The Maya Pill Read online

  Several dozen new messages popped up, and as usual I began with the spam. Spam has its own special patterns. A couple of months ago I was being bombarded with ads for Viagra, Vuka-Vuka, and other miraculous substances purporting to enhance male potency. Then I kept getting information about a unique, brand-new method for mastering English. Last week I received an invitation to acquire real estate outside Moscow: a two-story mansion on a two-thousand-square-meter lot on the Rublev side, for a mere one-and-a-half million dollars. Clearly my virtual status is rising. Give it a little time and the circle will close back in on itself; I’ll start getting invitations to enroll in professional development courses for sales managers.

  I was just about to delete the next message, but realized just in time that it was from our Dutch supplier of frozen French fries, forwarded to me by our Department Import Manager. The letter was an answer, and as I first thought, just the latest installment in a listless dialogue we’d been having with them about compensation for a loss, to the tune of eight hundred dollars, that Cold Plus had suffered in the Russian port because the forty-foot container had exceeded the maximum stipulated gross weight.

  In the previous message, the Dutch export manager had denied responsibility, citing several lengthy provisions from INCOTERMS-2000,* and had repeated three times that, insofar as we were following FCA delivery standards,** “we are not the shipper.”

  I had put the message aside for several days, biding my time until the mood was right, and after my next regular meeting with the Import Director to go over the different flights, I was blessed with inspiration and composed a response in my best English:

  Dear Sir,

  I’m quite astonished by your letter. Actually, I get a kind of strange feeling while reading in your message the repeated statement that you are not the shipper of your goods. My poor brains are totally collapsed and I’m wondering: who the hell are you? If you are truly not the shipper then who the hell is the shipper? Aliens, maybe? Or Jesus Christ Himself? Or, as we used to say in Russian, might it be Pushkin? Ah, sorry, in case you don’t know, Pushkin was a guy who wrote poetry and stuff in the nineteenth century or something. You may ask: why Pushkin? I’m thinking the same thing.

  In every Bill of Lading related to every consignment of your goods I see your company mentioned as the shipper. But you are so convinced that you are not, that I’m starting to doubt my own eyes.

  Or maybe you are just missing the meaning of the words? English is not your native language, you may not understand everything clearly. In that case please go buy any dictionary, or glossary, whatever, and find the word “shipper.” Learn it and we’ll go on with our fantastically entertaining conversation.

  Sincerely yours, with best regards, as ever, your well-wisher, Maximus R. Semipyatnitsky.

  Thinking back to this message, I realized that I’d laid it on a little thick. So now I’d get some kind of reprimand. I didn’t want to read the message, so I shouted across three desks to the Import Manager for Potatoes, catching her just as she hung up her phone.

  “Lina! What the hell is he writing now? This time, that he’s not selling, just looking?”

  “Who, the Dutch guy?”

  “Uh-huh, the Flying Dutchman, and he can stick it up his . . . You forwarded his message, but damned if I’m going to read it.”

  “Nah, in fact, they agreed to compensate us fifty-fifty.”

  “Oh. So I typed two entire volumes of War and Peace for a measly four hundred dollars?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “So what’s the rest of the message about?”

  “Something completely different. Remember the time they snuck those undeclared samples into a container?”

  I did remember. It happens every once in a while: Some item that isn’t declared on the invoice gets slipped into a container, deep inside, away from the door. Customs can’t open and unload all the containers, so they conduct random inspections. More often than not that happens if there’s a glitch, or if some information comes in from the higher-ups, or if the customs office has a conflict with the broker and they want to show him who’s boss. So in theory it’s possible to bring in entire containers full of contraband, with a couple of rows of approved goods stacked inside the doors, just in case.

  By the way, have you ever wondered why bananas are cheaper here than apples? My guess is it’s because the banana companies are a front: If a few bags of pure cocaine were loaded into every container of bananas, profits would far exceed any overhead. Your bananas could even be distributed free of charge.

  I try to avoid breaking the rules. So when Lina asked, as she always does, “The Dutch want to load three pallets of samples in the container. Is that okay?” I refused.

  “Right. Three pallets, half a ton each. One and a half tons of contraband per container. Maybe we should just give up declaring anything? We’ll just declare oxygen. What’s the TN VED code for air?* Zero duty?”

  “I’m not kidding, Max.”

  “I’m not Max. My name is Maximus.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Caligula, asshole. We need samples. The front office is on our case day in and day out, they’re going nuts trying to get the mashed potatoes with mushrooms on the shelves before our competitors. And the broker with the mushrooms doesn’t want to declare them—that way the mushrooms will be pure profit. You know that!”

  “I do. And I also know that we’ll bring in two hundred tons of the mushroom mixture, and it’ll just sit in the warehouse taking up space for six months, and then all of a sudden no one will have any use for it.”

  “So what? At least they’ll be off our backs.”

  “Fine, then, load them up. But why three pallets at once? Let them have ten boxes, that should be enough. If they decide to inspect the whole batch, we can buy the inspectors off for a hundred bucks. But three pallets could get us arrested.”

