And with that, he disappears – as usual, without so much as a goodbye. I remain alone – a loneliness that is now desirable, a blessing. I need some respite – to be on my own, without counselors or helpers, without brochures, even without Elsa the ice maiden. As Nestor promised, it’s been a very busy day. I want it to end at last.
Within a minute, my eyelids get heavy and my armchair reclines. Words and thoughts become confused in my head; my helpless memory fills with rustlings and murmurs.
Soon I fall asleep, and I begin to dream about a tycoon by the name of Ivan Brevich. And my next dream – on the next day – will also be about him. And the next one too – and the next one, and the next one after that.
BREVICH
Chapter 6
Three friends – “Vanyok,” “Sanyok” and “Valyok” – grew up together on the noisy streets of the Zamoskvorechye district of Moscow. They played the same games, studied at the local school and were inseparable throughout their childhood. Then their paths parted: having flunked his exams after an unhappy love affair, Valentin Sakhnov – Valyok – ended up in the army, in a special-forces unit, and for many years fell out of touch with his Moscow “contacts.” Vanyok – Ivan Brevich – and Sanyok – Alexander Danilov – got into the same university, but Danilov was a poor student and, at the end of the Andropov era, was expelled for illicitly trading with foreign tourists. He managed to avoid military service with the help of a doctor relative and drifted into the antique trade, although he didn’t exactly excel at it. Being disciplined and dogged, Brevich graduated with an engineering diploma but, with the Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, never put it to use. A new era of private business and easy money had arrived, and the friends threw themselves into “nouveau Russian” commerce.
For several years they were tossed on the fickle waters of these turbulent times. Together and individually, they made and lost small fortunes, learned how to deal with police and mobsters, tried their hands at all sorts of activities, until finally, by the end of the nineties, each had succeeded in his own way. Brevich established connections in the mayor’s office and started dealing in land in and around Moscow, while Danilov developed a sudden interest in air-conditioners after a chance deal involving them. He bought into someone else’s business, “wrested” it from an incompetent partner, then found a good supplier in Europe, and things began to develop rapidly. The machines fascinated him; he loved them with all his heart. The principle of their workings remained a mystery to him, but the results they produced – arctic cold, emerging from apparently nowhere – never ceased to delight him. He liked to stand in front of the cooling units, putting his hands in the icy blasts of air. They seemed evidence to him of the greatest triumph of the mind, and his whole business acquired a very special meaning. Danilov straightened his shoulders, stiffened his resolve and began to feel he had really made it in life.
Not everything went so smoothly for Ivan Brevich. The land contracts brought the money in, but the process was extremely distasteful. The daily grind of smooth-talking the jackals and hyenas who pressed in from all sides crushed his soul and left him with a foul taste in his mouth. What’s more, in the hierarchy of players he was well down the pecking order, having to content himself with the crumbs granted to him by those with the real levers of power. This was dispiriting – Brevich was a leader by nature and could only be satisfied by being top of the pile. This servile role did not suit him at all; he would grind his teeth at night as he recalled the day’s mad rush from one office to another and was desperately jealous of Sanyok, whom he barely saw these days due to a lack of time and their different business interests.
Everything changed in the summer of ’98 – when fate performed another of its somersaults. In June, Ivan, utterly burned out, told himself enough was enough. Something had to change, and he decided to move to the US, to the West Coast, closer to Silicon Valley and Hollywood. He sold everything he had, including a three-room apartment on Taganka, and converted the proceeds into US dollars. The resulting capital was transferred to a Latvian bank, and Brevich had just applied for an American visa when Russia defaulted on its debts. The country’s currency collapsed, Ivan’s fortune increased fourfold in ruble terms, and, slightly stunned, he decided to delay his departure and see what prospects might now open up.
It turned out there was a lot to look at, and one prospect emerged right away. Two days after the “Black Monday” collapse, Brevich received a call from a very depressed Sanyok asking for an urgent meeting. Over dinner at the Peking Restaurant, he explained that he had been planning a rapid business expansion and had taken out a few loans. Now he had nothing to pay them back with: the raging ruble cash streams had been reduced to barely a dribble. What’s more, Danilov had also borrowed some of the money from people with dubious reputations. Now, he was preparing for the loss of his business, his good health and even perhaps his life.
Brevich understood: this was the moment he had been waiting for. Giving sentimentality no quarter, he acted decisively and brutally. With the help of his contacts in the mayor’s office, he frightened Danilov even more, leaving him with no desire to negotiate, and then bought his air-conditioning business together with its debts for a laughably small price. He let Sanyok remain in the company as executive director with a good salary but also all the hard work, and almost no shares.
Overnight, Danilov found himself transformed from a proud owner into a hired hand. He was shocked to the depths of his soul – especially at the ruthlessness with which his childhood friend had deprived him of the business he had grown almost from scratch. At first, he tried to pretend they were running the company on an equal footing, but he quickly realized his naivety and became wrapped up in himself. What made his depression even deeper was Ivan’s lack of deference toward air-conditioners in general. Brevich, with his technical background, even tried to explain to Danilov what a phase transition and a Freon circle were – which Sanyok regarded as yet another example of life’s bitter injustice. As for the business itself, it progressed and grew faster than ever. Successfully marshalling and unleashing Ivan’s administrative resources, they swallowed up their main competitor and its developed network of clients. Vanyok Brevich was now the biggest player in the entire air-conditioner market and over the next ten years became an extremely wealthy man.
But then, in 2012, his destiny took a new twist. Ivan had just turned forty-six; he was influential, respected and rich. His life had acquired an enviable stability, and this was suddenly beginning to bother him. Something important seemed to be passing him by; Brevich began to suffer from a persistent sense of irritation and fatigue. And, after a particularly tough February full of bureaucratic hurdles and never-ending quarrels with his wife, he decided to take a break from everything and everyone.
At that moment, an opportune invitation arrived from a supplier and partner from Essen. Ivan had been working with the cheerful and ruddy-cheeked Lothar for over a year, and they were on very friendly terms – often doing the rounds of German saunas and Moscow’s nightclubs. On this occasion, however, the supplier suggested moving their meeting from cold wintertime Europe to distant Bangkok, and Ivan agreed with enthusiasm.
Bangkok stunned him and somehow bewitched and lit up his soul. The city’s traffic jams, disorder and heat left Ivan unperturbed. He even liked the thick, viscous air, which caused Lothar’s nose to wrinkle. Subconsciously, without registering it, Ivan sensed an inexhaustible variety, unpredictability and the potential of the unknown waiting around every corner. And, from the very first day, he felt his virility revive – in contrast to the feeling of repletion he had long become accustomed to, believing that women could not interest him much anymore. Thai girls awoke something long dormant within him – and this was another big plus point in the city’s favor.