June 27, 1993
Sunday
9:30 PM
The salad, and the veal that arrived about ten minutes later, went down a treat. I fixed my focus on the next shot glass.
— Student, stop! — Zhorik ordered.
— What’s wrong?
— Don’t get plastered like yesterday. Save your strength for the festival. Oh! Kiryukha’s turned up. Gotta go chat him up. Don’t butt into the conversation. And don’t chug the booze!
A tall guy, close to two meters, and very thin, ten years older than me, came over to our table. Greeted us curtly, perched on the edge of a chair, let his eyes slide over the mobile phone lying between the plates, glanced sideways at the carafe of vodka, and shifted away a bit. Zhorik pulled a stack of papers out of his briefcase, rummaged through them, drew out a sheet, ran his eyes over the lines… and smirked:
— Want to make a movie?
— Well, yeah.
— For an Oscar?
— Er… well… — Kirill shrugged, performing a little pantomime of «why not, if the chips are mine.»
— Fancy. Not the usual answer. What’s your job?
— That is, um, at the television station…
Zhorik squinted sideways at the sheet:
— Assistant gaffer?
— Yes.
— All right then, Kiryukha. We can sketch out a budget as soon as tomorrow. How much, in numbers?
— Well, forty grand… at minimum. A hundred would be better, of course.
— And how are you going to pay it back?
— What?
— Nobody’s giving you money for your pretty eyes, it’s a loan, and you’re lucky if it’s interest-free. How are you going to return it?
— Well, nobody mentioned that. I hadn’t thought about it.
— So think about it, — Zhorik smiled. — You’ll shoot your movie per the contract. Budget straight out of a fairy tale. But then, like in real life, the bulls will come around with questions: «Where’s our cash plus interest, and how are you closing this out?» You got an answer?
Kirill froze, stunned by this turn. I was surprised too, at how complicated the world of filmmaking turned out to be. Zhorik got bored of the pause hanging over the table within a minute.
— Kiryukha. Let’s not rush into anything. Let’s act like serious people. We’ll skip the loans. We’ll open a company, wash up some cash, and risk our own money. You’ll shoot whatever film you want. Six months is plenty to raise a hundred grand and blow through it. Nobody’ll come asking about interest.
— What interest?
— Standard, ten percent a month. What did you think? Nobody wants their money sitting idle. Do the math. Shooting takes a month. A prep period before shooting, another month. Then editing and sound, two more months, and distribution, half a year. The sponsor’s money’s tied up for a year. That’s a three-hundred-grand hole if you count the interest. You got an answer for that? No, you don’t! So build the company.
— Uh… what company?
— No idea, — Zhorik shrugged. — Makes no difference to me, one way or the other. What kind of business speaks to you? What can you actually handle? Cranking out spots for cable TV, say. You got access to a Betacam?
— Sure.
— There we go, then. Start off as director of an ad agency and crank out commercials. We’ll shoot the movie the second you’ve fattened up a bit. Grab your glass. To the ad agency!
I knocked back my shot, transfixed by Zhora’s knack for hustling something up in any field. Kirill, no less stunned, knocked his back too, chased it with wild garlic, washed it down with mineral water.
Over the next fifteen minutes we knocked back two more forty-gram shots to the prosperity of the ad agency and to the most important of the arts, cinema and the circus. Zhorik traded phone numbers with Kirill, on the condition of an obligatory call. The future ad agency director vanished amid a heap of apologies: he was cutting it close, in deep trouble, running late, his boss would chew him up and spit him out. Borrowed ten thousand rubles off Zhorik for a taxi, and was gone.
I watched, blearily, as the beanpole receded, shrinking into a single stalk of wheat, and vanished. Figured I should ease off the drinking, seeing plants wasn’t a good sign. Focused on the bowl of salad. Picked up my knife and fork, took aim… and set to eating, studying the crowd around us.
The crowd seemed lovely. Everyone present had known each other since preschool. Every new arrival set off a tsunami of delight. Oohs and aahs poured in from every side, questions about how things were going, about health, and in general «where have you been hiding, get over here!» The gentlemen exchanged the traditional three kisses, the ladies pressed cheeks together. Faces glowed with unfeigned joy. The air turned sugary with sentimentality. Pleasant, lovely people surrounded me.
I believed it: happiness in life exists, and consists of dignified creative work followed by dignified, cultured leisure. Why had nobody thought to steer me toward a life as a writer or a director? A pang of resentment stung and faded. Forgetting the order not to chug, I splashed vodka into the glasses. Zhora looked up from his notebook, agreeable: «Cheers!»
We clinked glasses and tipped a shot of optimism down our throats.
Good stuff!
Zhora let out a whoop, shook his head, nodded to the hostess, and, bang! two girls were seated at our table. I was introduced as Roman the financier. The girls squealed, introduced themselves as Lidochka and Allochka, drama students, and grabbed shot glasses. Zhora proposed a toast to the great Stanislavski. We drank. Then, without a break, we drank to the no less great Nemirovich. They drank to the equally great Danchenko without me.
Leaning back in my chair, I watched the waitress bring out another carafe of vodka, the third or maybe the fourth, and set down more appetizers. The girls drank vodka. Chased it. Snacked. Drank. Chased it. Skipped the snack, went off to dance to the band. Came back. Drank…
Uuuugh!
I turned my attention inward. The vodka going down was poisoning my insides in a completely different way than yesterday’s beer. I was getting flattened, crushed, turned inside out. My digestive organs definitely didn’t approve of forty-percent spirits. Yesterday, after three liters of beer, things hadn’t been easy either, but the beer-drunk hadn’t brought on this anxiety and this unfocused, formless hatred.
Meanwhile Zhorik ran into yet another acquaintance, brought him to the table, and started grilling him about why he was still stuck at his research institute, whether it wasn’t time to get into real business. The acquaintance, who introduced himself as Vadim, looked bewildered. Turned his head this way and that, gulped down vodka like a robot, saying instead of toasts:
— I need office space! I’ve got ideas! I could start tomorrow!
— We’ve got the opposite problem, — Zhorik shook his shaggy head. — Enough office space for a whole division, and not enough ideas. Let’s have another round!
Lidochka and Allochka chimed in happily. Exactly, not enough ideas! The world’s stuck in modernism! Let’s drink to postmodernism! One more round!
Then we pushed our tables together with the neighboring ones.
I drank myself into a blackout and retained no memory of getting home. Where the future actresses had gotten to, I couldn’t recall either.
