The Smart Girl

One day Nina heard a familiar voice in the reception. She was sitting side by side with Klara Fedorovna, with her back to the waiting visitors and could not see the one who spoke, but there could be no mistake about it – the voice belonged to Konstantin from Gradstroiinvest. Nina froze up.

“What the hell’s going on?” Konstantin said, not loudly but with passion. “This is the limit, really. How can he not understand it? In another month we’ll complete the reorganization, and then this business will soar up in value…”

“Quiet, Kostya,” said another visitor. Undoubtedly, that was accountant Revich.

“I don’t give a damn!” Konstantin raised his voice. “I’m not going to keep mum, I’ll tell him everything.”

“You will, for sure. You just quiet down for now,” muttered Revich.

They were silent for a minute. Then Konstantin said, “Listen, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be let in for another half hour. Let’s go have a smoke.”

“You’ve given up smoking, remember?”

“With all this bedlam going on? Not a chance… Come on, let’s go.”

The men left the reception. When the door closed after them, Nina waited out a few minutes, and then ran away to her room under some pretext never to show her face in the reception until the end of the day.

She never saw Konstantin again. Much later she found his name on the list of the top executive staff of the project, “Zaryadje XXI”. For the young manager, that was a huge promotion.

A few days before the date of the board meeting, Samsonov disappeared. Nobody – not even the bank’s top management – knew where he was or what he was up to. For the time of his absence, he assigned Sinitsin to act for him, thus bypassing the first and second vice directors. Apparently, Sinitsin was the only one Samsonov kept in contact with. At any other time, such an assignment would cause a lot of gossip, but in the turmoil of those days it was taken for granted.

Sinitsin refused to occupy Samsonov’s office and exercised his directorship from his own, very modest one. He behaved in a studiedly plain way, not posing as a big boss, and to almost every question, he gave the same answer, “Pavel Mikhailovich will decide on that when he’s back.” It was only the arrangements for the board meeting that Sinitsin left to himself. He checked up thoroughly on the work made by Klara Fedorovna and Nina. Nina had an occasion to find out that, although not being a specialist in finance, Sinitsin knew his way around all the papers. He gave some very reasonable instructions; then, just before the meeting, when everything was ready, he suddenly sent off on a two-day vacation Klara Fedorovna, Marina, Nina, and all the rest of the twelfth floor staff except for the board members. Samsonov’s battle against the opposition was to take place without witnesses.

As soon as she got home, Nina dumped onto her bed. “Gosh, am I tired,” she murmured as she was sinking into the dark abyss of dreamless sleep.

When she woke up, it took her a while to figure out what time of day it was – morning or evening. She took a shower, had something to eat and went to sleep again. Thus she slept through all the main events and it was only afterwards that she learned how things had turned out in the bank.

Samsonov arrived at the board meeting dead on time. Without explaining anything to anyone, he opened the session.

The opposition were well-prepared and bursting to fight. Samsonov was markedly polite to everyone. If his opponents had feared that he was going to abuse his authority to shut them up, they had been wrong.

The board included twenty one members. By prior estimates, eight of them were solidly on the director’s side, seven flatly against him, while the rest were undecided. Samsonov gave the floor to everyone who wished to speak. One by one, his opponents rose and voiced their grievances against the director. The charges mainly focused on the project Zaryadje; the speakers maintained that it was an insane adventure which was bound to wreck the bank.

The opponents’ arguments clearly impressed the undecided members who exchanged glances and remarks in whisper, watching the director worriedly, or else looking aside in confusion.

Finally Samsonov took the floor. He thanked all the speakers for their genuine concern about the future of Gradbank as well as their principled stand and valuable criticism which he promised to take account of in his work.

Then he set off a bomb. The bomb was the stunning news that Gradbank’s general director, acting through the bank’s subsidiaries, had sold off at one go a huge package of the bank’s assets including over one hundred businesses in the public utilities sector. Taken separately, none of those businesses were large, but as Samsonov listed them, it became clear that Gradbank had let go – and somebody had got hold of – a solid lump of the local utilities industry which gave the owner real influence in the city.

