The image of the man dissolved into blue, and Viktor turned off the DVD player. “It’s not very convincing, is it?” he said.
“It’s moving,” I said. “It’s heartrending, that’s for sure.”
“That’s not worth much. We don’t need to rend any more hearts.”
“It’s convincing if you’re looking to be convinced.”
“That’s the mark of a weak argument.”
We passed villages with damp-looking wooden houses, and I could almost feel the chill dripping from their ceilings, the drafts coming through the blocky walls. There were a few snatches of the romantic East, what you’d imagine if you were the kind to imagine this sort of thing: the spires of Orthodox churches spiking out of wintry mists, a sense of foreignness that stemmed not only from a dislocation of place but also, somehow, of time. There was a feeling of traveling not back or away but out—out on some kind of a Z axis, into a fairy-tale time that never, in fact, was real. My face must have reflected a certain dreaminess, because I caught Boris looking at me with an expression I recognized as contempt. “You think this is kind of romantic, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You do. I can tell. You think you are having a little adventure. Well, let me tell you something. This isn’t romantic, okay? And it’s not an adventure. This is severed heads in alleyways. I don’t know why you’re here, but this isn’t study abroad, okay?”
I nodded. I was surprised and a little numb—it was like the moment after a burn or a wounding, before your body has registered its pain. Maybe I would be a help, maybe I would not be, and I could understand why my presence was resented. But I knew I was not on study abroad. This trip, whatever it was for, was not for the photographs or the postcards. It was not for anecdotes to tell on first dates, for souvenirs to show at dinner parties a decade in the future, for wisdom to tell to adult children going off on their own adventures. It wasn’t a matrix or a road map or a source of knowledge that would ever inform my future, as I didn’t seem likely to have one.
But there was no way to say any of this, and no reason that it would be convincing. It might be emotionally affecting, but that’s not the mark of a good argument—on this we can all agree. So I said nothing, and pursed my lips, and turned away to look out the window.
And then we were smashing into the splendor of downtown Moscow at night. All around us there were beautiful women wearing almost nothing but lurid makeup and waiting in long lines outside of pulsing clubs. They looked absolutely terrifying, as well as freezing cold. I stared. The women tossed their hair. Their silver heels cast a spiky sort of light out into the street. Enormous IKEA billboards dominated the skyline. We passed the Pushkin Theater, glowing like an illuminated eggshell in the streetlights. We rolled by the Nord-Ost on Melnikov Street, and I thought of the siege there back in 2002: Spetsnaz blasting poison at the terrorists and hostages alike and everybody dying horribly in the snow. Then we were whirling past more clubs, more restaurants, more dripping, filigreed opulence. We passed the glittering Vagankovsky Cemetery, populated by victims of the eighteenth-century plague. We passed the gilded cupola of St. Isaac’s and the wide grinning arc of Kazan Cathedral. We passed a brightly lit café called Gifts of the Sea.
“For homosexuals,” said Viktor, leaning in close to me. “Boris, do you need to make a stop?”
The driver dropped us off in front of a club called Absinthe. In the upper windows, I could just make out a stack of pink cubes, a faint dusting of purple light. At the door, a gorgeous woman was turned away; in a rage, she threw her purse into a snowbank.
“How are we going to get Irina through face control?”
I stuck out my tongue.
“Nice,” said Boris. “That will definitely improve your odds.”
“Good thing we’re bribing our way in,” said Viktor. He pointed to the top windows. “They watch them from up there.”
“Who?”
“The rich men. They get private booths up there with one-way mirrors, and they watch the women dance. If they see one they like, they invite her up for a drink.”
We assembled in a line behind red velvet ropes. I stamped my heels against the snow and clamped my hands against each other, trying to keep myself warm. I was thinking that the inadequacy of women’s formal wear in the face of extreme weather was probably a patriarchal conspiracy.
“It is not really an invitation, I shouldn’t think,” said Viktor, rubbing his nose. His time at Oxford had left his English peppered with uniquely British affectations—arabesques on his speech that seemed funny when paired with his accent. “Our blatnoy is up there, I’d bet.”
