*perestroika (rus) = reconstruction
“Alright, that’s it for today. I’ve got Osipov at noon. Everyone back to your stations,” the boss said, pushing away from the table to end the meeting. Chairs scraped. I snapped back into reality with some effort and slid my hand off Yulka’s knee. Her eyes, too, drifted back into focus; her faint dreamy smile vanished, replaced by a brisk, professional look. Right. Even if you’re the boss’s daughter, at this moment you’re a member of the campaign staff like everyone else—including me.
“Mr. Maksimov, I head to the radio station right now, yes?” Zhanna—our PR goddess—liked to show how eager she was. Hoping for a shiny position after the victory. Sure, sure.
“Yes, go.”
The boss headed for the exit, stroking his mustache. Vaska the bodyguard hurried after him. The rest followed in a loose swarm. I let everyone pass—except Yulka—hoping to brush some secret inch of her again, or plant a lightning-quick kiss on her ear. The boss still had no clue about our madness. Secrecy was survival.
Meetings, as always on Mondays, were held at the boss’s country mansion, so we still had to drive into town. I had an appointment with our “sponsors”—Boar and Cocky—to talk about next month’s contributions. Boss had decided that since I was a former Afghan vet, I should handle the budget: supposed to know how to speak to the gangsters. And I did speak their language. Over the past couple of years we’d crossed paths plenty—markets, gyms, clubs. Sometimes I caught myself thinking that our Afghan community, inspired by change and once fighting for justice, was slowly turning into a gang of its own. That was only one slice of my growing disappointment.
I gave Yulka’s elbow one last stealthy squeeze as she walked toward Daddy’s Mercedes, then turned toward my own car parked nearby.
That’s when I noticed something truly out of place.
Across from the Mercesdes, a little way off, sat a grimy Lada “Nine” with its engine running—little puffs of smoke from the tailpipe. What the hell was a Nine doing here? People around here drove different cars. While I stood there stupidly trying to process it, both side windows of the Nine slid down—and I understood, in a burst of ice, what was about to happen.
Seconds slowed.
Like in a dream shot on slow motion, two gun barrels rose in the windows. My brain screamed at my body to sprint for the Mercedes. But my body moved like it was underwater. I crossed maybe half the twenty meters between me and the boss, Yulka, and Vaska when the barrels spat in stuttering fire.
All three went down as if someone cut their strings. I felt a hard punch in my thigh and something slash across my forehead. I knew what it was—I hadn’t forgotten what wounds felt like. I hit the ground and, shielding my head with my arm, tried to crawl to them.
The shooting stopped. I heard an engine roar, tires squeal, then scattered screams around me. A few seconds later I reached them. The boss lay in a dead heap, a dark pool spreading underneath him. Vaska groaned, trying to rise, clawing toward his holster. And Yulka—my Yulka—lay motionless on her back, dark hair spilled across the asphalt, several black blooms spreading on her pale blouse.
I was back at war.
Blood blurred my vision. Without lifting myself off the ground I tried to feel her pulse, but I couldn’t reach her neck or her wrist. Red lights started bursting behind my eyes, and I fell into darkness.
***
“Toshka… so what did you decide? How much longer are you gonna sit there? When will you file for your visa?”
“Soon. Soon. Don’t push.”
“Come on already. Stop dragging this out. Nothing’s keeping you there.”
“Alright. I’ll file this week.”
“How’s your leg?”
“Fine. Doesn’t really bother me anymore.”
“Good. Don’t stall. Take care.”
I hung up. Sasha, my older brother—we’d been in Afghanistan together—called nearly every week, urging me to get out. He’d left a few months ago, came to the States on a tourist visa, then filed to change status.
About half a year had passed since the death of Andrei Maksimov, who’d tried to get into the regional Duma, and Yulka, his daughter and my burning secret love. Nothing was keeping me here now, that was true. Tomorrow I’d gather my papers and fight my way into the embassy.
***
Three years earlier Sasha and I had come home from Afghanistan, resigned from the army, and plunged headlong into the cooperative boom. We even made something of it. Trying to make sense of the chaos around us, we backed people who were fighting for “democracy” and “perestroyka” We didn’t want a return to the Soviet past. We welcomed everything new.
A year ago we met Andrei Petrovich Maksimov—a former professor—who invited Sasha and me into his firm. Probably figured bright guys with degrees and combat experience could be useful. Maksimov had started making money earlier than we had; he told us that back in the mid-80s he’d already begun running “research contracts” through the newborn cash-out schemes. By the time we met, he’d built a tidy capital.
A couple of months later he dove into politics, aiming for a seat in the regional Duma. Sasha and I joined his campaign staff and threw ourselves into it, naïvely thinking that our team would soon be able to fight seriously for a fair new society.
But the rose-colored glasses dimmed fast.
The pretty slogans turned out to be camouflage for the war over power and money, used to recruit naïve voters—young and not so young—who like us “wanted change,” freedom to earn, travel, speak out… you know the drill.
In reality the “democrats,” the “communists,” and everyone else behaved the same way: scheming, bribing, forming clans and alliances, and sometimes physically removing the inconvenient—always for the same two things: power and money. They’d thrown real ideals in the trash, yet never forgot to proclaim them from podiums.
Sasha understood this before I did. One day he said he was leaving Maksimov. Soon after he told me he was getting out of the country—Israel, the States, anywhere that worked.
And he left.
By then something else had happened to me: Yulia Maksimova. Slim, striking brunette with big, intelligent eyes. She hooked me with her crooked ironic smile and—apparently—the fact that I’d hooked her too. Everything clicked: she was twenty-five, I was thirty, she was beautiful, I wasn’t bad either, we were great in bed and had things to say outside of it. Our “office romance,” which we kept under wraps, shoved everything else aside. I brushed Sasha off whenever he asked me to come.
Then everything collapsed.
Really—why was I still here? I’d walked away from business, didn’t want to be a gangster, didn’t believe in politics anymore. The country was going rabid—some shot, some got rich, some lost everything.
Sasha was right. Like in that old joke: you’ve got to leave, dead or alive. Time.
Igor Metalski
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