a Kalashnikov and pointed it at his
companion's face.
'What's wrong, Salaman?' Berezovsky asked quietly, automatically
raising his hands.
'What's wrong? I'll tell you. There's a man who gets paid for splashing
piss on the skin of Allah, and this man is still alive. That's what's
wrong.'
The insert with the Jordanian uniform disappeared, the thin lines of
the skeleton returned to the screen and the Kalashnikov was transformed into
a wavering line of dots. The upper section of Berezovsky's head, at which
this line was pointed, was concealed by an animation patch with a Socratean
brow covered with large beads of sweat among sparse hair.
'Easy, now, Salaman, easy,' said Berezovsky. 'Two men with bullets in
their heads at one table would be too much. Don't get excited.'
'What d'you mean, don't get excited? You're going to wash away every
drop of piss you've spilled on Allah with a bucket of your blood, I'm
telling you.'
Furiously working thought was reflected in Berezovsky's screwed-up
eyes. That was what it said in the scenario - 'furiously working thought' -
and Tatarsky couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of technology could
have allowed the an-imators to achieve such literal accuracy.
'Listen,' said Berezovsky, 'I'll start getting worried if you keep this
up. Of course my head isn't armour-plated, that's obvious. But then neither
is yours, as you know very well. And my protection are all over the place .
. . Aha . . . That's what they told you on your radio?
Raduev laughed. 'They wrote in Fortes magazine that you grasp
everything instantly. Looks like they were right.'
'You subscribe to Forties[7]'
'Why not? Chechnya's part of Europe now. We should know our clientele.'
'If you're so fucking cultured,' Berezovsky said irritably, 'then why
can't we talk like two fucking Europeans? Without all this barbarism?'
'Go on then.'
'You said I would wash away every drop of piss with a bucket of my
blood, right?'
'Right,' Raduev agreed with dignity. 'And I'll say it again.'
'But you can't wash away piss with blood. It's not Tide, you know.'
(Tatarsky had the idea that the phrase 'You can't wash away piss with
blood' would make a wonderful slogan for an all-Russian campaign for Tide,
but it was too dark for him to note it down.)
"That's true,' Raduev agreed.
'And then, you agree that nothing in the world happens against Allah's
will?'
'Yes.'
'Right then, let's go further. Surely you don't think that I could ...
I could . . . well, that I could do what I've done if it was against the
will of Allah?'
'No.'
'Then let's go further,' Berezovsky continued confidently. 'Try looking
at things this way: I'm simply an instrument in the hands of Allah, and what
Allah does and why are beyond understanding. And then, if it wasn't Allah's
will, I wouldn't have gathered all the TV towers and anchormen in my three
squares. Right?'
'Right.'
'Can we stop here?'
Raduev stuck the barrel of the gun against Berezovsky's forehead. 'No,'
he said. 'We'll go a bit further than you suggest. I'll tell you what the
old folks say in my village. They say that according to Allah's original
idea this world should be like a sweet raspberry that melts in your mouth,
but people like you with their avarice have turned it into piss coming into
contact with skin. Perhaps it is Allah's wish that people like you should
come into the world; but Allah is merciful, and so it is his will too that
people like you who stop life tasting like a sweet raspberry should be blown
away. After talking to you for five minutes life tastes like piss that's
eaten away all my brains, get it? And in fucking Europe they pay
compensation for things like that, get it? Haven't you ever heard of
deprived adulthood?'
Berezovsky sighed. 'I see you prepared thoroughly for our talk. All
right, then. What kind of compensation?
'I don't know. You'd have to something pleasing to God.'
'For instance?'
'I don't know,' Raduev repeated. 'Build a mosque; but it would have to
be a very big mosque. Big enough to pray away the sin I've committed by
sitting at the same table with a man who has splashed piss on the skin of
the Inexpressible.'
'I'm with you,' said Berezovsky, lowering his hands slightly. 'And to
be precise, just how big?'
'I think the first contribution would be ten million.'
'Isn't that a lot?'
'I don't know if it's a lot or not,' said Raduev, stroking his beard
pensively, 'because we can only comprehend the notions of "a lot" and "a
little" in comparative terms. But perhaps you noticed a herd of goats when
you arrived at my headquarters?' 'I noticed them. What's the connection?'
'Until that twenty million arrives in my account in the Islamic bank,
seventeen times every hour they'll duck you in a barrel of goat's piss, and
it'll come into contact with your skin, and cause irritation, and you'll
have plenty of time to think about whether it's a lot or a little -
seventeen times an hour.'