“Why would he want to meet here?” I said through clenched teeth.
“I think it’s where he spends most of his evenings. We wouldn’t want to disrupt his schedule.”
We watched more. In that top corner, something was skewing the light coming through; a phosphorescent-green entity floated out to the window and then flicked away.
“Do they have—Is that an aquarium in there?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Viktor. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a three-ring circus in there.”
“They only serve sushi up there,” said Boris. “It’s why the world’s oceans are running out of fish.”
“Have you been to a club like that before?”
They laughed. “No,” they said. “But tonight’s the night.”
“And we’re going to make a habit of it someday,” said Viktor.
“What day is that?”
“When we’re rich,” said Viktor. “We’re men, so we don’t have to be pretty. Only rich.”
“Oh, yes?” I said. “And when are you planning on being rich?”
“In the new world order, I suppose,” said Boris.
“I thought we were already in that,” I said, because I was freezing, which was making me feel difficult.
“When Bezetov’s president, he’ll make us his most trusted advisers,” said Boris.
“Ha. When Bezetov’s president, he’ll probably start by cutting the salary for federal employees,” said Viktor.
I looked at them. “Do you guys really believe that?” I said.
They looked at me. “Which part?” said Viktor.
“You actually believe that Aleksandr will be president one day?”
“Sure,” said Boris. “Not this year, sure, we know that. But one day. Look at the Ukraine, you know? It’ll happen here eventually. And when it does, he’s the obvious choice, right?”
Viktor nodded. “He’s been the voice of reason, always. He’s Vaclav Havel. Except he’ll be the chessmaster president instead of the poet president. Uniquely Russian thing.”
“And he’s young still,” said Boris. “Youngish. He’s got a long career ahead of him if he can be careful enough. It’s a long life.”
I looked at them again. Listening to Aleksandr’s speech—as he extolled the virtues of futility, the courage of working against the current—one could believe that nobody thought he would ever succeed. One could believe that failure was, in a way, the point.
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose that for some people, it is.”
“What?” said Viktor. “You’ve got your money on someone else? You throwing your hat in the ring? Who else could it be?”
I squinted at him, and when I did, I could see snatches of a future—Aleksandr at the Kremlin, throwing open the windows, firing the security apparatus while the people cheered in the streets—that would happen, if it happened, without me there to watch it. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “I guess I really don’t know.”
At the door, Viktor slipped the bouncer a wad of cash. We’d called ahead about this. The bouncer eyed my diaphanous costume bemusedly but took the money. He ushered us through the door. Inside, the music was loud enough to make small reverberations in my sternum. The aquarium, it turned out, was built in to the wall and part of the ceiling. It cast a wash of watery light over the dance floor, a
nd when the fish flicked close to the pane, the light mottled with the psychedelic colors of tropical marine life. The bouncer gestured at a staircase that coiled around the back of the club. “He’s up there,” he said, pointing up the stairs. “He’s always up there.”
The air was overrun with the competing claims of outlandish body sprays; I thought of ads featuring alpine vistas and wild rivers. The club’s floor was covered in a film of some unidentifiable substance that was the color of mercury and the consistency of silt. At the bar, Technicolor cocktails emerged from behind a smoke machine. The whole place had the feeling of modernity gone amok, as though it were the most elite club in outer space, although along the edges, it was a little more baroque: the sweep of the staircase, the heavy velvet tapestries along the back walls, made me feel that I might look up into the rafters and see horrified operagoers gazing at all the nudity through their lorgnettes. In the center of the room, women danced around in enormous translucent cubes. “SexyBack” was playing. The girls crept up to the sides of the cubes and licked the glass. They were wearing silver pasties and shimmery body paint and nothing, discernibly, else. Boris stared, but Viktor pulled him along.
“Another day,” said Viktor.
“In the new world order?” I said.
