ‘Viktor Maximovich, if you’re here, then I assume you’re entirely satisfied by your initial contact with Sergei Vladimirovich?’
‘We weren’t wrong about Sergei Vladimirovich,’ Ferapontov nodded.
‘Well, excellent, excellent. Dearest Sergei Vladimirovich, we’re turning to you because the most complimentary recommendations, so to speak, well, and – you understand. It’s a matter of great responsibility. I’ll begin with the fact that our corporation has already been in existence for a decade or so, and deals in the purchase of sports equipment, and we haven’t, up until the present time, suffered, so to speak, any reprimands…’
Fishchinsky’s speech murmured, the conditioning was scarcely whispering, and Sviridov’s imprehension of Murchinsky’s fishmuring speech was comperfect. He needed to pull himself together, but Fishchinsky hadn’t yet murmured to the point, and so Sviridov relaxed a little. Through the drowsiness which had replaced painful tension at a stroke, he understood one thing: Fishchinsky was a big cheese, and now he was experiencing some unpleasantness. In the accursed nineties he had exploited contacts from his first workplace, in the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and had bitten off a big piece of the pie. In addition, he owned a fencing club where top people gathered to fence, and this club was housed in superb accommodation out of town, where previously, can you believe it, there had been a rubbish dump, an ordinary rubbish dump, but he had cultivated and recultivated the soil and made a little corner of heaven on earth for the weary directors of men’s destinies. However, it had now come about that distinct storm-clouds had begun thickening over Fishchinsky. His business had begun to be subjected to checks. His patrons had become evasive. In addition, the brother of an important official in the mayor’s office – you understand, of course, whom I have in mind – was laying claim to this plot of land, attacking directly like a raider, sending down inspections, provoking the security men, and generally, in essence, robbright downery, robbright! Naturally, Albert Mikhailovich still retained certain contacts, you understand where, including the very top, and had enlisted the support of people there, you understand, oh yes. But it had been hinted in response there that Albert Mikhailovich ought to prove, to show, and not just in financial form, because these days, you understand, that form no longer served as proof of anything. But needed to prove specifically his readiness and his profound understanding of the processes taking place, and generally somehow to demonstrate not even loyalty, but readiness, you understand, I can’t say entirely and conclusively, but to demonstrate it in a definite way.
Here Sviridov ceased to understand anything.
‘What precisely can I do?’ he asked finally.
‘That’s a businesslike approach,’ Fishchinsky nodded joyfully. ‘We’re in favour of a businesslike approach too. As you appreciate, the country is today in need of nationally orientated scholarship. And I think that if I make certain efforts, then this will be my contribution, so to speak, to its organisation. I should like to present to Russia today something which depends realistically upon me and to participate in the creation of a history textbook which could be read simultaneously by children and adults, you understand, like Ishimova’s stories for children or the unattainable model of Karamzin. I should like to achieve, with the aid of a body of authors, a textbook which could be absorbing reading and at the same time an example of the correct view, executed with talent. And so,’ Fishchinsky smiled broadly, ‘I would count on enlisting you as the author and, after agreeing appropriate recompense, commissioning to begin with a conception of five or six pages, after discussion of which we could make a start.’
Sviridov ceased to understand which world he was in.
‘You want to commission a history textbook from me?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes, absolutely so,’ Fishchinsky began to nod, rejoicing at his quickness to understand.
‘Precisely,’ Ferapontov concurred.
‘But I’m not a historian,’ said Sviridov, ‘I’ve never written any textbooks. I don’t know how to write for children.’
‘That’s utterly unimportant,’ Fishchinsky kept repeating. ‘We’ve had recommendations… from Mr Antonov…’
‘But I don’t remember Mr Antonov!’
‘Well, you didn’t work with him directly. He was one of the sponsors of the cartoon series Tales of Gorynych…’
‘I wrote dialogues for two tales, but that’s all rubbish for kids,’ Sviridov continued to try and get out of it. ‘You must understand, it’s another thing altogether… Have you at least seen Gorynych?’
