‘Good morning, angel-face. Is Himself in? No? Well don’t be sorry; that’s good news. Because it gives me a chance to talk to you, of course …’
‘Morning! Yes, Chekuskin again. On the phone and in your face every day, I promise, till you release our shipment. But here’s the deal. Every time I ring up, I’m going to tell you a joke I guarantee you haven’t heard before. Don’t groan, I’m very funny. And if you want to cut the chuckles short, you know what you have to do, don’t you? All right: a flying saucer swoops down over the earth and grabs a Russian, a German and a Frenchman …’
And so on, and so forth. Leaving only the telegram from Solkemfib, who ought to be in a state of calm contentment, because he’d just found them a trainload of iron pyrites to solve their sulphur shortfall, but who were not calm, distinctly not calm at all. Chekuskin rubbed his throat, coughed, sucked a peppermint lozenge. He kept a packet of papiroshki in one pocket and a pack of filter-tipped Java in the other, for offering to people, but almost alone among his acquaintance, he didn’t smoke; he found it made his voice phlegmy and unappealing. URALMASH DECLINES SUPPLY UPGRADED STRETCHER STOP URGENTEST SEEK EXPLANATION COMMA REMEDY STOP ARKHIPOV. This would be the PNSh-something-or-other stretching machine they were getting to replace the one lost in their accident; a big, big item for whose transportation away off to cheery Solovets he had already begun to spin a few ideas. Uralmash were not pleased to have had it added to their quota at the last moment, but this was the first he had heard of any trouble getting it built. There ought not to be, given the priority ranking the job had been given. Chekuskin considered. Especially, he considered the word DECLINES, and its worrying finality. It had the sound of policy about it. There were implications for who he should call. No point in starting too far down the Uralmash hierarchy, if a decision of some kind had already been taken at the top. No point in talking to a secretary or a foreman on this one. On the other hand, till he could work out what was going on, he should also avoid speaking to anyone so senior that they might have prestige at stake. Nothing solidified a problem like making some grandee feel that they’d have to eat dirt to change their mind. What he needed here was the bottom of the top, someone with a junior post in senior management. Riffle riffle went the invisible card index. Ah yes, Ryszard: early forties, Pole from the Ukraine, wife religious, lots of children. Pleasant chap. Drinking problem. Probably not destined to rise. Chekuskin put the coin in the slot and dialled.
‘Ryszard, yes, hello?’ Harried-sounding voice; a man in the middle of something.
‘Chekuskin here. Sorry to bother you –’
‘I can’t really talk. Later would be better.’
‘Of course, of course, whenever you can. Maybe a drink this evening?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve a family do. God, this is the Solkemfib thing, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes. There’s some puzzlement at this end –’
‘I’m sorry, Chekuskin, but really, that’s one to leave alone. No joy to be had there. And honestly, that’s all I can say. Your friends will just have to make do with the old model. They’re lucky we can fit them in at all.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re saying, their order is going through, then, but they can’t have the upgraded version?’
‘Uh, yes. There really is some puzzlement over there, isn’t there?’
‘Actually, I think it’s mine. I’ve only just been brought into this, and I’m sorry, I think I got the wrong end of the stick. Look, if you could spare a minute this evening to clear things up a bit, I’d take it as a personal favour. Just to get me oriented a little.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Chekuskin. Like I said, I shouldn’t be running my mouth about it at all.’
‘Just five minutes, strictly off the record. To stop me making a fool of myself.’
‘Well –’
‘Say at the station bar, at six. So it’s on your way home anyway.’
‘It would have to be a very quick one.’
‘As quick as you like. That’s wonderful, that’s all I ask. See you later!’
And he put the phone down, quick-sharp. Looking at his watch, Chekuskin found that he was almost in danger of being late for his lunch appointment. Hastily he gathered his paperwork and exited, aiming a bow of general-purpose gratitude across the hall before he pushed back out into the cold. The letters and telegrams went into a trash-can fire being tended by a couple of drinkers at the corner of the next block. Round the corner he trotted, stepping high where the snow was less trampled, and over the intersection to the big portico of the Central Hotel. Puffs of breath hung in the air where he’d passed as if a diminutive steam locomotive had gone by.