Baffled, the board members attacked the director with questions. To the first question, “Why did you do that?” – the answer obvious: Samsonov had been accumulating resources for Gradbank to bid for Zaryadje. With the additional injection of funds, the prospects of financing the project no longer seemed hopeless. But it was almost in chorus that the board members asked the next question, “Who’s the buyer? Who did you sell all that to?”

Samsonov took a theatrical pause, and then said calmly, “Atlas.”

When the members grasped the meaning of what they had heard, there was a deafening uproar in the conference room. To make a deal with Gradbank’s main competitor, give up to them a great package of assets… That was unbelievable!

Samsonov waited for the noise to subside, and then started explaining calmly. As it turned out, he had conceived the operation a long time ago and made a secret of it for security reasons. The idea was to provide the bank, at the expense of its most dangerous competitor, with financial resources that could decide the matter in favor of Gradbank. Besides, Atlas was becoming the owner of assets that, although very valuable potentially, required considerable urgent investments to maintain the current liquidity and complete the necessary reorganization. That was going to tie the hands of Atlas even more.

“But the Atlas people are no fools. Why did they swallow that?” wondered the board members.

“Well, they didn’t – not off the bat; it took a while to bring them around. I had to do some seducing,” Samsonov replied. “Finally, greed took the better of them. They’ve long had an eye on this business of ours for which they have a greater need than we do since Atlas is after control over the city. As to the contest, they’re totally confident of winning it, so they decided to kill two birds with one stone. Then again, it would be a shame for them to miss such a chance. Mind you, I let them have the assets for half the price.”

“What?! …”

“Yes, for half of what they’re worth. Otherwise, Atlas would never rise to the bait – as you said, they’re no fools.”

Once more, there was a terrible uproar in the conference room. Agitated in the extreme, the board members spoke all at once, their heightened tones rising to shouting. The double oak doors were incapable of blocking the noise; it could be heard all around the floor. Apparently, it was for that eventuality that Sinitsin had cleared the place of all the staff.

In order to dampen the emotions a bit, Samsonov ordered a break.

After the break, the opposition launched a new attack. They believed that they had it in the bag since the director himself had admitted to squandering the bank’s assets. It appeared to have been a desperate move on his part – an attempt to break a hopeless situation he was in. Apparently, the director had lost his grip, and all it took to topple him over was one good final push.

Again, Samsonov quite politely gave the floor to everyone. Then, when the steam had been let off, he said, “Now, my dear colleagues, I ask you to kindly give me your attention. I’ll tell you how we are going to win the contest for Zaryadje XXI.”

And he did. Deliberately, point by point, he expounded the project financing scheme that had been suggested by Nina. He omitted some important details but presented the main points very clearly and colorfully.

The board members were stupefied – they had not heard of anything like that. The board consisted of financiers and lawyers. They showered Samsonov with technical questions. Samsonov answered them all calmly one by one, and as he was doing that, the board began to realize that the idea was not a groundless fantasy, but rather a real, although incredibly bold plan.

One more thing became clear. With the means gained from the sale of the utility business, Gradbank had enough resources to carry out such a plan while Atlas, drained of those means, was no longer up to anything like that.

The prospect of winning the contest loomed before the board, with all the ensuing huge opportunities which dwarfed the city utility assets to a mere trifle.

It was clear to everyone that Samsonov had won, and the opposition had been beaten. His antagonists tried to muddle the case by raising some other questions, but Samsonov was no longer polite. Not listening to anyone, he put his (and Nina’s) plan to the vote. The plan was approved by sixteen votes to five.

The defeated opponents suggested canceling the stockholders’ meeting scheduled for the next day, but now Samsonov himself insisted on holding it. He also demanded that a vote of confidence be taken in him as director.

“In this critical time, what the bank needs is cohesion,” he argued. None of the board members dared to dispute that.

The stockholders’ meeting was held in an elite out-of-town hotel located in a beautiful countryside. Contrary to the expectations, it did not last long.

Before the meeting, Samsonov was approached by the five remaining dissenters.

“You win, Pavel Mikhailovich. Let’s make peace. We’ve decided not to speak against you at the meeting.”

“Glad to hear that, my friends, but that’s not good enough,” Samsonov responded cheerfully. “I said that the bank needed cohesion. It seems, you didn’t quite get my point. I’m going to propose some changes to the board roster. I’m afraid, you won’t find your names on it.”