Our soldier, Valentin Gogunov, was sitting upstairs in a VIP lounge. As Viktor had predicted, he was watching the girls from behind a mirror while drinking an iridescent cocktail. When we closed the doors behind us, the room was corked with silence. We waited. We could feel the throttle of the song under our feet, but we couldn’t hear anything anymore. Gogunov ignored us for several long moments with one finger in his mouth, until, presumably, Justin Timberlake’s distorted hiccupping was over and the girls had stopped dancing. Then he spoke. “Hello,” he said to us, not looking at us. “You are Bezetov’s posse.” A woman in a shred of pink fabric was dancing near a sullen security detail. “If you could go get us some drinks,” Gogunov said to the woman. She pouted momentarily and went.
“The posse,” said Viktor. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Sort of a ragtag assortment, aren’t you?” said Gogunov, turning in his chair to face us. There was something rehearsed in his manner, and I found myself liking him for that. Here was a drug runner who really thought about the impression he was making, and you don’t see that every day. “You look like graduate students,” he said. At this, Viktor cringed.
“You like any of the girls out there?” Gogunov said to him. “We could have them sent up.”
“Not just yet,” said Viktor. “We’d like to do the filming first.”
Gogunov eyed me. “What’s the story with the American?”
I wasn’t sure how he’d been able to tell that I was American before I even spoke.
Viktor looked at me. “What’s the story, American?”
“Mr. Bezetov hired me,” I said. “I’m fixing the syntax on the English subtitles.”
Gogunov regarded me, then turned to Viktor. “Is he fucking her? He could do better.”
“All right,” said Viktor. “Enough. She’s our colleague.”
“Your colleague? Oh, great,” said Gogunov. “What, you’re going to make her chairman of the Central Bank? Whatever, I don’t care. You can keep the American. I’m sure it’s all part of Bezetov’s master scheme for world domination. Or capitalist utopia. Whatever it is this week. Hey, you have that way of obscuring the face in the film, right?”
“Right.”
“And a way to distort the voice? My voice is very distinct. I want that thing that makes the voice low and terrifying.”
“Yes,” said Boris. “Fine.”
“I don’t give a shit about your documentary,” said Gogunov. “Just so you know.”
“Fine,” said Viktor wearily. “We are not asking you to give a shit. We are not paying you to give a shit.”
“You can put it underneath my name. Not my real name, of course. ‘Former Soldier: Does Not Give a Shit.’ You can write that.”
“Anything for you, soldier,” said Boris.
“I don’t think your Bezetov’s going to get anywhere with this,” he said. “I want it on the record. I want it noted that I’m not stupid. If Bezetov’s trying to commit suicide, he could do it a lot more cheaply than this. He wouldn’t need all the fancy equipment. He wouldn’t need to buy the rights to American pop songs. There will be pop songs, right?”
“If this is suicidal, it’s very nice of you to join us,” said Boris.
“Oh, I’m not joining you, friends,” said Gogunov. “My people know all the tricks. Anyway, why bother a small businessman?”
“Why bother a small businessman if you haven’t already, you mean.”
Gogunov made a face. “I just want to get my revenge on the fucking Russian ground forces. Worst years of my life. Half those people were common criminals before they signed their contracts, you know? Hard to have a civilized conversation with anybody. I’m a man of letters. And then you don’t know what fun is until you’ve had dysentery in Siberia. Ever had shit freeze to your ass? It happens. Now, how much are you paying me?”
“What are you telling us?”
“Depends on what you’re paying me.”
“You seem like you do fairly well already,” said Boris. “For a small businessman.”
Gogunov frowned. “Entrepreneurs are the backbone of society.”
“I only hope you can manage the tax burden,” I said.
“Just barely,” said Gogunov. “But I suppose it’s my civic duty.”
“Well,” said Viktor. “Consider this your civic duty, too.”
“For love of the motherland?”
“Whatever.”
“You can turn the camera on,” said Gogunov cheerfully. “Though it’s probably worth reminding you that my security apparatus is just as extensive as your Bezetov’s and probably somewhat less scrupulous. And they’re very, very defensive of my character.”
“Yes,” said Boris through gritted teeth. “We understand.”
“I can’t predict how they will react to any number of slights, such as a failure to obscure my face or voice, or failure to compensate me properly, or failure to be protective of my privacy.”
