The Smart Girl

Since then, the secretary, too, often came to the cafeteria when it was already empty, not hiding her desire to have a chat with Nina. There was no stopping her now; she would go on about anything, telling stories from her life, gossiping about Gradbank’s managers, or sharing the local rumors. Nina had no taste for gossip, and at her former jobs, she rarely indulged in the favorite pastime of all employees – tittle-tattling about their superiors – but she would not stop Klara Fedorovna. As an excuse, Nina told herself that in that way, she could occasionally hear something useful for her work, but she knew deep inside that it was self-deception; the simple truth was that she wanted to know more about the world of her man. And about himself.

Klara Fedorovna came from Alushta.

“It’s a town down South, by the sea – you’ve heard of it, Nina? For five months each year, it’s season there – every hole is crammed with holiday-makers, it’s all beach life, night life, and all that… The locals work in the service industry or sell fruit. For the remaining seven months, there is nothing – no life at all, just unemployment and boredom.”

After finishing school, the young Klara was taken on as a typist for the town hall. She worked for peanuts, but at least it was a permanent job.

“But I also sang,” Klara Fedorovna said with a smile. “We had an amateur choir. We were giving performances at the holiday homes and we were received well, too.”

She looked around to make sure that they were alone in the cafeteria.

“Here, listen.”

In a deep, rich voice, she sang, “Hey you, dashing Cossack – hey you, eagle of the steppe…”

“How beautiful!” Nina exclaimed in sincere admiration.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” sighed Klara Fedorovna.

Klara left her Alushta for the capital which she was determined to conquer. She dreamed of receiving professional singer training in the conservatoire.

“What happened?” asked Nina. “Don’t you tell me you weren’t admitted. With such a voice!”

“Admitted? Not a chance! Ninochka, do you have any idea how many talented, young provincial fools flood this city every year? And the local folks have their own children to fix up…”

Klara from Alushta never made a career as a singer. Instead, she revealed a real talent for the secretarial profession. She quickly learned how to use personal computers which were the coming thing at the time. A typing virtuoso and a meticulous, industrious worker, she was a dream of any manager. After changing several secretarial positions, she came to work, for a good salary, in one of the start-up financial firms which, in those times, were springing up all around like mushrooms.

Then something happened. More than once, as she approached that point, Klara stopped short and changed the subject. The subject that she changed to was invariably her son Stas. A young man of twenty, he was a student at the architectural academy. Klara Fedorovna had raised him alone, and understandably, he was the apple of her eye. Apart from her son and Gradbank, Klara Fedorovna had no life at all.

“Stasik is such a gifted boy, you have no idea!” Klara Fedorovna beamed rapturous maternal love. “In his second year already, he took part in an international contest. Everybody – I mean, everybody could see that his project was way better than all the rest of them, but you understand, those contests are all about backstairs pull and intrigues…”

Finally, little by little, Nina learned what had happened to her lunch companion twenty years before. Nina was not really trying to fish out Klara Fedorovna’s secrets; the woman herself clearly had the need to make a clean breast of it.

In those days, the ephemeral firms that called themselves financial companies did not usually last long. Typically, they ‘circulated’ – successfully or not – their money for some time, and then burst like bubbles on the water pools after a May shower. Before long, Klara’s company, too, started showing symptoms of a near demise.

It was mainly the fault of one of the two young co-owners of the company. He was a nice, likeable guy who had made some bad choices and had run the company into debt as a result. He was in for a prison term or a more immediate and brutal punishment by some creditors of the sort that wore crimson jackets and close-cropped skulls according to the fashion of the day.

At some point, he fell on his knees before Klara and begged her to forge a certain document that was in her keeping. And Klara complied.

“Excuse me, why did you do that?” Nina wondered.

“Don’t you understand?” Klara uttered with an anguished look on her face. – “I loved him. He was the father of Stas who I was carrying then.”

Nina was embarrassed. She did not mean to pry into other people’s painful secrets – she had enough secrets of her own.

“We do insane things for people we love, don’t we?” remarked Klara Fedorovna.

Nina made no reply. Moved by the story of Klara Fedorovna, she had an impulse to tell the woman what she herself had done for someone she had loved, but she bit her tongue.

