‘They only take currency.’
‘Since when?’
She shrugged. ‘Lubov told me. They went there last week.’
‘What about the new cooperative near the Kazan station? I was told that they take roubles.’
‘They won’t let you in unless they know you.’
‘I’ll show them my service card.’
She laughed – with derision, not merriment. ‘Then they’ll cut your throat.’
‘I’ll call Georgi. He’ll get us in.’
‘Don’t call Georgi.’
‘Why not?’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘I’ve got to call him anyway about the car.’
She looked away. Gerasimov went to the telephone in the hall. It was only a year since Georgi had had a telephone, but his number had already been added to the list pinned to a board on the wall. Gerasimov dialled the first digits, then stopped and with his left hand disconnected the line. Inexplicably, he suddenly felt that he should collect his thoughts and consider the tone he should adopt in talking to Georgi. He frowned, irritated with himself for hesitating in this way. Georgi, after all, was his creation – a young fixer who in the old days would have been condemned as a workshy parasite, but who in the Brezhnev years became an indispensable bridge between the theory and practice of life in a socialist state.
Gerasimov had first met him outside the block of flats in the grim suburb where he had lived before his promotion: a sly, ingratiating young Armenian who had offered to clean his car. Gerasimov had given him the job for twenty kopeks, and then casually asked if he knew where he could get any windscreen wiper blades: he had forgotten to remove them the night before and they were gone in the morning.
Georgi delivered new blades that evening, and offered replacements for the old Lada’s balding tyres. Gerasimov had known that they would be certainly stolen, but he did the deal; and in the years that followed he came to rely upon Georgi not just to maintain his cars, but to provide the mundane things that were not to be found even in the KGB’s special stores: washers, bath plugs, fuse wire … In return Gerasimov would supply Georgi with Western goods that were surplus to his own requirements: packets of razor blades and Marlboros, bottles of cognac, jars of Nescafé and tins of ham.
By the time Gerasimov and Ylena had moved to the flat on the Ulitsa Akademika Koroleva, Georgi, now in his twenties, had expanded into more complex fixing for a wider clientele including some of the foreign journalists who lived in the same block. Foreign currency, airline tickets, residence permits were available to all those who could pay. Gerasimov remained Georgi’s most favoured customer; Georgi had found him the Samara, and would himself fetch and deliver it just to change the oil. In return, Gerasimov protected Georgi from the militia who were always on his tail. He let it be known that Georgi’s dealings were of some value to the KGB, and such was the residual fear of that organization that impending charges of illegal currency dealing and black marketeering were dropped.
In the year since the coup, all that had changed. With its boss behind bars, the KGB was demonstrably no longer above and beyond the law. Now it was not Gerasimov’s influence but Georgi’s bribes and intimidation of potential witnesses that kept the militia off Georgi’s back. He could well afford the bribes: his business was booming. He had a team working under him, some looking less like fixers than thugs. He still saw to the Samara, sending someone to fetch it whenever Gerasimov called, but he himself had a two-year-old Mercedes and a three-roomed apartment near the Kremlin.
It was the realization that it was becoming absurd to call this flourishing entrepreneur about the clogged carburettor of his Samara that made Gerasimov hesitate before making his call. He turned towards the living room, as if to consult Ylena, but then remembered that she was against calling Georgi. He looked back at Georgi’s number on the board above the telephone. Why was he so nervous? Nothing Georgi had said suggested that he was no longer willing to fix the Samara: in fact he had been exceptionally friendly and unctuous when they last met. Almost certainly, and quite rightly, he still felt indebted for services rendered in the past. Nevertheless, it might be more in keeping with Georgi’s new status to mention the clogged carburettor in passing, and ask about the restaurant first.
He dialled the number. His call was answered by Georgi’s wife. Gerasimov could hear music and voices in the background. Georgi came to the telephone.
‘Georgi.’
‘Nikolai. Just one moment.’ He shouted to someone to turn the imusic down.
‘We thought of going out tonight to that cooperative near the Kazan station. Do you know if it’s any good?’