The former opponents were choked by anger, but they were men of business and knew when they had lost a game.

“Pavel Mikhailovich, there’s no point in wasting us. Name your price.”

“Really, why waste you?” Samsonov replied as cheerfully. “I just wanted the board to be solid for the contest. To act as a clenched fist, so to speak. This means that at the meeting, each of you in turn must take the floor and speak in support of the project Zaryadje and me as director. I hope you will be convincing.”

The opponents took the floor and were quite convincing. Pavel Mikhailovich Samsonov and his policy were given an almost unanimous vote of confidence.

He called when Nina was in the kitchen, about to fry some eggs. It was the first time she heard his voice on the phone, and she did not recognize him.

“Nina?”

“Who’s that? … Papa, is that you?”

“No, sorry… It’s Samsonov,” said the voice.

Nina dropped an egg which she had had in her hand. The egg broke and spread out on the floor as an ugly yellow pool.

“Pavel Mikhailovich! …”

Taken by surprise, she could not utter anything else.

“Nina, you remember that we’re partying tonight?”

“Partying? …”

“What’s wrong with you, Nina?” laughed Samsonov. “You don’t know anything? Shame on you. How can you be so indifferent to the life of your company?”

Finally, Nina came to herself and realized that Samsonov was referring to the results of the board meeting and stockholders’ meeting. She really did not know anything – she had slept through it all and was just about to call Gradbank to inquire about things.

“I’m sorry, Pavel Mikhailovich. Did it go well?”

“Very much so. Some bad guys tried to knock us over, but we beat them off and now we’re back in the saddle.”

Samsonov was not bragging, but he was not hiding his triumph either.

“I am very glad,” Nina said.

In fact, she was happy for her man, although it meant an end to her dream of becoming the only employee of the befallen Pavel Mikhailovich.

“We owe a lot of our victory to you,” Samsonov added seriously. “You are our hero. I’ll reward you for that, trust me.”

“It’s nothing, Pavel Mikhailovich, you don’t have to…” Nina murmured, showing due modesty. In fact, she was in seventh heaven.

“Well, then, it’s eight o’clock at…” Samsonov named one of the city’s most expensive restaurants which was hired up completely by Gradbank for the night.

“I was planning to play tennis tonight,” Nina recalled irrelevantly.

Samsonov’s voice thundered in the receiver: “What’s your problem, Nina? You’re what – messing with me? To hell with your tennis! Now listen – you get prepared, and Kolya will come by to pick you up.”

“Oh, there is no need…”

“He’ll be with you at half past seven.”

Samsonov hung up.

Nina did not feel the floor beneath her feet. It seemed she only had to push off with her toes lightly to float up in the air like a real fairy. Her man had called her. Her! Himself! He had invited her! He was grateful! He was thinking of her!

Suddenly, the flight of the fairy named Nina stopped short, and she sank onto the floor beside the pool that had once been an egg. “What am I going to wear?” That eternal question, the curse of all women, had bothered Nina very rarely, but now it posed itself to her in the most threatening way.

Nina rushed to her wardrobe and drawers. Their contents flew onto the sofa and bed. An inspection of her clothes gave disheartening results, testifying eloquently that Nina had no life of her own. All those mouse-grey blouses and skirts were only suitable for sitting behind the computer or jostling in the underground.

True, there was a special case in the back of her wardrobe where chic, unworn things were kept that Nina had bought once following Aliska’s instructions. Nina retrieved them and laid them out. The things were beautiful – Nina felt intimidated by them. However, inexperienced in fashions as she was, Nina realized that some items were lacking if she meant to go out. For one, a purse. And the right costume jewelry. And good perfume. “And my hair? Oh, goodness!” Nina could not recall when she had last done her hair.

After some rummaging in her note-books, Nina found Aliska’s number.

Aliska took some time to recognize her. “Shuvalova? Who is Shuvalova? … Ah, hello.”

Nina asked her former university mate for some more instructions. Aliska started enlightening her, but then she cut herself short.

“Listen, I’m going downtown now – I need to do some shopping myself. Join in, if you like.”

They met in the shopping center of the city. Aliska was still the same – strikingly showy, cynical, and chain-smoking. Together, they made the round of a dozen fashionable boutiques. Aliska solved easily all of Nina’s problems, throwing in some precious advice in passing about the right time to put on this or that ‘rag’, and the time to take it off, the right way to wear a thing, and the right pose to assume to best display it.

