Stroika Page 5

  Sitting there in his shabby clothes, he suddenly felt a lot better about himself. Ivan placed a hand on his shoulder. He was the modern-day explorer on the threshold of great discovery.

  ‘D’accordo,’ she said.

  He could see that his conviction had hit home. She blushed faintly.

  ‘Please, feel free to input. What you said was helpful.’

  Ilaria quickly began to get the drift of what he was looking for. Subtle it wasn’t – figure hugging, often short and overtly sexy it was.

  Mid-morning, they took a break. Leaving Ivan struggling to converse with a young female showroom assistant, Misha grabbed a coffee and made his way over to Ilaria, who had just appeared from the changing room wearing the jeans and top she had arrived in.

  ‘What part of Russia are you from?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not. I’ve never been to Russia. My mother’s Russian and has always spoken to me in her home language, but she left before I was born. To be honest there hasn’t been much use for it until now.’

  ‘You know a lot about fashion?’

  ‘This isn’t my full-time job. I’m a student, or I should say was a student at the Milan College of Fashion. I’ve just graduated. My mother and father are both buyers at Rinascente, one of the big retail groups.’

  Misha took another gulp of coffee, trying to weigh up whether he should put the question to her he had in mind.

  ‘Are you free for dinner tonight? I go back to Leningrad tomorrow.’ He could see her hesitating; being asked out by showroom clients must be an occupational hazard, he thought. ‘A business proposal,’ he added, trying to reassure her. He saw her relax a little.

  ‘And you can practise your Russian. You name the time and place’

  ‘All right,’ she said, giving in. ‘Eight this evening.’ She suggested a local restaurant not far from where he was staying.

  For the next two hours she changed in and out of another dozen or so styles. Finally, they finished. He reckoned up the order.

  ‘Are you going to pay in cash?’ Ilaria asked him in Russian. ‘You could probably get another 15 per cent off these list prices.’

  From his satchel Misha extracted a wad of neatly bound US dollar bills, in varying denominations and condition, each totalling one hundred dollars. He stacked them carefully on the table and pushed them forward. He was making a bet with his entire life savings.

  ‘Ask for twenty-five.’ Misha gave her her due, she didn’t hesitate in relaying his offer in Italian. Luigi punched at the calculator in his hand; more, Misha thought, to give himself time to weigh up his offer. It was a simple choice: cash up front, no risk, no agent’s percentage, a direct sale into a promising new market – his first Russian customer.

  ‘And tell Luigi that if this goes well I’ll be back and I’ll want exclusive distribution rights for his line in Russia.’ Misha was looking directly at Luigi as he spoke.

  Luigi put down the calculator. ‘Did I tell you where I met Michael, Ilaria?’ said Luigi. She shook her head. ‘At the bar, in the finest hotel in Leningrad, doing his homework, talking with businessmen, picking their brains… I think he’ll go far. D’accordo! Twenty-five per cent.’ He grinned and held out his hand. They shook on it.

  Misha counted out the agreed amount and pointed to several empty canvas bags next to Ivan. ‘Please pack the order in these. We’ll be back at eleven tomorrow morning to collect.’

  Leaving Ivan to do his own thing, Misha spent the latter part of the hot afternoon absorbing Milan. He wished he had allowed himself more time now, time to map it all out: high street to high-end boutique.

  He stopped outside a men’s store. A beautifully cut suit had caught his eye in the window. He stood staring at it, hesitating. It struck him as strange that he didn’t have to be a high party member to go in. In Milan he was as entitled as anyone. A smartly dressed doorman standing inside opened the door for him.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked a sales assistant the moment he stepped onto the marble floor. He was mid-twenties, Misha guessed, and wore a close-fitting black suit, white shirt, black tie and patent black leather shoes.

  ‘I am from Russia,’ said Misha in heavily accented English, hoping it would explain everything.

  Misha pointed at the black suit in the window. The sales assistant led him over to the suit rail and, guessing his size, unhooked one.

  ‘This is the same as the one in the window: Zegna, an excellent make. Would you like to try it on?’ Misha tried not to wince at the price on the ticket.

  Twenty minutes later, Misha left with a new suit, two white shirts and a new pair of soft leather shoes. It was an altogether new experience. The sales assistant could not have been more charming or the quality of clothing more extraordinary. He felt embarrassed thinking about the suit hanging on his door at home and determined to give it away at the first opportunity.

