Sila's Fortune (7 page)

‘You can say that again,' Litvinov gave a booming laugh. ‘A very large scale!'

The woman standing behind him laughed too, just for the sake of it. Lev smiled politely. Litvinov continued to circulate, welcoming newcomers.

The champagne was being served by two waitresses in short skirts, who, though young and very pretty, were less striking than the tall, extravagantly dressed blonde women now gradually moving in on the men in the room. Lev took a glass. He noticed one of the women looked a little like Elena but with blonde hair.

Seeing his look, the woman came over to him.

‘Good evening, Councillor Kravchenko.'

‘You know me?' Lev asked.

‘Who doesn't know Lev Kravchenko, one of the most powerful men in Russia?'

This unalloyed flattery pleased him.

‘And your name is?'

‘Oksana.'

‘How do you know Litvinov?'

‘Knowing the most powerful men in the country is part of my job.'

‘And what is it that you do?'

‘I bring pleasure to the most powerful men in the country.'

‘A noble profession.'

‘I think so. Aren't you tired, Councillor? Tired of the constant struggle? It can't be easy having to constantly fight to stay at the top, to remain number one. Don't you ever feel in need of relaxation?'

‘Of course,' said Lev, ‘but I'm married.'

‘Of course you are, Councillor Kravchenko. To the beautiful and brilliant Elena, the esteemed professor of literature. An exceptional scholar. I would have liked to study with her.'

‘I see you know all there is to know.'

‘As I said, it's my job. And the fact that you're married does not pose a problem. All the powerful men in this country are married, but they still need to relax. They are fighters. They have the right to a little pleasure too.'

Her voice was languorous and yet she sounded slightly mocking.

‘So this is an offer?' said Lev.

‘A formal proposition.'

‘Am I rich enough to keep a beautiful woman like you happy?'

‘Very few men in Russia are,' said Oksana. ‘But you are. And I'd like to add that for me, spending time with one of the most brilliant and handsome men in the country would undoubtedly be unforgettable.'

This time, she really was teasing him. Lev laughed.

‘I'll give it some thought, Oksana. I've never had a proposition so tempting.' He added, ‘Or so candid.'

‘Don't think too long, Councillor,' said Oksana, gliding away, ‘that weariness might become too great, too overwhelming …'

She gave a little wave.

‘This is what Russia has become,' thought Lev. ‘A country of thieves and whores where anything can be bought, where even the most beautiful and intelligent women can be had if you're willing to pay.'

The women circled their prey. One by one, the men were cornered. They drank the champagne, wolfed down the caviar, bared blackened teeth and slipped rough paws round the women's delicate waists. They had hit the jackpot.

Lev studied the bodyguards. Three hulking men with shaved heads, guns bulging in the left-hand pockets of their suits. Gang rule. Even the police force had been destroyed. Private police forces had to be created. The State and justifiable violence? Which state? What justification? Everything had been destroyed. Force was necessary. They were nothing more than state-of-the-art warlords, plunderers who had appropriated the empire through violence and could survive now only through violence. Overnight, the whole edifice might crumble. It needed only someone more powerful to appear. Someone more cunning, more violent. Hence, they all had the same goal: to steal
money and spend it by the million, by the billion. To amass fortunes and squander them. To put their money in offshore tax havens, in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, before a change of government changed everything.

The men in the room got to their feet. Hands abandoned caviar spoons, slipped from around the women's waists, each lifting a full glass. On a stage that towered over the assembled company, Litvinov picked up a microphone.

‘Thank you, my dear friends, for coming to help me celebrate my birthday. Fifty-three. Life begins at fifty-three, it's the time when a man begins to enjoy the good things in life, the fruits of his labours. A time for family and for dear friends.'

His every word was tinged with his distinctive sarcasm. His guests, all of whom he had wronged at one time or another, took it in the spirit it was intended.

‘To those of us who have given so much to our country, I would like to propose a toast to our Holy Mother Russia! To the country of our ancestors freed from the yoke of Communism!'

