Best European Fiction 2012

by Aleksandar Hemon

  This was the story he told me.

  Turns out he used to be a member of the Boxers for Justice and Social Adaptability Association. He told me a little bit about the group. They’d started at the Dynamo sports club as a civic union of former professional sportsmen. It’s unclear what the Boxers for Justice actually did, but they certainly had a high mortality rate; once a month one of them was inevitably gunned down and then opulent wakes with delegations from the police and regional government were held. From time to time, about once every few months, the Boxers for Justice had unofficial “matches” with an equivalent Polish organization. Anyway, that’s what they called them. Several buses would come to the Boxers’ office, the boxers along with great numbers of domestic appliances piled into them, and then the caravan would set off for Poland. Regional heads and coaches went separately. Upon arriving in Warsaw, the boxers went to the local stadium, which doubled as a market, and sold their merchandise in bulk, after which they celebrated another wonderful victory for their team. The catch was that Sanych had never been a boxer. Sanych was a wrestler. His grandfather, who had been a serious professional wrestler after the war, and even participated in a USSR Peoples’ Spartakiad, during which his arm was broken, and of which he was particularly proud—not the broken arm, participating in the Spartakiad—got Sanych started in freestyle wrestling. Eventually, his grandfather brought him to Dynamo. Sanych started making progress, participated in city competitions, had great promise, but in a few years his arm got broken too. By that time he’d already finished college and was trying to start his own business, though unsuccessfully, especially after the broken arm. That’s when he found the Boxers for Justice. The Boxers looked at his arm, asked him whether he was in favor of justice and social adaptability and, upon his confirmation thereof, received him in their ranks. Right away, Sanych got into a brigade that controlled the markets in the tractor-assembly-factory district. It turned out that it wasn’t too difficult to make one’s career in this business—as soon as your immediate supervisor was killed, you took his spot. In a year, Sanych commanded a small subdivision, and had great promise again, but, in the end, he just didn’t care for the business: much as he excelled at it, Sanych had a college degree and didn’t much like the idea of meeting his end before he turned thirty at the hands of some disgruntled black-market mule carrying a secondhand grenade. The work seemed especially unattractive since his business affairs took up all his time and he simply didn’t have any private life anymore—notwithstanding the prostitutes that he picked up at the market on occasion. But Sanych didn’t think they counted, and I think they probably didn’t consider it much of a family life either—a temporary cohabitation on economic grounds, perhaps. And so Sanych began seriously reconsidering his future. The bulletproof vest incident made up his mind. At one point, in the depths of a prolonged alcoholic stupor (apparently it was some kind of a holiday, Christmas most likely) Sanych’s employees decided to present their young boss with a bulletproof vest. They had acquired it by trading a new Xerox machine—the very latest model!—with some Kiev state security force officers. Sanych and his men drank yet another toast to this gift and then decided to try the thing out. Sanych pulled on the vest, his men pulled out a Kalashnikov. And you know what, the vest turned out to be legit—Sanych survived the party with only three moderate bullet wounds. But that was the end of it: he decided to stop right there. His career as a freestyle wrestler had been a failure, and now his career as a fighter for justice and social adaptability didn’t come out right either. He had to do something about it . . .

  ■ ■ ■

  So that’s how Sanych found himself back on the streets without either a business or a family, albeit with fighting experience and a college degree, though the latter was of no interest to anyone. And during this critical period he met Goga, aka Georgy Crowbar. He and Goga went to the same school when they were kids, after which Sanych went to wrestle and Goga went to med school. They hadn’t seen each other much, recently—Sanych, as indicated above, being actively involved in the social adaptability of boxers, and Goga being a young professional out in the Caucasus participating in the Russian-Chechen war. Indeed, it was hard to know which side Goga thought he was on, while he was out there, as he had been buying medicine from the Russian Ministry of Health and selling it to the Georgian children’s clinic. Goga got busted when he ordered a recklessly large shipment of anesthetics, which gave the Ministry of Health all the reason it needed to open the books and start asking the obvious question: why would a regional children’s clinic in whose name all the receipts had been made, need such a huge amount of narcotics? Which is why Goga had to come home, trading shots with his irate Caucasian buyers all the way. Immediately upon his return, he acquired a few lots of drywall. It wasn’t a bad business, but Goga had already gotten a new idea, and it began to crowd out his other fantasies and projects: he decided to go into nightclubs. And it was at this critical moment that our heroes encountered each other again.