'Hey-hey-hey,' said Berezovsky, lowering his hands. 'What's that? Just
a moment ago it was ten million.' 'You forgot about the dandruff.'
'Listen Salaman, my dear, that's not the way business is done.' 'Do you
want to pay another ten for the smell of sweat?' Raduev asked, shaking his
automatic. 'Do you?'
'No, Salaman,' Berezovsky said wearily. 'I don't want to pay for the
smell of sweat. Tell me, by the way, who is it filming us with that hidden
camera?' 'What camera?'
'What's that briefcase over there on the window sill?' Berezovsky
jabbed his finger towards the screen.
'Ah, spawn of Satan,' Raduev muttered and raised his automatic.
A white zigzag ran cross the screen, everything went dark, and the the
lights came on in the hall.
Azadovsky exchanged glances with Morkovin. 'Well, what do you think?'
Tatarsky asked timidly. 'Tell me, where do you work?' Azadovsky asked
disdainfully. 'In Berezovsky's PR department or in my dirt squad?' 'In the
dirt squad,' Tatarsky replied.
'What were you asked for? A scenario of negotiations between Raduev and
Berezovsky, with Berezovsky giving the Chechen terrorists twenty million
dollars. And what's this you've written? He's not giving them money! You've
got him building a mosque! A fucking good job it's not the Cathedral of
Christ the Saviour. If we didn't produce Berezovsky ourselves, I might
imagine you were being paid by him. And who's this Raduev of yours? Some
kind of professor of theology? He reads magazines even I've never heard of.'
'But there has to be some development of the plot, some logic...'
'I don't want logic, I want dirt. And this isn't dirt, it's just plain
shit. Understand?'
'Yes/ replied Tatarsky, lowering his eyes.
Azadovsky softened slightly.
'But in general/ he stated, 'there is a certain healthy core to it. The
first plus is that it makes you hate television. You want to watch it and
hate it, watch it and hate it.. The second plus is that game of Monopoly.
Was that your own idea?'
'Yes,' Tatarsky said, more brightly.
"That works. Terrorist and oligarch dividing up the people's wealth at
the gaming table . . . The punters'll go raging mad at that.'
'But isn't it a bit too . . / Morkovin put in, but Azadovsky
interrupted him.
'No. The most important thing is to keep brains occupied and feelings
involved. So this move with the Monopoly is OK. It'll improve the news
rating by five per cent at least. That means it'll increase the value of one
minute at prime time...'
Azadovsky took his calculator out of his pocket and began to press tiny
buttons.
' ... by nine thousand,' he said when he'd finished. 'So what does that
mean for an hour? Multiply by seventeen. Not bad. We'll do it. To cut it
short, let them play Monopoly and you tell the producer to inter-cut it with
shots of queues for the savings bank, miners, old women, hungry children,
wounded soldiers - the works. Only take out that stuff about TV anchormen,
or else we'll have to create a stink over it. Better give them a new piece
for their Monopoly - a TV drilling tower. And have Berezovsky say he wants
to build these towers everywhere so they can pump out oil and pump in
advertising at the same time. And do a montage of the Ostankino TV tower
with a rock drill. How d'you like it?'
'Brilliant,' Tatarsky readily agreed.
'How about you?' Azadovsky asked Morkovin.
'I'm for it one hundred per cent.'
'Yeah, right! I could replace the lot you all on my own. Right, listen
to the doctor's orders. Morkovin, you give him that new guy who writes about
food for reinforcements. We'll leave Raduev basically the way he is, only
give him a fez instead of that cap of his; I'm sick of it already. That
means we get in a poke at Turkey as well. And then I've been meaning to ask
for ages about his dark glasses. Why's he always wearing them? Are we saving
time on rendering the eyes or something?'
'That's right,' said Morkovin. 'Raduev's always in the news, and dark
glasses cut down the time by twenty per cent. We get rid of all the
expressions.' Azadovsky's face darkened somewhat. 'God grant, we'll get this
business with the frequency sorted out. But give Berezovsky a boost, OK?'
'OK.'
'And do it now, urgent material.'
'We'll do it,' answered Morkovin. 'As soon as the viewing's over we'll
go back to my office.' 'What have we got next?' 'Ads for televisions. A new
type.'
Tatarsky rose halfway out of his chair, but Morkovin put out a hand to
stop him.
