Summer–autumn 1995
Team A and I were sent out to the regions. Once the plants stopped bleeding the budget dry and started filling up with prosperity, they drew the interest of cops, prosecutors, gangsters, and every other local bigwig.
At Proma, «Team A» was the name for a squad of about a dozen managers who deserved a promotion but had nowhere to go. The world’s best cleaning-crew foreman can’t just become a facilities manager — if nothing else, he doesn’t know the first thing about buying office supplies. But if the foreman’s sharp, there’s a chance to reboot his career. He’d join Team A and get sent touring the country: assessing how the restrooms and common areas were kept, offering an expert opinion on what to fix and improve. After a year of business trips, every toilet in the holding gleamed, and the candidate got the title «Director of Cleaning, Technical Directorate.» If they didn’t gleam, someone else got the job.
Everywhere across the country it was the same story — big and small bantustans run by little «bogdykhans» surrounded by a retinue that ran from the local prosecutor down to petty street thugs. The retinue was bound together by family ties, kept outsiders out of its inner circle, and never stooped to talk with hired managers. It discussed matters with the owner of the enterprise — that is, with me.
The bantustan chieftains greeted me like a rich eccentric from Moscow, flattering and fawning, trying to figure out what I was really after. What I talked about, on the surface, was prosperity and stability. To back up my good intentions, I’d bring up my Ural roots, playing the simple kid from outside Chelyabinsk who, by some quirk of fate, had become a Moscow businessman.
The cultural program never varied — negotiations, dinner at the restaurant of the Hotel Tsentralnaya, across from the old regional-committee building, then a stay at the resort house. The resort house had a sauna. Unlike my early trips, when I’d steam, splash around, and hook up all by myself, I had to switch to room service. The sauna went to the team.
The business side was simple as a stool: government officials, elected deputies, street-smart cops, and proper thieves all wanted money in exchange for their good mood, which was priced differently depending on the person — anywhere from a million rubles to thousands of dollars.
It seemed like beyond the Moscow Ring Road, everyone was living inside a fairy tale where the lord would show up and hand out happiness. Everyone wanted to grab their little piece of prosperity. I’d nod graciously — «Heard you, noted» — and walk right past.
In the four years since the August coup, the bantustan chieftains had carved up, squandered, and destroyed the Soviet property that had fallen into their laps, and now stood on the ashes of it. The chieftains risked nothing: they’d sigh in front of their electorate and point upward — «It’s Yeltsin and his liberal crowd, they wrecked the country!» — then turn around and size up the businessmen who’d come to pick through the ashes: how much can we squeeze out of these guys?
The chieftains would whine for funds for social, utility, cultural, and sports line items in the regional budget — right down to buying African footballers for the local second-division club. The native elite was hungry to latch onto my money.
No luck.
I didn’t let anyone latch on. Not for any project. I hid nothing from the locals: «I’ve got a commission with me. They’ll write a report, we’ll look into it. I’m sure things will work out fine for you.»
Things worked out fine for no one.
After the first assassination attempt, something rebooted in my head. I started being suspicious of everyone around me — absolutely everyone. After Gennady’s scam, I cut contact with friends down to a minimum. The rat who’d worked in tandem with Genka was never caught. My interest in catching them was zero — I didn’t want to find out which of my friends had turned out not to be one.
I didn’t trust Team A either, but there was a nuance. A random careerist off the street, ready to tear anyone apart for a promotion, was easier to read than an old friend. A promotion I can offer. But friendship? Either it’s there, or it isn’t.
I found myself living Groundhog Day with a changing backdrop but the same sequence of events every time. The old restaurants, discos, saunas, shooting ranges, and other spots for local recreation were off-limits to me now. The team went there instead. Long ago, Zhora had banned mixing with the general revelry of his subordinates. Yasha banned attending private gatherings at a governor’s or a prosecutor’s house alone — he suspected someone would film my bare ass and put it on TV.
My leisure time boiled down to «room service» — resistance was futile. The calls would start the moment I checked in and never stop. I answered the same way every time: «Can I see all of them?» I’d pick the one least like the ones before — six and a half feet tall, or three hundred pounds, or eyeing me hungrily, or radiating fierce distaste, an elegant lady fallen on hard times, or a scrappy tomboy... Plenty of types turned up, and I never turned down a new one.
Five minutes later, I’d be alone with the only person in the entire regional universe who wasn’t whining for anything.
After sitting her down in an armchair and handing her a bottle of champagne with a glass — «The rest is up to you» — we’d talk. I’d listen to the same story everyone told, about a sick brother or sister who needed money for treatment. I’d answer her questions about Moscow, every one of which left me stumped. What’s in fashion in Moscow right now? No idea. What clubs do you go to? I don’t go anywhere. What does everyone listen to in Moscow? No clue.
— You live a boring life, — a hooker from Krasnokhimsk once remarked. — Is that even living?
— You know so much about life, — I wanted to snap back, but caught myself. The girl, who’d seen nothing of life except thousands of Krasnokhimsk penises in all their variety, was, in her own way, right.
The dreams of a huge pile of money that would buy freedom and an abundance of material things had led somewhere else entirely. Freedom never showed up. I made no use of material things. Day after day, the same thing repeated. Only the cities and the faces changed.