‘Dear Sergei Vladimirovich,’ Fishchinsky’s voice was full of emotion. ‘Your modesty is praiseworthy. But we know the most important thing too. We know that you are on the list of the nationally orientated elite which is well-known there,’ he raised a finger meaningfully. ‘As you know, that list does not include just any old people. That is completely out of the question, completely. And for that reason, dear Sergei Vladimirovich, your participation is exceptionally important, with you having every right to enlist any historian you consider worthy…’
This finished Sviridov off. The list hadn’t presented him with surprises such as this before.
‘Are you sure that it’s a list of the nationally orientated elite?’ he asked.
‘There can be no doubt about it.’
‘I will write for you,’ said Sviridov firmly. ‘A devil, a demon, a history textbook, the chronicles of Narnia… How much is the synopsis?’
‘What?’ Fishchinsky queried.
‘The plan of the textbook. You know, those five pages.’
‘I think that three thousand dollars as a starting figure might…’
‘Fine,’ said Sviridov. ‘When do you need it? Do you have three weeks?’
‘Two would be desirable, but in principle…’
‘No, I need three. I need to read through a whole heap of stuff. I am, of course, the nationally orientated elite, but there’s a lot I simply don’t remember. All right, thank you. May I ask a final question?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Fishchinsky nodded graciously.
‘How did you find out about the list?’
Fishchinsky’s smile was even broader and he spread his hands.
‘Trusted people told me. People who are also there. You can appreciate for yourself, I can’t doubt them.’
‘Magnificent,’ said Sviridov. ‘Thank you. I’ll ring you in three weeks.’
Fishchinsky ceremoniously handed him a stiff, yellow, gold-embossed business card, and Ferapontov saw him deferentially to the doors.
All this needed to be thought through. Thought through, talked through. Pity there was no one to do it with. The damnedest thing. Get well away from here and quickly. What have I just signed up to? Good Lord, the rubbish you won’t do out of happiness. Although most likely they won’t ring back…But if they do, it’ll make up for any Special Forces for me. I’ll write them a textbook, whatever they like. Where did they get that about a list of the national elite? Still, if it’s really the case…
He felt enormous, shameful relief. To have just been feeling oneself leprous – and all of a sudden to realise it’s not leprosy, but a mark of distinction, the exalted sickness of the untouchables, a gift for moving objects and conjuring up mist! He should tell his mother quickly. No, it was too soon. He went into a coffee-house and ordered a double espresso. Coffee always intensifies the mood in which you drink it. I’m shamefully happy – let it intensify the shame and the happiness.
Alya’s work is in full swing at this hour, but he felt like giving her a call. A list of the nationally orientated elite. Good God! She didn’t pick up for a long time, but finally responded.
‘Alka.’ He could barely contain the happy chuckling that was bursting out of him. ‘Do you know what that list was?’
‘Still on about that, are you?’
‘What do you mean, how could I not be! Amazing things are coming to light. It’s a list of the nationally orientated elite, do you hear?’
‘Oh yeah,’ she said without enthusiasm.
‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘You are, but that’s all right.’
The piercing cries of children made up the background in the receiver.
‘No, I’m not interrupting anything, you’re walking down the street, there are kids yelling.’
‘Yes, yes. But I’m on business.’
‘In brief, I had a call from a big shot exporter of sports equipment who commissioned an ideologically correct textbook of Russian history for any sum of money. So that in return for the textbook he’d be forgiven. He’s under pressure from above, so as proof of loyalty he wants the textbook. It’s a wonderful sort of sign of the times, I’ve not read about anything like it.’
‘And you agreed to it?’
‘Well, what do I have to lose? He says he has reliable people on this list, the nationally orientated elite the lot of them. I’m just wondering why they didn’t let me go abroad? Is it that they don’t want the elite abandoning the nation?’
‘It was a mistake agreeing to it,’ she said. ‘You won’t be able to do it.’
‘I’m not going to write anything! I just thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Aha,’ she said. ‘Consider me pleased. What are you doing this evening – writing the textbook?’
‘No, I’ve been invited by this… some sort of developer, in property. Probably a history textbook too.’
‘Going to the cinema would be better,’ she said.
‘Well, if it’s not too late when they let me go…’
‘All right, ring me.’
He ordered a Caesar salad and gobbled it down instantly. Opposite sat a girl of school-leaving age, alone, without boyfriends or girlfriends: she was reading something solid and serious, a pity she was unattractive, he could have… He noticed her throwing stealthy glances at him, tearing herself away from her book, summoning up her resolve and smiling. Sviridov smiled in reply. She immediately set the book aside and made her way towards him.