'Get on with it,' Azadovsky said with a wave of his hand. 'There's
still twenty minutes to go.'
The lights went out again. A small, pretty Japanese woman in a kimono
appeared on the screen. She was smiling. She bowed and then spoke with a
distinct accent:
'You will now be addressed by Yohohori-san. Yohohori-san is the oldest
employee at Panasonic, which is why he has been given this honour. He
suffers from a speech impediment due to war wounds, so please, dear viewers,
forgive him this shortcoming.'
The young woman moved aside. A thickset Japanese man appeared, holding
a sword in a black scabbard. At his side there was a black streamlined
television looking like an eye ripped from the head of some huge monster -
the comparison occurred to Tatarsky because the background was scarlet.
'Panasonic presents a revolutionary invention in the world of
television,' said the Japanese. "The first television in the world with
voice control in all languages of the planet, including Russian. Panasword
V-2!
The Japanese stared into the viewer's eyes with an intense hatred and
suddenly pulled his sword from its scabbard.
'Sword forged in Japan!' he yelled, setting the cutting edge up against
the camera lens. 'Sword that will slit the throat of the putrefied world!
Long live the Emperor!'
Some people in white medical coats fluttered across the screen - Mr
Yohohori was ushered off somewhere, a pale-faced girl in a kimono began
bowing in apology and across all this disgrace appeared the Panasonic logo.
A low voice-over commented with satisfaction: 'Panasodding!'
Tatarsky heard a telephone trill.
'Hello,' said Azadovsky's voice in the darkness. 'What? I'm on my way.'
He stood up, blocking out part of the screen.
'Ogh,' he said, 'seems like Rostropovich'll get another medal today.
They're about to call me from America. I sent them a fax yesterday telling
them democracy was in danger and asking them to raise the frequency two
hundred megahertz. They finally seem to have twigged we're all in the same
business.'
Tatarsky suddenly had the impression that Azadovsky's shadow on the
screen wasn't real, but just an element of a video recording, a black
silhouette like the ones you get in pirate copies of films shot from the
cinema screen. For Tatarsky these black shadows on their way out of the
cinema, known to the owners of underground video libraries as 'runners',
served as a special kind of quality indicator: the influence of the
displacing wow-factor drove more people out of a good film than a bad one,
so he usually asked for the 'films with runners' to be kept for him; but now
he felt almost afraid at the thought that if a man who'd just been sitting
beside you could turn out to be a runner, it could mean you were just
another runner yourself. The feeling was complex, profound and new, but
Tatarsky had no time to analyse it: humming a vague tango, Azadovsky
wandered over to the edge of the screen and disappeared.
The next video began in a more traditional manner. A family - father,
mother, daughter with a pussy cat and granny with a half-knitted stocking -
were sitting round a fire in a hearth set in a strange mirror-surface wall.
As they gazed into the flames blazing behind the grate, they made rapid,
almost caricatured movements: the granny knitted, the mother gnawed on the
edge of a piece of pizza, the daughter stroked the pussy cat and the father
sipped beer. The camera moved around them and passed in through the
mirror-wall. From the other side the wall was transparent: when the camera
completed its movement, the family was overlaid by the flames in the hearth
and bars of the grate. An organ rumbled threateningly; the camera pulled
back and the transparent wall was transformed into the flat screen of a
television with stereo speakers at each side and the coy inscription
Tofetis-simo' on its black body. The image on television showed flames in
which four black figures were jerking in rapid movements behind metal bars.
The organ fell silent and an insidious announcer's voice took over:
'Did you think there was a vacuum behind the absolutely flat Black
Trinitron's screen? No! there's a flame blazing there that will warm your
heart! The Sony Tofetissimo. It's a Sin.'
Tatarsky didn't understand very much of what he'd seen; he just thought
that the coefficient of involvement could be greatly improved if the slogan
was replaced by another reference to those Sex-Shop Dogs or
what-d'you-call-them: Go Fumes.
'What was that?' he asked, when the lights came on. 'It wasn't much
like an advertisement.'
Morkovin smiled smugly.
'It's not; that's the whole point,' he said. 'In scientific terms, it's
a new advertising technology reflecting the reaction of market mechanisms to
the increasing human revulsion at market mechanisms. To cut it short, the
viewer is supposed gradually to develop the idea that somewhere in the world
-say, in sunny California - there is a final oasis of freedom unconstrained
by the thought of money, where they make advertisements like this one. It's
profoundly anti-market in form, so it promises to be highly market-effective
in content.'
