June 23, 1993
Wednesday
2:00 PM
In the early afternoon Zhorik came tearing in with two laborers and a dozen sour-smelling rolls.
— Carpet. Belgian, — Zhora explained, and set about gesturing and swearing for clarity as he explained to the workmen where and how to slap the stuff down. They exchanged glances, scratched the backs of their heads: «We’ll get it done, don’t sweat it! But you gotta pay extra — the flat’s huge. Work’ll run till morning.»
— By evening, guys! — Zhorik raised an index finger over his head and wagged it. — Get it done by six and you’ll get your extra, no delay. Go!
The workmen stacked the rolls in the hallway, pulled out a tape measure, and started going room to room, meticulously measuring the perimeters.
— So, Alik. How’d it go? — Zhorik came over.
— I’m hungry.
— In half an hour. How many institutes did you call?
— Twenty-two.
— Any young secretaries?
— Six. Why?
— If a young thing’s doing the secretarial work, the director hasn’t lost interest in life yet. Our job is to stoke that interest. The institutes you called — stoking them is easy as pie. Scientific luminaries these days are poorer than church mice and ready to sell themselves down to the last scrap. Let’s go eat.
We walked out of the building, and I was startled by the absence of yesterday’s BMW. In its place stood a beat-up Lada Six.
— Flipped the Beemer for three grand. Moving cost a fortune. We’re crawling around in the «Sha» for now, — Zhorik caught my silent question.
«Makes sense,» I thought, climbing into a car that yesterday would have seemed the height of my dreams. Today my worldview had grown a good half-meter taller.
We drove to yesterday’s cafe on Paliashvili Street. Had lunch.
Back in the passenger seat, I started nodding off.
— What pile did you end up with? — Zhora asked.
— Three-thirty.
— And your average?
— Three-ten. Lost two hundred rubles.
— And this is what I have to teach you. Ah, student, student, — Zhora scratched his unshaven chin. — Well, twenty cents isn’t money anyway!
Ten minutes later we stopped by a «Groceries 24 Hours» kiosk. I started to get out of the car, but Zhorik ordered:
— Belay that! You’re in charge here. Guard the wagon while I stock up on hooch.
Nothing to do about it.
I sat there, fiddled with the tape deck’s knobs, thought about this and that. For instance: exactly how did Zhora plan on drinking any of this. The apartment was as bare as a monk’s cell — no furniture, no dishes, nothing at all except wallpaper, carpet, and a couple of stools...
Zhorik burst out of the shop with two bottles of imported champagne and a countless quantity of domestic vodka packed into three string bags. Looked like he was headed to a student picnic.
— A move with renovations, that’s a hassle. Not like eating shashlik out at Borisovskiye Prudy, — Zhorik remarked, stashing the booze on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
By the time we got back to the apartment, the work was in full, well-coordinated swing. Zhora strode in with the gait of a procurator... all he was missing was the white cloak with the blood-red lining... surveyed the labor front, handed the workmen two bottles of vodka... paused to think it over... and took them back, promising to hand them over again once they’d hit the level of «get-it-done» agreed on that morning.
The men grumbled unhappily about the working class getting pushed around and shoved to the margins of life, then resumed work with a show of enthusiasm. Zhorik, charged up by their labor spirit, threw himself into helping.
He churned away in a burst of labor for about five minutes and burned out. Ordered: «Keep it up, same spirit, so it’s perfect by evening!» then hoisted himself onto a stool. Flipped through his notebook:
— Interesting. I’ll swing by some of these addresses, take a look at the poorhouses. You rest up.
He tore out the pages, stuffed them in his back pocket, and was gone.
To keep out from underfoot of the working men, I holed up in a corner of the kitchen. Drowsy from lunch and finished off by sleep deprivation, I lay down on the floor, freshly laid with carpet. Propped my head on the bag of textbooks and dropped into a deaf ravine of sleep.
Before I’d even fallen a third of the way down, before seeing any bottom, before seeing anything at all, I was tumbled, shaken, and opened my eyes to hear an order:
— Fall in to unload the furniture!
What furniture?! I want to sleep!
Zhorik hauled me up off the floor, gave me a little shake, and — mission accomplished! — woke me up for good.
Working my jaw through a yawn, I went down to the courtyard, where the van’s driver was maneuvering and failing to maneuver up to the entrance. Two stern, hairy-armed guys, presumably movers, got sick of the maneuvering. They shouted «That’s enough!», flung open the van doors, and hauled out a black sofa. Then pulled out the armchairs, and one of them, straining and sweating, I dragged up to the sixth floor. Up the stairs I dragged it. The elevator — bad luck! — turned out to be too small, good for nothing bigger than walking little dogs and marmosets around. Ugh!
Once we’d hauled the furniture up into the apartment, briskly, with jokes and banter, with «and heave! and again! and once more!», Zhora settled up in cash with the moving crew’s foreman and handed a bottle of vodka to the driver and to each of the crew.
Then Zhora went into the room where they were finishing laying the carpet. Scratching the top of his head, scrutinizing the quality of the work, Zhora sniffed around the corners and seams, protested a couple of times: «Hey, guys, this shoddy job isn’t gonna fly. What’s this bubbling up? We’re relaying this right now!» He got into a debate with the men, which wrapped up with him handing over cash and two bottles of Stolichnaya. He turned down the offer to toast the new carpet. Walked the workers to the door and saw them out.
Then Zhorik and I arranged the furniture. Two sofas, a black wardrobe with mirrored doors, and three massive armchairs had already been placed correctly by the movers. But the rest of it... needed figuring out and moving around: two coffee tables of tinted glass and brass rails, a black-wood writing desk, a TV stand, a plain nightstand, a gold-gleaming floor lamp, and four tall, stiff chairs.
«There weren’t any others,» Zhorik started to make excuses, but I waved a hand. It was fine as it was! What a beauty!
Zhorik divided up the rooms: «I’ll take the small one. You get the far one, with the balcony. The through-room becomes communal — two-in-one, reception hall and dining room, doubling as the living room.»
He scratched his chin, smacked himself on the forehead: «Time to sort out my ugly mug!» and headed off to the bathroom.
I tried out the armchairs, savored their springiness and comfort. After going through a dozen positions, I noticed twilight outside the window, the hour was late. Time to rest. Falling asleep mid-motion, I collapsed onto the sofa. «Relax, get some sleep,» rustled through my head.
