At one point Maximus had tried to cool the acquisitional zeal of his young female colleagues, asking them where they thought they were going to get enough money to buy and maintain an automobile. Blondes and brunettes alike performed the same arithmetical operation, which was shockingly simple: Loan payments are 12,000 rubles a month, right? And I earn 16,000, right? That’ll cover it. And there will even be some left over. Hm . . . maybe I should look into a more expensive model?
In vain did Semipyatnitsky remind them that there is more to owning a car than just the loan payments; what were they going to put in their refrigerators, for one? And a car wouldn’t relieve them of the desire to dress in the latest fashions each season. Or did they think they would drive naked? Though that of course would be interesting . . .
An automobile, over and above its purchase price, necessitates endless expenditures for fuel, insurance, parking, and repair. Maximus came up with an apt metaphor, one that every woman was bound to understand. It was like adding another person to your life. Like having a baby. So now everything—food, drink, shoes, medical care, housing—had to cover two. Not to mention all the time and worry. Maximus watched the girls’ eyes go all moist, and realized that his example had hit a little too close to home, and that now they would be all the more eager to become car owners.
The real reason a girl suddenly wants a car the moment she hits puberty is that she can’t have a baby yet. That’s what she really wants, but she has to suppress that desire. She has to work on an equal basis with men. In exchange for her sacrifice, the modern economy offers her the option of buying a car—a cute little Tamagotchi on wheels that she can love like her firstborn.
Thus is the maternal instinct exploited for the expansion of the automobile industry.
Maximus thought that the underpopulation crisis could be solved by banning auto purchases by women and denying them drivers’ licenses. There would be nothing left for them to do but have babies.
Maximus often pondered issues of global importance. He was quite sure that if he were the Khagan he could fix everything that was wrong in the country. Not just the country—the whole world!
Clinging onto the overhead strap in the metro car, Semipyatnitsky found himself empathizing with the Chinese. It’s even worse over there. Thanks to the wise and flexible leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, everyone’s standard of living has improved. It’s not so obvious in the provinces, but in the capital, Beijing, and other big cities the changes are striking. The problem is that prosperity has brought along with it Western ideas about the good life, which decree that everyone must have his or her own car. And if there are one and a half billion of those car-hungry people?
A thick cloud of exhaust hovers in the air over Beijing, visible even from outer space, and it will never clear.
And where are you going to come up with enough fuel to supply all of China?
Even if the government of the People’s Republic manages to buy up all the oil deposits and refineries in Africa, it still won’t be enough.
Semipyatnitsky had watched a show on the Euronews channel about the Chinese automobile crisis.
This problem, like many others, Semipyatnitsky believed, required a solution not patterned after the American notion that “bigger and faster,” ever-increasing growth would save the day—this was already leading civilization into a dead end—but rather a Completely Different Principle (CDP). And he had come up with what he considered to be a very good one.
Long before the advent of the pseudo-science of marketing people like Philip Kotler, the writer Mark Twain (or was it O. Henry?) taught that if there was no demand, then demand must be created. And he’d written a great short novel in which a young man, a diplomat representing the United States of America on some tropical island, comes up against what would seem to be an impossible challenge: The inhabitants of the island go barefoot year ’round. His fiancée’s father is obsessed with the idea of starting a shoe business, and has had an entire shipload of footwear delivered to the tropical paradise. So as not to disappoint his future father-in-law, the diplomat, American to the marrow, comes up with an elegant solution: He buys up tons of prickly thorn seed pods from farmers on the continent and secretly, overnight, with the help of some friends, strews them all over the island’s lawns and pathways. He then follows up with a PR campaign teaching the islanders that these prickly pods, which they have never seen before, are in fact a swarm of poisonous insects that has flown in from across the ocean. And the only way to protect themselves is to wear shoes at all times . . .
The reverse theorem must also be true. Call it anti-marketing, a theory devised by Maximus Semipyatnitsky, mid-level manager, writer on the side.
If demand cannot be satisfied, it must be destroyed.
What do we need cars for? I’ve already dealt with the female side of the problem; let’s talk about men now. If we discard the nonessential, quasi-religious views propagated by aggressive advertisers, automobiles serve one basic purpose: driving people around. Primarily to and from work.
Every morning employees flood out of the residential districts to their offices, and every evening they head back home. Sociologists call this phenomenon “pendulum migration” and consider it to be one of the most serious problems facing modern society.
But why go to the office in the first place? Who even needs an office?
Ninety percent of office work can be done anywhere, any place that has Internet and phone connections—at home for example. And even the remaining ten percent—briefings and business meetings—can be conducted virtually, using modern technology, from any distance.
People also use cars to do their shopping, though. But this problem will disappear on its own when, as Semipyatnitsky predicts in another as yet uncompleted book, everyone leaves their apartments and houses to live in the malls full time.
Semipyatnitsky hurried from the metro station toward the office, his head teeming with these profound thoughts on the ways of the corporate world. They weren’t at all abstract; on the contrary, they were utterly practical. You see, the Cold Plus corporation had made a unilateral wager with its employees: “I bet you can’t make it to work by nine A.M.!” If an employee loses, he has to pay a fine. His paycheck will be docked, without right of appeal. If the employee wins, his reward is that nothing will happen to him.