“How did it end?” she asked.

Even now, after twenty years, it was clearly a painful subject for Klara Fedorovna.

“It all came out. My lover got killed. But the firm survived – it was saved by the other owner. Do you know who it was?”

Nina shrugged in bewilderment.

“It was Pavel Mikhailovich, Ninochka. Yes, none other. Not that anybody used his full name at that time; he was only twenty something and everyone called him Pasha. But he was a big man even then. I mean… Well, you understand.”

It took Nina some time to digest what she had heard.

“And what happened to you?” she asked.

“Pasha saved me, too. I would’ve thought he would be the first to finish me off, but no, he covered up for me instead – told everyone that I’d been kept in the dark, used as a dummy. Then he gave me a good scolding, of course, and demoted me to cleaner for three months. But what kind of punishment is that? I was ready to cut off my own hand for what I’d done… I’ve been with him ever since,” Klara Fedorovna concluded. “I’m telling you all that just so you know – he is a noble man, if ever there was one.”

Nina was delighted, though she tried hard not to show her glee. Her love was not an insensitive stone statue; there was a kind heart beating behind his armor – or, at least, there had been one twenty years ago.

“And your… I mean, the other co-owner – was he…?”

“You mean – was it Pasha who killed him?” guessed Klara. “No, someone else did.”

Nina avoided asking Klara any questions about Samsonov, but little by little, the woman herself told her a lot.

Nina had heard earlier that Pavel Mikhailovich was divorced but now she learned some details. Samsonov had lived with his wife for ten years and had divorced her some five years ago. His ex-wife lived in France, and his son was in a boarding school in Switzerland.

“Did you know his wife?” Nina asked Klara Fedorovna.

“You bet I did! She would phone in every day to check on her husband. Also, she liked to pay a surprise visit to the bank, and then Pavel Mikhailovich had to put aside all his work and listen to her babbling about some crazy new clothes she had bought with his money.”

“What kind of woman was she?” asked Nina.

“Bitch,” Klara said with fervor, in a low voice. “And a beautiful one, like our Marina… Hey, what’s wrong with me?” she checked herself. “Marina is not like that, mind you.”

“Why did you dislike that ex-wife of his so much?” asked Nina.

“What was there to like?” Klara replied in a hot whisper. “A total bitch, she was. Constantly spying on him and making him scenes while cheating on him herself all the time.”

“How did you know that?”

“Everybody knew. Pavel Mikhailovich alone was in the dark. Rumor had it that even their son was not really his.” These last words the woman whispered in Nina’s ear.

According to Klara Fedorovna, his bitch of a wife had tricked Pavel Mikhailovich somehow into re-registering all his property to her name and then had divorced him leaving him stripped bare. Now she was leading a life of leisure in Paris, and out of pure spite, she prevented Pavel Mikhailovich from seeing their son.

A hot wave of love and compassion spread in Nina’s breast. Poor, poor, dear man…

“You see, Ninochka, Pavel Mikhailovich has been bitterly deceived in his life.” remarked Klara Fedorovna. “No wonder he doesn’t trust anybody now.”

“And Marina?” The question escaped Nina who had long had a burning desire to find out about the other woman in the director’s inner circle.

“Well, with Marina it’s another matter,” replied Klara Fedorovna.

What that other matter was, Klara Fedorovna would not explain – she was clearly unwilling to gossip about her co-worker in the director’s reception. But her desire to chat finally prevailed, and little by little, Nina learned from her what she had longed to.

Like Pavel Mikhailovich, Marina had come from Krasnoyarsk, but they only met in the capital. That year, Marina had won the title of ‘Miss Krasnoyarsk Region’ and had arrived in the capital, along with dozens of other beauties, to vie for the title of ‘Miss Russia’. She was a natural beauty queen, but natural gifts weighed little in the contest. Marina was not prepared for the cut-throat struggle in the jungle of the city show business which was all about corruption, meanness, and cynicism. Things had been simpler back in Siberia.

