Insider ви-6

by Julia Latynina

  "Who exactly signed the order?"

  "A man named Danisha. He is a protege of Shavash's, by the way."

  "Is it because of Assalah?"

  The broker shrugged his shoulders.

  "Have you seen the article?"

  ` "What article?"

  Krasnov took a battered yellowish newspaper from a desk drawer and gave it to Bemish. The newspaper was local and Bemish was only able to make out Shavash's picture and he was barely able to get the paper's name — Red Star. On the picture, Shavash appeared from the waist up, presenting an outrageous sight with a girl, dressed only in a band, coquettishly tied around her neck.

  "What is it about?"

  "It is about the Assalah company investment auction, where a corrupted and lewd official Shavash settled with a foreign shark Bemish to sell him Assalah for the price of a rotten melon."

  Bemish took the newspaper with him and, in half an hour, he drove through Kissur's mansion gate. The majordomo wordlessly walked him to the living room; excited voices were coming from it. Bemish entered. The voices stopped. A very beautiful thirty-year-old woman, with the eyes, black as boysenberries, and a black braid tied around her head, rose to meet him. On the coach, dismayed Shavash pressed himself against the pillows. Shavash hurled the bundle of papers, he held in his hands, to the floor and said,

  "Let me introduce you — Terence Bemish — the house mistress." Bemish realized that Mrs. Idari, Kissur's wife, was in front of him and he bowed awkwardly. The woman laughed. Her laughter was akin to a silver bell.

  "Where is Kissur?" Bemish asked stupidly.

  "Kissur is not here," the official answered. "He will fly in tomorrow."

  Bemish suddenly felt himself blushing furiously.

  "I… I will go… I didn't know…"

  "Please stay," Idari said politely, "I will leave. It is not befitting for a woman to stay too long with a man her husband hasn't introduced to her."

  She bowed and left — only the black braid tied around her head glistened in the door. Bemish was looking after her and blinking piteously. Then, he turned to the official.

  "Sit down, " Shavash waved his hand, "sit down and eat. Every time this obnoxious majordomo sees me with his mistress, he would even bring a peddler to the room."

  The peddler comparison didn't please Bemish.

  Shavash took him by his hand and walked him to a veranda where a round table covered for two people stood next to the gold-gilded rails. A plump maid was already standing next to a silver hand washing jar. Bemish washed his hands and dried them carefully with an embroidered towel and, when he turned around, the servants were already loading on the table a flat leather dish with an aromatic mound of chopped steaming meat.

  Having propped himself on the pillows, Shavash watched the Earthman.

  "What is, "Shavash asked, "sticking out of your pocket?

  "The Red Star article."

  "Ahh," Shavash drawled. "These nutcases… Where did you get it, by the way?"

  "My broker showed it to me. Tax police busted him. A man named Danisha."

  Bemish got used to Shavash enough to be ready now for an ugly snub from him. He could easily imagine Shavash smiling and saying, "Oh, Terence, what should we do! The Earthmen allow themselves so much on Weia, it's scary! These people had three different sets of books and didn't pay any taxes this year. They can loose the license."

  But Bemish didn't expect to see what happened next.

  Shavash's eyebrows levitated in astonishment.

  "What are you saying!" the small official said. "Verily, if you send an idiot to bring you water, he will revert a spring to your house!"

  He grabbed a T-phone off his belt.

  "Danisha," Shavash started speaking in the receiver in several seconds, "what happened to DJ securities?"

  The receiver quacked.

  "I'll show you three sets of books," Shavash screamed. "I'll show you taking the license away! You will bring me the fine, they paid you, personally. And you will bring me, what Giles paid you! You will bring it in an hour or you can go away to Inissa as a cheese inspector in two hours."

  Shavash threw the receiver down.

  "Not convincing," Bemish said.

  "I have nothing to do with it," Shavash snorted. "I just introduced Danisha to this scoundrel of Giles."

  "And the Red Sun article is not yours."

  "Come on!" Shavash drawled. "That's disgusting sleaze. I would sue them but I don't want to get my hands dirty."

