“So, Nina, you see that there is no way out for your father – he’s not going to be left alone. He has to sell, and the sooner, the better,” concluded Ignatiy Savelievich.
“He’ll never do that,” Nina muttered dejectedly.
“Tough luck… You’re in a tight spot, really,” said Ignatiy Savelievich sympathetically. “Maybe, you want me to talk to him? If you arrange for us to have a meeting, I’ll try to persuade him.”
Nina waved the suggestion away, “Thank you, Ignatiy Savelievich, but it’s no use. There’s no persuading him – he’ll only freak out and say rude things to you, that’s all.”
“Tough luck,” repeated Ignatiy Savelievich. “Well, I can only wish that everything sort itself out for you somehow. If I can be of any help, don’t you hesitate to call me. Keep me in the picture, anyway. And now, dear, please walk me to my house for I’m a bit chilled.”
Nina accompanied him to the door and started saying her farewells.
“Not at all,” Ignatiy Savelievich cut short her thanks, and after a pause, he said suddenly, “When I look at you, Ninochka, I see my late wife. We got married as we were both finishing university. The next thing, we had our job placement and there I was, placed in some hole in Kazakhstan. I can’t tell you how my young wife assailed the administration to get them to review the decision so I could stay in the city – and she had her way finally! A stubborn one she was, just like you… I remember everything as if it happened yesterday – can you believe it? A whole life has run by without my knowing it…”
He waved his hand and disappeared into the doorway.
It was not until later that it occurred to Nina that the old man might have had some needs such as going to the supermarket to stock up on food or paying rent for his apartment. Immersed in her own concerns, Nina did not offer him help.
She never saw Ignatiy Savelievich again and had no more contacts with him except for one brief phone talk. Ignatiy Savelievich never returned to work and after a few months he died. Nina had changed jobs by that time, and nobody let her know of her former colleague’s death, so she missed his funeral.
She got a chance to talk to her father on New Year’s Eve which they celebrated at his place. The table was crammed with special dishes made by the skillful hands of Lydia Grigorievna, but Nina and her father feasted half-heartedly. The conversation was also mainly maintained by Lydia Grigorievna – fortunately, the woman could go on endlessly about the news of the world of theater.
After the celebration, Nina’s father walked her to the underground station. The New Year was already in. In the yards, fireworks were being set off in plenty, and the night sky was ablaze with lights. Deafened by the din that they were making, Nina was slow to understand what her father was talking about.
He was talking about his business partners breaking away from his company one after another. Three clients already – luckily, not very large ones – had cancelled their orders. The reasons given for the cancellations were unsubstantial and clearly made up. Yevgeniy Borisovich had argued and quarreled with them, even threatened them with lawsuit. The defectors had said something meaningless in response and then had stopped responding altogether – evaded seeing him and blocked his phone calls. He had actually tried to take the matter to court claiming compensation on the lost contracts only to find out that, being in the wrong essentially, his opponents were in the right formally. In each case, there was a legal loophole for them to bail out. From the way those loopholes were worded, it was clear that the clients had been counseled by some good lawyers, or, most likely, by one and the same good lawyer.
They halted by the entrance to the underground. There were no cars in the streets. Occasional groups of intoxicated citizens were wandering about, belting out songs and throwing snow-balls.
“What is it? Tell me, what’s going on? Why is everything falling apart? Am I really such a bad businessman?” Nina’s father cried out.
Ignoring the last question, Nina replied to the rest of them, “It is Gradstroiinvest, or rather, Gradbank. You know that yourself, papa.”
Her father gave her an angry look. Of course, he knew, but was unwilling to admit that.
“I have found out something,” Nina added. ‘Gradbank is buying up dozens of companies such as yours now. Gradbank’s director, somebody named Samsonov, is pushing his way through, sticking at nothing.
“I could kill him,” muttered Nina’s father.
“Me too,” Nina concurred, recalling what she had heard from Ignatiy Savelievich about Gradbank’s director making fun of their name. “But what are we to him?”
For a while, her father stood motionless with his head hung.
“Nina, how are you doing, anyway? How’s work? Are you very busy these days?”
Nina was not at all busy. She lacked many things, but time was not one of them.
“How about you come over to my office some day?” her father asked in a tone of feigned casualness. “You could look through the papers and maybe give me some advice.”
“Sure,” replied Nina.
“I… I can’t lose the company, you know that,” – uttered her father. He had probably meant it to sound firm but it came out plaintive.
Nina kissed him on the cheek and left in a hurry. She was torn between conflicting feelings. Her great concern about her father mixed with her irritation with him for hiding his head in the sand – refusing to admit the obvious and do what was suggested by common sense.
Nina started spending her evenings and Saturdays in her father’s firm again. As she dug into the affairs of the business, she discovered that on the whole, it was doing quite well. Or rather, it had been doing well before the customers had started to desert. Two more canceled their orders already while Nina was about. Nina’s father who had admitted finally that it was organized persecution did not even try to get the deserters back. The cancellations burdened the company with serious, though not yet fatal losses.
Nina’s father was throwing all his energy into completing his big project which was in for official review and acceptance in a few weeks, and which was to decide everything. It was a complex project of reconstructing the heating mains in an entire city area where residential neighborhoods were interspersed with industrial objects and additional ‘pinpoint’ housing units were to be inserted. The works had been contracted by the city. Technologically, it was a real puzzle. Nina’s father was proud of the project which embodied all his mature engineering talent and experience as manager. Completing the project meant a new life for the whole area and a new life for the company: profit, solid status, new prestigious orders – in a word, success.
Father asked Nina to comb through the documents pertaining to the project review and acceptance procedure. Essentially, everything had long been prepared, but he wanted her to take a fresh look at all the papers and iron out any inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
Nina set about the task, but she could not take her mind off those smaller projects that had been given up by the customers. Her practical nature and professional habits of an accountant revolted at the thought that considerable sums of money had to be written off just like that, without rhyme or reason.
With her father’s permission, she contacted the defectors and found out for herself that no compromise was possible – they simply refused to talk to her. Then Nina asked her father if there was someone else who could be interested in those projects. The work on each of them had not yet gone beyond an initial stage, and Nina reasoned that some other companies could adjust those projects to their needs. Although he did not believe in that idea, her father gave her the names of a few organizations of a suitable profile and location.