‘Oh God, do excuse me. I never bother people in cafes. Are you Sviridov?’
‘Kind of.’
‘I read about you in The Depths, you see. The Lower Depths. You’re just such a hero!’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Sviridov carelessly.
‘No, really. They’re saying terrible things about this list at our institute.’
Sviridov tensed again. One of the boyars in the time of Ivan the Terrible was executed by having first boiling, and then icy water poured over him – the skin soon peeled off him like a stocking.
‘Which institute?’
‘The Law Academy. We’ve got people there whose parents, you see, are from the very top. They say it’s a list for something awful. Practically public persecution and all that sort of thing. But you’re not afraid of anything, sitting casually like this. I thought you’d already gone and hidden somewhere.’
‘And where on earth am I to hide?’ He was still putting on a brave face. ‘And who are these people who are saying things?’
‘Oh, it’s…’ she brushed the matter aside. ‘New Russians, there are always loads of them. You can’t go asking questions. Oh, what am I doing frightening you? Maybe they’re all lying.’
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ said Sviridov.
‘No, no, I’ll be running along. Why should I be worrying you? Just be aware that we’re all watching. And we’re full of admiration.’
‘But what is there to admire, young lady? What’s your name, by the way?’
‘Alyona, but that’s not my reason. It wasn’t to introduce myself, or else you’ll be thinking I don’t know what. It was just so that you’d know. And be strong.’
‘I will, I will. But at least leave me your phone number!’
She grew embarrassed.
‘No, I mean, why… It wasn’t to… that I…’
‘Well it wasn’t to that I either. Simply – we could maybe go to the cinema.’
She was wavering.
‘Oh, no, you know… It’s better for you. Better not.’
She was actually scared, he realised. She was scared of someone from the list. Going up and expressing sympathy – that was fine, but giving your phone number – that was to become infected.
‘All right then,’ said Sviridov. ‘Run along, study law.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said with huge relief, which was just as shameful as his own porcine squeal half an hour before. ‘Yes, thank you. ’Bye.’
And off she ran, while Sviridov ordered a hundred grams of vodka. So there’s the nationally orientated elite for you. He simply realised that I’m on the list, and so I’ve got no way out. And now I’ll write a nationally orientated textbook for him, and he’ll pay me like a black. Just wait, you’ll get a textbook, such a textbook that, after it, they’ll take away all of your fencing entirely. What sort of a country has this become, Lord God, everyone’s insides have turned to water. I’m not a monster, at the end of the day, not an old man – so why’s she running away, the scum, as though from some infection? But then I am a leper, that’s enough illusions.
At that second the mobile rang.
‘Hello,’ said a demanding male voice. ‘It’s Valya Lomakin.’
‘Go ahead,’ Sviridov replied sourly.
‘Having a drop of coffee, are we?’
Sviridov was taken aback.
‘Are you here, or something?’
Lomakin roared with laughter.
‘It’s a super-gadget!’ he exclaimed. ‘The G-3 Navigator phone, works via Russian satellites, the latest model. It’ll be on general sale from January, but I’ve already got one. I’m building a block for the President’s Governmental Communication and Information Agency on Cherkizovsky, in place of the market. I call you up, and I can see you’re at the ‘Airport’ metro in a coffee-house, shitty but with wi-fi. You’ll be picked up from there in twenty minutes’ time, don’t go anywhere. If you do, I’ll find you all the same,’ and once again he burst out laughing and disconnected.
Why so much attention to one scriptwriter? Was there absolutely no one else left now – to navigate to him?
A black A6 Audi arrived after a quarter of an hour. Sviridov was smoking in front of the entrance to the coffee-house. The driver jumped out and threw the rear door open for him. Throughout the entire time of the journey – about ten minutes on the third ring road – he uttered not one word. They sped along quickly, noiselessly and brashly.