  "Well, this article came out just right for you. Now, you can refer to the article to say, 'if I sell this company to Bemish, I will lose my reputation."

  Shavash shrugged his shoulders.

  "I don't even want to listen to you, Terence. Red Star is the zealots' newspaper. They tried to assassinate me twice."

  "What zealots?"

  "You saw them yourself while walking with Kissur — remember the iron people show?"

  Bemish shuddered slightly. As if it's not enough, that Shavash already knew who and when anyone visited Kissur's villa in Assalah! What's he doing — does he follow Bemish's every step?

  "Where did this iron men story come from?"

  "It was an old book," the finance vice-minister smiled, "with an iron braggart story. There was a prophecy at the end of the book, that at the world's end, plagues, hail and dishonest officials will come, and the iron men will crawl out from the underground. I have to say that every time rebellions or barbarian invasions happened in the Empire, the rebels were thought to be the iron men. However, once the rebels took power, everybody would immediately realize that they were not the iron men. As for the Earthmen — you don't grab the power and don't hang your enemies. Can't you be anybody else but the iron men?"

  "The ones that crawl out from underground?"

  "The ones that crawl out from the underground, eat children's brains, and carry naeve peasants and officials underground, down their bewitched halls, to inflict visions on them."

  "And how many people believe it?"

  "A lot of people," Shavash said, "peasants, officials, artisans. Hey, I fired my secretary, Akhhar, because of that, right after our US tour."

  Bemish finally realized that Shavash was making fun of him.

  "Well," he said, smiling, "you secretary, having flown to Earth, is unlikely to think that we crawled out of hell."

  "My friend," Shavash said, "Akhhar just considers it to be an allegory, the wisdom of our ancestors who possessed the hidden knowledge and warned us about the danger. You see, when you talk about science, you either understand how a nuclear reactor works, or you don't. A myth, meanwhile, is capable of joining together the most different people's groups and minds. A simple peasant understands the prophecy literally, while an educated man interprets it metaphorically."

  "And how," Bemish asked, "do the preachers understand the prophecy?"

  "Oh, while talking to the authorities, they claim it is an allegory! Are they idiots to admit that they know the real truth about the iron men?"

  "It's incredible," Bemish muttered. "Can't you explain to your crazies what's really going on?"

  "It's impossible to explain to them, it's only possible to hang them. I think, however, that if we start hanging people for believing Earthmen to be demons, than you, the demons, will raise a horrible buzz."

  Bemish lowered his head.

  "Don't feel bad. These people have a special gift of quarrelling not only with the state but also with each other. Take cars, for instance. One sect will believes that cars don't exist, that they are demonic phantoms, and that you are not moving in a car but rather are moved by a demonic force. Another one believes that the ancestors themselves sent us the cars, but the iron demons grabbed the gift on the way and used it illegally."

  Shavash picked the newspaper up, waved it at Bemish's nose and said.

  "I am explaining all this to you, Bemish, so that you understand how difficult it would be for me to get an article published in Red Star, where, on the top of it,
they christen me," Shavash squinted slightly and started translating the text, "a foul dung beetle, "a cockroach with a sack of gold instead of the heart," and "the foam of sacrilege…"

  Shavash paused for a moment and unexpectedly added.

  "You know, what my conclusion from the article is?"

  Bemish couldn't help but glance. The dirty article, as it has been mentioned, was accompanied by the picture of Shavash naked and Bemish imagined for a moment, what he would feel if he appeared on a newspaper page in such a saucy way.

  "My conclusion is that I should lose some weight. It's a shame of a picture, don't you think so?"

  X X X

  Bemish was leaving the mansion when a dark skinned servant reported to him, bowing.

  "The mistress is expecting you in the Blooming Plums Gazebo."

  Bemish walked into the garden. The woman that had withdrawn from the room before the dinner was now walking on a white garden path, overcast with sideways moon shadows, and the lace decorating her dress sleeves resembled moon rays coiling around her wrists.

