July 26–31, 1993
Our expectations were betrayed, hard and cruel.
The confiscation of Soviet money, unlike the previous one, went off without any frenzy. No fat cats crowded into the fund, no one shoved sacks of banknotes across the counter. On the first day of the exchange, ten depositors showed up; on the second and after, seven.
On Friday Zhora got the report, gasped for air, and announced to the staff: Fellas, you’ve worked with real dedication. The founders are pleased. No room for sorrow — let’s celebrate!
The girls were assigned to conjure up snacks. The guys were tasked with hauling the booze.
The spread was laid out, the drinks poured. As tradition demanded, the banquet opened with a toast from Zhorik:
– Business is good. No reason not to drink!
The staff drank, snacked, cracked a joke… had a laugh, poured again, repeated. Someone put on music, so that «Look Into My Eyes,» «Bukhgalter,» and «Jump» blared out of the Panasonic bought just the day before.
Everyone scattered around eight in the evening.
I’d learned the staff’s names by then and picked up all sorts of things about VychMekh. It turned out the institute wasn’t run by Yuri Anatolyevich but by Ivan Timofeyevich, whose niece — no way! — was Lyubochka, the one Zhorka had been seeing for three weeks now, whistling «The maples have painted the town…»
I took a taxi home.
In the morning I went into the office to do the books and tally up the results. Over the past week, according to the paperwork, we’d taken in two thousand four hundred dollars, seven million in cash rubles and forty-two million in non-cash rubles, plus forty-five thousand two hundred vouchers. The cash on the receipts and the non-cash on the accounts matched up with the records of funds accepted from the public. As for vouchers, two hundred and thirty thousand had actually come in.
Nobody had counted the vouchers. First they were stacked in my safe, then stacked up in the cabinet in my office.
Zhorik arrived. He ordered us to temporarily forget about accounting for the useless paperwork and instead fix up the scheme by which the funds were being processed. We had to avoid breaking the law – that was one. Make it clear to the staff – that was two.
At six we headed to the Terem.
By half past six, Zhorik was whispering with Chicha and Timofey by the bar in the corner. I was drinking calculatedly, a shot every half hour, with Vadim in the opposite corner.
Vadim wore a pompous air, shuffling an «NEC» pager and a «Pelikan Classic» fountain pen from pocket to pocket. After the second shot Vadim bragged that he’d pulled in five mil. He clarified, half under his breath, that the mil was in rubles.
I converted the sum into dollars and felt a pang of envy. Five thousand dollars was no joke. You could buy a new car with that — a Six, or a forty-first Moskvich.
After the third shot Vadik let slip that he had another business brewing: running non-cash rubles into cash and back.
I didn’t understand, but I put on a face like I respected the boldness and creativity of it.
We had a fourth shot. Vadim announced he was setting up his own bank.
Envy got the better of me, but I didn’t push myself to get drunk. I stopped at the fourth.
Zhorik and Lyuba, who’d just arrived, sat down at our table. Nadya wasn’t there, but according to Zhorik she’d promised to come.
Vadim wandered off and brought back two girls dressed loudly, with a careless kind of chic. Lyuba wrinkled her nose at their perfume, exchanged a glance with Zhorik. The two of them got up and moved over to the couples shuffling around on the dance floor.
Vadim and I didn’t bother getting distracted by the dancing — we drank, snacked, drank some more, ate. Vadim suggested heading over to the Hermitage or the Metla, because this place was a dive with no energy at all. The girls seconded him.
I said no. First, I didn’t like the girls — pine-tree-shaped chicks with bored faces up in the clouds. Second, they were showering attention on Vadim. I felt like an appendage. Third, I wanted to sleep.
So I told Vadim I was tired and heading home.
