September 20–27, 1993
Monday shattered my confidence that business was tip-top and could only get better. The ads coming out in the national press set off an avalanche of calls. Yurik, glued to the phone, started raving: booze from Belgium, in stock, come and get it! Slam down the receiver. A second later he was picking up the next call.
Technically he was right. He’d cut the time spent with a potential client from five minutes to five seconds. At a wholesale price of a dollar fifty a bottle of shmurdyak, what difference did it make whether it was Polish or Belgian, and what exactly was left in the warehouse? There were another hundred thousand buyers waiting in line!
I was buried too, taking money and handling shipments. On the heels of the kiosk traders came the shop owners. They pushed for range, bought a case of this, a case of that, a case of the other, plus a bit of something else to try out.
I punched in invoices, printed them, checked them against stock, found the discrepancies, punched the figures in all over again. Announced that the «Spumante» and the «Bärenziegel» were finished, but the Cabernet and the Merlot, the «Cintini» vermouth, and «Popoff» vodka were ready to ship this minute. People cursed and screwed up their faces like they had toothache. Rotgut didn’t move in their kiosks. Only sweet liqueurs and champagne for the bons vivants, and «Royal» spirit for the proletariat. At the mention of the latter I would announce that a truckload of spirit was already on the road. Not «Royal,» admittedly, but some other liquid – «Gold» or «Silver,» something like that.
I needed to check with Zhorik on where deliveries stood and how. And not forget to whine about being short-staffed. It wasn’t right that goods were being loaded out by Pyotr Andreich, the driver of the Gazon truck. And in general, we had to discuss expansion and finally settle things with Nastya about the basement warehouse.
There wasn’t time for anything.
All around me the ad-bitten crowd shouted, yelled, appealed to my conscience, and promised to rearrange my face. I listened to the abuse about liqueurs promised over the phone and replaced with swill, which fine, they’d buy, but at half price, all right, a third off, otherwise it was a fist in the mouth or a man-purse across the skull, take your pick…
I punched in invoices and waited for my meeting with Zhorik.
By seven in the evening the stream of customers dried up. I informed Yurik that the pay scheme had changed, that we’d be recalculating weekly. Handed over a hundred and twenty dollars, last week’s wages for the two of them. Half for Yurik, the other half for Gena, who was off somewhere in Khryakino. Explained the new formula.
Yura, being a practical and sensible man, worked out that as long as the rush of buyers held, the scheme was in his favor. We shook on it. Yurik headed off to the dorm, I ticked a box in my planner and called Zhorik. Reported the day’s take – a thousand bucks! – and flagged that there were unresolved questions. We needed to talk. Zhora promised to be there in half an hour.