“So what demon chases me out of the house every morning, makes me dash out onto the street, rushing all the while, in a lather like a race horse, to reach a stuffy, crowded workplace on time, when I could do everything, make those calls and send those e-mails, from home?”
Maximus blurted this out loud, having lost control of himself yet again, while standing at the crosswalk waiting for the green “walk” light.
At that precise moment Maximus heard a malicious cackling just behind his left shoulder. Semipyatnitsky turned and saw a spry-looking old man of indeterminate age and curious appearance behind him. The old man was garbed in an ill-fitting blue double-breasted jacket, green trousers, and red shoes with pointed toes. A venomous-looking yellow necktie completed the picture.
“Late for work, young man?”
The forced sympathy in the old man’s voice surpassed the heaviest sarcasm. Maximus’s glance slid across a large round badge pinned to his new acquaintance’s chest, identifying him as a sidewalk marketing specialist. Fiery red letters against a white background spelled out a bold invitation: “Get rich quick: Ask me how.”
“You don’t have to go, you know. That is, you brought this on yourself. Going to the office, sitting at the computer, putting up with a stupid boss . . . But you can still change everything. And right now you have a unique opportunity! We have a special offer, just for you.”
“O God!” thought Semipyatnitsky. The old man seemed to twitch momentarily, though Maximus might have just imagined it. All in all, the encounter was a surprise, if a mild one. It had been several years since he’d encountered this particular brand of street salesman; not so long ago the
y had thronged the sidewalks, accosting naïve passersby, besetting them with get-rich-quick schemes and fleecing them for easy cash.
Maximus smirked and interrupted the peddler of illusions:
“You’re right, it is a unique opportunity. I didn’t expect to run into you. I must confess, I had assumed that your type had gone extinct, had died of starvation and disillusionment, leaving your bodies draped on top of stacks of boxes of miracle powders in communal apartments that in the Soviet days used to belong to distant aunts with heart diseases, and which you acquired, along with the job title of supreme supervisor, in exchange for the powder. Do you know how we used to deal with your brand of so-called businessmen back then? Ask me if I want to lose weight, and I’ll tell you where you can go.”
Contrary to Semipyatnitsky’s expectations, the geezer didn’t take offense. He smiled even more broadly, exposing a row of fake yellow fangs, and emitted a stream of words:
“Oh no, it’s not at all what you think! This is a completely new system! And yet it’s as old as the world itself, and has truly passed the test of time! Success is guaranteed; all you have to do is decide! No gimmicks whatsoever, it’s all completely legal and legitimate! All I need from you is your signature on this splendid contract!”
The old man reached into his leather briefcase and produced a few sheets of paper, covered with fine print and held together with a metallic green paper clip. Maximus could have sworn that the man hadn’t been holding a leather briefcase a second before. He cast a nervous, hopeful glance at the stoplight. It was still red.
“This is the longest light I’ve ever . . . ” muttered Maximus, baffled, to himself.
“I know, you’re about to ask: ‘What about the deposit?’” the agent rattled on. “I have great news for you! No initial expenditures are required! Absolutely no material investments on your part. You won’t believe me—you’ll ask, ‘How can that be? Is it really possible?’ And I will answer, ‘Yes!’ But only here and now, and only through our company! What you will provide is absolutely without material substance; in a certain sense, it doesn’t even exist! You have it, but you’re not using it—you don’t even notice it! And what will you get in return? Completely tangible, material things! Those very things that you’re striving to acquire by going to work every day and performing hard labor that will bring you nothing in return. All we need from you is sound, air, an empty concept, fluff! Thinner than a hair! And even that, I repeat, absolutely nonmaterial investment is not required up front—no! And not in installments, either! Only later, only at the very end, when you’ve already fully savored all the riches that our contract will provide you!”
Maximus’s head was spinning; he felt numb all over. The huckster clearly was taking advantage of his weakened state.
“Well, what do you say? I see you’re ready! Just sign here and here. Use this pen!”
A syringe sprang out of the old man’s jacket sleeve, and he poked it into Maximus’s free hand, drawing a tiny drop of blood.
“Oh, how clumsy! Please forgive me!” chirped the old man.
The syringe instantly mutated into a massive pen with fake gilding, and wedged itself between Semipyatnitsky’s writing fingers.
But the pain brought Maximus to his senses. Stunned, he stared at the tiny red spot on his hand and then raised his head and shrieked to the people standing next to him at the crosswalk, involuntary witnesses to Semipyatnitsky’s conversation with the street hawker.
“Help! This maniac stabbed my hand! He’s probably spreading AIDS!”
The crowd recoiled. A few girls, who had evidently heard urban myths about men who went around spreading the virus by sticking needles into people in nightclubs, started screaming at the top of their voices.
At that moment a beat-up Gazelle municipal passenger van emerged from the line of vehicles on the street and squealed to a halt right in the middle of the crosswalk’s zebra stripes.
