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

XXXVI

THE CO-OWNER OF FALANSTER, Boris Kupriyanov, was manning the cash register when Close to Zero walked up to pay for Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi. Kupriyanov asked him where he’d been, but the buyer only waved his hand: oh, don’t ask. When they killed Kostya, Close to Zero came to the director and said that he wanted to go home and was even prepared to refuse compensation for his lectures, especially since he had not managed to get to the lecture on Internet polemics. The director said that he understood and that he was counting on his common sense, and the money, of course, would be paid all the same; and he recommended he take the money and go on vacation somewhere like Turkey. “Most importantly, don’t drink,” he added for some reason. Close to Zero said nothing in reply; but on that day, or to be precise, from that day on, he felt like a nightmarish ghoul. He didn’t go to Turkey, and he also, of course, contradicted the director’s most important recommendation, albeit in absentia: he drank and drank and drank, and when he was tired of drinking, he remembered that books existed, and he headed to Gnezdnikovsky. He saw the cover of Mutants and almost laughed out loud—the jury is still out on who’s really a mutant.

He walked along Tverksaya looking at the ground as he went, took the underground crosswalk to Manezh Square, made his way to the statue of Marshall Zhukov, and called the commander a butcher, then walked onto Red Square and for some reason headed into GUM.

Some kind of scandalous scene was taking place in GUM. A young salesgirl was crying, she was very beautiful and well put-together. Close to Zero knew this type—they sell expensive junk and then at some point start to believe that this luxury is part of their own cheap little lives. They begin to look down on their shoppers as if they were shit, and if some kind of shittily dressed woman starts to cry it only means that justice has been served. Close to Zero looked all around. Justice had taken the form of a doe-eyed, curly-haired brunette, maybe in her forties, who was shouting something apparently important. Close to Zero listened more closely, but heard nothing but “a vest from Yarmak” and “I am a reporter of international standing.” But to him this was enough, this one word: “reporter.” Puzzle solved.