June 26, 1993
Saturday
9:00 AM
Zhora woke me with a flick to the forehead. I headed to the bathroom. Washed up, wondering who on earth needs to be up at nine on a Saturday morning. Then went to the kitchen, rigged up breakfast out of a dozen sandwiches and an eight-eyed fried-egg monstrosity, wolfed down half. Left the other half for Zhorik.
Zhora, sprawled in the armchair with the phone resting on his belly, was dialing up Kiryushas, Geshas, and other contacts whose names he scanned for in the new notebook. Every time I tried to turn on the television, he'd fix me with a terrifying stare, demanding silence.
I wandered the rooms and found something to do: turned on the computer, moved the mouse back and forth, clicked on some icons, and discovered a game called «Minesweeper.»
Sometime past eleven, once a more or less winning strategy had settled into my head, Zhorik gave the order:
— Let's go!
Already out on the street, chewing a sandwich on the move, Zhorik mumbled something about the week ahead being intense, enough lounging around, and in general… What exactly «in general» meant, I couldn't say. Zhorik purred out «Hrmm-pshmlm nknknkm-klbsmm,» and, swallowing the last bite, articulated clearly: «Went down nice. Never skimp on the sausage.» Hiccuped and added: «And the best sausage is a properly fried slab of veal.»
I didn't argue. Hurried alongside him toward the nearest metro station.
We had no car. No clear prospects for making money either. Nothing at all, really, except a handful of dollars in Zhorik's pocket. And even those we had to part with at a currency exchange booth, just to buy metro tokens.
We went down to the platform and rode to «Tretyakovskaya.» Came up top and walked about five minutes to a lane called Kalyazinsky. Our final stop turned out to be a restaurant with a sign reading «Terem» over the entrance. I figured Zhorik was joking.
Not at all.
Looking around, Zhorik stepped inside with confidence. I turned my head too, imitating him. The place felt deserted — an empty lane lined with two-story merchant houses that could have used signs like «Barber Pierre and Konstantin» and «Welcome.» I even doubted I was in one of Moscow's historic centers. Nothing but genuine Stargorod, seen from the village of Chmarovka. I sighed and followed Zhora into the restaurant, no idea what could possibly be done in there with the loose change in his pockets.
Zhorik surveyed the room, waited until I got closer, and shoved a watch face under my nose:
— Pay attention, student. Door to door, exactly thirty minutes. Convenient.
I let the remark slide. Was trying to read the watch brand. Ah-ha, an Orient, belonging to the BMW's owner. Nice. I'd like one of those. But half an hour each way — that's a lot. No point trudging out for lunch, losing an hour there and back.
The interior of the restaurant was just as moss-grown as the outside. A dim hall, room for about twenty tables. A stage against the right wall. Ah… a stage, there were the speakers, there was a spotlight. Hm… Behind the stage, in the gloom, a bar counter could be made out, lit by a Heineken sign.
Nobody in the hall, just the two of us, me and Zhora.
Zhora turned his head, drawing bisectors, solving some geometry problem. Nothing else for it: sketching out medians and chords, multiplying perimeters by sines and cosines. Finally he pointed at a table by the bar counter:
— Here.
I shrugged, grabbed a menu off the counter, and sat down in the designated spot. Shifted my chair, adjusting to the dim light, and buried myself in studying the list of dishes.
«Well, now,» I concluded, the spitting image of Kisa Vorobyaninov getting acquainted with the right-hand column of the menu at the Prague restaurant.
Zhorik kept turning his head this way and that. Shifted his gaze to the front door, to the staff door behind the bar, to the ceiling…
— Hello, — a girl's voice at my side made me jump, and pulled Zhorik out of his exercise in plane geometry and trigonometry.
— Two beers, the most expensive kind, — he ordered from the waitress, who'd snuck up from the bar. —
The girl, in uniform — white top, black bottom — lit a candle on the table, walked off, returned a minute later with two full mugs, went back to the bar, flipped on the radio with a click… sounded like «M-Radio,» crooning something in the background… behind the bar, the bartender's shadow flickered… someone walked through the hall behind me, someone laughed loudly nearby…
The place was definitely livelier than it had first seemed. I felt better. After three sips I stopped worrying that, given the exchange rate of 1,050 rubles to the dollar, Zhorik had enough money for two mugs of imported beer.
