June 28, 1993
Monday
During the night I gulped down water. In the morning I sprawled on the couch. Emptiness churned in my head, crowding out any wants or thoughts. Zhora, who had a gift for catalyzing memories both general and specific, was absent. Looked like he’d escorted the girls all the way out to Kukuyevo-Otradnoye. And stayed there.
I turned on the television, clicked through to the «Dvazhdy Dva» channel, muted it, and set the remote aside. Shifted my gaze from the screen to the window. Out there the sky was blue, high, cleaner than clean. Time to reflect on existence.
So, what good and bad had happened this week? Met Zhorik on Tuesday. Moved into the apartment on Wednesday, an apartment stuffed with TV-video equipment, computer gear, and household appliances. Today they’d install the washing machine. Right now, on my wrist — a Breitling. In the closet — new clothes. In my pockets… that is, in the nightstand — two hundred dollars, handed over for petty expenses. I’d tried returning change from purchases and got waved off: «Keep it, it’ll come in handy.»
My almost-personal three hundred thousand rubles.
The fairy tale, the whole point of life — to have more money than you can spend! My watchman’s salary came to thirty thousand rubles. If you approached it wisely, five thousand rubles could stretch a week. No showing off, of course. In a month you could save up ten thousand, in a year, a hundred twenty. Yes, that was exactly the goal I’d been working toward, saving up for a video player, but I’d never once had more than twenty-six thousand sitting in the piggy bank. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how brutally I economized… And here two hundred dollars sat waiting for their fate. Where was I supposed to spend it, if everything was already bought?
I got up, shuffled over to the fridge, came back with a Tuborg. Took a sip, let a little cheer in… Kept on thinking. To hell with money! Need to draw some conclusions and figure out how to live from here.
In a single week, life had changed in a direction I couldn’t have dreamed of.
I took a sip, a second… soared, drunk on my recent acquisitions… came back down to reality. Turned my attention to the dark side of things. Remembered the battered owner of the BMW, the four corpses at the «Terem.» Accept it as normal and settle down? Can’t!
Why not?
A third gulp of beer didn’t bring an answer. No coherent answer, except — you just can’t!
You can’t. It’s wrong.
I went and got a second can of beer, reset myself onto a positive footing. Remembered the moment I’d fingered fifteen hundred bucks in my pocket and felt like the navel of the universe. Life had turned out well, wishes fulfilled…
No, that wasn’t it. The big money had turned, easily and simply, into a pile of convenient objects, but it hadn’t carried me up to any peak of happiness. It had rustled through and vanished at the register, like loose change buying a pack of gum.
Well, in the recent past I’d had nothing but a set of dishes and some clothes. Was poor and consumed by envy. Lived in a state of nervous exhaustion and craved money, hungered after everything in the world that couldn’t be bought at a kiosk.
Having gotten ten times more than I’d ever dreamed of, I still wasn’t satisfied.
Damn it!!! I hadn’t sold my soul for a jacket, a VCR, and a fridge!
Made a run for a third can… got to thinking… got to thinking again… What was that last thought about? «You can’t. It’s wrong» — that, I think. A volume of zero-point-three-three, definitely not our format, not a human one. Doesn’t let you concentrate, keeps distracting you into wanting another!
What had I been thinking about before I started making so many trips to the fridge? About the money, earned and spent? About the clothes, the apartment, the gear? No! Originally my thoughts had been churning in a different direction entirely. Had to figure out what to do tomorrow and the days after. Yes, exactly that. What was I supposed to do?
I drank beer, stared at the screen, and built logical constructions. It wasn’t going well. Thoughts got tangled, wandered off, paired up randomly, but the main one never went away. I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going Zhorik’s way, that we had to part ways.
You can’t become a criminal and a con man for the sake of short-term gains. Or long-term ones either. I was disgusted by Zhora’s deeds, the ones that had led to the current state of things. I had to get rid of him.
But how?
Or did I even need to? I was just along for the ride, not guilty of anything!
Or was I guilty?
Did I have the right to taste the fruits of Zhorik’s activities that had fallen into my lap? Or was I a trembling creature with no rights at all?..
Can’t sort this out without another can. Ugh!
Loaded «Universal Soldier» into the VCR and… the Carolco logo had barely finished swirling across the screen before I gave up on watching. Went to meet the technicians who’d come to install the washing machine…
Sometime after midnight Zhorik turned up: noise and crashing at the entrance, a thud against the doorframe, and drunken laughter:
— You won’t believe what’s going on, you’ll piss yourself! Krasny and the bulls drove out into the sands. And get this, right nearby the cops are hanging around too, the same ones his guys took a swing at. How about that! Fought with their fists for a couple hours. And guess what? A sniper picked off two of them from a distance, winged a third. But these guys are seasoned, did their time in Afghanistan. Figured it out fast: it’s a safari circus out there and they’re the targets! Bolted for the rocks like their lives depended on it! While they were running, nobody held a grudge, everybody helped everybody else out. By morning they’d banded together, bare-handed, went in for the grab, captured a tank. Beautiful! Right now they’re storming a warehouse. I’ll bet you anything, they’ll rise up in no time and in a week or two they’ll be pushing into the city, fighting over barracks. It’s in their blood, cops and bandits alike, putting clients in the ground for their own gain. Good lads. Hasn’t been anybody with real guts out there in years, five years at least. Roma, you can’t even imagine the carnage. All right, anyway. I had a little chat about our own business. They promised to help. So we’re starting to work and earn. You shitting yourself yet?
— Er…