He looked to make sure there was no one else in the hall and began
talking in a whisper.
'And now down to business. I don't think this place is bugged, but talk
quietly just in case. Well done, that went just great. Here's your share.'
Three envelopes appeared in his hand - one fat and yellow and two
rather slimmer.
'Hide these quick. This is twenty from Berezovsky, ten from Raduev and
another two from the Chechens. Theirs is the thickest because it's in small
bills. They took up a collection round the hill villages.'
Tatarsky swallowed hard, took the envelopes and quickly stuffed them
into the inside pockets of his jacket. 'Do you think Azadovsky could have
twigged?' he whispered.
Morkovin shook his head.
'Listen,' whispered Tatarsky, glancing round again, 'how is this
possible? I can understand about the hill villages, but Berezovsky doesn't
exist, and neither does Raduev. That is, they do exist, but they're only a
combination of ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes. How can they send us
money?'
Morkovin shrugged.
'I don't really understand it myself,' he answered in a whisper. 'Maybe
it's some interested parties or other. Maybe some gangs are involved and
they're re-defining their image. Probably if you work it all out it all
comes back down to us. Only why bother to work it all out? Where else are
you going to earn thirty grand a throw? Nowhere. So don't worry about it.
Nobody really understands a single thing about the way this world works.'
The projectionist stuck his head into the hall. 'Hey, are you guys
going to stay there much longer?'
'We're discussing the clips,' Morkovin whispered.
Tatarsky cleared his throat.
'If I've grasped the difference correctly,' he said in an unnaturally
loud voice, 'then an ordinary advertisement and what we've seen are like
straight pop-music and the alternative music scene?'
'Precisely,' Morkovin replied just as loudly, rising to his feet and
glancing at his watch. 'But just what exactly is alternative music - and
what is pop? How would you define it?'
'I don't know,' Tatarsky answered. 'From the feel, I suppose.'
They walked past the projectionist loitering in the doorway and went
towards the lifts.
"There is a precise definition,' said Morkovin didactically.
'Alternative music is music the commercial essence of which consists in its
extreme anti-commercial ethos. Its anti-pop quality, so to speak. Which
means that, in order to get this quality right, an alternative musician must
first of all be a really shrewd merchant, and those are rare in the music
business. There are plenty of them, of course, but they're not performers,
they're managers ... OK, relax. Have you got the text with you?'
Tatarsky nodded.
'Let's go to my office. I'll give you a co-author, just like Azadovsky
ordered. And I'll stick the co-author three grand so he won't spoil the
scenario.'
Tatarsky had never gone up to the seventh floor where Morkovin worked.
The corridor they entered on leaving the lift looked dull and reminded him
of an old Soviet-period office building - the floor was covered with scuffed
and dirty wooden parquet and the doors were upholstered with black imitation
leather. On each door, though, there was an elegant metal plaque with a code
consisting of numbers and letters. There were only three letters - 'A', '0'
and 'D', but they occurred in various combinations. Morkovin stopped beside
a door with a plaque marked 'i - A-D' and entered a code in the digital
lock.
Morkovin's office was imposingly large and impressively furnished. The
desk alone had obviously cost several times as much as Tatarsky's Mercedes.
This masterpiece of the furniture-maker's art was almost empty - there was a
file containing papers and two telephones without number pads, one red and
one white. There was also a strange device: a small metal box with a glass
panel in its top. Hanging above the desk was a picture that Tatarsky took at
first for a cross between a socialist realist landscape and a piece of Zen
calligraphy. It showed a bushy corner of a shady garden depicted with
photographic precision, but daubed carelessly across the bushes was a giant
hieroglyph covered with identical green circles.
'What's that?'
'The president out walking,' said Morkovin. 'Azadovsky presented it to
me to create an air of responsible authority. Look, you see, the skeleton's
wearing a tie. And some kind of badge as well - it's right on top of a
flower, so you have to look closely. But that's just something the artist
dreamed up.'
Turning away from the picture, Tatarsky noticed they weren't alone in
the office. At the far end of the spadous room there was a stand with three
flat monitors and ergonomic keyboards, with their leads disappearing into a
wall covered with cork. A guy with a ponytail was sitting at one of the
monitors and grazing his mouse with lazy movements on a small grey mat. His
ears were pierced by at least ten small earrings, and there were two more
passing through his left nostril. Remembering Morkovin's advice to prick
himself with something sharp whenever he began thinking about the lack of
any general order of things in the Universe, Tatarsky decided this wasn't a
case of excessive enthusiasm for piercing; it was the result of close
proximity to the technological epicentre of events - the guy with the
ponytail simply never bothered to remove his pins.