  Bemish bowed shyly and said.

  "Believe me, I am very sorry that you didn't dine with us."

  "Men and women do not eat together," Idari objected. "Are you the Earthman that has been buying Assalah via DJ securities?"

  "You are informed surprisingly well," Bemish muttered abashedly, realizing that the Idari's husband is unlikely to even know that DJ securities exist.

  "Well, if women eat separately from men," Idari smiled, "it doesn't really mean that they don't know anything. Are you married?"

  "I am divorced."

  "Did your wife love you?"

  "She loved my bank account."

  Idari sat down on a bench in a fluid catlike motion and Bemish heard a hydrangea bush rustle against her skirt. Idari gestured Bemish to sit next to her.

  "I appreciate everything you have done for my husband," Idari said.

  "I haven't done anything for him," the Earthman objected, "while he has done a lot for me."

  "You are the first man from the stars that he made friends with. It's so strange that this man belongs to Ronald Travis' circle."

  And Bemish was again quite surprised by Idari's awareness.

  "I thought he had Earthmen friends."

  "Yes. People who throw bombs at the supermarkets and use drugs to liberate themselves from the corrupting influence of the civilization."

  Idari and Bemish sat very close to each other. The night had descended already but the two moons shone powerfully like beacons and Bemish could clearly see Idari's profile, a small head with the black braid wrapped around the head and the hairpins glistening in the moonlight.

  "My husband exerts a great influence on the Emperor," Idari continued, "and you may exert a great influence on my husband. It would have been very bad for my country, if Kissur had befriended, instead of you, the people he had met two years ago on Earth."

  Idari paused.

  "What do you know of our history?"

  Bemish flushed. His ignorance of everything related to Weian history was practically absolute, it could only compare to his ignorance of Earth history. If anything was of interest to him on this planet — it was the budget deficit size or the central bank interest rate. The central bank interest rate did not depend on history in any way.

  "Is the name Arfarra familiar to you?"

  Bemish faltered.

  "He was the first minister…"

  "He was the first minister twice. Once, before Earthmen. Second time, after them. Once the Earthmen came to Weia, the Emperor appointed a man named Nan as the first minister. Then, Nan was removed — with my husband's help."

  Bemish vaguely remembered the five-year-old scandal — since the scandal took place on Earth, not on Weia. There was something about Kissur — the Weian ex-first minister, hanging out on Earth. Or was it on Lann? Amidst terrorists and drug abusers. A stolen car, drugs, a beaten policeman, the arrest of a terrorist activity suspect, a scandal diligently stirred up by somebody, and finally Kissur's statement that Nan was the main culprit in the tragedy that happened after the hijacking of a military plane. This statement played a part in the Earthman-minister resignation.

  "Afterwards, a different premier and a different program of state investment policy were instated. The taxes were high and the budget expenses were huge. The only money left in the country was that in the state treasury and in the banks with the highest officials as the stock holders. The workers were not allowed to leave the companies they worked for and to testify against their owners."

  Idari grinned and added.

  Shavash was, at that time, one of the most active supporters of the state investments. He needed to clean his reputation up after his friendship with Nan and he invented all the programs for the government, where money just sank in the sand. Three tons of concrete were claimed where one ton of concrete was used; five kilos of paint were reported where one kilo was applied.

  Concerning the laws that enslaved the workers, he wrote a memorandum where he claimed, that the Weian way is different from the Galactic one, since an owner doesn't exploit the workers as a hired cattle, but rather takes fatherly life-long care of them. It should have ended with the destruction of the country but it ended with a rebellion and the government's resignation.

  Then, Arfarra came in. He cut the state expenses down and rescinded the employment laws. Meanwhile, my husband crushed the rebellions in the places where the governors missed the old times.

  Bemish almost didn't hear, what the woman was saying. The crossed light bands from the two full breasted moons gleamed on the marble garden path and silver bracelets like many-winged snakes entwined Idari's wrists, as thin as ivy twigs.