Sviridov had never before been near the cable-stayed bridge by the Moscow Ring Road. It was a magnificent construction, in the neo-imperial, nanotechnological style. Many a quill was bitten down subsequently in the attempt to provide a definition for this style, simultaneously inspiring and helpless: all the constructions of the noughties were executed with blatant luxury, as though insisting: ‘We still have it in us!’, but were at the same time defiantly unfunctional, even though pragmatism was proclaimed as the banner of the age. The supreme pragmatism was precisely unfunctionality, the passionate aspiration to convince everyone that they were prepared to do a great deal to please the invisible deity who set devotion above any benefit. The cable-stayed bridge was taller, thicker, wider than it needed to be; at the summits of the towers there were viewing platforms. In spite of all this excess, it looked awkward and, most importantly, false: it seemed doomed – not to a fall, not to an accident, God forbid, but to the belated taunts of posterity. To the right of the approach to the bridge there towered an unfinished thirty-storey building – one of the top floors was brightly lit, and festivities were evidently beginning there. Sviridov could hear from down below that a live orchestra was playing classical music. Guests were being led up to hoists, handed helmets, and conveyed to the top. After setting Sviridov down, the driver drove off for the next guest, and now female serving staff looking like models took the scriptwriter into their solicitous hands: the girls too were pointlessly tall, vacantly luxurious, brainlessly technological – in a word, nanotechnological, for all their megadimensions. A nanotechnological hoist bore Sviridov up into the darkening blue of evening, from where the nano-anthill of Moscow seemed like cosy, inoffensive chaos.
Sviridov went to parties, of course, but this was the first time he had been borne so high in every respect. There were people who nodded to him, there were people he recognised, but it was categorically impossible to understand what they were all doing together. For the business community, grouped together in the corners, there must have been some sense in it all – to come to agreements, hammer things out, put in an appearance – but their faces all looked lost; really serious people didn’t go to dos. Everybody was assiduously going through the motions of having fun, that is, they were moving in various directions, kissing furiously, laughing loudly – there must have been some sense in all of it, some plan and dress-code (Sviridov had demonstratively appeared in a casual checked shirt, after all, he wasn’t going to wear a dinner jacket to Serebryanny Bor), but for the detached observer the picture held no more sense than a chess tournament did for a savage, or a savage’s dance did for a chess-player. It’s only that the chess-player watches with benevolent curiosity, while the savage does so with inveterate hatred, though that’s not because he’s better, but because he’s more straightforward.
Sviridov mixed in amongst the squealing and kissing girls, ate something from trays that was very dietetic, crunchy and completely tasteless, drank sour champagne – doubtless exceptionally expensive – and categorically failed to understand why he was there. Then there was a wave of gasps and sighs, there seemed to be a smell of sulphur – and moving determinedly straight towards him before everyone’s eyes was the huge Lomakin, who had emerged from a concealed door or descended on an invisible hoist. He made specifically for Sviridov, clasped him in a close embrace, and under the admiring gaze of everyone present drew him off into a secret, secluded corner. There stood a low table with fruit and champagne. Lomakin extracted a remote control from his pocket, clicked it, and two sofas floated out from the walls.
‘It’s an intelligent building,’ said the developer. ‘I’ve got my office here for the time being. It’ll be on the seventieth floor later on, but that’s in about a year and a half.’
Sviridov nodded weightily, as if he had seen many an intelligent building before, though this one was, of course, the most intelligent.
‘Everything’s boring somehow,’ said Lomakin. ‘I can do anything.’
Sviridov nodded again, as though he had already managed to satisfy himself of it. There were a lot of people like Valya at that time. When what happened to them finally did happen to them – they simply didn’t have time to understand anything and were even seemingly pleased: what they hadn’t been able to provide for themselves had finally befallen them – you must agree, when it’s you shutting yourself away without food on an uninhabited island, it’s far from the same as adventure tourism.
‘Over the past period the “Forex” corporation has built on three million square metres,’ said Lomakin. ‘We employ building technologies such as no one else does.’
Sviridov had already listened to Fishchinsky’s report on his business successes that day and prepared to be bored. He didn’t understand why all these people were continually making reports to him. He didn’t yet have the intuition to realise that they were reporting not to him, but to anyone at all, hoping to deflect the coming blow which everyone was expecting. When a scriptwriter came to hand, he served the purpose too. ‘In five years we’ve grown from a small enterprise to be the leader of European high-tech construction. Among our plans is the construction of a revolving building in Moscow which will alter its configuration with the wind,’ Lomakin continued.