Morkovin sat at the desk, picked up the receiver of the white phone and
issued a brief instruction.
'Your co-author'll be here in a minute,' he said to Tatarsky. 'You
haven't been here before, have you? These terminals are linked into the main
render-server. And this man here is our head designer, Semyon Velin. You
realise what a responsibility that is?'
Tatarsky deferentially approached the guy at the computer and glanced
at the screen, which showed a trembling grid of finely spaced blue lines.
The lines were linked up in the form of two extended hands, the palms held
close together with the middle fingers touching. They were slowly revolving
around an invisible vertical axis. In some elusive fashion the picture
reminded Tatarsky of a shot from a low-budget science-fiction movie of the
eighties. The guy with the ponytail moved his mouse across the mat, stuck
the arrow of the cursor into a menu that appeared at the top of the screen
and the angle between the palms of the hands changed.
'Didn't I say we should program in the golden section straightaway?' he
said, turning to face Morkovin.
'What are you talking about?'
"The angle. We should have made it the same as in the Egyptian
pyramids. It'll give the viewer this unconscious feeling of harmony, peace
and happiness.'
'Why are you wasting time messing about with that old rubbish?'
Morkovin asked. '"Our Home Russia" has no chance.'
'"Our Home Russia" be buggered,' Velin replied. "They had a good slogan
- "The Roof of Your House". We can make this roof out of fingers. The target
group will instantly be reminded of bandits' finger-talk and the works. The
message will be clear: we provide protection. We're bound to come back round
to it anyway.'
'OK,' said Morkovin, 'put in your golden section. Let the punters
relax. Only don't mention it in the documentation.'
'Why not?'
'Because,' said Morkovin, 'you and I know what the golden section is.
But the accounts department' - he jerked his head upwards - 'might not
approve the budget. They'll think if it's gold it must be expensive. They're
economising on "Our Home Russia" now.'
'I get you,' said Velin. "Then I'll just put in the angle. Call to get
them to open the root directory.'
Morkovin pulled over the red phone.
'Hello? This is Morkovin from the anal-displacement department. Open
the root directory for terminal five. We're doing some cosmetic repairs. All
right...'
'That's done,' said Morkovin. 'Just a moment. Alia, Semyon wants to ask
you something.'
Velin grabbed the receiver. 'Alia, hi! Could you check the hair density
for Chernomyrdin? What? No, that's the whole point, I need it for the
poster. OK, I'm writing - thirty-two hpi, colour Ray-Ban black. Have you
given me access? OK, then that's the lot.'
'Listen,' Tatarsky asked quietly, when Velin was back at his terminal,
'what's that - hpi?'
'Hairs per inch,' Morkovin answered. 'Like dots per inch with those
laser printers.'
'And what does that mean - "the anal displacement department"?'
"That's what our department is called.'
'Why such a strange name?'
'Well it's the general theory of elections/ Morkovin said with a frown.
'To cut it short, there should always be three wow-candidates: oral, anal
and displacing. Only don't go asking me what that means, you don't have
security clearance yet. And anyway I don't remember. All I can say is that
in normal countries they get by with the oral and anal wow-candidates,
because the displacement has been completed;
but things are only just getting started here and we need the
displacing candidate as well. We give him about fifteen per cent of the
votes in the first round. I think I can write you a clearance if you're that
interested.'
'Thanks,' said Tatarsky, 'forget it.'
'Dead right. Why the fuck should you strain your brains on your salary.
The less you know, the easier you breathe.'
'Exactly,' said Tatarsky, noting to himself that if Davidoff started
making ultra-lights there couldn't possibly be a better slogan.
Morkovin opened his file and took up a pencil. Out of a sense of
delicacy Tatarsky moved away to the wall and began studying the sheets of
paper and pictures pinned to it. At first his attention was caught by a
photograph of Antonio Banderas in the Hollywood masterpice Stepan Banderas.