‘Is my guest here?’ he asked Viktor at the front desk. Viktor pointed through the bronze doors into the restaurant, where pale snow-light from the tall windows made the dusty napery on the tables look as if it had congealed in place. The Central’s restaurant had hardly any custom at lunchtime – and indeed the staff would have resented serving anyone who simply wandered in and sat down – but the combination of grandeur and privacy seemed to Chekuskin to strike the right note when he was meeting a client for the first time. He hurried in, arms held out, then paused, because the fidgeting man in his early thirties who was sitting as uncomfortably bolt-upright at a table as if he had ironwork inside his shirt, and polishing his eyeglasses on the tablecloth, was not at all what he had been expecting.
‘Mr Konev?’ said Chekuskin, uncertainly, feeling a certain wavering in his legs, as if they were anticipating a sudden need to flee.
‘No. I’m Stepovoi. His deputy. He’s ill,’ said the man in a succession of nervous bleats.
‘Well then,’ said Chekuskin, recovering himself, and sitting down, ‘you’re very welcome, Mr Stepovoi. Nothing too serious, I hope, Mr Konev’s illness?’
‘Just flu. But he has given me. Full authority.’
‘Good, good,’ said Chekuskin. ‘What a day, eh? Cold enough to turn your spit to icicles.’ He ld have red have said piss not spit but he suspected it would have made Stepovoi blush.
‘I can’t say. That I am very comfortable, With the situation. That I. Altogether approve.’
‘Mr Stepovoi,’ said Chekuskin, steepling his fingers and looking at this alarming fool with careful warmth, ‘I believe you are under a misapprehension. I believe you think you are speaking to some kind of a … of a black marketeer. If that were the case, you would be right to be alarmed, because you would be committing an illegal act by doing business with me. In fact, you would already have entered into a criminal conspiracy just by sitting down with me here.’ Think about that, you self-righteous little fucker. ‘But of course, nothing could be further from the truth. In a minute, you will see that, because I will explain it to you, and then we will laugh over the misunderstanding together. And we will also have lunch, because I don’t know about you, but I am starving.’ Without looking, Chekuskin raised a finger in the air and circled it near his right ear, which was all the signal he needed to activate the Central’s solitary lunchtime waiter and cook.
‘What do I do. Mr Stepovoi? I am a servant of the Plan, that’s what. I make what’s supposed to happen, happen. You can call me a purchasing agent, you can call me an expediter, you can be crude and call me a pusher. It’s all the same thing. I help things along in the direction the Plan says they should be going. I don’t steal. I don’t give bribes or take bribes. I persuade the wheels to go round. That’s all. Here, have a glass of wine, it’s not bad, it’s Azerbaijani.’
‘I don’t usually drink alcohol. So early,’ bleated Stepovoi.
‘Of course you don’t. You’re at your desk, you want to concentrate. But now you’re not at your desk, you’re travelling on business for the firm, and you’re interviewing someone who is going to be very useful to you, believe me. So a little sip won’t hurt. There. Cheers.’
‘But,’ said Stepovoi. ‘But if. But if you only do what the Plan says. Then I don’t see what we’re going to pay y
ou for. We have the purchase orders. They have to give us the goods.’
‘You’re right, you’re quite right. Indeed they do have to give you the goods. But when, that’s the question, isn’t it? You want them now, toot sweet, because your line is waiting; but why should they care? They’ve got a whole fistful of purchase orders to fill, this time of year, and why should they care about yours? What makes you so special that they should want to serve you first, or at least, serve you soon?’
‘You do?’ said Stepovoi.
‘Correct, old son. But there’s a little more to it than that. Now, eat up, while it’s still hot. Mmm, I do like a good dumpling. The thing is’ – gesturing with his loaded fork – ‘in any set-up there’s always what you might call a resistance to be overcome. If you want to get anything done, there’s always something to get past, right? I learned this a long time ago, probably before you were born, when the world was very different; but I’ll tell you the story anyway, because it is interesting, and because, strangely enough, it is relevant to the troubles of you and me right here and now. You see, I got my start in this business as a salesman. You don’t know what that is.’