  “Listen,” said Goga to his childhood friend, “I’m new in this business, I need your help. I want to open a club.” “Well, you know,” said his buddy, “I don’t know much about it, but if you want, I can ask around.” “You don’t understand,” Goga said, “I’m not interested in asking around, I know what I need to know myself—what I need’s a partner, get it? I want you to come in on this with me—I’d like that. See, I’ve known you since my childhood, I know your parents, and I know where to look for you, just in case you decide to stiff me. And the main thing is, you’ve already worked with everyone here. You’d be a real partner.” “And you really think you can make money on it?” asked Sanych. “Sure, I can make money on anything,” said Goga. “But look, you think I’m doing it just for the dough? I have five boxcars of drywall at Balashov Station—I could sell them in an instant and go off to Cyprus if I wanted. But—see my dilemma?—I just don’t care for Cyprus. Do you know why I don’t want to go to Cyprus? I’m almost thirty, after all, just like you, right? I’ve had businesses in four countries; I’m wanted by the public prosecutors of more than a few autonomous republics and was probably supposed to die somewhere in the tundra from scurvy a long time ago; three times I was caught in the crossfire; Chechnya’s general himself bought my syringes; the Krasnoyarsk special police squad nearly executed me; once lightning hit my car while I was driving it (I had to get a new battery). I pay alimony to a widow I know in Northern Ingushetia, though the others don’t get anything; half of my teeth are implants, and once I almost agreed to sell my kidney for the money to buy up a batch of machine tools. But look, I came home, I’m in a great mood, I sleep well; half of my friends have already been wiped out, but half are still alive; you, for example, are still alive, though what are the odds of that? See, somehow we’ve survived, and since I’m still alive, I thought, okay Goga, okay, now everything’s on the right track, now everything will be fine. If the Krasnoyarsk special police squad didn’t manage to execute you, and the lightning didn’t kill you either, why bother with Cyprus? And suddenly I realized what I’d really wanted all my life. Can you guess?” “What?” San Sanych asked. “All my life I’ve just wanted to own my own club, see, my own club, where I can sit every evening and where no one will kick me out even if I start puking onto the table. And so what did I do? Guess what I did!” Goga started laughing. “I went ahead and bought this fuckin’ club, how d’you like that?” “When did you buy it?” Sanych asked. “A week ago.” “What kind of club?” “Well, it’s not a club yet, it’s just a sandwich shop for now . . .” “What?” Sanych asked. “Well, do you know that café, the one that’s just called ‘Sandwiches’? There’s a hell of a lot of work that still needs doing, but the location’s nice, it’s in the Ivanov neighborhood. So I’ll sell off the drywall, do a renovation, and leave all my troubles behind. But I need a partner, you understand? So, do you like the idea?” he asked. “I like the name,” Sanych said. “What name?” “The name of the place. ‘Sandwiches.�
��”

  So they agreed to meet at the soon-to-be club next morning. Goga promised to introduce his new partner to his prospective art director. San Sanych came on time, but his partner was already there waiting at the doors of Sandwiches. The exterior of Sandwiches left much to be desired: the last renovation seemed to be done about thirty years ago, and since the entire building couldn’t have been more than thirty years old, it was probably safe to assume that the last renovation had been never. Goga opened the padlock and let San Sanych go in first. San Sanych stepped into a half-lit space crammed full with tables and plastic chairs: Here we go, he thought sadly, should have stayed with the Boxers for Justice . . . But it was too late to retreat—Goga followed him in and closed the door behind them. “Our art director should be here any minute now,” he said and sat on one of the tables, “Let’s wait.”

