The Patriots

by Sana Krasikov

  “What can I do for you?” he said.

  I introduced myself, said I was a representative of Continental Oil for the Varandey project—all of this in Russian. I had no pretensions about fooling him. With his wide-set eyes he looked at me, not quite coldly but…factually, and for a moment I wondered if he had learned to stare people down in this way in his childhood, whenever they gazed at his pitted cheeks.

  Behind his head was a map of the world with brown pins on every L-Pet field, and blue pins that I thought might indicate future fields to develop.

  “In a half-hour, our joint team will be making final selections for our shipping company. There are some last…unanswered questions about one of the candidates for the contract.”

  “What questions?”

  “Questions of competency and…cost.”

  “So voice them with my team. Why are you coming to me with these technical matters?” He fixed me with the same challenging, factual look. I cast about for the right thing to say. I felt there had to be some perfect ordering of words that could be pulled down from somewhere—words contrived for just this use. But they eluded me.

  “Respectfully, you’ll be signing off on the deal,” I said. But I could hear these words losing exigency, my voice sounding wheedling. Whatever force of certainty had brought me this far had abandoned me.

  “I’ll sign whatever my team decides.” Kozlovsky checked his watch again, quickly but deliberately. I pictured Tom and the others waiting for me in the heavily paneled room four floors below. Maybe they had started the meeting without me. And yet I could not get up and leave now without showing myself to be a stoolie and a coward. I tried to study Kozlovsky’s face, to guess if he was in on Kablukov’s graft deal or not. I had assumed, without quite realizing it, that with one look at him I would be able to answer this question and know what to do. His face gave nothing away.

  “I’m sorry to waste your time,” I said. “It’s my mistake for not listening to Ivan Matveyevich. He did say your signature was only a formality.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Kablukov. He said your signature was a formality and that the decision has already been made…above you.”

  I shrugged my shoulder regretfully, my thumb rubbing the phony Mont Blanc in my sweating hand. Kozlovsky did not look happy to hear what I’d just said. He was not a man who took well to being taunted. With those few words I had done the equivalent of pulling down my pants and showing him my behind.

  “I don’t know what Kablukov told you, but there are no decisions made above me.”

  “So, then, you must be familiar with the particular details of this deal?”

  Kozlovsky shook his head at my game. “You are really something. Nu. Talk already, Comrade…Brink.”

  “At this moment, in Conference Room 14A, we are choosing a shipper for the Varandey oil project. Mr. Kablukov and his team are insisting on a company with no experience, and that will charge the project—and us—seventeen million more a year.”

  “And you, Comrade Brink, you have come here to ask me for the reason.”

  “Not at all.” I tried to sound lighthearted. “It doesn’t matter to me what the reason is. Whatever it is, we will sign with whatever shipper you want. Only…it’s a question of risks and…let’s say, rewards. In this industry we are, by nature, in the business of assuming risk. Sometimes you don’t know what kind of risk you are underwriting, or”—I turned my palm out—“if you are necessarily sharing in the rewards.”

  I looked at the map above his head. A few of the blue pennants were in the middle of the sea, near the Arctic. Offshore. The future.

  “You are proposing something to me?”

  I snapped to. Kozlovsky had the face of a traffic cop I’d erred in trying to bribe. He’d misunderstood me. This was not at all what I had hoped would happen.

  “Of course, I am not talking about our side,” I said rapidly. “What matters to Continental is a continued collaboration with L-Pet….” But this too had the wrong sound to it: bootlicking and asinine.

  “Yet you’ve troubled yourself to come here on behalf of Continental….”

  “No, only on behalf of myself,” I corrected. “I have a son here, as your Mr. Kablukov well knows. My son is trying to make his own way in the world. I respectfully request that he be free to do his business, without interference, and L-Pet will be free to do theirs.”

  Kozlovsky blinked a few times. Something was quietly registering in him. He was an organization man who liked to do his work cleanly. No doubt he was aware of Kablukov’s tactics, and tolerated them. But he also hated to be made to answer for Kablukov’s gluttony, the messes he left. I was now sure he hated Kablukov no less than Bykov had hated Antonov.