  “Okay! Should I tell the broker?”

  “No, keep them in the dark as usual.”

  “Got it.”

  “But make sure they get it right—it needs to go on the floor in the very back. And God forbid they include the boxes in the bill of lading and packing list! Tell them exactly how to fill out the forms.”

  “I know, I know—I’m no virgin.”

  “Oh, you expect me to believe that?”

  “Figure of speech, you dimwit.”

  “As though anyone would take you!”

  “You . . . you yellow-faced Tatar!”

  “Khazar. Get it right: My face is Khazar. But really, who’d want you anyway? Haunting the workplace every day till nine P.M. . . .”

  “I’m going to throw this hole punch at you!”

  “Hole punch, hole punch . . . is that an invitation?”

  “Filthy mind. Only you could come up with something like that. I think you’re in desperate need of a girlfriend.”

  “All right, we’ve had our little laugh. Let’s look at the rest of the message.”

  That’s the way it was. More or less. But then something else came up. There’s always something coming up with these samples—first they try to cheat us, and then they mount an ambush.

  “What is it this time, Lina?”

  “They claim something got into a shipment that didn’t belong there.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They put in an extra box of something, by mistake, and now they want it back, I guess. They’re worried we might accidentally send it out to a retailer or open it ourselves. Rat poison, something like that . . . ”

  Now that was interesting. I decided to read the message after all. In spite of the insulting tone of my earlier letter, the supplier was proposing to split the expenses down the middle, and was being extremely courteous about it.

  The second half of the message had to do with a box labeled PTH-IP-176539/48, twenty kilograms net weight. You could tell that the author of the message was trying too hard to strike a casual tone: We’ve just made a little mistake, everyone screws up now and then, no
? So just set the box to one side, and we’ll come and get it, no problem.

  But he wasn’t doing a very good job of sounding innocent. The wording was too strained, and I could see that there was real panic behind it, barely patched over. This was clearly no ordinary box. And sure enough, the phone on my desk rang and I heard the voice of the Import Director, calling from out on the road.

  “Maximus?”

  “Yes, Diana Anatolyevna.”

  Or should I call her “Madam Director”? My boss is three years younger than me. It’s demeaning. She addresses me either by my first name or my last, but I use her full name, with the patronymic. It’s not required, but some masochistic impulse makes me do it.

  “Hello.”

  “Good afternoon, Diana Anatolyevna.”

  “These crazy Dutch guys have been calling my cell all morning.”

  “The swine!”

  “They’re in a huge rush to sign a supplementary contract to issue bonuses by sales volume.”

  “Imagine that!”

  “Anyway, they’re on their way to Russia as we speak. They want to be in the office first thing tomorrow. Can you pick them up at their hotel in the morning?”

  “Whatever you say, Diana Anatolyevna.”

  “Semipyatnitsky, can we do without the excess humility? You know my car’s in the shop.”

  “I said I’d pick them up.”

  “All right . . . so look: I’ll come straight to the office from the airport; they can meet me there. Also, they mentioned a box, something that accidentally got into a container along with the samples. Are you up on this?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Have the box brought from the warehouse to the office—the Dutchmen want to take it back with them. Though I’m finding it hard to imagine how they’re going to manage that. And why all the fuss?”

  That’s an awful lot of trouble for a box of rat poison, I thought to myself. This sudden visit by the supplier’s representatives had to be about the box. It was the contract about the bonuses that was incidental; that sort of thing can be decided without a face-to-face meeting.

  I skimmed the message again. The Dutch were insisting that the box remain sealed, to keep the contents intact. So were they just going to take the box back to Holland with them, seals and all, as checked baggage?

  Or would they open it beforehand and pack the contents in their personal luggage?

  What was in that box?

  I had to take a look. I could justify myself later by claiming that it had fallen off the forklift and broken open, or I could come up with some other story. I couldn’t get that box out of my mind. I had to head over and see it for myself.

  * Boris Grebenshikov.

  * The compilation of standards and conditions for international trade.

  ** FCA (free carrier) conditions for delivery specify that the seller fulfill his obligations.

  * Nomenclature for goods in international trade.

  COLD CORPORATION

  Let me say a few words about the organization where I work, its history and the nature of its business.

  In its current form, Cold Plus is a conglomerate comprising regional distribution companies, warehouse complexes, and transport and freight enterprises, all administered from one central office. Cold Plus imports frozen food products from all over the world and arranges their processing through customs, trans-shipping, storage, delivery to processing companies, and distribution onto the retail market. The assortment, or, as they still call it, the product line, is enormous. Everything from potatoes to strawberries, shrimp to octopus, even cakes, candy, and bread, is frozen and freighted in from abroad in refrigerated containers and trucks. Just so you know, the chunks of “fresh fruit” in your morning yogurt are shipped in from China at a controlled temperature of minus eighteen Celsius and defrosted in Russia. The cheesecake that you order in a café was brought in frozen from Australia and thawed in the microwave, just moments before the waiter brought it to your table. The “fresh,” “steamed,” or “chilled” meat and fish in your supermarket more often than not were frozen a year ago somewhere in Argentina and underwent special processing to give them the appropriate degree of “freshness.”