‘Don’t touch it.’
‘Ah. Where would you suggest?’
‘Are you at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll pick you up in half an hour.’
‘If you really …’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there.’
The Mercedes was driven by one of the bulky bodyguards. Georgi sat in the back; he was without his wife.
‘Ylena sends her apologies,’ said Gerasimov as he climbed in beside Georgi.
‘She’s not hungry?’ The young man grinned, showing some teeth capped in gold.
Gerasimov shrugged. ‘She says she’s tired.’
‘Never mind.’
The car moved off, the driver barging into the traffic as if the Mercedes was an official Zil. ‘It’s good to see you, Nikolai,’ said Georgi with a trace of patronage in his tone. ‘You’ve been on my mind. There are many things we could talk about. This is now the land of opportunity, you know, for those who know how to seize it.’
‘I dare say.’ Gerasimov glanced uneasily at the young man beside him. He had grown plumper in the months since the coup, and wore a dark blue suit. He was balding at the temples, which made him seem as old as Gerasimov when in fact he was not yet thirty. His breath smelt of garlic and tobacco.
‘Did you get the videos I sent over?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pretty Woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘A classic … I show it to the girls so that they can learn. Class! Style!’
Gerasimov was not sure what girls he was speaking about: certainly not the friends of Georgi’s daughter since the daughter was only two.
‘The place I’m taking you to is new. I want to know what you think. I have an interest in it. Fifty per cent.’
Again, Gerasimov smarted at the patronizing tone, but felt relieved nonetheless to think that Georgi would pay the bill.
‘There’s good money in these cooperatives but they can be a nightmare because you have to ensure your own supplies which means pay-offs right down the line …’ He stretched out an arm and pointed his finger out of the window. ‘I mean right down the line – to Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan …’
He continued to explain the economics of owning a restaurant as they drove down the Nikitski Boulevard and finally came to a stop in a side street near the Arbat. Georgi went to a door on the ground floor of a nondescript building; it could have been to an office or a flat. He knocked twice. A small hatch cut into the door opened, a pair of eyes looked through. Georgi said his name. The hatch closed, the door opened, and both Georgi and Gerasimov were let in.
The inside of the building had been done up in style. Gerasimov had been to half a dozen of the better cooperatives, and this was on a par with the best. A girl took their coats, and the head waiter, wearing a black tie, led Georgi to a corner table with a civility that was quite unknown in the former Soviet Union. The carpet, the chairs, the tablecloth, the cutlery, were all certainly from abroad.
The restaurant was about half full. The light was dim and there was an air of discretion about the diners, who either kept their eyes down or looked at those at the same table. Gerasimov thought he recognized a senior officer from the Lubyanka but he was with a younger woman so Gerasimov looked away. Almost half the diners had the swarthy look of the Caucasus, and some were greeted b
y Georgi as he crossed the room.
Almost as soon as they sat down, a carafe of vodka was placed on the table, soon followed by small plates of chopped-up herring, celery, tomato, and a medium-sized jar of caviar. Georgi poured out the vodka. ‘To our wives,’ he said and they clinked glasses.
‘Yes,’ said Gerasimov, ‘to our wives.’
It was the first of a number of toasts. The first carafe of vodka was soon emptied and, without having to ask, a second appeared. The food took longer; they were given salad but then had to wait a good half-hour for some bortsch. Gerasimov, finding Georgi’s conversation irksome, only too readily allowed him to fill his glass. He talked about the past and the future, about business and pleasure, about taking pleasure in business and making a business out of pleasure. What he said was of little interest – increasingly drunken drivel – and it was the tone rather than the content that annoyed Gerasimov, vacillating between unctuousness and condescension, both appealing to Gerasimov for approbation and yet somehow sneering at him for being there, sponging off his former minion.
Both men became drunk. Georgi sent for a bottle of French wine – Gerasimov dared not think what it cost – and then insisted that Gerasimov help him drink it. Three-quarters of an hour after the bortsch, the waiter served them with dry pork chops and some noodles. By now Gerasimov had lost his appetite but he could hardly forgo such a luxury. He forced the food down, listening as he did so to Georgi’s increasingly slurred exposition of what he called ‘a Russian interpretation of the new world order’.