  He stood up, indicating that our time was over. I kept sitting. I wasn’t going to leave this room without a guarantee. Kozlovsky studied me silently, moving his pale eyes from my face to my shoulders to my hands, as though deciding whether or not to fling me out of his plate-glass window. “You don’t need to worry yourself over this anymore,” he said finally. He consulted the pass hanging from my neck. “Dzhuli-yan, we verify everything here.”

  —

  EVERYBODY WAS ASSEMBLED AROUND the Olympic-sized conference table. I apologized and took my seat near Tom and a seat away from Kablukov. They had been drinking coffee from the dispensers set up along the back wall, but now both their cups were empty. In his shades, Kablukov nodded at me in a gesture of seriousness that seemed somehow ludicrous.

  “Gentlemen, I think we can begin now,” Tom said, looking displeased with me.

  I busied myself removing my laptop from its case. It seemed to be stuck between some papers, and I realized with a shock that I had accidentally stuffed my bag not with L-Pet documents but pages of my mother’s files! And then the absurdity of my predicament became clear to me. I had just performed an act of foolishness rivaling any of my mother’s, and why? To protect Lenny? To take down the Boot? Or was my suicide mission, in the end, done for that same childish principle for which my mother had lost so much blood—the hopeless cause of Fairness?

  At last I extricated my laptop from the wrinkled pages of Florence’s file, taking care not to let any of them slip out. I had no idea what to do next. I felt a pedant’s urge to draw up the spreadsheet on which I’d been logging the faults and virtues of the charter candidates, though I knew it now to be inane and worthless.

  It was at that moment that the door opened and Anton Kozlovsky walked in.

  Mukhov gazed at Serdyuk, as though he of all people was likely to know the cause for this unexpected visitation. I gazed at Kablukov. “Anton Yevgenevich…” Kablukov rose slightly out of his chair, followed by Mukhov. “We weren’t expecting you today.”

  “My trip to Ufa was moved.”

  Kozlovsky did not introduce himself. He let his underlings at L-Pet do the honors.

  I prepared myself for the imminent scenario in which Kozlovsky would announce that I had gone to see him. Was it regret I felt? No, not regret. My mind was blank. What I was experiencing was a sense of inescapability, the Nietzschean feeling that all this had happened before and would happen again. In a matter of minutes Tom would know I had broken ranks. The process would go on as predestined. The fruit of my work would be irreparably separated from its labor, never again to be brought under my control. My suicide mission was complete. I was already dead, I just hadn’t been informed of it yet.

  Kozlovsky did not look at me. He said merely, “Please, sit,” to the others. Between me and Kablukov was an empty chair, and here was where Kozlovsky planted himself. “Please, friends, continue as you were. I won’t be disturbing you. I know your work here is almost over. I only wish to sit in and hear the merits of our various contenders for this important charter.”

  I did not glance in Tom’s direction—though I could feel him looking at me. I was certain he was waiting for me to take some action now. This would be my valiant moment of self-abasement. Before things got out of han
d, I was to make my announcement and inform Kablukov, and now Kozlovsky, that all of the bids had been carefully weighed in the past several days and that our contractor—Sausen Petroleum—had been selected. This morning, we were only going to dispense with the formalities of paperwork.

  But how could I say any of this after what I had done? Over my shoulder I could smell the aroma of a freshly smoked cigarette still lingering on Kozlovsky’s suit. I could not will myself to begin. I would sound like a psychopath.

  “Nu?” Kozlovsky addressed me impatiently.

  I touched my closed laptop. “We have a matrix,” I said limply.

  Focused on me, his pale irises had the effect of a cattle prod. I am here. Now what do you have to show me? those eyes said.

  And so that he wouldn’t utter another word, I opened my Dell and drew up the spreadsheet.

  —

  KOZLOVSKY HANDLED HIMSELF BEAUTIFULLY. For much of the discussion he sat politely in the background, listening to our brief account of the merits of the top three choices—Jessem, Sovcomflot, and the Geneva-based Sausen Petroleum. Mukhov did much of the talking, making such smooth transitions that it was difficult, at times even for me, to distinguish which company he was talking about. But Kozlovsky seemed to assimilate all this knowledge instantly, keeping one eye on my screen while pausing to ask questions heavy with common sense.