“Oh here’s my ride!” announced the old man joyfully, as though nothing had happened. “So pleasant to chat with you! Bye! Until we meet again!”
And with that he sprang through the open door into the empty back of the van. The briefcase was gone; instead, he was clutching a shopping bag against his belly, crammed full of red vegetables that looked something like turnips. The turnips were shaped like human hearts and were throbbing, or at least it looked that way to Maximus. But the door slid shut and the van lurched into motion. The driver, a brunet with a long hook-nose, cast a brief venomous glance Semipyatnitsky’s way.
One eye was green, the other was made of glass.
The Gazelle merged back into traffic and disappeared. The walk light flashed green, and Maximus joined the crowd walking briskly across the street. The pedestrians jostled one another carelessly, as though they had forgotten that one of them had perhaps just been infected with an incurable, highly contagious disease.
The gilded pen was gone, and there was no sign on Maximus’s hand of the red spot. But he wondered: How do one-eyed men get chauffeur’s licenses and jobs driving passenger vans? It doesn’t exactly fill you with faith in public transportation, does it?
WHAT DO STRAWBERRIES HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
That morning, the usual spirit of liveliness reigned in the office . . .
The words came naturally, or, rather, they arose spontaneously and appeared on the monitor of Maximus’s inner consciousness.
“Now that’s a nice turn of phrase!” he thought. “‘The spirit of liveliness reigned.’”
The fact that somebody was writing down every detail of his life, day after day, evidently didn’t surprise or trouble Semipyatnitsky. His only concern was that the author’s style be up to snuff, and that he acted in a professional manner.
Maximus lowered himself onto the chair in front of his computer, turned it on, and gathered up several sheets of paper from the desk, going through them while giving himself over to abstract and mournful thoughts.
First Pelevin, now this Herbalife devil, it’s like something out of Bulgakov . . . what next? Gogol? Quite the eclectic mix. Or, as they say these days, fusion. Yes, Maximus, your life is profoundly derivative—you can find every detail in Franz Kafka, who, by the way, was the favorite writer of Vladislav (Aslanbek) Surkov (Dudaev), who had such a friendly chat with you that time in an office in the Kremlin.
Semipyatnitsky recalled his dreams of Khazaria, especially the last one, and he asked himself: Who would be our present-day Khagan and who would be our Bek? Surkov the Khagan, and Putin the Bek? Or the reverse: Putin the Khagan and Surkov the Bek? A fat red line of letters appeared and began scrolling across the internal monitor of Maximus’s consciousness, interrupting these musings:
“You idiot! Weren’t you told in no uncertain terms that you are the Khagan? What does Dudaev have to do with it?”
“All right, but who’s the Bek, then?” Maximus tried to make his little contribution.
“The Cat in the Hat!”
His Inner Author was obviously not interested in having a constructive dialogue. Maximus would have to get to work. Begin, as always, by sorting the mail and purging spam. Today’s spam contained messages that seemed particularly deranged. Maximus read:
Stuck in a boring, unfulfilling job? Thwarted in your life’s dreams? Betrayed by your lover? No friends? Living a life without meaning, purpose, devoid of even the simplest pleasures? . . . Why not try NARCOTICS?
That’s no solution. Better just kill yourself.
But what really caught Maximus’s eye was the footnote at the end:
This is a public service announcement. Sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
The next message was an insurance ad, aggressively infernal in tone:
Better dead than poor! Sell a kidney and invest the proceeds in optional medical insurance!
And another one, an offer from a hard-currency broker:
While you were wasting time on porn sites, the Arabian dirham gained two points against the Japanese y
en. Would you rather throw your life away on photographs of virtual-reality whores or make money on the forex market and buy yourself any whores you want—real ones? The decision is yours!
But the next message was the most interesting of all:
We are NOT trying to sell you imaginary real estate on the moon for real money. We are NOT trying to trade you a bottle of vodka for your share in the socialist economy of a great country. We are NOT trying to persuade you to vote for that band of carpetbaggers masquerading as the government. Simply turn over your mythical “soul,” and in exchange you will receive a real Visa Gold card with $30,000 worth of overdraft protection!
—Beelzebub Trust Unltd.
Maximus smirked maliciously and dispatched the entire batch of spam into the trash.
There was a short message from Peter, writing from Holland, in English as usual. It had a businesslike, even dry, tone: “Hi Maximus! It was great to meet you in Saint Petersburg. Hope our conversation and disputes will help us strengthen our companies’ business relationships. Best regards, Peter.”
The letter’s tone gave Semipyatnitsky the impression that Peter was biting his own elbows out of fear that he’d said too much when he was in St. Petersburg, terrified that Maximus would get him in trouble.
The PS, though, adopted a more personal and friendly tone: “PS I took your kind advice, thank you! Now I have (you know what) for free (or almost free).”
Maximus opened the database and examined the purchase figures for Dutch frozen potatoes. Volume was growing fifteen to twenty percent per year. The peak came in summer, when the sidewalk cafés were open and serving French fries, which came over from Europe already cleaned and sliced into strips, crinkle style.
The Maya Pill Page 13