Ban-deras, romantically unshaven, holding a giant balalaika case, was
standing on the outskirts of some abstract Ukrainian village and gazing
sadly at a burned-out Russian tank in a sunflower chaparral (from the first
glance at the crowd of droopy-mustachioed villagers in their
cockerel-embroidered ponchos, who were squinting at the reddish-yellow sun,
it was obvious that the film had been shot in Mexico). The poster wasn't
genuine - it was a collage. Some anonymous joker had matched up Banderas'
torso in dark leather with a heavy-assed pair of girl's legs in dark-brown
tights. There was a slogan under the image:
SAN PELEGRINO TIGHTS FASHIONED TO RESIST ANY STRAIN
Sellotaped directly on to the poster was a fax on the letterhead of
Young and Rubicam. The text was short:
Sergei! Essence correction/or three brands:
Chubais-green stuff in the bank/green stuff in the jar Yavlinsky -
think different / think doomsday ('Apple' doesn't object) Yeltsin -
stability in a coma /democracy in a coffin
Hi there, Wee Kolya.
'It's a weak idea for Chubais/ said Tatarsky, turning towards Morkovin,
'and where are the communists?'
'They write them in the oral displacement department/ Morkovin
answered. 'And thank God for that. I wouldn't take them for twice my
salary.'
'Do they pay more over there?'
'The same. But they have some guys who are willing to slave away for
free. You'll meet one of them in a moment, by the way.'
Hanging beside Banderas was a greetings card produced on a colour
printer, showing a golden double-headed eagle clutching a Kalashnikov in one
taloned foot and a pack of Marlboro in the other. There was an inscription
in gold below the eagle's feet:
SANTA BARBARA FOR EVER! THE RUSSIAN IDEA DEPARTMENT CONGRATULATES OUR
COLLEAGUES ON ST VARVARA'S DAY
To the right of the greetings card there was another advertising
poster: Yeltsin leaning over a chessboard on which no figures had been
moved. He was looking at it sideways on (the setting seemed to emphasise his
role as the supreme arbiter). The king and the rook on the white side had
been replaced by small bottles labelled 'Ordinary Whisky' and 'Black Label'.
Next to the chessboard there stood a small model of a seashore villa looking
more like a fortress. The text was:
BLACK LABEL: THE TIME TO CASTLE
Tatarsky reached for his notebook - an idea for another poster had
suddenly occurred to him.
He wrote down: 'A view from inside a car. The president's sullen face
with the window behind it. Outside in the street -poor old women, street
urchins, bandaged soldiers, etc. Inscription in large letters at the top of
the poster: "How low can we go?" In tiny print at the very bottom: "As low
as 2.9 per cent intro. Visa Next."'
There was a knock at the door. Tatarsky turned round and froze. So many
meetings with old acquaintances in the same day seemed rather unlikely -
into the office came Ma-lyuta, the anti-Semite copywriter he'd worked with
in Khanin's agency. He was dressed in a Turkish-made Russian folk shirt with
a soldier's belt supporting an entire array of office equipment: a mobile
phone, a pager, a Zippo lighter in a leather case and an awl in a narrow
black scabbard.
'Malyuta! What are you doing here?'
Malyuta, however, gave no sign of being surprised.
T write the image menu for the whole cabal,' he replied. 'Russian
style. Have you ever heard of pelmeni with kapusta? Or kvass with khrenok?
Those are my hits. And I work in the oral displacement department on
half-pay. Are you in dirt?'
Tatarsky didn't answer.
'You know each other?' Morkovin asked with curiosity. 'Yes, of course,
you worked together at Khanin's place. So you shouldn't have any problems
working together.'
'I prefer working alone/ Malyuta said drily. 'What d'you want done?'
'Azadovsky wants you to finish up a project. With Bere-zovsky and
Raduev. Don't touch Raduev, but you need to boost Berezovsky up a bit. I'll
call you this evening and give you a few instructions. Will you do it?'
'Berezovsky?' Malyuta asked. 'And how. When d'you need it?'
'Yesterday, as always.'
'Where's the draft?'
Morkovin looked at Tatarsky, who shrugged and handed Malyuta the file
with the printout of the scenario.
'Don't you want to talk with the author?' Morkovin asked. 'So he can
put you in the picture?'
'I'll figure it out for myself from the text. It'll be ready tomorrow
at ten.'
'OK, you know best.'
When Malyuta left the room, Morkovin said: 'He doesn't like you much.'
'Nor I him,' said Tatarsky. 'We had an argument once about geopolitics.
Listen, who's going to change that bit about the television-drilling
towers?'
