April 11, 1996
Thursday
Woke up at the crack of dawn by local time, and yet well-rested and in a good mood. Noted that a three-hour time difference is all it takes for a Russian tourist to wake up refreshed and ready to be impressed.
Took a shower, got dressed, went outside.
Morning Paris greeted me with the smell of fresh bread. I looked around. The homeless were gone, the neighborhood looked poor but tidy, like Cosette out of Les Misérables.
Made it to the spot where I’d parted ways with Grzegorz. Found the bistro in an instant – six seats out front and three inside, marked as our meeting point. Took a table on the sidewalk, ordered coffee and a croissant. Had no idea how to pronounce the rest of the menu, or what it meant.
A heavyset man, owner or waiter, hard to say which, served me in silence, no smile. Owner, definitely!
The coffee was strong, the croissant crisp, and caffeine took over from cortisol.
I watched the passersby. Some rushed, some strolled. Not one of them looked anything like Alain Delon in a trench coat.
Grzegorz arrived on foot half an hour later:
– Let’s go.
– What about the car?
– No need. It’s not far. – He pulled out a cigarette, lit it. – And don’t forget to pay for the coffee and the roll.
As we walked, the drab Parisian reality gradually gave way to shine, glitter, and beauty. The streets grew wider, the sidewalks cleaner, the buildings grander. We came out onto an avenue lined with storefronts and a crowd that made Tverskoy Boulevard back home look like some backstreet in Rybinsk.
– Here, – Grzegorz nodded at a building with a marble facade and an entrance – a genuine porte-cochère, the kind limousines and taxis pull right up to. Two doormen in livery stood monumentally at the entrance.
Spotting us, one of the monuments raised a hand:
– Messieurs?
I looked around. Ah, right – two guys on foot look suspicious. All we were missing was ice cream cones in our hands.
To the doorman built like me, Grzegorz – all six-and-a-half feet of him – laid things out fast, crisp, hunching down to make eye contact from above. Laid it out in French, looking the man dead in the eye from up close.
We were shown into the lobby, seated on a little couch. Grzegorz pulled out his mobile – a brick-sized handset nobody in Moscow had carried in a year – and dialed a number.
The doorman melted into the background. He loomed off to the side, not far, never taking his eyes off us. I studied the interior. Marble, crystal, carpets. I’d never seen anything like it in Moscow. Only in movies about the good life.
– Gerdt Schmidt, – Grégoire announced into the phone. – We’re downstairs… Waiting!
He shot the doorman a triumphant glance, every inch a Field Marshal Suvorov:
– We’re expected.
A minute later a young man appeared in a three-piece suit, dark-skinned, dark-haired, with a little mustache. Not a local. He shook my hand, squeezed Grzegorz’s hand, and came out with, in Russian straight off a produce stall:
– Vai! Brother Schmidt! Brother Peskov! So happy! Salaam! Let’s go up.
The doorman lost interest in us.
We got into the elevator, our new brother aimed a finger at the top-floor button and froze at a desperate cry:
– Attendez! Attendez!
A potbellied man tumbled into the elevator, out of breath, sweat on his forehead. He fixed his eyes on me and barked in French: «Quatrième!»
I didn’t understand. Grzegorz pressed the button for «4.» The elevator moved.
The man got out on the fourth floor. The doors closed. The Turk and Grzegorz traded sly smirks. I asked:
– What did he say?
Grzegorz smiled with just the corners of his mouth, Mona Lisa style. The Turk swallowed a laugh after a couple of snorts.
We got out on the sixth floor, the top one. Walked down a corridor hung with paintings and stepped into a conference room with panoramic windows.
Wow!
A postcard view opened up. Not some hazy spire behind the rooftops, but the genuine Eiffel Tower, just like in the movies and magazines. Grzegorz turned me away from the window. Two men sat at the table. They stood, greeted us in a foreign language that sounded a bit like the Tatar spoken around Chelyabinsk. Then switched to muddled English.
The men talked about the project, the prospects, the benefits for all sides, and the unfavorable economic climate. Grzegorz – Gerdt Schmidt now, a respectable German consultant – nodded, asked questions, remarked that the situation was the same for everyone, jotted notes in a pad. I nodded too.
They spoke a schoolbook English so mangled I understood maybe half of it. But the gist was clear: the deal was good, we were all doing great. The land came from me, the money from the men, with Gerdt sitting in between as the intermediary receiving the money and delivering the equipment. But payments to the German bank from Turkey weren’t exactly straightforward. Gerdt shrugged: no money in the account, no equipment for the plant. No equipment, no stake in the venture. Which meant the factory warehouse wouldn’t turn into an elite residential complex.
– Mr. Peskov, – the older of the two men remembered I was in the room, switching to fluent Russian. – We believe in this partnership. Neftevolzhsk is a brilliant project. We’re ready to invest and sign the agreement.
Gerdt caught my eye and gave an approving nod. Time to sign the paperwork.
Signed. Shook hands. Deal done.