December 30, 1997
Tuesday
11:00 a.m.

Nothing dramatic happened to Chicha – that’s just how it went. At the year-end meeting, Yasha guessed:

– Looks like Chicha’s kicked the bucket. Two months, not a peep.

The news of Chicha’s disappearance was no news. Rumors had long gone round that he had perished in Naberezhnye Chelny by the local method – bittek malay, alga!

Chicha had started an oil-refining business with his Chelny pals and blundered. He should have started up with the Nizhnekamsk crowd, or better still attached himself to the Almetyevsk people. That abracadabra of Turkic sounds I did not understand, and I took the final chord as a song from the film about two comrades: «there goes a bullet flying, and alga, there goes a bullet flying, and my comrade fell».

Chicha hadn’t been a comrade. Proma Holding had shed some ballast.

Half an hour later, Veronika called with a shaking voice, demanding a meeting. I sent the Durandal for her and headed home.

On the way, I counted up Zhorik’s various charges.

Pinochet had burned himself out but was still alive. Alina was running Vatrobank now. Married, I think.

Kirill is a good lad, he regularly comes to the Central Russian Upland to shoot comedies with tits. Kirill’s dream was to get Shcherbakov, Pankratov-Chorny or Kokshenov at a pinch for the leading role. It never came off – he forgot to name the stars of cooperative cinema in the contract. But Yurik tagged along with Kirill to every party in Moscow. Promoted the greatness of Proma.

Gennady Ivanych had a stroke, lies there like a vegetable now.

The trade-school kids crashed. A long time ago.

Anatoly Stepanovich got mistaken for a wild boar during a hunt, shot by a drunk colleague – now a wheelchair-bound retired Interior Ministry general, no hard feelings.

Anastasia Igorevna’s husband got jealous, stabbed her to death, I think.

Verochka crashed, as expected. Not clear whether she’s alive.

Anton got shot by a sniper. That one died, an explosive round to the head. Wait. Anton wasn’t part of our crowd...

An electric jolt went through me!

I’d last seen Zhorik a year and a half ago. Had we been abandoned? Had we gone off the rails?

What now?

My dreams had come true a hundred times more fantastically than my most vivid wet dreams, but they hadn’t brought me happiness. I still planned to be happy in the future, while only ever having been happy in the past. I never appreciated the happiness that fell into my lap, took it for granted. The years ahead wouldn’t change that. I’m only ever happy in a past life. There’s no future.

Once home, I flipped through my planner, glanced at the face of my «Hommage aux Condottieri.»

In an hour a party would begin at home before round two of the spree: New Year at «Manhattan Express», and on from there...

Yura would come. With him, Artyom, son of the Neftesibirsk governor – we’d settle a few things. Though really, it would be Yura settling things with Artyom. Their New Year’s week was packed tight – five clubs, six parties, seven events... I got tired of reading the payment reports for invitations and corporate boxes. Lost count of where Yurik was dragging the Neftesibirsk prince. For both of them, being at the center of glamorous Moscow was pure happiness. For me – a burden.

Whatever party I ended up at, whoever I traded greetings, texts, or glances with, the next morning I’d get a phone call from my new acquaintance proposing I invest in some profitable venture, become a sponsor, help a sick child, or just flat-out lend them money.

Every social event turned into an attack of hyenas hunting for a fat wallet. My old world was breaking apart, crumbling to dust. The Kremlin Palace of Congresses, the Rossiya concert hall, and other citadels of culture turned out to be no different from the café Cher Ami: hemmed in on every side by distinguished figures of Soviet art, showering me with flattery, rubbing cheeks, peering into my eyes.

The one bright spot turned out to be Lev Georgievich, whom I met at a banquet at the Central House of Artists. My mother’s favorite actor, because he played Bonivur so truly to life and was no clothes-hound, never flaunted imported goods, even playing a hooligan-thug in «No Right to Fail». That’s according to my mother.

In my own life, this Lev Georgievich turned out to be a Canadian artist, in town for an exhibition, currently sitting, like me, at the banquet, for no clear reason and no clear purpose. We clinked glasses.

The next morning, I quit going anywhere I had to show my face, stopped dragging myself to any events at all. If Proma needed representing, I sent Yurik – a lover of parties and a master at turning people down so smoothly their hearts melted with delight.

...ugh, tired of flipping through the planner and thinking too much. Forget it! Need to rest! I’ll empty my head of thoughts, get plain drunk, and let Veronika screw me like the last bitch, one last time in my life!

Nothing more to dream about or think about...