They raised their glasses.

‘To Holy Mother Russia!'

‘I'd like to propose another toast,' Litvinov went on, ‘a toast to someone without whom none of this would have been possible, someone who cannot be here tonight because he has urgent business abroad, but who is with us in spirit. To the man who made our fortunes, Boris Yeltsin!'

They raised their glasses.

‘To Boris Yeltsin, the man who made our fortunes!'

‘And lastly,' Litvinov said, coming to the front of the stage, ‘let us raise a glass to our God.'

The guests looked at each other, dumbfounded. The oligarch took out a thick wad of bills and waved it.

‘To our God, the Almighty Dollar!'

He took out a lighter and torched the wad of bills, which quickly caught, and soon Litvinov was holding only a flame, which he contemplated with a sort of grave joy. A dozen people in the assembled company also pulled out wads of money and set them alight. Litvinov tossed the burning sheaf of banknotes on the ground and stamped it out.

‘Now let's party, my friends! The drink is flowing, the women are stunning and we can do anything we please. This is our day!'

Lev had seen enough. He ventured into the night. He considered walking for a while, but no sooner had he stepped outside than his two bodyguards approached as the car silently drew up.

Matthieu became Simon's flatmate in the terraced apartment. Their timetables were very different. Simon worked during the day at his laboratory while Matthieu, who handled PR for a nightclub called Le Miroir, was only just surfacing when his friend came home at night. People found it somewhat strange to see how easily this elegant bourgeois Parisian, raised in the finest neighbourhoods and educated at the finest schools, melted into the very different world of the nightclub. But though his elegance and gentility gave him a certain air of superiority, deep down Matthieu was a creature of instinct with savage urges. Both men – one in the sterile, cold, colourless setting of the laboratory, the other in the pulsing pandemonium of a nightclub – had found the
ideal environment in which to thrive. On the face of it, it seemed nothing short of miraculous that two such different people could share a flat, but it was their differences that brought them together: Simon, the introvert, was fascinated by Matthieu, the womanising extrovert who, through some vestige of innocence, was extremely fond of this maths geek who had the good taste to admire him. He relished this admiration all the more because Simon was a graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique while he, Matthieu, had never even got his degree – a glaring lapse in the eyes of his bourgeois family. He had enrolled to study law, but he was one of those people who see no need to work unless compelled. He could read and write, was bilingual thanks to his English mother, and his education – in his own opinion – was more than adequate. So he quickly abandoned his studies and moved into PR, a profession for which he proved to have a remarkable flair. All the more so because, as he defined it, Public Relations was a wide brief: he considered clubbing to be PR work, since he invariably found new contacts to add to his address book. When he was taken on by Le Miroir, he invited his friends, a raft of casual acquaintances met while clubbing, organised a number of moderately successful marketing exercises and indulged the journalists and the starlets. And it must be admitted that his talent for having no job – no one would have imagined that the friendly, irrepressible young man clapping them on the back was doing so out of self-interest – verged on perfection.

Matthieu wanted to celebrate moving in to the terraced apartment. Being an expert in such things, he decided to do something
quirky
, something that had nothing to do with Simon or with himself. He settled on a Moroccan couscous. He
talked about it to their cleaner, a young Moroccan woman, who assured him she made the finest couscous in the city. Being both wary and a connoisseur of couscous, he insisted on a sample. Convinced, Matthieu sent out invitations to his friends, as did Simon, though he was more anxious about the results.

And so one blissfully sunny Saturday in June, as three Moroccan women took over the kitchen, from which wafted intoxicating smells, two civilisations collided: the Matthieusians and the Simonians. Solemn, serious, somewhat dull creatures came face to face with neurotic, superficial fashionistas.

After some attempts at arranging things, like an artist arranging forms in a disastrous composition, Simon quickly realised that the guests were not mingling. One side of the living room was a sea of shapeless T-shirts and jeans, the other a riot of garish colour. Overcoming his crippling shyness, he forced himself to go over and join the Matthieusians.