‘You see, Nikolai, my dear friend, we have to understand that there is only one path to take and that is the same path taken by the Americans because Russia is like America – a big, big country – and that is the path we should have taken and would have taken if that swine Lenin and all those Jews hadn’t hijacked the country and led us down the road to our present ruin. Decades lost … How many decades? Nineteen seventeen, nineteen twenty-seven …’ He started to count them off on his fingers but became muddled. ‘Years. Years and years, wasted, going down the wrong road, but now we’re on the right road, but way back, way back … We’re like America a hundred years ago, and we have to go through the same historical processes as they did … with gold rushes and Al Capone …’
Gerasimov scarcely listened to what Georgi was saying. This lecture by the little twerp on world history was as pretentious as it was patronizing. What did he know? He had never even graduated from high school, and here he was droning on like a professor. Yet despite his inattention, and the effect of the vodka and wine, Gerasimov remembered his clogged carburettor, and all the time was wondering how he could slip it into the conversation.
‘… and the Godfather. Did you see the videos of The Godfather? Yes? Marlon Brando, Al Pacino. You know, some of the boys think I look a little like Al Pacino?’
‘Why not? They say I look like Harrison Ford.’
Georgi laughed. ‘Well, I’d say Kevin Costner. Elliott Ness in The Untouchables? You must have seen that. I sent it over to Ylena. It was a bit fuzzy but still … You should learn from movies like that. The militia, they’re corrupt, like the Chicago police. You KGB men, you’re the G-men. The Untouchables.’
Gerasimov frowned. Had he seen The Untouchables? He could not remember. ‘I don’t think I saw it.’
‘I’ll send another copy. And some Dutch porno – fantastic stuff. Women with women! You can’t imagine …’
Gerasimov forced a grin to establish that he was one of the boys, but at the same time shook his head: ‘No, we’re not into that at present.’
The waiter put some pink ice cream in front of Gerasimov. Georgi waved his away, lit a cigarette, and took a long look at Gerasimov through narrowed eyes as he exhaled the smoke towards him across the table. ‘Not into it …’ he said, ‘or not into her?’
While Gerasimov had discussed his defunct sex life with a number of his friends, he had never considered that he was on those kind of terms with Georgi, but having eaten caviar and drunk a good half pint of vodka at Georgi’s expense, and faced now with a goblet full of pink ice cream, it seemed churlish not to confide in him, man to man. ‘Well, you know how it is …’
‘Sure,’ said Georgi, ‘but a man’s a man …’
‘I get by,’ said Gerasimov, the roguish grin back on his face.
‘And a woman’s a woman.’
‘Sure.’
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘Of course.’
‘So let me give you a bit of advice …’
Gerasimov kept a grin on his face and nodded.
‘A woman’s a little like a car …’
At last, thought Gerasimov. The carburettor.
‘She needs fuel.’
‘Don’t we all?’
‘The higher the octane, the better she runs.’
‘Unless the carburettor …’
Georgi raised his hand, frowning at this interruption. ‘Wait. Let me finish. She runs better on high octane – pretty clothes, nice restaurants, holidays in the Crimea …’
‘Sure.’
‘Not just Ylena. They’re all the same.’
Gerasimov nodded, waiting patiently to return to the carburettor.
‘But they also need servicing, Nikolai. Regular servicing, thorough servicing …’
‘I know.’
‘And Ylena hasn’t been getting that from you …’
‘Well, from time to time …’
‘Nikolai.’ Georgi looked at him almost with reproof. ‘I know the score. She told me.’
‘She told you?’
‘You tell me if I’m wrong.’
‘You’re not wrong, but … but when did she tell you?’
Georgi sighed. ‘Nikolai, we’re friends, aren’t we?’
‘Of course, but …’
‘Nikolai, I can’t bear to see a good woman go to waste. I’ve been seeing Ylena …’
‘You’ve been seeing … You’ve been fucking Ylena?’ Gerasimov gripped the side of the table, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.