‘Will the government be housed there?’ asked Sviridov. ‘Or the main media?’
Lomakin gave a forced chuckle.
‘I see you’re a quick fellow,’ he said. ‘I can do anything. I was in the jungle, hacking out a path for myself and the lads – and I finished it. I’m preparing now for a space flight. I’m writing a book, How to Become Me. But none of that’s really the thing, you understand?’
‘You could go into film,’ Sviridov suggested cautiously.
‘Right!’ exclaimed Lomakin. ‘And I want you to write that film. But!’
‘Why me specifically?’ asked Sviridov. There are lots of scriptwriters.’
‘Don’t you want to, then?’
‘Yes, I do, but first I need to understand why me…’
‘Because,’ Lomakin winked. ‘Because I’ve had reports that you know Lala Grafova.’
Sviridov did indeed know Lala Grafova, and more besides. She was extraordinarily good-looking – a spirit can sometimes be at odds with a body, but here the body was at odds with the spirit, the clever, ever youthful, ardent body of a nymphet, origins in Kemerovo, utter vacancy, not a hint of a spiritual analogue for that magical carnal sensitivity with which she responded to every desire; but Sviridov had been without prospects, and in addition had caught her out in repeated lies. The idiot had been in Hollywood for a long time now, getting non-speaking parts in films as a waitress in Russian mafia-owned restaurants. It was amazing that Lomakin remembered Lala Grafova.
‘I saw her in Silver Dust,’ the developer confided. ‘And I said to myself then: the day will come when Lala Grafova will be in a picture of mine, and I’ll be the sponsor of that picture, and I’ll have a part in it. I want you to write a script for Lala Grafova and bring Lala Grafova here. I’ve been told she’ll come to you.’
‘That was ages ago,’ said Sviridov, ‘and she’s been in the States for a long time.’
‘I know,’ said Lomakin. ‘She’s already been found for me there. And there’ve been talks with her. And she said that if Sviridov wrote it, then she’d come.’
At this point Sviridov got it, and he realised the full measure of Lala Grafova’s perfidy. Lala remembered him, and how he had turned her out of his apartment for whoring and lying, and now she wanted to give herself to Lomakin before Sviridov’s eyes, while Sviridov rewrote her monologues immediately upon demand. There would, Sviridov realised, be a lot of demands.
‘Actually, I’m not going to work with Lala Grafova any more,’ he said proudly.
‘You are,’ Lomakin pronounced calmly. ‘You must.’
All of a sudden it dawned on Sviridov.
‘Listen, Valya,’ he said. ‘You say you can do anything?’
‘Anything,’ Valya confirmed, without adding ‘almost’ or ‘practically’.
‘Well, look then,’ said Sviridov persuasively. ‘I’m prepared to work with you and write anything you like for Lala Grafova. I’ll write a cool part for you with product placement for your development. I won’t even take a particularly large sum of money off you. But I have a big, serious favour to ask of you. I’ve got into something incomprehensible, Valya. I find myself on some kind of list. Some tell me it’s a list of the national elite, and others that it’s a list of enemies of the people. If you can do anything, then get me off this list, and I’ll work for you free of charge.’
‘Done,’ Valya nodded. ‘It’s two phone calls. Or one. Do you want to be there when I call?’
‘No, I’d rather not. Some time without me. But if you can, I’ll be really grateful to you.’
‘All right,’ said Lomakin. ‘But you must understand one thing. To pour into the glass, you have to pour out of the glass, that’s Lomakin’s fifth law. Do you know Lomakin’s first four laws?’
‘No,’ Sviridov replied in a distressed tone, as though he couldn’t wait to learn Lomakin’s laws. Valya extracted a narrow black pamphlet from a pocket of his wide, white silk trousers, ‘The “Forex” Codex’.
‘All of my people know this, from the board of directors to the cleaner. Wake them up in the night and they’ll tell you the Forex Codex. I’ll tell you it, Sery, and you’ll reflect it. You must understand, I can’t play just any old thing. It shouldn’t be a superman, because a superman would have built fuck all of what I do. It should be a hero who grows telescopically. Do you know what sort of building I’m going to put up in Nizhny Novgorod for Gazprom?’
‘I’ve not heard.’