“All right, spit it out – what beast are you hunting?” Aliska asked as they landed, with their bags, in a coffee-shop to have a cup of coffee.

“What are you talking about?” Nina wondered sincerely.

“Who is it you’re going after? Let me guess… Your boss?”

Nina flushed.

“No, I never…”

“Don’t be coy,” Aliska said, ignoring her protests. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. True, I didn’t expect that of you – you’ve always been a nerd.”

“I’m not such a total nerd,” Nina murmured.

“Uh-huh. Not any longer, to be sure,” Aliska laughed, patting the bags of purchases.

“How are you doing?” Nina asked to change the subject.

“Kicked out of the job again… Because of the boss, too. He’s the right kind, and we had some very good time together, but his frump of a wife got the wind, and – goodbye, dear Alisa…”

“Speaking of jobs, could you fix me with a job in a bank or something?” she asked suddenly. “Clearly, I’m not like you – work is not my hobby – but one has to draw salary somewhere.”

Nina pondered a moment. She was grateful to Aliska for her help.

“Yes, I think I could put in a word for you.”

She would never think of recommending the lazy, immoral Aliska to Gradbank, but she did not care much about the shady financial institution in which she had once committed a malfeasance.

“There is this growing bank. I worked there for some time and I know a vice-director. His name is Kirill.”

She pictured Aliska thrusting her claws into the soft body of her former chief and laughed.

“What’s this about?” asked Aliska.

“Nothing, sorry. Only, mind you, that guy Kirill adores his wife.”

“We’ll sort it out,” Aliska said resolutely.

At half past seven sharp Kolya called.

“Nina Yevgenievna, I’m here, down by the entrance.”

Nina was ready. She had spent the past hour developing the important quality of ease. That was one of the lessons she had received from her mentor. “The problem with new things is that they are new,” explained Aliska. “It shows, see? That should be avoided at all cost. The things on you and you in them must look natural —as if you just slipped on something at random from among your everyday rags. If it’s not natural, then it’s not chic, but a housemaid’s attempt to pass for a lady.”

Aliska’s remark struck home. Nina felt mortally awkward in all those stylish clothes.

“Can it be helped somehow?” asked Nina.

“Well, it helps if you wear the new things a couple of days before going out. When are you going to need all that?”

“Tonight,” sighed Nina.

“Tough luck. Still, put it on for an hour at least. Sit in it, walk about in it. Try to occupy yourself with something that can distract you. Not washing floors, of course, but something casual, you know…”

Having put on dutifully all her posh new clothes, Nina walked, and sat, and then walked again before the mirror. Everything fitted her ideally, but there was not a grain of ease; the mirror reflected a housemaid all figged up in her lady’s garments. “He’s going to notice that – he’ll know that I’ve dressed for him. He might even think that the clothes aren’t mine – that they’re off somebody else’s back. Terrible,” Nina fretted. “Ease, ease… How am I supposed to acquire it? Think, girl.”

Her eye fell on her music center. Nina had not turned it on for a long time – she had been too busy to listen to records. She loved music, although she was not a naturally musical person. It was her mother who had had an ear for music, as well as her father. When Nina was about ten, her mother signed her up for music classes, but Nina quit a month later, to the relief of her teachers.

Nina had always admired people who could sing. If she had had such a gift herself, she would have been singing old Russian romance songs which she believed she felt deeply. Her music center had a karaoke function, and at one time, Nina had made some attempts to imitate the current pop hits. But as for many other things, she had had no time for that, so karaoke had been put aside, although the methodical Nina had promised herself to pick it up some time in the future.

Now she turned on the center, plugged in the microphone, adjusted the karaoke, and, standing before the mirror with the microphone in her hand, announced: “My Grey-winged Dove, sung by Nina Shuvalova.” Music poured from the loudspeaker, and Nina began to sing. What sounded so natural and easy when performed by the famous pop diva turned out to be anything but easy. Nina started out of time, and either ran ahead of or lagged behind the music; she missed beats, found herself unable to utter the simplest words, and was totally off the tune. Nina was angry with herself; she was not used to being so bad at what she was doing. Once she finished mutilating the Grey-winged Dove, she did the same kind of carnage to the Pink Flamingo and the Artist Who Painted Rain. Little by little though, she was getting the knack of it. When she had done for the second time Call Me Your Little Girl, she had a breakthrough. Her shyness was gone, and she was no longer afraid of the microphone; she grasped the feel of the rhythm and gained control of her voice. In the mirror, an elegant young woman sang in a manner that was neither powerful nor artful, but with something very right and soulful to her singing.