“Yes,” said Viktor. “We got it.” He set up the camera, and Gogunov settled back in his chair.
“How do I look?” he said.
“You should be in the pictures,” I said.
“Wrong answer,” said Gogunov.
“It doesn’t matter how you look,” said Viktor. “You’re going to look like a shadow.”
“Right answer,” said Gogunov. He leaned forward. “You understand I’m not fucking with you fellows, right? I’m addressing you, too, gorgeous. You have children, girlfriends, lesbian loves? Little expensive pets?”
“No,” said Boris. “But we’re awfully fond of ourselves.”
“Good,” said Gogunov. “That’s as it should be. I’m not doing this for democracy. So don’t think I won’t have you all killed if you screw me over.”
“We won’t screw you over,” said Viktor. “And we don’t care why you’re doing it.”
“I’m ready now,” said Gogunov.
Viktor assembled the camera, which issued a clinical red light. Gogunov looked down at his nails, then up at the camera. Suddenly, he seemed slightly bashful—he was self-conscious about arranging his face, even though he seemed to believe it wouldn’t matter. “Can I start?”
“Whenever the muse moves you,” said Viktor.
Gogunov waited a couple of moments more, and then he started. “I was a guard at the military facility,” he said. “I wasn’t supposed to be on duty that night.”
“And what night was this?” said Viktor.
“This was the night of September 3, 1999.” Something about talking on camera—even though it wouldn’t be his voice or his face doing the talking—had made Gogunov polite, almost deferential. It occurred to me that this man—this drug runner, this soldier—was mildly afraid of public s
peaking.
“The night before the first of the bombings,” said Viktor.
“Right.”
“The one at the mall.”
“Right,” said Gogunov. “I’d switched schedules with one of the other guards, who was sick that night. He was always getting sick—maybe he was faking, I don’t know—but it worked out for me either way. We had a deal. I wasn’t in charge of the RDX silo, but I had a good view of it. Most nights we’d spend half the shift drinking cognac and bullshitting each other. But that night I’d opted out of all that and gone to stand by the door. I was stone-cold sober, and I know what I saw.”
“What made you go stand by the door?”
Gogunov winced. “I was texting my wife, to be perfectly honest, and I didn’t want the guys to see. I’d just gotten texting on my phone, and she was always making me text her. That should have been a clue. We were married seven years, and the texting should have been the first clue. Don’t put that in, okay? You’ll edit that out, right?”
“Yes,” said Viktor tiredly. “Probably.”
“Anyway. This was maybe quarter to three in the morning. A convoy of trucks wheeled up, and the door was opened for them.”
“What did you think of it at the time?”
“It’s the military’s facility. It exists for their use. It’s not uncommon for orders to be placed for these materials—although less so then, before the second war, and rarely, it’s true, in the middle of the night.”
“And?”
“And it wasn’t recorded in the logs, which is, as you can imagine, a pretty serious, pretty unusual oversight.”
“And so?”
“And so I don’t know what the fate of that RDX was. All I know is that it sailed out of the facility at three in the morning, and it went to military men. There was no break-in. There were no Chechens.”
We let the camera see it. We let whoever would one day see the film hear it. Gogunov leaned forward.
“There was something else,” he said. “One of my coworkers brought me tea around three-fifteen, which was about the middle of my shift. He handed it to me, and I took a sip and spat it out. It tasted horrible—beyond rancid, not like something organic that had rotted but like something you were never supposed to consume in the first place. I almost vomited onto the concrete right there. ‘What the hell is this?’ I asked him. ‘It’s tea,’ he said. ‘What did you put in it?’ I asked him. ‘It tastes like poison.’ And it did. ‘What,’ he said, ‘is the milk off? It’s just tea, milk, and sugar.’ ‘What sugar?’ I asked, because we were out of sugar in the back office. ‘I took some from the truck,’ he said. ‘From the bags of sugar. Just a tiny bit.’ ‘What bags?’ I said. I went out to look. Sure enough, on the trucks, on these bags, was printed the word ‘sugar.’ The next day, the mall in Moscow exploded.”
A Partial History of Lost Causes Page 31