  "A bit later, Arfarra said to a man, named Van Leyven, that used to invest a lot of money in Weia, "we are selling state constructions now, why don't you buy Assalah?" — "I won't do that," Van Leyven said, "it's the most disgusting of all Shavash's feeding troughs." — "Weian economics improved a lot this year," Arfarra said, "but you used this year to freeze the constructions, sell them to the state or get rid of the stocks via dummy fronts. Why?" — Van Leyven thought for a bit and said. "I invested a lot of money in Weia and incurred big losses. I staked it all and I lost. You let the time slip by. The people lost their trust to the officials, the Earthmen and the sovereign. You are old and sick, what will happen when you die?" — "I've been dying for six years," Arfarra got angry, "will you buy Assalah or not?" — "No." They parted then. Arfarra died the next day.

  Bemish was now listening and holding his breath.

  "My husband idolized Arfarra," Idari continued, "and it was extremely difficult for me to persuade him not to take vengeance on Van Leyven outside of Weia. He still had to leave Weia, since his death here would have been certain, and he lost much more money than he had expected. I am saying this, Mr. Bemish, so that you realized that profit and death walk closer to each other on Weia, than they do on Earth. Especially if you buy Assalah and make friends with Kissur."

  Bemish returned to the hotel late at night. Dogs yapped far away in the city, stars hung above the white temple and, in the next block, a sad woman's voice was singing something accompanied by a flute.

  Falling asleep, Bemish thought about the woman, with the black eyes and the black braid wrapped around her head, and about the two people who had lost their heads over that woman — Kissur and Shavash. He also thought about Clyde Van Leyven; he knew a lot about this man, unlike the other actors of the Idari's story. Since, Van Leyven was a billionaire and the financial community watched his each step holding its breath. Unlike Idari, Bemish knew that Van Leyven almost died half a year after the Weian events — the brakes on his air cushioned seven-meter-long limo failed, the car broke through the rail and dived in water from a twenty-meter-high bridge, the driver drowned, the bodyguard broke his head on the front panel, and Van Leyven miraculously survived. This story didn't hit the newspapers thanks to Van Leyven's connections. And now Bemish was not
sure that Kissur had held on to his promise not to retaliate outside of Weia.

  The Red Dog tavern was located in a less than prominent neighborhood. Its entrance was gated by two snake gods entwining around two brass door poles, brass lamps with sparkles swung under the planked ceiling, and the wooden walls were decorated by a couple dozen signatures and crosses. The signatures have been collected for the last twenty years and they belonged to the most famous literate thieves of the current sovereign's rule. The crosses belonged to the most famous illiterate thieves.

  At least two people from this respectable circle sat in a corner discussing their

  crooked dealings and, upon Kissur's arrival, approached to greet him.

  Kissur introduced them to Bemish. The first thief, a glum golden-toothed middle aged handsome man extracted a business card out of his pocket, where he was presented as some company's director, and assured Bemish, that he would be happy to be of any service if Bemish ever needed him.

  Hence, both thieves, accompanied by their bodyguards, left in an unknown direction. Kissur glumly mentioned that they were going to a meeting with their competitors and, if they were apprehended, there would be one less shoot out in the city.

  "Apprehend them, then," Bemish suggested.

  "Why? Let the spiders devour themselves."

  Kissur and Bemish had just started on a suckling piglet, rising like a soft white mountain from a savory sauce sea, when Kissur suddenly raised his head — Kaminsky stood in front of him. The businessman had a somewhat down-hearted look to him. He had a huge blue spot under his eye — like a shaman painting himself before a divination- and his hand hung in a silk sling.

  "I came to say good-bye," Kaminsky said. "I am flying to Earth tomorrow."

  Kissur was looking at him silently.

  Kaminski pushed a chair away and sat down.

  "I was wrong," he said. "Out of all the Weian officials you are indeed the only honest one. You didn't want a penny from me. Having returned, I'll certainly tell all my friends, that there are two types of the Weian officials — the officials who demand bribes from the Earthmen and use them as pawns in their feuds and the one honest official who bathed me in a swimming pool."