'Damn, I forgot, A good job you reminded me - I'll explain it to him
this evening. And you'd better make peace with him. You know how bad our
frequency problem is right now, but Azadovsky's still allowed him one 3-D
general. To liven up the news. He's a guy with a future. No one can tell how
the market will shift tomorrow. Maybe he'll be head of department instead of
me, and then ...'
Morkovin didn't finish his train of thought. The door swung open and
Azadovsky burst into the room. Behind him came two of the guards with
Scorpions on their shoulders. Azadovsky's face was white with fury and he
was clenching and unclenching his fists with such force that Tatarsky was
reminded of the talons of the eagle from the greetings card. Tatarsky had
never seen him like this.
'Who edited Lebed the last time?'
'Semyon Velin, as usual,' Morkovin replied in fright. 'Why, what's
happened?'
Azadovsky turned towards the young guy with the ponytail.
'You?' he asked. 'Did you do this?'
'What?' asked Velin.
'Did you change Lebed's cigarettes? From Camel to Gitanes?'
'Yes I did,' said Velin. 'What of it? I just thought it would be better
stylistically. After we rendered him together with Alain Delon.'
'Take him away,' Azadovsky commanded.
'Wait, wait,' said Velin, thrusting his hands out in front of him in
fear. 'I'll explain everything . . .' But the guards were already dragging
him out into the corridor.
Azadovsky turned to face Morkovin and stared intensely at him for
several seconds.
'I knew nothing about it/ said Morkovin, 'I swear.'
"Then who is supposed to know about it? Me? D'you know where I just got
a call from? J. R. Reynolds Tobacco - who paid us for Lebed's Camels two
years in advance. You know what they said? They're going to get their
congressman to drop us fifty megahertz; and they'll drop us another fifty if
Lebed goes on air next time with Gitanes again. I don't know how much this
asshole was raking in from black PR, but we stand to lose a lot, an awful
rucking lot. Do we want to ride into the twenty-first fucking century on a
hundred megahertz? When's the next broadcast with Lebed?'
'Tomorrow. An interview on the Russian Idea. It's all rendered
already.'
'Have you watched the material?'
Morkovin clutched his head in his hands. 'I have,' he replied. 'Oh, God
. .. That's right. He's got Gitanes. I noticed it, but I thought it must
have been approved upstairs. You know I don't decide these things. I
couldn't imagine.'
'Where are his cigarettes? On the table?'
'If only! He waves the pack around all through the interview.'
'Can we undo?'
'Not the whole thing.'
'Change the design on the pack then?'
'Not that either. Gitanes are a different size; and the pack's in shot
all the time.'
'So what are we going to do?'
Azadovsky's gaze came to rest on Tatarsky, as though he'd only just
noticed him there. Tatarsky cleared his throat.
'Perhaps,' he said timidly, we could put in a patch with a pack of
Camel on the table? That's quite simple.'
'And then what? Have him waving one pack around in the air and the
other one lying in front of him? You're raving.'
'And we put the arm in plaster,' Tatarsky went on, giving way to a
sudden wave of inspiration. 'So we get rid of the pack.'
'In plaster?' Azadovsky repeated thoughtfully. 'But what'll we say?'
'An assassination attempt,' said Tatarsky.
'You mean they shot him in the arm?'
'No,' said Tatarsky, 'they tried to blow him up in his car.'
'And he's not going to say anything about the attempt to kill him in
the interview?' Morkovin asked.
Azadovsky thought for a moment. 'That's actually OK. Imperturbable -'
he waved his fist in the air - 'never even said a word. A real soldier.
We'll put the attack out in the news. And we won't just patch in a pack of
Camel on the table, we'll patch in a whole block. Let the bastards choke on
that.'
'What'll we say in the news?'
'As little as possible. Clues pointing to Chechens, the Islamic factor,
investigations proceeding and so forth. What car does Lebed's legend say he
drives? An old Mercedes? Get a film crew sent out into the country
straightaway, find an old Mercedes, blow it up and film it. It's got to be
on the air by ten. Say the general left immediately to get on with his work
and he's keeping up with his schedule. Yes, and have them find a fez at the
site of the crime, like the one Raduev's going to have. Is the idea clear?'
'Brilliant,' said Morkovin. 'It really is brilliant.'
Azadovsky gave a crooked smile that was more like a nervous twitch.
'But where'll we get an old Mercedes?' asked Morkovin. 'All ours are
new.'
'There's someone here who drives one,' said Azadovsky. 'I've seen it in
the parking lot.'
Morkovin looked up at Tatarsky.