Georgi sighed and stood up. ‘Let’s get out into the fresh air.’ He sauntered away from the table and signed a chit of some kind at the head waiter’s desk.
Gerasimov followed him dumbly. He was dizzy from the drink. They stood side by side, silently, waiting for their coats. Gerasimov could not decide what he should say or what he should do. He could pound Georgi to a pulp. Once out into the street, he would pound him into a pulp: his KGB training would more than make up for the extra years; but then who would see to his Samara?
Out on the street, the fresh air increased the dizziness and sense of dislocation. Had Georgi really said that he had been sleeping with Ylena? He gripped the lapel of Georgi’s fancy Italian overcoat. ‘Are you telling me, just like that, that you’ve been screwing my wife?’
‘Your wife? She’s not your wife. She’s Ylena, a fantastic woman, Nikolai, getting plump, the way our women do, but really fantastic.’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘I mean, how could you let something like that lie fallow?’
Gerasimov drew back his arm to strike Georgi, but before he could bring his fist forward he felt it gripped from behind. He was held by Georgi’s driver.
Georgi shook his head in affected sorrow as if Gerasimov had let him down. ‘Come on, Nikolai. Don’t get so upset. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.’
Gerasimov dropped his arm and, released by the driver, staggered a few paces away. He looked up to the top storey of the building on the other side of the street, then higher up to the sky. There were no stars, just dreary cloud coloured by the dim orange light of the street lamps.
Georgi took him by the arm. ‘Come on.’
Gerasimov allowed himself to be led back to the Mercedes and slumped into the back seat with Georgi beside him. For a while they sat in silence; then in a flat tone of voice Gerasimov said: ‘Send someone to see to the Samara, will you? There’s something wrong with the carburettor.’ r />
Georgi looked ahead. ‘I’ll do that, and more.’ He leaned forward and said to the driver: ‘Go to the Cosmos.’ Then he turned to Gerasimov. ‘I dare say you could do with a service, too.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go see some of my friends.’
Gerasimov closed his eyes, his head resting on the back of his seat. He longed to go to bed but not with Ylena. How could she? With Georgi! With the greasy Armenian errand boy! Why? For the soap? The tights? Was is just Russian women, or did all women barter with their cunts?
The Mercedes drove up a ramp of the Cosmos Hotel. Gerasimov opened his eyes. He looked up at the tall Western-style tower block: still no stars. He climbed out after Georgi. Four or five girls, beautifully dressed and made up, clustered around Georgi. ‘Get us in, Georgi, please …’ Georgi glanced towards the doorman, then turned to two of the girls. ‘You’re with me.’
As he passed the doorman, Georgi slipped him a roll of dollars. In the immense atrium of the hotel, Gerasimov waited with the driver while Georgi went to the desk. The girls hovered a short way away, their faces straining to give an air of sophistication.
Georgi returned with a key. They all went up in the lift. Georgi gave the key to the driver who gently took Gerasimov’s arm and led him along the corridor. Georgi kept the two girls by the lift. Gerasimov looked back and saw them talking. The driver opened the door and led Gerasimov into the suite. ‘Look, TV, minibar, bathroom …’ He showed him round with a certain pride. Then the girls came in, Georgi behind them.
‘Have a good time,’ Georgi said to Gerasimov.
Gerasimov looked at him with no expression. ‘Tell the bitch …’
‘Forget it. I’ve got other things to do.’
‘The Samara …’
‘Sure. I won’t forget the Samara.’
Georgi left the room with his driver. The girls came back into the room. One pouted. The other giggled. The pouter sidled up to Gerasimov. ‘So, sexy, how do you like it?’ She loosened his tie and undid a button of his shirt. The giggler was smaller and blonde. ‘Both together, or one at a time?’ A hand went under his shirt and stroked his skin; another undid the buckle of his belt. ‘He’s generous, your friend Georgi,’ said the pouter. ‘You’ve got both of us all night.’