Pavel Mikhailovich met Marina when she was in a desperate plight. Gulled by some shady characters that were hustling around in the contest backstage, she found herself owing them a lot of money. She had no money, not even a return ticket to Krasnoyarsk. Her only asset was her Miss Krasnoyarsk diadem with pieces of glass for diamonds. As a way to pay off her debt, she was made insistent offers of roles in porno films. Pavel Mikhailovich stood up for the beautiful townsgirl. The shady characters fell off, but Marina got kicked out of the contest on which she had pinned all her hopes.

Pavel Mikhailovich offered to buy her a flight to Krasnoyarsk, but Marina rejected the idea of going back home. “How could I show my face there now? I would die of shame. It was all over the local papers that I was about to become Miss Universe. And now here I am, returning like a beaten dog. Long time, no see… No, I’d rather starve here.”

Marina did not have to starve; Pavel Mikhailovich supported her, though he warned her that it was a temporary arrangement. Marina honestly tried to find a job as a model in the fashion industry, but she was not wanted there. For models, the fashion houses employed scraggy lampposts about six feet tall, while Marina had ideal height and proportions. Also, there was the advertising industry. Marina made attempts to appear in advertisements for perfume and lingerie, but it did not work either. It was always the same story: some dirty types – photographers or editors – suggested solving her problem through bed, and she would not have it. She was not a puritan, but according to her provincial notions, it was immoral to have more than one lover at a time. And one lover she had; it was Pavel Mikhailovich Samsonov.

Their intimacy started on Marina’s initiative. At the time, Pavel Mikhailovich was licking his wounds after his divorce and regarded women in general with deep mistrust. The effect was that he was changing women constantly, avoiding any real connection. He did not urge Marina to go to bed with him.

“Mind you, you don’t owe me anything,” he said to her.

“I’m not doing it out of sense of obligation, Pavel Mikhailovich. A girl just needs sex,” she replied while untying his tie.

“I’m not marrying,” warned Samsonov.

“Don’t you be so sure,” she laughed while unbuttoning his shirt. “Hey, relax, I’m not asking you to marry me today. I’ll wait…”

Pavel Mikhailovich who was in mortal fear of any close relationship was uneasy about their affair.

“Still, what are you going to do?” he insisted.

“I’ll take up a job in your bank,” she declared once.

“What an idea! What kind of work are you going to do? You’ve got no skills.”

“I’m not going to work. I’ll be an adornment of your bank. You are all a bunch of ugly trolls there, aren’t you? You surely can use some beauty.”

“Ugly trolls? And how about me?” Pavel Mikhailovich cried out in feigned indignation.

“You are the biggest troll of them all!”

Pavel Mikhailovich laughed heartily but was in no hurry to take Marina on as an employee. Finally, he was brought around by Sinitsin who was privy to Marina’s story.

”Pavel Mikhailovich, why don’t you take Marina Anatolievna along to the talks? She doesn’t have to do anything, let her just sit there beside you. I assure you, it can be good for business.”

Pavel Mikhailovich had not had any such plans himself, but he had a flair for good ideas and decided to give it a try.

Gradbank was in for difficult merger negotiations. Samsonov had Marina dressed in a formal business suit and brought her to the conference room as his assistant. All the other negotiators were men, and at the sight of Marina, their jaws dropped. Paradoxically, the business suit, modest make-up and stern look that Marina was wearing only brought out her exuberant femininity.

Samsonov got Marina seated beside himself and charged her with holding on her dazzling knees some papers which supposedly could be needed for the talks (and which were never needed). As he started the negotiations, he felt at once that Sinitsin had been right. Samsonov was facing big-time sharks of business which were ready to fight tooth and nail for every piece, but in Marina’s presence, their reaction slowed down noticeably, and their aggression abated giving way to vain male flaunting and bragging. The negotiations went off well for Gradbank.

Samsonov gave Marina a job. Her daily duties consisted of managing the flow of visitors, invited to or seeking an audience with the director. But the real need for her arose at the business talks where she now also acted as a translator.

“She’s not dumb, mind you,” assured Klara Fedorovna. “She can speak two foreign languages. Not on technical matters, of course, but still…”

Each time after the talks, Marina received a large bonus and was now a well-off girl. If she wished, she could open her own model agency.

“And what about Pavel Mikhailovich? I mean, are they…?” Nina finally asked the question that had long tormented her.

