said. "You are a lawyer. An American."
"I'm not American."
"Well," he insisted, "you have a credit card. You have a secretary. You can speak to the police or to the prosecutor's office. I am an old man. This is Russia."
"Okay," I said. "Of course. If I can help you, I will. I will try. I promise, Oleg Nikolaevich."
He came towards me, and for a second I thought he was going to grab me or punch me. But instead he put his hand on my left shoulder, and his mouth very close to my right ear, so that when he spoke his tongue was virtually in it.
"Respected Nikolai Ivanovich," he said, "only an idiot smiles all the time."
5
I guess there might in theory have been a time, maybe in the early afternoons, when Steve Walsh got by for more than five minutes without either a shot of coffee or a slug of red wine--just as in theory there must be a short, intermediary thirtysomething phase in the lives of Russian women between high-heeled exhibitionism and middle-aged spread. But whenever I saw Steve, he was chugging down one or other of his drugs. Like most of the expat alcoholics, he had a tactic for persuading himself that he wasn't one: he ordered his wine by the glass, even if he drank twelve or twenty of them at a sitting, which was worse for his wallet but better for his self-esteem. When Isaw him for lunch and told him about Masha and me, he had already graduated from coffee to vino.
"So," Steve said, after I summarised the relationship so far, "has she got you to buy her anything yet? Diamonds? Car? Tit job, maybe?"
"It isn't like that."
"What is it like?"
"It's different, Steve. Don't."
"Do you think she wants you for your looks?"
Steve was technically British, but he had been trying to avoid England and himself for so long and in so many far-out places--Mexico for three or four years before Moscow, I think, and before that the Balkans, and before that somewhere else that I and maybe even he can't remember--that by the time I met him he had become one of those lost foreign correspondents that you read about in Graham Greene, a citizen of the republic of cynicism. He exploited me for leads I wasn't supposed to give him--hints about which cartel was borrowing how much from who, to take over which oil or aluminium firm, equations of greed that helped him to work out who was up and who was down in the Kremlin, who was going to be the next president and who was heading for a prison camp in Magadan. Steve pretended to check my leads, then used them in his articles for the
Independent
and some Canadian paper that his London employers didn't know about. I exploited him too, for conversation in English that wasn'tabout bonuses. We exploited each other. In other words, we were friends. I think maybe he was my only real friend in Moscow.
He was slimy blond and must once have been handsome, but by then he was furrowed and rioja florid. He looked a bit like Boris Yeltsin.
"Steve," I said, "don't take the piss, but I think I might be in love."
You've never been the jealous type, though on the other hand you've never had much to be jealous of. My guess is you can live with this.
"Fucking Christ," Steve said, waving his glass in the air.
We were eating beef Stroganoff in the French restaurant at the back of the Smolensky shopping centre, where the mistresses of minigarchs go to drink overpriced tea between pedicures. It was, I think, almost the end of November. The big, heavy snow had just arrived, falling overnight like a practical joke, making a new city in an hour. Ugly things became beautiful, beautiful things became magical. Red Square was an instant film set--the encrusted mausoleum and snow-dusted Kremlin on one side, and the imperial department store lit up like a fairground on the other. On building sites and in churchyards, packs of stray dogs were optimistically nosing around in the mush. The street taxis had hiked their prices: you could tell how long foreigners had been in Moscow by the length of time theywould stand
"I'm not American."
"Well," he insisted, "you have a credit card. You have a secretary. You can speak to the police or to the prosecutor's office. I am an old man. This is Russia."
"Okay," I said. "Of course. If I can help you, I will. I will try. I promise, Oleg Nikolaevich."
He came towards me, and for a second I thought he was going to grab me or punch me. But instead he put his hand on my left shoulder, and his mouth very close to my right ear, so that when he spoke his tongue was virtually in it.
"Respected Nikolai Ivanovich," he said, "only an idiot smiles all the time."
5
I guess there might in theory have been a time, maybe in the early afternoons, when Steve Walsh got by for more than five minutes without either a shot of coffee or a slug of red wine--just as in theory there must be a short, intermediary thirtysomething phase in the lives of Russian women between high-heeled exhibitionism and middle-aged spread. But whenever I saw Steve, he was chugging down one or other of his drugs. Like most of the expat alcoholics, he had a tactic for persuading himself that he wasn't one: he ordered his wine by the glass, even if he drank twelve or twenty of them at a sitting, which was worse for his wallet but better for his self-esteem. When Isaw him for lunch and told him about Masha and me, he had already graduated from coffee to vino.
"So," Steve said, after I summarised the relationship so far, "has she got you to buy her anything yet? Diamonds? Car? Tit job, maybe?"
"It isn't like that."
"What is it like?"
"It's different, Steve. Don't."
"Do you think she wants you for your looks?"
Steve was technically British, but he had been trying to avoid England and himself for so long and in so many far-out places--Mexico for three or four years before Moscow, I think, and before that the Balkans, and before that somewhere else that I and maybe even he can't remember--that by the time I met him he had become one of those lost foreign correspondents that you read about in Graham Greene, a citizen of the republic of cynicism. He exploited me for leads I wasn't supposed to give him--hints about which cartel was borrowing how much from who, to take over which oil or aluminium firm, equations of greed that helped him to work out who was up and who was down in the Kremlin, who was going to be the next president and who was heading for a prison camp in Magadan. Steve pretended to check my leads, then used them in his articles for the
Independent
and some Canadian paper that his London employers didn't know about. I exploited him too, for conversation in English that wasn'tabout bonuses. We exploited each other. In other words, we were friends. I think maybe he was my only real friend in Moscow.
He was slimy blond and must once have been handsome, but by then he was furrowed and rioja florid. He looked a bit like Boris Yeltsin.
"Steve," I said, "don't take the piss, but I think I might be in love."
You've never been the jealous type, though on the other hand you've never had much to be jealous of. My guess is you can live with this.
"Fucking Christ," Steve said, waving his glass in the air.
We were eating beef Stroganoff in the French restaurant at the back of the Smolensky shopping centre, where the mistresses of minigarchs go to drink overpriced tea between pedicures. It was, I think, almost the end of November. The big, heavy snow had just arrived, falling overnight like a practical joke, making a new city in an hour. Ugly things became beautiful, beautiful things became magical. Red Square was an instant film set--the encrusted mausoleum and snow-dusted Kremlin on one side, and the imperial department store lit up like a fairground on the other. On building sites and in churchyards, packs of stray dogs were optimistically nosing around in the mush. The street taxis had hiked their prices: you could tell how long foreigners had been in Moscow by the length of time theywould stand
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