'But . . . But . . .' Tatarsky mumbled, but Morkovin just shook his
head.
'No,' he said, 'forget it. Give me the keys.'
Tatarsky took his car keys out of his pocket and submissively placed
them in Morkovin's open hand.
'The seat-covers are new,' he said piteously; 'maybe I could take them
off?'
'Are you rucking crazy?' Azadovsky exploded. 'D'you want them to drop
us to fifty megahertz so we have to dismiss the government and disband the
Duma again? Bloody seat-covers! Use your head!'
The telephone rang in his pocket.
"Allo/ he said, raising it to his ear. 'What? I'll tell you what to do
with him. There's a camera crew going out into the country straightaway - to
film a bombed car. Take that arse-hole, put him in the driver's seat and
blow him up. Make sure there's blood and scraps of flesh, and you film it
all. It'll be a lesson for the rest of them, with their black PR ... What?
You tell him there isn't anything in the world more important than what's
about to happen to him. He shouldn't let himself be distracted by minor
details. And he shouldn't think he can tell me anything I don't already
know.'
Azadovsky folded up his phone and tossed it into his pocket, sighed
several times and clutched at his heart.
'It hurts,' he complained. 'Do you bastards really want me to have a
heart attack at thirty? Seems to me I'm the only one in this committee who's
not on the take. Everybody back to work on the double. I'm going to phone
the States. We might just get away with it.'
When Azadovsky left the room, Morkovin looked meaningfully into
Tatarsky's eyes, tugged a small tin box out of his pocket and tipped out a
pile of white powder on the desk.
'Right,' he said, 'be my guest.'
When the procedure was completed, Morkovin moistened his finger, picked
up the white grains left on the table and licked them off with his tongue.
'You were asking', he said, 'how things could be this way, what
everything's based on, who it's all controlled by. I tell you, all you need
to think about here is to cover your own ass and get your job done. There's
no time left for any other thoughts. And by the way, there's something you'd
better do:
put the money into your pockets and flush the envelopes down the John.
Straightaway. Just in case. The toilet's down the corridor on the left...'
Tatarsky locked himself in the cubicle and distributed the wads of
banknotes around his pockets - he'd never seen such a load of money at one
time before. He tore the envelopes into small pieces and threw the scraps
into the toilet bowl. A folded note fell out of one of the envelopes -
Tatarsky caught it in mid-air and read it:
Hi, guys! Thanks a lot/or sometimes allowing me to live a parallel
life. Without that the real one would be so disgusting! Good luck in
business, B. Berezovsky.
The text was printed on a laser printer, and the signature was a
facsimile. 'Morkovin playing the joker again,' thought Tatarsky. 'Or maybe
it's not Morkovin ...'
He crossed himself, pinched his thigh really hard and flushed the
toilet.
CHAPTER 14. Critical Times
They were shooting from the bridge, the way they do these
things in Moscow. The old T-8os only fired at long intervals, as though
the sponsors, short of money for shells, were afraid it would all be over
too quickly and so they wouldn't make the international news. There was
apparently some unwritten minimal requirement for reports from Russia: there
had to be at least three or maybe four tanks, a hundred dead and something
else as well - Tatarsky couldn't remember what exactly. This time an
exception must have been made because of the picturesque visual quality of
the events: although there were only two tanks, the quayside was packed with
television crews with their optical bazookas blasting out megatons of
somnolent human attention along the river Moscow at the tanks, the bronze
Peter the Great and the window behind which Tatarsky was concealed.
The cannon of one of the tanks standing on the bridge roared and the
same instant Tatarsky was struck by an interesting idea: he could offer the
people in the Bridge image-service the silhouette of a tank as a promising
logo to replace that incomprehensible eagle of theirs. In a split second -
less time than it took for the shell to reach its target - Tatarsky's
conscious mind had weighed up the possibilities ('the image of the tank
symbolises the aggressive power of the group and at the same time introduces
a traditional Russian note into the context of cosmopolitical finance') and
immediately the idea was rejected. "They'd piss themselves,' Tatarsky
decided. 'Pity, though.'
A shell caught Peter the Great in the head, but it didn't explode,
passing straight on through and continuing its flight roughly in the
direction of Gorky Park. A tall plume of steam shot up into the air.
Tatarsky remembered that the head of the monument contained a small
restaurant complete with full services and facilities, and he decided the
blank must have severed a pipe in the heating system. He heard the TV crews
yelling in delight. The swirling plume made Peter look li