‘God, look at all the spotty geeks …' he heard someone say behind his back. ‘It's like an IT convention.'

He turned round.

‘Would you like a glass of champagne?' he asked a guy with a shaved head who stared at him surprised.

A gulf opened between the two camps, a gulf which Matthieu and Simon courageously crossed and recrossed.

The doorbell rang. Simon went and opened it to find a member of his own camp who, strangely, was accompanied by a graceful young woman.

‘Welcome!' he heard Matthieu call from behind him. ‘Pretty girls get special treatment here!'

The Simonian started slightly but the girl next to him smiled.
Matthieu had already taken her by the arm to show her around the apartment.

‘She your girlfriend?' Simon asked his friend.

‘No, just a friend, but who the hell's that guy? He swooped on her like a vulture.'

‘That's Matthieu, my flatmate,' Simon said, a little embarrassed. ‘He's actually a nice guy.'

Face flushed, the Simonian stepped into the apartment. Matthieu had clearly scuppered his plans. Simon took his coat, doing his best to compensate for this awkward first impression.

A few moments later, the couple were back.

‘Julie loves the apartment, Simon. I think she's already planning to move in,' Matthieu teased, laying a hand on the woman's shoulder.

‘Thanks, but for now, I think I'll just stay for the party,' she said.

Julie and the newcomer, Nicholas, went into the living room and, miraculously, stood right in the middle, between the opposing camps, in the yawning gulf, as though they belonged there. Simon was happy they had come. Not only did he find Julie pretty, but Nicholas, with whom he only had a nodding acquaintance at the lab, was much more relaxed than he had expected. He chatted to the Matthieusians. Nicholas joked that, having spent his whole career working on abstruse subjects nobody could understand probably explained why he was awkward and alone at parties. In fact, he added, it probably explained why he didn't get many invites any more.

Talented and self-deprecating, thought Simon. Emphasise your strengths and then make fun of them. He went over to Julie whom Matthieu had abandoned for a moment.

‘You got everything you need?'

‘Absolutely. The place is fabulous. All those terraces …'

‘Would you like me to give you the tour?'

He was astonished to find himself so effortlessly suggesting the idea.

‘Matthieu already gave me the tour, but I'd be happy to take it again.'

Simon ushered her through his bedroom to the largest of the terraces, which was crowded with guests. It was dusk, though the sky was still light. This was his favourite time of day.

‘It's fabulous,' Julie said again. ‘Matthieu told me you were the one who found the apartment.'

‘I walked into the estate agents and I said “Find me terraces”, and they found me terraces.'

‘You only had to ask.'

‘Exactly.'

‘So you work in the same lab as Nicholas?'

‘Yeah.'

She hesitated.

‘And you went to the same university?'

‘Yes. We were in the same year at the École Polytechnique.'

He tried to find the appropriate tone, simply stating a fact, eager not to sound pretentious. For once in his life a pretty girl seemed interested in what he did.

‘That's impressive,' she said, smiling. ‘I've just started my maths degree and I'm already struggling.'

‘Really? I could help you if you like. You just need to get into the right frame of mind.'

‘That would be great. Nicholas already offered but two
heads are better than one. You'll quickly get tired of it, take my word for it. So was Matthieu in your year too?'

‘Matthieu? In our year?'

The very idea of Matthieu at the École Polytechnique was bewildering.

‘No, he wasn't … You know, Matthieu isn't exactly the academic type …' Simon went on in an underhand attempt to discredit his all-too-charming friend.

‘That's what I thought. He doesn't look the type to spend his nights poring over books.'

Matthieu appeared in the doorway.

‘You sneaking off on your own?' he asked.

In a mocking tone he said to Simon, ‘Stop trying to pull girls and go and look after your guests.'

He made it sound like a joke, though it clearly wasn't. Simon flashed him a bitter smile.

‘Chatting with one's guests is a host's duty.'