  The art director’s name was Slavik. Slavik turned out to be an old junkie; he looked around forty too, but maybe that was just the drugs. He was half an hour late, complained about traffic, then said he’d taken the subway—in a word, he was making excuses. He wore an old jean jacket and huge, idiotic-looking sunglasses, which he refused to take off even in the dark basement, on principle. “Where did you find him?” Sanych whispered while Slavik was walking around and examining the space. “Mother’s recommendation,” answered Goga as quietly. “He used to be art manager at the Pioneer Club; they kicked him out, I think, for corruption.” “Well, it wouldn’t have been on account of his religion . . .” said Sanych. “All right, just trust me,” answered Goga. “So how’s it going?” he yelled to Slavik. “Do you like it?” “Overall, I do,” said Slavik. Preoccupied by something, he came back over and sat on a plastic stool. I’ll give you a quick lesson in aesthetics if you don’t, thought Sanych and even turned off his phone, so that no one would interrupt (though nobody ever called anyway). “Well,” said Goga, obviously enjoying himself, “what do you say, any ideas?” “All right then,” Slavik exhaled heavily and pulled out a suspicious-looking cigarette. “All right then.” He didn’t say anything else for a moment. “Georgy Davydovich,” he addressed Goga formally, “I’ll be frank with you.” Oh Christ, Sanych thought. Goga went on squinting happily in the twilight of his sandwich shop. “I’ll be frank,” Slavik repeated. “I’ve been in show business for twenty years, I worked during the Ukrconcert epoch, I’m well known among the musicians, I’ve babysat the great Grebenshchikov, I’ve even coordinated a U2 concert in Kharkiv.” “There was a U2 concert in Kharkiv?” San Sanych interrupted.

  “No, they cancelled,” answered Slavik, before going back to ignoring San Sanych, “and this is what I’ve got to say, this is my opinion, Georgy Davydovich—it was a cool idea to buy this club.” “You think?” Goga asked, as though doubtful. “Yes, really a cool idea. I’m telling you this in all sincerity, there’s nothing I don’t know about show business, I even organized the first jam session in this city.” Here he apparently remembered something, lost his train of thought, and was quiet for a time. “So . . .” Goga prompted, unable to stand it any longer. “Yes,” Slavik nodded, “yes.” Shit, he’s wasted, Sanych thought, increasingly annoyed. “Yes what?” Goga asked. “Si,” Slavik started nodding his head again, “yes . . .” San Sanych reluctantly reached for his phone. In principle, on his previous job, he’d simply killed this kind of a freak, but here the situation was different, it was a different business, they’d have to figure it out without him. Slavik suddenly started talking: “I’ll tell you what, Georgy Davydovich . . .” unexpectedly coming out with the following whopper:

  “The nightclub business,” he said, working up a head of steam, “is pretty hairy . . . first of all because the market is already established, you know what I mean?” Everybody pretended they did. “Small businesses are to blame. You know, those motherfuckers spring up all over the place . . . they get in ahead of you! So, then, what, you buy your own place . . .” he seemed to be addressing Goga, “you want to open a nice, regular club, fill it with nice, regular customers, with nice, regular cultural programming—well, fuck, why bother?” “Slavik, get on with it,” Goga cut him short. “All right,” Slavik went on, “So how do you do it? How do you bring people in when they’ve already got all they want? What’s the hook? What’s the hook in any part of show business?” Goga gradually stopped smiling: “The hook is the format!” he offered. “Sure, sure,” Slavik nodded happily and even gave Goga a short round of applause: “Si, that’s it . . .” he trailed off. “So . . . what about it? What about the format?” asked Goga after a long pause. “Oh, the format’s totally fucked,” Slavik said. “Like I said, in this business, everything’s been taken by now, every goddamn angle,” he laughed. “The market is saturated, get it? It’s like, you want to sell fast food? Great, go ahead, but the city already has a hundred fast-food joints; you want to open a bar, hell, let’s open a bar, I can come up with all the cultural programming you want, no problem; or, why not, you want a dance club, let’s do a dance club; an old-timey pub, we’ll do a pub. Only, you won’t make a fucking cent on the thing, Georgy Davydovich, excuse me for being so frank, not a fucking cent.” “And why is that?” Goga asked, obviously hurt. “I told you, because the market is saturated, you’ll just get squashed. You have no one watching your back, right? You’ll go up in smoke, right along with your club.” “So what are you suggesting?” Goga asked, nervous, “do you have any ideas?” “Si,” said Slavik apparently pleased with himself, “si, there’s one cool idea, a really cool idea.” “And what is it?” asked Goga, smelling trouble. “We should take the last unoccupied niche, if you follow me. And in this business there’s only one niche left—we will have to open a gay club.” “A what club?” said Goga. “Gay,” Slavik answered, “a club for gays, that is. We don’t have a single one. It’s a niche that’s just got to be filled.” “Have your brains finally leaked out once and for all?” asked Goga after another pause. “Are you for real?” “And why not?” asked Slavik cautiously. “I just don’t get it,” Goga grew more and more agitated. “You really want me, Georgy Crowbar, to turn my dream place into a gay club? You’ll get us all killed! That’s it, you’re fired,” he said and jumped off the table. “Wait, wait, Georgy Davydovich!” Now it was Slavik’s turn to be nervous. “Nobody’s asking you to put Club for Fags in big letters over the front door, okay?” “Oh yeah? And what would you call the place instead?” asked Goga, putting his coat on. “We’ll call it an ‘Exotic Recreation Club,’ for example,” Slavik shouted. “And we’ll give it a flashy name, that’ll appeal to our target demographic. You know, like ‘Peacock’!” “Staphylocock,” Goga sneered. “So who’s going to come to your ‘Peacock’?” “I’m telling you. People will. The niche is empty, see? There’s not a single gay club in a city of two million! It’s a gold mine. We don’t even have to find our audience, they’ll come on their own, all we have to do is open the doors!” Goga cringed in disgust, but sat back at the table (though he left his coat on). Slavik took this as a good sign, pulled out another cigarette, and continued, “I was just as shocked as you, when the idea came to me. It’s a fortune, just lying in the street—anyone could come over and take it. I’m still amazed it hasn’t occurred to anyone else—and I promise you, if we wait, a month or two, somebody will steal the idea, I bet you anything they’ll steal it!” Slavik was only getting more and more worked up; apparently he was sincerely worried that someone would steal it. “But right now, we’re ahead of the competition!” Then he finally noticed Sanych: “Say something!” he pleaded, seeking his support. “Okay,” said Goga at last. “In principle, it’s not a bad idea.” “Wait a minute,” said Sanych, “are you serious?” “Well, why not?” “Obviously, why not!” Slavik yelled in excitement. “Slow down,” Sanych interrupted again. “Listen,” he told Goga, “you and I are friends and all that, but I’m against this. I’ve been working for the Boxers for Justice almost two years—they’d put a curse on me if they heard about this, are you kidding? We agreed to start
a normal business, not open some peacock.” “No one’s talking about peacocks,” said Goga, “nobody is really planning to call it Peacock. We’ll come up with a regular name. Or we’ll keep the old one.” “Which?” asked Sanych. “Sandwiches! Why not?” Goga smirked again. “Doesn’t that sound good? Exotic Recreation Club Sandwiches? Eh, sweetheart?” Slavik the Sweetheart nodded, then nodded again. What else could he do? “Don’t sweat it,” Goga turned to his partner, “he’ll take care of the customers,” he pointed at Slavik, “you and I just have to worry about finishing the renovation before summer, then we’ll see. After all,” he added, speculating aloud, “why not a gay club? At least there’ll be no whores around.”

  So everyone rolled up their sleeves. Goga sold his drywall off, Sanych introduced him to the right people, and they started the renovation. Slavik, in his turn, volunteered to register the gay club as a “youth initiatives club,” so as not to pay all the usual fees for opening a commercial venture. It turned out that Slavik was indeed well known—and since everyone knew him, they did their best to avoid dealing with him. Early in the morning, Slavik would go to the local government headquarters, stop by the cafeteria, have his tea there, and shoot the breeze with the checkout girls; thereafter he’d go to the cultural administration office. They wouldn’t let him in, Slavik would act offended, run back to Sandwiches, get into a fight with the construction workers, scream that he’d been in show business for twenty years, and then threaten to invite the great Grebenshchikov to opening night just to show them. As for opening night, by the way: spring came and went, and finally the renovation was finished; they could open the club. Goga called a meeting, this time in his newly remodeled office. “Well,” he asked, “any ideas about opening night?” “Georgy Davydovich, I do have a few ideas,” Slavik began, all businesslike. “First of all, fireworks . . .” “Next,” Goga cut him off. “All right,” Slavik was calm enough, “I suggest Japanese food.” “Where will you get it?” asked Sanych. “I have acquaintances,” Slavik answered with dignity. “Japanese acquaintances?” “No, Vietnamese, but they’ll look plenty Japanese for our purposes. You know, they bring in shipping containers at the Southern Station: every time, there’s one for making fur coats and one for food.” “Keep talking,” Goga interrupted again. “Vaudeville striptease,” Slavik blurted out victoriously. “What kind of striptease?” “Vaudeville,” Slavik repeated. “I have my eye on four chicks in bikinis, they do a show every third week, can’t do it more often, they also work at the Pioneer Club on the side.” “Look,” Goga broke in, “that’s out. I’ve told you—no whores in the club. As though our audience would be interested anyway!”