  “What do our Americans think?” he said at last.

  “We will defer to your judgment,” Tom said with the easygoing smile I recognized as the grin of a shit eater.

  Kozlovsky, feigning innocence of our conversation, asked to see the original proposals of the top three bidders. He studied them for some time, blind to the nervous smirks around the room. I watched Kablukov. Under his dark glasses, he appeared to be entering some kind of vascular distress. He loosened his necktie and wiped his head with a handkerchief.

  “One of these seems to want to charge us quite a steep rate,” Kozlovsky pointed out.

  It was Mukhov, good foot soldier, who jumped first to the defense of Sausen. All the old arguments tumbled out again—they had a superior relationship with the Swiss banks, a clean safety record, blah blah blah. “It appears they have no record,” Kozlovsky suggested calmly. Only one argument was not raised in Kozlovsky’s presence, and that was the excellent relations Sausen Petroleum had with the company president, Mr. Abuskalayev. On this matter, neither Mukhov nor Serdyuk, and not even Kablukov, spoke a word.

  “It looks like the real choice here is between Jessem and Sovcomflot. Of course, I would naturally favor one of ours, nashih, but that,” Kozlovsky said, “is only my own prejudice, and I know that you will make your own decision.”

  He waited until we did. Sovcomflot it was, after a unanimous, if not entirely eager, show of hands.

  —

  OUTSIDE, I LOOKED UP and was surprised to find the sky as blue as I had ever seen it.

  “What happened in there?” Tom said, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, which bounced off in streaks from the obsidian shine of the L-Pet complex.

  “A mystery wrapped in an enigma,” I said.

  “I still can’t get my head around it. I thought Kablukov had the final word.”

  “Every thief has a boss.”

  “Well, we got what we wanted, I suppose.”

  So now it was we. “I guess we were courting the wrong asshole,” I said.

  “Let them sort it out,” he said. For the first time since I knew him, Tom seemed not to be certain what his next words would be. He rubbed his smooth chin distractedly. “Who can figure it out with these goddamn Russians,” he finally concluded. He seemed to want to change the topic. “We were all waiting for you. Why were you late?”

  I contemplated telling him where I’d been fifteen minutes prior to the meeting. But it was better, I decided, to let the doggies sleep. Tom suggested we go take in some sights in the hours left before our flight, check off a box from the tourist column. But I excused myself from playing tour guide. I had more pressing business to take care of. I crossed the street to the other side of Sretensky Boulevard and entered a coffee shop housed in a building of dingy pink brick. And that was when I called Lenny.

  It took two tries before he picked up. “Sorry, Pop, I was on the toilet,” he confessed with typical Lenny bluntness. “Is it time for your flight already?” I felt relieved to hear his voice. Things had wrapped up early, I said. Then I proposed that we take our promised trip to Izmailovsky Market. Hunt for some classic sovietskii junk.

  Long pause. “Um, Pa. I think we sort of missed that boat. Most of the booths are closed on weekdays.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there’ll be some desperate auctioneer trying to unload his old Leica. Maybe we’ll find something worth some real money.”

  He seemed to be hesitating.

  “Please come with me,” I said. “It would make me happy.”

  And as I said it, I realized it was true. But I was unprepared for the rush of gladness that flooded my heart when he said, “Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

  The flea market was mostly deserted, as Lenny had predicted. But I thought I liked it better this way, the two of us wandering along an empty street of open-air stalls in the shadow of a tsar’s wooden fortress painted like Disneyland. Lenny picked up a porcelain panda, then set it down again. I caught him checking his watch. “Help me pick a gift for your mother,” I suggested.

  “How about this?” He held up a green rubber gas mask.

  “It’ll be from you, not from me,” I warned.

  I wanted Lenny to catch my treasure-hunting fever, but it was true that we’d missed our chance. Only a fraction of the shops were open, and those that were did their business in the most touristy gimmicks: Yeltsin matryoshka dolls and military paraphernalia. My eyes were still gritty from my lack of sleep, but I felt an enlivening rush knowing Lenny wasn’t due for trouble anytime soon.