“Sleeping together?” understood Klara Fedorovna. “No, definitely not. Pavel Mikhailovich has a rule about not mixing up work with bed. He doesn’t indulge in it himself, and he discourages the others. So, as he took Marina on, he warned her that their sexual involvement was over.”

“And how did she…?”

“She said, ‘Don’t be so sure’,” laughed Klara Fedorovna.

“How do you know all that?” asked Nina.

“She told me herself. She used to be mischievous and full of fun, you know. It’s only this past year that she’s been kind of sulky.”

“Do you think she is still hoping to marry Pavel Mikhailovich?” Nina asked trying to sound indifferent.

“Of course, she is,” answered Klara Fedorovna. “She would leave if she weren’t… And you know what, Nina? A think she would make a good wife for him.”

Nina gave no reply to that.

Chapter 4

As usual, Nina was the last to learn the news. She had been noticing for some time that the directorate floor was in a state of unusual commotion: the elevator kept bringing up people that she had never seen before; the door of the director’s office opened continually letting visitors in and out. But Nina, as she was wont to, took little interest in anything that did not relate directly to her work which she was still loaded with to capacity. Also, Klara Fedorovna stopped joining her for lunch in the cafeteria – the woman either came earlier or did with sandwiches at her workplace.

At last, the director’s assistant showed up.

Nina asked, “Tell me, Klara Fedorovna, what’s up? What’s with all these people coming and going?”

The woman stared at her: “Are you kidding? You really don’t know anything? There’s been such a lot going on here…”

As it turned out, Gradbank was experiencing a crisis – one not apparent to the outsider’s eye but the most severe in the organization’s entire history. An opposition to the general director had arisen within the board; the dissenters demanded that an urgent stockholders’ meeting be held at which they planned to put Samsonov out of office.

The main charge brought by the opposition against Samsonov concerned the involvement of Gradbank in the Zaryadje investment project. The director’s adversaries maintained that the bank had insufficient resources; that Samsonov got the bank mixed up in that adventure moved by his personal ambitions; that to participate in the project, the bank had to put its main assets at risk, and if the project failed, the bank was in for bankruptcy. The chances of success were illusory, they said. It was necessary to face the reality and do the right thing – give up the project and revert to the bank’s core business. Preferably – with a new director, one that was capable of conducting a more reasonable policy.

The opposition was an ill-assorted lot. Some were sincere in their doubts and worries about the bank; others had some score of their own to settle with Samsonov and hoped to make use of the situation to bring him down; also, there were the ambitious ones who nourished a dream to grab his seat for themselves.

A date for the stockholders’ meeting had been announced. That was to be preceded by a board meeting where the members were to hear the general director’s report and carry out an appraisal of his work as well as recommendations to the stockholders’ meeting.

“Wolves. Just a pack of wolves,” Klara Fedorovna commented hotly. “Scented blood, they have. But they’re messing with the wrong man. Pavel Mikhailovich will show them all!”

Klara Fedorovna’s feelings were understandable: the destinies of a lot of people in the bank were tied up with Samsonov’s career. Incidentally, so was Nina’s destiny. Nina imagined Pavel Mikhailovich tumbling down from his Olympus and becoming an ordinary man – possibly, a manager in some small firm with only one employee. Nina would be that employee. He would no longer be so unattainable – he would be just ‘Pasha’ to her – and then…

Carried away by her daydreams, Nina was slow to notice that Klara Fedorovna was very upset, actually on the verge of tears. “Well, of course, they’ve been together for twenty years…” thought Nina.

She tried to comfort the woman by changing the subject. “Tell me about Stas. How is he doing?”

Somehow, that did not go down well, either. Klara Fedorovna started, and her face got distorted.

“What? … Why? … Why do you ask? Everything’s all right with Stas, do you hear that?”

Without finishing her meal, Klara Fedorovna dumped her tray and left.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nina wondered, perplexed. “It seems all of them here have gone off their head.”

For a week already, Samsonov had not visited her – he had just passed the word through Klara Fedorovna that Nina was to carry on working as usual. Nina had wondered what could be the reason for that break, but now the reason was clear – the director had no time for her as he was preparing for battle. Before fighting the powerful Atlas on the contest, he had a fight to win in his own camp.