  Many years ago, when such products were still a rarity, a group of clever entrepreneurs involved in the food importing business realized the potential for growth in frozen food and poured all their energy and resources into that sector. Demand grew with every passing year, and along with it the business of the Cold Plus Corporation. Now, practically everything we eat is frozen and freezing is the most widespread means of preserving the nutritional quality of food over time. The company’s owners are now known as pioneers in the industry and are enjoying the well-deserved fruits of their bold initiative.

  Cold Plus is a success story, the kind of thing you read about in glossy magazines aimed at a yuppie readership, but consumed mostly by mid-level managers like me, and students, who take it as an inspirational example of the kind of success they can aspire to in their future careers.

  In principle it’s a true story—though a few details are missing. And as we know, the devil’s in the details.

  A more complete reconstruction of the company’s “success story” would go as follows:

  At the very beginning of the glorious, fabulous, and romantic ’90s, a group of Young Communists occupying leadership positions in the City Committee of the Komsomol followed the example of the Communist Party itself, which, according to a slogan posted in the halls of the City Committee Headquarters, was the Committee’s helmsman, and steered the conversion of the economy to market principles, plunging fearlessly into the abyss of capitalism.

  This period in post-Soviet history is called, to borrow Marxist terminology, the epoch of “primitive capital accumulation.” Here the distinctions between good and evil get murky. For some, the phrase summons up visions of the Wild West: gold prospectors, adventurers, prostitutes, hucksters, and reckless cowboys. But in Russia’s case, there wasn’t much romance to it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a fantasy.

  You see, the epoch of “primitive capital accumulation” in Russia and throughout the Soviet Union actually comprised the years of collectivization and industrialization, and the subsequent construction of “advanced socialism.” During this period, capital was accumulated by means of cruel exploitation of the population and the confiscation not only of surplus goods, but necessities too; resources were concentrated in the offices of the bureaucracy and the Party machine, where they underwent processing into the ideal form for use by the country’s future leaders. By the time the ’90s came along, the only thing left to do was divvy up all that accumulated capital. And this task fell to the self-proclaimed red-carpet cowboys, the movers and shakers on the seats of power.

  But let us return to our city Komsomol Committee. One of the country’s first commercial banks, Bee Trust, was founded through the patronage of the Komsomol, and with the direct participation of its leaders. There was no need to spend centuries accumulating money, collecting it from thousands of individual depositors, as had been the case in old, backward Europe. Money was decanted directly from the city budget into this private bank in exchange for an utterly mundane transfer of a specified percentage of said funds back into the hands of the budget administrators in the form of hard currency. The same old gang of Party, Komsomol, and administrative functionaries retained their old positions, now “serving” in a new capacity.

  After the liberalization of foreign trade, special structures were established under the bank’s supervision to manage import operations. Purchases were covered by what still passed as government funds, transferred to the bank from the state budget; the revenue from sales within the country, though, following the age-old rules of the game, became the personal capital of those who had established the business.

  Initially, the budding Komsomol capitalists indiscriminately bought up everything they could abroad, paying whatever price they were asked. In those days, e
ven the rank and file involved in these deals on the Russian side could become millionaires after a mere month on the job through the unofficial commissions they received from foreign contractors for deals they signed on behalf of the government at exorbitant prices and with crushing terms.

  The leadership cast a blind eye on the growing prosperity of their junior partners; they weren’t doing so badly themselves, after all. Economically, the deals had absolutely no significance. All of the expenses were written off the accounts of Bee Trust, and the profits went directly into the owners’ pockets.

  The Bee Trust group’s business realized the eternal dream of farmers everywhere: The two halves of the chicken, the part that consumed resources and the part that provided profit, were kept separate. The front part of the chicken, the part that needed to be fed, remained entirely in the government’s chicken coop, whereas the back part, the part that laid the golden eggs, was privatized by Komsomol chicken farmers.

  But all good things come to an end. The dolce vita of the Bee Trust bank ground to an abrupt halt on the day the Russian state declared bankruptcy. In addition to financing imports and buying up real estate, the Komsomol bankers had also gotten involved (excessively, it turned out) with securities. These securities primarily took the form of notorious short-term government bonds. Essentially, their purpose was to serve as an instrument whereby the state could attract funds to cover the ever-present budget deficit. Given the high and unpredictable levels of inflation at that time, these funds were obtained at unprecedented high interest rates.

  Bee Trust, like many other banks, acquired these bonds by taking out subsidized loans from the government-owned Central Bank. They obtained them at an artificially low interest rate, then turned around and basically sold them back to the Russian government, but at a much higher rate. In this way, the Russian state issued credit and then covered that same credit by paying private banks for it.