Madness Treads Lightly by Dashkova Polina

Author:Dashkova, Polina
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477823460
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2017-09-12T04:00:00+00:00

“I was at Volkov’s today,” Gosha said when they got in the car. “You know, it was all very strange. He made an appointment to meet me in his office. He’s got a gorgeous place. You can imagine. A fancy office. Maids, guards, and an audition room that was oddly shabby, like some Soviet-era House of Pioneers. I started asking him questions about his childhood and his parents. Then about his youth. Very basic stuff. He was so languid, I decided to change things up and asked whether he remembered steaming in an official bathhouse with a group of journalists from Moscow during his Young Communist days. And if he remembered drinking vodka with them and roasting shish kebabs one night on the banks of the Tobol. And at that moment something happened to him. He turned white, sweat broke out on his forehead, and his hands started shaking. He looked at me with bugged-out eyes and asked, ‘Who told you that?’

“I said, ‘Elena Polyanskaya, my boss and friend. You must remember her.’ And at that he shouted so the whole office could hear: ‘No!’ His secretary flew in, and then his wife came running and demanded I give back the cassette. I’d just put in a new blank one. That’s what I gave her. Do you want to listen to the interview?”

“Yes.” Lena nodded.

“Take my bag out of the back seat. The Volkov cassette is in the pocket.”

Lena put on the headset and turned on the recorder. “I had a very strict mother. She was the secretary of the bread factory’s Party organization. She was very demanding, but she taught me to be strong.”

“Is that why you became a Young Communist?” Gosha’s mocking voice asked.

“Yes. I had specific ideals. Unlike lots of people, I truly believed in the victory of Communism.”

Lord, what rot! Lena thought. Venya Volkov, the Young Communist who took us to the Party bathhouse, fed us shish kebab and cured sausage. Venya Volkov, who burned with an unearthly love for me. That Venya Volkov believed in the victory of Communism? Why is he making himself out to be an idiot? There was something sensitive and abnormal about him.

Right then, Gosha asked about the bathhouse and the shish kebab. Volkov’s “No!” hit her headset so loudly that Lena shuddered. That cry rang out immediately after Gosha said her name.

“Tell me about Volkov,” Lena asked, turning off the recorder and putting it back in Gosha’s bag. “How did he become a millionaire?”

“From ’85 to ’87 he had a chain of nightclubs and sound studios in Tyumen, Tobolsk, and Khanty-Mansiysk. But by that time he had already moved to Moscow and was working for the Young Communist Central Committee. In what capacity, I don’t know.”

“Hang on, Gosha. In ’85 we didn’t have private property. How could he own nightclubs and studios?”

“Well, formally the music business was communal, owned by the Young Communists. But in reality, at least in Western Siberia, it was completely controlled by Volkov. Simultaneously, he ran the so-called Central Committee propaganda train.

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