The beginning was sour, in general and in particular.
It was June of nineteen ninety-three. I was finishing my fourth year at MEPhI. Every third night I slept over as a watchman on Prechistenka.
Life ran to the rhythm of exam season: exam, night shift, cramming, cramming, exam… Three exams I squeaked through on a “good,” the fourth ended in a bare pass. The increased stipend, worth a couple of Snickers bars, waved me goodbye. So be it. What mattered was that I was moving up to the next level — to my fifth year. And there, according to the old hands, a different life began, a grown-up one…
I bought a bottle of Moskvoretskoye beer and an MK at the kiosk, and headed off to my shift.
It was Saturday.
The heat swam.
I arrived at the office late.
Not good.
Stepan Fyodorovich, the colleague I was relieving, a retired district policeman, reacted like a kettle. He hissed, he bubbled, and then boiled over, started raising a racket, spiraled into a screaming-shrieking hysterical fit. Ai-yai-yai! He had meant to go out to the dacha on the afternoon train, and now, because of some good-for-nothing slacker, he had to wait three hours for the next one! Saturday, shot to hell!! This way and that way to me, and not only that way!!! Ugh! Argh!! And up the other hole!!! Next time he would leave an hour earlier, to hell and back and every which way through and through, here, there and down your throat.
The verbal boiling water bubbled right past me. I was doing a crossword. Waiting for the pensioner to calm down and clear off to his garden plot. About five minutes later I filled in the last square and rejoiced: Yesss! Ain’t I a clever son of a bitch!
Time to think about work.
Like Goldilocks in the bears’ house, I wandered around the office. Tried on the general director’s chair, the chief accountant’s chair, the head of security’s chair.
Nothing was right.
Uncomfortable. Not cozy. Not serene.
With the bang of the door slamming shut behind Fyodorych, I flopped onto the couch in the sales room. I fell asleep without dreams and was surprised to find myself on the floor. It was Pasha, the head of security, who had knocked me off the couch.
Oop-la!
It took seconds to come to and wake up properly. Pasha had vanished, giving way to the office director, Vladislav Arkadyevich, and a stranger. The stranger wore a black leather vest, a black t-shirt and black tracksuit trousers with triple white stripes. A mobile telephone in a case dangled on his belly.
Both of them loomed over me and said nothing.
My head hummed. Arms and legs coexisted with the body on Yeltsin’s terms: the autonomies had swallowed as much as they could, but did nothing useful with it. My eyes denied separatism and submitted to the brain. They passed nothing good along to it.
My inner voice confirmed: “I’ll be damned! Expect a reprimand entered into your ribcage and a fine the size of a month’s salary. Adios, amigo!” It vanished somewhere down around my heels.
I was fully awake now. From the director’s look I understood that my inner voice had softened the situation. The biggest unpleasantness possible awaited me – dismissal. Springing up in a half-crouch with a half-curtsy, I shot out of the secretary’s room, pierced the corridor like a laser beam and landed at my workplace: on the little stool by the front door.
I was fully awake now. From the look on the director’s face I understood my inner voice had undersold the situation. The worst possible outcome awaited me — getting fired. Springing up in a half-crouch, half-curtsy, I shot out of the secretary’s office, laser-beamed down the corridor, and landed, at the far end of it, at my post: on the little stool between the front door and the window.