‘No one’s heard yet,’ Valya said triumphantly. ‘It’s an exclusive project. There’s nothing of the sort anywhere in the world. It’s going to reflect gas prices. The tower’s going to grow, sliding out telescopically. If the price drops, the tower’ll close up. But the price won’t fall for long.’
‘And if they come up with an alternative fuel,’ said Sviridov, ‘the tower’ll collapse, will it?’
Lomakin burst out laughing.
‘You’ve got speed,’ he said condescendingly. ‘Remember, Sery, Lomakin’s first law is speed. The second is quickness. Speed and quickness aren’t the same thing at all. Speed is swiftness of action, while quickness is efficient decision-taking. The third law is pressure. The fourth is intuition, because without intuition there can’t be anything. If you don’t sense it when you’re about to be struck by a meteorite, you can’t do business. And you won’t. I’m standing here with you and sensing that a worker has just fallen ill in the Emirates where I’m building a tower, the Mast. Shall we check?’ He took out a communicator and quickly punched something in. ‘Oleg? Greetings. Have you had someone taken ill at the site there? A cold? Say I rang and that I advise Fervex. Fer-vex. Yes. Yes, everything’s all right here. Keep well.’
He looked at Sviridov as if he were God, and had just divided the light from the darkness in front of him, while incidentally using a little finger to flick away the fallen angel who had been constantly striving to mix them up. Sviridov realised there would certainly be something to write a script about. Though, true, it was unlikely to please Valya Lomakin and his intuition.
‘But the main thing,’ Lomakin continued, ‘is to be open to new things. Understand? The fifth law is that you need to pour something out of the glass to be able to fill it up with something else. And I want you to pour everything superfluous out of your life to fill it with Forex and me. You’ll fly with me to go bear-hunting. You’ll be on my board of directors. You’ll fly to my hotel in Vietnam.’
‘Can I bring a girl?’ Sviridov asked quickly.
‘No,’ snapped Lomakin. ‘You have to be thinking about the script, not about a girl. If you get the need, we’ll buy you one there.’
‘All right,’ Sviridov nodded.
‘You’ll have to forget everything you know. You’ll have to get used to a different scale of person. You’ll have to see people such as you’ve never seen before. It’ll have to be… a saga, you understand? I’m trying to be understood, you see. And I hope I will be.’
Sviridov understood that Lomakin had memorised the word ‘saga’ – had probably read it on the Internet applied to The Team.
‘But why don’t you want to write it yourself?’ he asked ingratiatingly. ‘You’d do it well, it seems to me.’
Lomakin nodded.
‘I had problems with Russian at school,’ he said. ‘My marks barely stretched to satisfactory. It’s because I think quicker than I write. People who get poor marks are more successful in business. Those who get top marks think they already know it all, but someone with poor marks has an incentive to grow. Someone with top marks is full, like a glass, and doesn’t know how to pour anything out. I’ve jotted something down for the script for you here, you’ll write it up later on. Here.’
Lomakin pressed a button on the communicator. In ran a servile, stooping clerk with a file, as if he had been waiting just outside the door.
‘Read,’ said Lomakin. He liked speed.
In the file was one sheet of paper with three paragraphs of text. Sviridov ran his eyes over the first one. ‘Take-off! Beyond, beyond, beyond and more. The five laws are the five fundamentals on which it stands. Intuition! But pour out. A shame to abandon – a suitcase without a handle. Pressure? But make sense of it! A penalty shot in ice-hockey. One of 16, many of 15. No seconds. Too little aspiration. But nowhere without aspiration. Solar flares. It was in Malaysia almost died head wind 37 k.p.h., got out of it because of pressure. And with women the same but not the same. Length of eyebrows. Need one woman, but one ready anything, anywhere. Otherwise crap. Complete understanding! No boundaries. In the future, space.’
Sviridov imagined the monologue he would write for the hero and could barely keep from happy chuckling. Let him pull me off the list, and I’ll give him super-super.
‘I get it,’ he nodded. ‘I can work with this. Not immediately, it’s true, I’ve got one other job at the moment,’ he remembered about the textbook.
