Bar in the Departure zone. The story of one escape. Alexander Couprin
the General asked, again emphasizing the word “us.”
“None. But “Larin’ wasn’t rewarded at all for the mother-of-pearl icon case,” the major replied.
“Tsarevich Aleksey?” the General became interested.
“Yes, it all happened in his bar, and he was the one who provided the initial information,” the major confirmed.
“Right, but all the glory went to the Counter-smuggling team! He should be punished for this,” the General exclaimed, laughing.
It had been a significant incident involving the wife of an African diplomat who had attempted to smuggle out an antique icon by strapping it between her legs and nearly strangling Officer Shubin from the Tenth Department (counter-smuggling) with his tie. Many employees from the Tenth Department were rewarded, the woman was expelled from the country, and Sasha Shubin became the head of the department.
“Well, I can’t tell an informant that contraband isn’t our job, that Department “T” and Department ’10” are not the same,” the major explained.
“True, of course,” the General agreed. “But could he be revarded with money?”
“You clearly don’t understand how much they make over there,” Valov replied, daring to show a touch of audacity as he gazed out the window, his eyes filled with hatred. “So let me tell you – up to three hundred rubles daily! In just one day! And during the Olympics, that faggot managed to earn enough to buy a one-room cooperative apartment.”
The general disliked Valov’s tone and wanted to put him in his place, but Valov continued, “The bartenders receive more tips in rubles and foreign currency in a five-day week than you and I together in a month. They’re the ones who could motivate us with money.”
Noticing the expression on the general’s face, Valov fell silent.
“Well,” said the general, “try to control your emotions and explain what you want from me. You could have approved the nephew yourself.”
“I can’t. They are close relatives. The instruction states ‘in special cases.’”
“What instruction?” the former Party member asked, immediately regretting his question.
“Instruction Two Zero Sixty,” the major replied in surprise.
Oh, you’re a bitch, thought the general to himself. He was upset and changed the subject. “Is he really a homo?”
“Yes. He was recruited in 1977 in an incident with his homosexual partner – he was pulled out of the incarceration unit of the Zelenograd police department. Jealousy. Fight. Non-penetrating stab wound in the stomach.”
“I don’t care for your attitude toward sources,” pronounced the general in the officious tone of a former instructor of the Central Committee. “But why so much hate? Why do you speak with such irritation about your informant, who has worked with you for years? Yes, sometimes they have a lot of money; yes, they are not awakened and called to report in the middle of the night as we sometimes are. They live materially better than us in some ways, but tell me honestly, would you change places with this ‘Larin?’”
And again, the apparatchik realized he had blundered. After all, the informant was a homosexual. What a day!
NEPHEW AND UNCLE
“Well, everything seems to be settled,” said Vlad. “You start work on Friday.”
Dima’s heart beat a tattoo – what incredible luck! He had been living for four months in his uncle’s new cooperative apartment on Leningradskaya Street, a life he found pretty pleasant. Although the apartment had only one room, it was quite large, with a glassed-in balcony and a spacious kitchen.
Vlad had a custom-made sofa in the corner of the kitchen. One side of the couch was wide, and the other was narrow. Dima slept on this couch and kept his clothes in large drawers. Vlad was rarely at home, and when he was, he usually played LPs on his expensive audio equipment and read Western magazines that foreign customers left at the bar.
After graduating with honors from the Moscow Institute for National Economics, Vlad quickly climbed the corporate ladder before becoming bored and requesting a transfer from the Moscow Food Production Center to manage a small café in the Moscow district of Izmailovo. His request was granted, and Vlad began to enjoy a life of freedom and sound money.
Having been on the receiving end of fiscal reports for years, Vlad spent his evenings revising almost all his paperwork. An old accountant, Nina Ivanovna, had been asking for a pension for a long time, complaining of failing eyesight. Instead of retirement, the new manager started paying her a quarterly bonus and took over half of the accounts from her. The old lady could hardly believe her luck, and soon, the enterprise began to function almost like a private business – with neat reports and revenues just a bit higher than those of the previous manager, while Vlad kept a significant portion.
The café didn’t earn much, maybe a tenth of the culinary turnover, but the young manager made acquaintances by renting it out to the right people for weddings and birthday parties. The food service also brought in a lot of money. Bones, for example, were a profitable commodity. Vlad received two small truckloads of bones per week from the meatpacking plant. He would bring his nephew, Dima, to the café to help, and the two of them would trim the bones of cartilage and residual meat with special curved knives. These trimmings would then be used in meat pies and dumplings.
The unexpected arrival of his nephew pleased Vlad, not only because the boy was his only relative but also because Vlad’s own life had somehow stalled. Two years earlier, Vlad had experienced bouts of severe depression followed by some improvement, but the turbulent 1980s with the Moscow Olympics and the transition to work at Sheremetyevo brought about further improvement.
Vlad’s relationship with Jurgenson, the Estonian, continued, but it had become monotonous. His life was well-structured, and he didn’t expect significant changes at work. When a letter arrived from distant Vladivostok, Vlad was enthusiastic and looked forward to seeing his nephew. Dima was a kindred spirit and an exciting and unusual person in many ways.
From kindergarten to seventh grade, Dima had a clear notion of his future. He wanted to travel! He will be a world-famous traveler. He found conversations among other kids about astronauts and the military amusing because those dreamers knew nothing about space or the military. But Dima knew everything about his future life. He could easily name all the capitals of all countries. He knew which countries bordered Paraguay and could easily find the city with the strange name Papeete on a map. Putting little Dima to bed was never a problem. He would close his eyes, and a huge, slowly rotating globe with mountain topography and blue oceans would graciously descend from the ceiling. All that remained was to concentrate on the southern tip of Chile, bring it closer, feel the spray of Cape Horn on his face, listen to the cries of thousands of gulls, and the boy would fall asleep with a smile.
But around the seventh grade, he realized the catastrophic nature of his situation as a Soviet schoolboy. His mother was the first to explain that his plans were unrealistic, but it was not easy to deprive a person of their dreams, and Dima felt offended, not by the system, but by his lonely, hard-working mother. He thought that if she were, for example, the Secretary of the Regional Party Committee, he might have had a chance to become a traveler. He saw that Julia from another class went with her parents to Bulgaria, and her father was only a Komsomol apparatchik, not even a Party member.
Closer to the end of school, Dima’s understanding of the situation became more apparent, but his childhood dreams of traveling the world did not fade away. Strangely, he had no interest in the geography and beauty of his homeland, whether it was the White Nights of Leningrad or the vast forests of Siberia. Realizing that the country’s political structure hindered his dreams, he became a quiet, passive enemy of the system.
He started listening