June 27, 1993
Sunday
8:45 PM
Dressed up and slicked down like it was our first date, we bounded out onto the street and flagged down a taxi creeping past. In my head, to the accompaniment of «Puttin’ on the Ritz,» thoughts of a dazzling future tap-danced and twirled a cane.
Ah, what a wonderful start to things!
Ah, how splendidly it was all coming together!
I didn’t get to finish working out what a delightful puzzle circumstances were assembling themselves into. The restaurant Zhorik was headed for turned out to be right around the corner. Three turns, two U-turns, a hundred meters straight ahead, and we stopped outside a sign reading «Cher Ami Art Café.»
— We’re drinking vodka till we squeal like pigs, — Zhorik announced the evening’s plans. — Simple crowd in this joint. Up-and-coming actors and actresses, film editors, gaffers, and other movie-biz types on a standard pay scale. Don’t lose your nerve. Position yourself as a financial consultant.
I nodded my head in agreement. Who I was consulting and about what didn’t interest me. What occupied me more was the impending drinking session in a glamorous setting. My whole notion of Moscow restaurants came down to tales from seasoned upperclassmen — how they’d once bribed a doorman and snuck a whole group into the «Valdai» café and had a grand time raising hell there, or how they’d brazenly barged into the respectable «Slavyansky Bazaar» restaurant and, again, made a fine mess of things.
My own travels through the food service establishments of the pre-Zhorik era were limited to visits to the «Adriatika» café near Gagarinsky and the «Viru» café on Metrostroyevskaya. There’d been a stretch when I was courting a first-year at the Foreign Languages Institute. The courtship came to nothing, but the memories remained.
We went down into the basement level and opened the door.
We were met by a girl holding a folder. She heard out Zhorik, who reported that he’d booked a table that morning under the name Coffin, for eight PM, but business had held him up, he’d been doing deals. Still very much in the mood to blow a pile of money. All the while Zhorik held a bulging briefcase in one hand and spun a mobile phone in the other, the whole business of it implying he’d been swamped, couldn’t get through, out of coverage…
The girl heard Zhorik out graciously, glanced into her folder, and, eyeing the mobile phone sideways, led us into the hall. We were seated at the one unoccupied table.
The waitress took away the «Reserved» sign, handed over embossed folders reading «Menu,» «Bar Card,» «Wine Card,» and posted herself at attention behind Zhora’s back.
Zhorik started scanning names and prices. I glanced at the salad page and set the folders aside. Dish names that had never made an appearance on the dorm cafeteria price list were a dark forest to me: «Caesar,» «Greek,» «Cuban»… What was in a name like that for a student who’d never eaten anything fancier than a sausage with «Vitamin Salad»?
Zhora scanned a good five pages and addressed the waitress:
— Hello there, Lorochka. Right, here’s what we’ll do. A couple of hot dishes, your pick, some nice appetizers, and half a liter of the most expensive vodka you’ve got.
Lorochka smiled sweetly:
— Meat or fish?
— Veal. For both of us. Little entrecôtes. The rest doesn’t matter. Main thing is it goes down well with the vodka.
Lorochka smiled once more and walked off with a light step.
— What’s the occasion? — I asked.
— None! Making up for lost time. Couldn’t celebrate yesterday, somebody got plastered out of their mind. Anyway, the blue notebook’s done, thrown out. Working on the green one now. Don’t see a reason not to drink.
He clarified:
— Working on you all, my metro passengers. Tolik, Nastya, Verochka, the rest of them… My gut tells me we’re going to have a blast, wild new times coming, not like the old days!
I suspected something was off. Seemed like I was losing my exclusive claim on Zhorik and his good deeds. Earlier that day I’d been happy about the financial prosperity Zhorik had generated, and now I was anxious. Share it with strangers? On what grounds? Why would Zhorik switch his attention to some Toliks and Verochkas?
I didn’t get to work it through and find an answer. My eyes roving, I landed on the mobile phone lying on the table. What kind of miracle of scientific-technological progress was this?
— What’s it called?
— Nokia one-oh-one.
No way! A couple of weeks ago at the office they’d been discussing the appearance of some heavenly being equipped with a device like this. Rumor had it, it was the chairman of the board at the bank where the firm kept its accounts. Vladislav Arkadyevich was no slouch either — hauled around a Nokia Mobira in a suitcase and looked immensely cool doing it. But according to the seasoned managers, mobile phones worked the opposite way from what the guys assumed — the smaller it was, the more prestige it carried.
Zhorik read the question in my look and explained:
— Expropriated it off Krasny. Subscriber’s out of coverage. Why let good stuff go to waste? Too early to turn it on, the bulls’ll be calling with questions. It’ll do as a prop for now.
Six little bowls of salad appeared on the table, a plate of pickles, a basket of bread, a carafe of vodka, two shot glasses. Whoa!
Zhora inspected and sniffed the contents of the dishes, pulled two bowls toward himself, pushed four toward me, and poured out the vodka. Having confirmed the pours were identical, he pronounced:
— To the coming-true of dreams! — and raised his glass.
— To coming true, — I clinked glasses with Zhorik and tipped a forty-gram shot down my throat. It scorched my mouth and part of my esophagus. I chased it with a pickle and dug into the bowls.
Zhora didn’t chase his. Listened to the alcohol thudding down his gut-pipe, smiled, grunted, and set his glass down with dignity. All of it, with a self-important air.
«Something’s coming,» I worried.
Sure enough.
With the same regal air, Zhorik reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. Ah!!! Breaking out in a cold sweat, I remembered and froze glassy-eyed. That’s where it was… the sheet with my handprint burned into it! Was the happiness over?!
No.
Zhorik put down on the table — I nearly choked on my julienne — a Breitling! That very one, with the black dial and the shiny bracelet!!! I’d dreamed of a chronograph like this for years, flipping through glossy magazines at the office. Just a day ago I’d been daydreaming over it in the antique shop, feeling it, trying it on, savoring the sensation. The object of my longing lay before me, with an order attached:
— Wear it, student!
I put the watch on, admired it up close and at arm’s length, waved my hand around. Ge-e-eorgeous! Clinked glasses with Zhorik, wishing it never wear out, took a bite to eat, admired it once more. Ready to repeat the admiring algorithm forever!