  “Mom hates this kind of shlock,” Lenny informed me as we walked into a stall full of books and posters.

  “That isn’t entirely true,” I said. “She can appreciate a good piece of kitsch as much as anybody.” By way of example I approached the vendor, a fellow with a stringy beard and a long face that resembled those on the religious icons (of dubious origin) that lined the back wall of his stall. “Do you have any anti-capitalist art?” I said.

  The man knitted his brow as though I’d just asked him to drop his pants. “Cho?” he said.

  “Posters,” I clarified, “with fat capitalists—you know, in top hats, puffing on cigars.”

  “What kind of store do people think this is?” he said, offended. Lenny and I exchanged looks. Amid the literature spread out on the tables around us was a catalogue of paintings by Marc Chagall, an Almanac of Mushrooms, Lenin’s The Emancipation of Women (penned by his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya), an illustrated pamphlet of the Protocols of Zion, an Estonian album of Forbidden Erotica, and the autobiography of Bill Clinton. “I have absolutely no idea,” I said.

  —

  “LET’S GET SOMETHING TO eat,” I suggested, interrupting Lenny’s reading of an American serviceman’s phrase book dated from 1962 (the same year, I noted with curiosity, as the Cuban Missile Crisis). He lifted his eyes and gazed out toward the Disneyfied Izmailovo fortress. “I used to really hate coming to places like this,” he said suddenly.

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, they made me think of her.”

  I knew right away whom he meant. “Irochka.”

  He gave me a smirking smile.

  I hadn’t meant to be coy. That was simply what I’d always called her—the daughter of my old friends, and later, of course, Lenny’s ex-wife. Not Irina, but our Irochka was what all of us had called her, first tenderly, then with an edge of irony and malice that could never quite negate the original tenderness.

  “That first summer I came back here,” he said, “it was ’96, she’d take me around the city. All these pensioners selling their heirlooms laid out neatly on newspapers. Thei
r lifetime collections of little pins or porcelain cups, or crystal bowls.”

  “They still do that.”

  “No, not like then. The inflation was out of control. They were selling off anything just to eat. It was so fucking depressing, and here I was with my wallet stuffed full of American dollars.”

  “And you wanted to spend it on Irina.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. There was this old guy, I remember, trying to sell an antique silver tea set for maybe twenty bucks. I could see he wasn’t one of these professional hawkers, just a desperate old pensioner. She bargained him down to nothing—eight dollars, maybe. I would have been happy to pay twenty. But it was like…I was afraid she’d think I was a sucker.”

  “Life isn’t meant for you to squeeze every last drop out of a stone,” I offered.

  He looked at me dubiously. “But you always liked how practical Irina was. How tough. You used to say I could learn a lot from her.”

  “Did I?”

  “You’d say, ‘Here’s one girl who doesn’t forget to check the weather report.’ ”

  I said nothing. Whatever errors of mine he’d logged, whatever critical implications about himself—I couldn’t repair them now with a petition for a proper audit. The past could never be remedied like that. Looking at him, I knew that.

  “Do you still think about her?” I said. I was still cautious, but now I realized I was no longer afraid that our conversation might head in the wrong direction—toward some place of misunderstanding, or blame, or fractiousness.

  “Not really. I should have seen it coming.”

  “Come on. You were twenty-three, blinded by love. Happens to the best of us.”

  “You know what she used to say to me by the end, when we were living together in that apartment she couldn’t stand? She’d joke about how I wasn’t a full muzhchina. She’d say: ‘Muzh ti muzh, da china nyet.’ ”

  He laughed, imitating Ira’s drawling Moscow accent as he repeated her cruel little pun on muzhchina, the word for “man.” I’d never before paused to consider how it was made of two shorter words: muzh, which meant “husband,” and cheen, the word for “rank,” or “title.” A husband you are, but no title. I wondered to myself if Irina had made it up. I’d never been surprised by her cleverness, though I was now surprised that she could have been so casually cruel.