‘There’s this site,’ said Lomakin. ‘So good, it’s magic. Here in Moscow. This arsehole has a fencing club, but I’ll squeeze him out. He’s not got much more fencing left there. There’ll be an amusement park there. Disneyland sucks. There’s nothing like it anywhere, not in Dubai, not in Shanghai. It’ll be a Ferris wheel higher than Ostankino. I want a scene on the Ferris wheel, and there’ll be American roller coasters too. We have to give them back their name – the Americans call them Russian roller coasters, do you know about that? After this, no one will call them anything but Russian roller coasters.’
Russian roller coasters, yes. I don’t envy Fishchinsky, thought Sviridov. This seems to mean that I won’t have to write a nationally orientated textbook. Pity I didn’t take an advance from him. But this guy really does have intuition. No sooner had I thought of Fishchinsky than he at once revealed his fate to me. What a good thing I was a child in the nineties and wasn’t in time to bite off a fencing club. I’d have had to pour out a very, very great deal now, and it was another question whether they’d have forgiven me or swallowed me up.
‘Go now,’ said Lomakin. He was releasing him graciously, understandingly: you shouldn’t encounter too much greatness.
Sviridov went outside, taking an apple with him. The party was running its course: two entirely naked girls with wings made out of goose feathers were conducting a charity auction in aid of children with leukaemia. Photographs of bald children were being projected directly onto the auctioneers’ bodies. So as to give a more graphic impression of blood cancer, Bloody Marys and crabs were being passed around. The elite was selling off handmade plasticine angels.
‘Another life saved!’ cried an invisible Andrei Malakhov.
Sviridov hung out for another ten minutes or so, stocking up on impressions, then went over to a hoist. Down below, he was tangled up for some time in the chaos of planks and beams before he found a gap in the fence. There was no Audi beside the gap: he had doubtless missed the correct way out. He needed to try and stop a car, but there were no cars, and he roamed amongst abandoned five-storey apartment blocks, doomed to demolition, amongst the ghosts of the former Moscow, now being demolished whole blocks at a time, and he remembered how he used to return home from school amongst buildings just such as these. What had they taught him there, and why? In the old teachers, repeating copy-book maxims that no one needed, he had sometimes sensed a mood of doom: today you hate us, they had seemed to be saying, and tomorrow we won’t be able to save you from anything. How quickly everything they had taught had disappeared, leaving no trace – how amazing that was.
He finally stopped a car with an elderly driver from the Caucasus, who complained all the way about the high price of petrol in the hope that Sviridov would give him something extra. They were already approaching Profsoyuznaya when his mobile started chirping.
‘Hello,’ said a sad, deep voice, which Sviridov did not recognise at once as Lomakin’s. ‘You’re going down Nakhimovsky?’
‘Something like that. I live on Profsoyuznaya.’
‘It’s a good area, only the building’s bad,’ Lomakin said, and then fell silent for a long time. Sviridov was afraid he would now be turned around and sent back – to listen to the sixth law of the Forex Codex. That was Valya’s sort of thing.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lomakin. ‘There is room for me to grow.’
‘In what sense?’
‘In the sense that I can’t do everything. I can’t get you taken off the list.’
In Lomakin’s voice Sviridov detected perhaps penitential, perhaps, terrible to think it, respectful notes. I’m not to be a part of the elite, I’m not to eat crabs with blood. What’s the matter with you, Lomakin, what is this thing I’m on, Lomakin…
‘No possible way whatever?’ asked Sviridov.
‘None,’ Valya replied simply. ‘Sorry. Well, and accordingly, no script needed. I’ll tell Lala.’
‘I understand, of course.’
‘You see,’ said Valya, ‘it’s just that, as there’s this list, I don’t suppose I’ll be able to take you everywhere, and generally they won’t let you through.’
‘And what is this list?’ asked Sviridov.
‘If they’d said,’ said Valya, ‘then I could have done something. But they don’t say. See you.’
Sviridov settled up and got out of the car. He felt a strange peace, almost bliss. Everything was correct. Amazing, the way the Lord was now directing his fate: no need to write either the textbook, or the script. True, they hadn’t given him any advances, but that was even for the best. It was good to spend time in two mutually exclusive, into the bargain inimical, and equally alien spheres in the one day – and to realise you weren’t needed in either of them.
Russian roller coasters, yes. But on the other hand he now knew what to write the first column about for Tessa. Ours is a splendid profession – when you can’t live, there’s something to write about, and vice versa.