‘Yes I do –’p>
‘No, you don’t. You’re thinking of some fellow who works in a sales administration, sits by his phone all day long like a little king, licks his finger when he feels like it and says, “You can have a little bit.” He licks his finger again; “So can you,” he says, “but you can’t, I don’t feel like it today.” And the customers go, “Oh, thank you sir, thank you sir, may I kiss your arse sir?”’
Stepovoi grinned: a narrow grin, still gummed up by virtue, but a grin nevertheless.
‘That’s not a salesman. You see, the world used to be the other way up, and it used to be the buyers who sat around examining their fingernails, hard though that is to imagine. A salesman was a poor hungry bastard with a suitcase, trying to shift something that people probably didn’t want, ’cause back in those days, people didn’t just get out the money and buy anything they could get their hands on. They had to be talked into it. And that was me, that was my first job, aged sixteen, a poor hungry bastard with a suitcase working for a gentleman named Gersh, who did pickled herrings in jars. “Gersh’s best, spiced and brined.” Yeah, he owned the company; like I said, this was a long time ago. It was on its last legs, and it was tiny, you wouldn’t believe what a tiny operation it was, now. But I did the circuit for him, for a little while. I went round the towns, and I went into the state stores, and I went into the private grocers which also still existed then, and I’d open my case, and I’d bring out my jar, and I’d do my little spiel. And do you know, do you know what I learned?’
‘Er …’
‘I learned that it was never about the bloody herrings. The herrings were the least important part of the whole thing. Always, every time, it was about whether I could make a connection with the person I was talking to, in that couple of minutes I was hovering there with the case open. If they liked you, if they enjoyed you, maybe they’d buy. If they didn’t, they definitely wouldn’t. And that, you see, is what I carried away from that situation, when Mr Gersh came to his sad end not very much later, and the world changed, and nobody needed salesmen any more. That was the lesson that stayed valuable, that was the little jewel I picked up. Back then, people didn’t want to buy. Now, they don’t want to sell. There’s always that resistance to get past. But the trick of it stays the same: make a connection, build a relationship. Chekuskin’s First Law, my friend. Everything Is Personal. Everything – is – personal. Have another glass. And repeat after me. Everything …’
‘… is personal.’
‘Good boy. So what you get, you see, when you and Mr Konev sign me up, is all my relationships. I know everyone in this town that you need. I’m not kidding: everyone. And they regard me as a friend, they deal with me as a friend; and if I’m representing you, they deal with you as a friend too. Tell me this, all right: if you’re a canteen cook, and you’re handing out the soup through the hatch, and you’ve got one bowl left, and in all that crowd of faces there’s someone you know, who’re you going to give the soup to?’
‘Well, the friend –’
‘Exactly –’
‘But what if there’s two people you know, in the crowd?
‘Fair point,’ said Chekuskin, holding up his hands like someone stumped by a chess move. ‘A very fair point. Then, all other ery timeeing equal, the advantage goes, doesn’t it, to the friend who’s going to be able to do you a good turn back, one of these days. And again, that’s an advantage we want you to have in this case. Which is why, when you sign up with me, I will not just be asking you to pay me a monthly retainer which will make your eyes water, but which you will pay, because I am worth every kopeck; and my expenses, which will be large. I will also be asking you to trust me, and to make just a little bit of your output available, now and again, when I ask you to ship it somewhere. Because friends look after friends; and when you’re with me, you aren’t just friends with the people you do business with direct, you’re friends with everyone I’m friends with. And that’s enough people, I promise you, to solve virtually any problem you may have. So tell me, while we get another bottle of this good sweet wine here – what are you worrying about, just now? What can I help you with?’
And Stepovoi, oiled by Azerbaijani red, began to talk. Chekuskin relaxed a little, for once the confidences were flowing, the danger was usually past. He had told the story of Mr Gersh’s herrings so many times now he barely remembered the experience, as opposed to the anecdote; or the particular nature of Gersh’s sad end, and the part played in it by his own need to extricate himself. Depending on the audience, he called Gersh a ‘gentleman’ sometimes, sometimes a ‘capitalist’, sometimes a ‘yid’.