After the talk she had had with Ariadna Petrovna, Nina reported her audacious plan to Samsonov. As soon as she started speaking, she knew that her lady chief had not breathed a word about the matter to the director. Nina had made up her mind beforehand that she would present the plan in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it were some ordinary technical stuff.

At first, Samsonov was interrupting her with questions, but then he fell silent. The chair beneath him stopped squeaking. With his head propped up by his fist, he was listening to her in stony immobility.

When she was finished, he said, “I don’t get it. Let’s start again from the beginning – slower this time.”

On hearing her out for the second time, he said, “I’ll be damned!” – and started drumming his fingers on the table.

Then he asked, “Did Ariadna see that?”

“Yes,” replied Nina. “Ariadna Petrovna helped me specify certain points.”

For some time, Samsonov remained silent, with a pensive look on his face, and then he said, “All right, Nina. You go through all that once more, from the beginning, but this time I’ll be asking questions.”

And he was – picking on almost every word. “What’s this? And that? What’s this figure about? Where does this estimate come from? Why is this graph curving so?”

That went on for hours. Nina did not feel any fatigue, too excited by the intense discussion, Samsonov’s proximity, and her own audacity.

“All right, I guess I get it,” Pavel Mikhailovich said at last. “Hey, look, it’s dark outside already.”

Only now he allowed himself to stretch his spine. Still, the expression of stony concentration did not leave him.

“Here’s the deal, Nina. You copy this onto a memory stick for me.”

Nina did. There was such a lot of material that the copying took some time.

Samsonov grabbed the memory stick and hid it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Now erase all this stuff from your computer.”

Nina was bewildered.

“Did you hear me?” said Samsonov. “Erase everything and make sure there are no backup copies left. Do it right now, while I’m here.”

Nina obeyed.

“Don’t discuss it with anyone, not even with Ariadna Petrovna, understand?” Samsonov said in a stern tone, but then, noticing Nina’s confused look, he added, “Don’t take offence – it has to be this way. You have no idea what almighty mess is brewing about this business now. It doesn’t concern you, though.”

“Is that it?” thought Nina. She had expected Pavel Mikhailovich to recognize her work in some way. But the man fell silent and remained so for a while.

“Come on, my dear Tin Man, praise me – admit that I’ve been a brave girl!” Nina urged him in her mind.

Suddenly he covered her narrow hand with his huge, tough palm.

“You know, I’m not good at saying nice words, but… thank you, Nina. I’m going to consult someone else about it, but it seems your idea might work. If it does, then… Quite possibly, you’ve just saved me. I’ll not forget that.”

He squeezed her hand, looking at her point-blank with his grey eyes.

After a pause, he nodded, said, “All right then,” and left.

Nina’s cheeks were burning. For this man to hold her hand in his, she was ready to invent a dozen financial schemes.

For some time, Nina had to move to the director’s reception. The date of the board meeting was near, and it meant preparing piles of papers. Many employees were involved in that, and Nina was mobilized, too.

Nina shared the desk with Klara Fedorovna who needed help with financial documents which were multiplying as an avalanche. Watching closely Klara Fedorovna at work, Nina was amazed – that was really a great secretary. The woman’s fingers flitted about the keyboard at an incredible speed; she kept everything in her memory and never mixed up things. Having received a handful of disparate pieces of text speckled with hand-written editing marks, she would take only a couple of minutes to produce a final document, completely corrected and formatted.

Nina joined in with Klara and got infected with her breakneck pace, but even absorbed in work, she could not help noticing what was going on in the reception. An endless succession of visitors were passing through it. Some of them Samsonov came out to greet personally and showed out afterwards; others were let in and out by Marina. Nina saw for the first time how diverse Samsonov could be with people. Sometimes he was unceremonious and rude, sometimes businesslike and formal, sometimes markedly respectful, and sometimes easy and matey. Occasionally, laughter could be heard coming from his office, but more often heated arguments, or even fierce rows.

Samsonov was no natural diplomat or sly dog; he was a fighter, but the fight that he was waging required diplomatic skill and slyness, so he was maneuvering as best he could. As the French say, à la guerre comme à la guerre. The date of the board meeting was nearing, and Samsonov was busy from morning till night talking to the right people and cementing the ranks of his supporters.