Fardwor, Russia!: A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin

XII

AND YOU DON’T NEED to think that Mefody was malicious, because he wasn’t, but even if he was malicious, then it definitely wasn’t directed at his own brother. He loved Kirill more than anybody in the world, and it wasn’t Mefody’s fault that he’d hardly ever made his brother happy for all these years. But now he was going to catch up; he had come up with a real surprise, a surprise to end all surprises. Well, of course, how had he not thought of it right away? His brother wouldn’t see him the next day, but only after two weeks, and he wouldn’t see a midget but a normal, grown-up man, who would be able to appear at the meeting of the board of directors, and at negotiations, and at Pioneer readings, without the slightest shame at his appearance, because his appearance would very soon be not just ordinary, but the most ordinary in the whole world—Mefody was imagining this so feverishly that he fell asleep only when the red sun of dawn appeared in the window. And he slept through the day until evening.

And in the evening Karpov, who smelled of something terrible, spent a long time measuring Mefody with a tape measure, then asked him about all kinds of things—beginning with childhood illnesses and leading to the average number of calories in Mefody’s normal diet. Then the three of them—Mefody, Karpov and Marina—had eaten the leftover not-so-good borscht, then drank coffee, and it suddenly seemed to Mefody that these nice people were his own family, his real parents, and maybe he should think about turning his back on his on his family’s billions and just staying with these people. Mefody had since childhood loved to imagine various horrors, so as to later enjoy the realization that he had only been a game in his imagination, and everything was really fine and just the same.

Then he really began to grow, and the expensive suit that he had been wearing when he arrived at Karpov’s that night became too small for him, and Mefody agreed to give it away without regrets to Aunt Katya from next door whose grandson didn’t have anything to wear to school. In return, the billionaire received a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt that had belonged to Katya’s deceased husband, and he had the great pleasure of sitting in front of the mirror in those rags knowing that the next day they too would also be too small for him, and then he would have to borrow some jeans from the tall Karpov. Although he didn’t have to borrow them, he could just go to a normal, ordinary store and buy himself some ordinary clothes without having to order them specially, in the strictest secrecy (the Italian tailors signed non-disclosure papers drawn up by Slava on FPS letterhead and translated into English and Italian). With every new centimeter added, life became more and more wonderful.