*
By three, he was free, leaving Stepovoi with the promise of tickets for the theatre that night. The clouds had not yet unzipped their bellies and let down the snow, but the short day was dimming to a grey murk, in which the red tail-lights of the traffic gleamed. He was in a hurry again. Viktor called him a taxi, and he rode eastward, between warehouse walls, to the zone of new construction, his briefcase banging hollow on his knee. He sucked a peppermint as he checked the other item inside it, a good fat bankroll secured by rubber bands, with a brown hundred on the outside. He was not, himself, a great believer in money. You could hardly get anything important with it, by itself. But there were a few places it was indispensable. He thought a bit, and then, screened by the opened case, took apart the roll and moved a plum-coloured twenty-five to the outside. In the company he was going to, money boasted, money bragged, money swaggered, and the hundred-rouble bill, though it represented a month’s wages for a drone in an office, was the same dull brown as the lowly one-rouble, and only a little bit larger. In the company he was going to, it was wise to avoid creating even a momentary disappointment. The taxi had started to labour: the snow was deeper here, out among the half-finished buildings where only construction vehicles passed. Chekuskin tapped the driver on the shoulder to stop, and got out. Even on foot the going was hard. His short legs sank into the drifts past his knees, and where they rose to smooth little crests he had to clamber, with his gloved hands outstretched and the briefcase dragging flat over the soft fresh surfaces like an inefficient leather snowshoe. The cluster of cranes against the sky ahead were not working today; snowfall had thickened their outlines, bulked them out with cornices of white, till they looked birdlike, looming over the snow-choked building site like giant herons or storks, long beaks pointing. Beyond, in the tight gap between two new concrete blocks, an old little wooden building still stood. It had been slated for demolition, but it had not been knocked down, and now would not be. Chekuskin had helped to get it designated as the bathhouse for the neighbourhood rising around it. Whether the future flat-dwellers would ever see the inside of it was another matter. A bullyboy in a leather coat was leaning against the doolowly chewing. He watched Chekuskin’s slow
progress without moving, and did not offer a hand up the steps when he pulled free of the last drift, and paused to stamp and to beat at his coat-tails. ‘You’re late,’ he said, although Chekuskin was not. ‘So don’t keep me waiting,’ said Chekuskin, with as much snap as he could muster. ‘Steady there, little man,’ said the gatekeeper. He cracked the grey front door a few scant centimetres, and Chekuskin sidled through into sweltering heat.
Inside the banya was lit not by electricity but by a few hissing hurricane lamps which gleamed on moist flesh and left the rest of the place in ruddy gloom. It smelt of shredded leaves and old wood rotting. Steam licked at Chekuskin’s pores; even here, in the cooler, outer room, he felt himself begin to liquefy, to ooze, inside his clothes. He unwound his scarf and degloved, but undressing here was definitely by invitation only, and no one was suggesting he should hang his suit up and trip onward to the hot room in a towel alone. In a curious way, as he knew from previous appointments here, being the only clothed one among the naked left you feeling as vulnerable as if you were the only naked person in a roomful of the clothed. It was the difference that did the work. No, no one was making any invitations, no one was speaking at all; the rumble of male chat had stopped the moment he came in, they had looked up from the card games and were gazing at Chekuskin as if a dog turd had had the impudence to walk in. Up bare arms, across bare chests, tattoos wriggled in such profusion, blue on Russian winter white, that their skins looked like willow-pattern china. Except that the lines of the tattooing wandered amateurishly, and blurred beneath scrims of fat; and no one would have printed on a cup or a bowl what these citizens had imprinted on themselves, not the swastikas, not a Madonna off an icon right next to some detailed gynaecology, not the bleeding knives and the garlands of cocks and the homemade kama sutras. A kid with a broken nose, less heavily illustrated than the others, and less musclebound, jerked his head toward the inner door and reluctantly led him through.
Red Plenty Page 29
