July 3, 1993
Saturday
8:10 PM
I got out of the car in a daze: Zhorik wasn’t as simple as he seemed, a murky character, and me? What was happening to me?
Zhorik steered me toward an establishment with a sign in foreign lettering. We went into the hall, took a table in the back. A waitress came over. Zhorik smiled broadly and laid it out:
— Right then, Irochka. Two veal entrecôtes, some nice appetizers, your pick, and five hundred grams of vodka, the most expensive you’ve got.
I sighed, remembering the bender from a week back. It had started out exactly the same way, word for word. First we ordered five hundred grams of the most expensive vodka, then another half liter, and another. The last round had done me in like a paint stripper. I’d puked like the damned.
Brrrr!
A chill ran through me at the memory. The alcoholic haze threatened to repeat itself in every detail. Hmm. I wanted to get plastered something fierce, but carefully, no hangover, no suffering.
I looked around.
Unlike at «Cher Ami,» the crowd here sat sedate and important: gray-haired men in three-piece suits, peroxide-blonde women in black and navy outfits. Maybe tonight’s dinner would stick to business talk and two hundred grams?
Salads arrived on enormous plates that barely fit on the table. The portions, though, were small, smeared thin across the middle of each dish. Zhorik poured vodka into the shot glasses, glanced at me:
— Well then…
— What are we drinking to?
— To respectability! We’re starting a legitimate business. We’re going to be upstanding citizens!
Zhorik knocked back the vodka in one go, set the shot glass aside, and reached into his jacket’s inside pocket. Pulled out a slip of paper and laid it on the table in front of me. I, after a brief pause, took my own vodka too, speared a pickle with my fork, crunched it down, and summed up: «Good stuff!»
And what were these numbers on the slip lying in front of me — 73,400?
— Starting capital, — Zhorik answered. — All right, Roma. We’re done breaking suckers. We hustled up the launch money. Seventy grand, that’s not exactly chump change.
I shrugged. Changed my mind about asking about the past, turned my attention to the future instead:
— What kind of business?
— No idea. There’s time to think about it before Monday. Relax. With money like this, starting up isn’t the problem. Just have to figure out which direction…
— Which direction, then?
— Does it even matter? The main thing is to come out ahead of everyone else once we start!
Zhorik splashed vodka into both our glasses. Proclaimed a toast:
— There are horses that plow for a peasant in exchange for oats and a stable. There are trotters that race under a jockey for feed pellets and a stall. And there are mustangs, who graze wherever they please…
I wasn’t really listening to the toast, which likened me and Zhorik to wild horses grazing wherever they pleased and happy everywhere. Tossed the vodka down, got lost in thought: «Why ahead? I’ve always been in the back rows. Not a defender, not a goalkeeper, not even a fan up in the stands behind the goal. I’ve always just been some citizen walking past the stadium…»
Zhora handed the menu back to the waitress who’d come over.
— Irochka, if you would, bring some beer. Vodka didn’t sit right with my friend here. And maybe some hot appetizers to go with the beer. Boiled shrimp or spicy wings, whatever you’ve got? No croutons, though!
Irochka shrugged, and I noted that in every restaurant, Zhora had a Lorochka, an Andryushka, an Irochka he knew… All the waitresses and waiters were glad to see Zhorik walk in, and to see me… Wait. I picked back up the thought I’d lost track of. What was going to happen to me? And, by the way.
— And if Verochka hadn’t signed the contract, what would’ve happened to her?
— Nothing interesting. She’d have kept living like before. A dorm in Biryulyovo, a job at the ZiL plant, and two guys screwing her — Vanka the locksmith and Kolka the machine setter. One’s married, the other one drinks.
— So you had something to do with her meeting Seryoga?
— Depends how you look at it. We were riding the same tram. I blocked her exit. Vera had to hop off at the next stop instead. There, she barreled straight into Seryoga getting off. He was standing on the sidewalk, trying to flag down a cab. Long story short, she shoved him right into a puddle. Seryoga got his feet soaked, but didn’t kick up a fuss. Good-natured guy, decent sort. Started talking to the girl without any crap, just, easy there, sheep, where’re you charging off to. One word led to another, screwing followed some petting. He set her up with the apartment. Next week he’s gifting her a Volkswagen Golf.
— And then what? — I asked, envying someone else’s happiness that had come together so easily.
— And then nothing will happen. — Zhorik pulled out his little notebook, flipped through it, read a page, closed it. — She wanted brand-name clothes, an apartment in central Moscow, a foreign car under her backside. No other conditions. Seryoga took her to TsUM last week, dressed her up like a working girl. Moved into the apartment today. But there was never any mention of driving lessons. The Golf, as promised, gets delivered Monday or Tuesday. Nobody’s going to force her to crash it. She’ll drive herself under a KamAZ truck all on her own, given the chance. What are you looking so glum about? Her fate’s got nothing to do with you. There’s your beer. Don’t get bored, I’ve got to go chat up a couple of guys.
Zhorik moved over to the next table. Two gentlemen sat there, alike in the face — stately, important, with the look of officials, up in years, somewhere around sixty. Both in well-cut suits with snow-white shirts and dove-colored ties, either blue or gray, impossible to tell.
I waited out the swap of an empty shot glass for a full mug, took a sip of beer, poked at the salad.
A desire was ripening in me to act against whatever was written for me, boldly, recklessly, like a free man. To warn Verochka, for instance, not to get behind the wheel of a car until she’d actually learned to drive.
With thoughts like that, I got drunk.