Then Kolya called.

Nina went down. Music was ringing in her head; she was feeling relaxed and spirited at the same time. The clothes from the best fashion houses no longer hindered her.

The huge Samsonov’s car was standing by the entrance. Kolya was out, wiping the windshield. Both the car and the driver were being scrutinized rapturously by three local pensioner women who were sitting on a bench close by. When they realized that the car had come for Nina, their curiosity rose to dangerous levels, fraught with clinical consequences. Undoubtedly – if the blood pressure did not kill them – that event was going to be the main subject of their gossip for a week ahead.

“Good evening,” Nina said politely to her neighbors and waved to the driver: “Hello, Kolya.”

She was aware that she looked dazzling, and for the first time in her life she was not afraid to be so. She deserved it.

At the sight of Nina, Kolya’s hand on the windshield froze. The simple-minded guy let out: “Wow!”

“What?”

“You’re high class,” Kolya said with conviction. “Totally super.”

Nina gave him a worldly smile and took the front seat. She was followed by three pairs of pensioner eyes whose owners had stopped breathing with excitement.

Kolya started the car and set out for the restaurant. “At this time of day, all the avenues are jam-full, so we’ll have to do some dodging about,” he warned.

And they did. Before that, Nina had had no idea how many side streets and back alleys this city had which could be used to make a route from point A to point B. Kolya knew them all. The director’s car was diving under arcs, sallying deep into dark yards, and at times seemed to circle around, but the bottom line was that it moved rather rapidly towards its goal. Kolya seemed to have no part in it – the heavy automobile found its way on its own, miraculously making turns and squeezing through where, it seemed, a compact Zhiguli would not have made it.

“Kolya, Pavel Mikhailovich told me that you were going to become a father. Is that true?” inquired Nina.

“Yeah,” Kolya smiled broadly. “It’s going to be a guy. Nastena is six months into it already.”

“Are you going to leave Pavel Mikhailovich?”

“Yeah…” The guy stopped smiling. “Nastena wants me to. She says she fears for me. I say, what is there to fear? This is armor, see?” Kolya knocked on the door. “What can happen to me here?”

In fact, the automobile was very heavy; Nina felt that it did not move in the same way as ordinary cars did.

“Do you mean to say that in the event of a car accident – God forbid, of course! – you are not going to be hurt?”

Kolya gave her a strange look.

“Eh? … Yeah, car accidents are no problem to us here.”

“What are you going to do?” inquired Nina.

Kolya’s face lit up.

“You see, I have this idea. Some guys that I know and I want to set up a motor club. I used to be a racing driver before the army, you know… So, we plan to build a motordrome for amateurs.”

“Motordrome?”

“Yeah. It’s where you can take some lessons for a driving test, or do some real racing if you’re up to it. True, we don’t have anything yet, but Pavel Mikhailovich promised to help.”

“It’s a great idea. Sign me up,” said Nina. “I’ve long been meaning to get a driving license.”

“Deal!” Kolya exclaimed. “Why don’t you try racing, too? I’ll teach you.”

“Deal!” responded Nina.

She felt that she was up to anything.

Chapter 5

Despite all of Kolya’s skill, they were a little late for the party. On entering the restaurant, Nina stood still, baffled. She had never before been to a corporate function of such scale. The huge room was crammed with round tables. The stage, decorated with lots of balloons and tinsel, was ablaze with lights while the rest of the restaurant was immersed in semi-darkness. On the stage, someone was making a speech about the bright way that Gradbank was following led by its wise director, Pavel Mikhailovich Samsonov. Clearly, it was neither the first nor the last time that night that somebody spoke of Gradbank’s bright way and the director’s wise leadership. The audience was barely listening – the guests at the tables were busy pouring out champagne, laughing, and going over to other tables to clink glasses with people they knew.