  Back at the hotel, Misha wrote down everything he remembered while it was still fresh in his memory. By the time he had finished it had already turned seven fifteen. He quickly showered and changed into his new clothes. Standing in front of the wall mirror, he was shocked at how different he looked. Gone was the rough-looking young Russian; before him stood an entirely different character, well dressed, Italian style. He squared up to the mirror, ran his hands through his still damp, vaguely long fair hair, and over his unplanned designer stubble. The jacket fitted his broad shoulders perfectly, tapering at the waist. He tugged down his white shirt cuffs, leaving an inch or so showing, copying the way the mannequin had been dressed in the window. Any lingering uncertainty about spending so much money evaporated.

  At a little before eight Misha seated himself at the bar of the restaurant where they had agreed to meet. He ordered a Peroni recommended by the bartender and wondered what Ivan was up to. Italian women, he knew, would have been his first priority. Sat there, facing the bar, enjoying his drink and air conditioning, Misha reflected on the last two days, the experiences it had brought and how a three-hour flight had delivered him to a new world, unimagined. The sound of a Russian female voice behind him jolted him out of his reverie.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she said.

  He turned round. Ilaria was wearing high heels, black leggings and a diaphanous black silk top. Her hair was no longer fastened back but fell straight on her shoulders, her eye make-up subtle but smouldering.

  He could see her taking in his new attire, reappraising him.

  ‘Zegna,’ she said, looking at his suit; a statement not a question. He was impressed.

  He ordered a glass of Soave from the bartender as she swivelled onto the stool next to him, crossing her long legs only inches from his.

  They touched bottle and glass.

  ‘Ilaria,’ he said trying out the name.

  ‘Mikhail Dimitrivich.’ She had heard Ivan use his first name and patronymic in affectionate frustration during the afternoon session.

  ‘Misha… that’s what my friends call me.’

  ‘Misha then,’ Ilaria repeated, introductions settled. ‘And what do you think of Milan?’

  ‘How long have you got? It is difficult to take in how much you have of everything… back home even basics are hard to come by… even things like shoes,’ he added, thinking of the shoes he had brought with him, another item he vowed never to wear again.

  ‘Back home,’ he said again, his expression hardening slightly, ‘there are shoe shops but often there are no shoes. If you find a pair that fit you, if you are that lucky, you buy them; if they don’t fit, you buy them anyway and advertise a swap for your size in the newspaper.’ He could see her struggling with the reality of what he said. ‘Ask your mother, but maybe it was better back then.’ Her expression softened a little.

  ‘And what about pere—?’

  ‘Perestroika… before we had a bad plan, now we have no plan. Shortages are worse than b
efore… much worse.’

  ‘But you have been allowed to travel. My mother told me how difficult it was in her time to leave. Isn’t that a change?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just that hardly anyone has woken up to the fact, or they don’t believe it will last… and maybe it won’t. People fear that the hardliners will seize power again, especially now, when there is little sign of progress… they should see Milan! Maybe that would change their minds. The opportunity though is huge, for those willing to step into the vacuum.’

  ‘Are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m here. That’s a start.’

  The restaurant owner arrived and led them to their table. Misha followed Ilaria, this time without the added complication of having to decide whether to buy what she was wearing.

  Ilaria translated the menu for him. She described food he had never encountered before. In the end they plumped on bruschetta to share as a starter and seafood risotto and pumpkin ravioli as a main. Ilaria choose the wine – a dry white Verdicchio.

  ‘And your mother, how did she get to be here?’

  ‘She was a member of a choral group that travelled to Italy in the sixties. She met my father after one of the performances at a party and the rest is history.’

  ‘And she’s never been back?’

  ‘No. She still has relatives in Perm. Her parents died some years ago.’

  ‘That must have been hard.’

  ‘She doesn’t talk about it much. Somehow she put it all behind her, put down roots and a family here. Do you have a family back in Leningrad?’

  Misha shook his head.

  ‘My father was a refusenik.’

  Ilaria frowned.

  ‘He was Jewish… trained as a doctor. The authorities refused him permission to emigrate and then stripped him of his job. I only have vague memories of him. He found a job as a street cleaner and a month or two later was arrested for supposedly making a joke about some communist official… six years hard labour in a gulag. He died pretty much broken a couple of years after his release and my mother two years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Ilaria.

  ‘Your mother was lucky.’

  ‘Yes… and your friend?’

  ‘Ivan is as close as there is to a brother to me. Our mothers met in the play park when we were barely out of prams… school… conscription… Afghanistan… you name it.’

  Misha took a bite of the bruschetta that the waiter had placed between them.

  ‘This is really good,’ he said, and took another bite. It tasted so fresh. ‘And the modelling, did you find them or they find you?’ he said, changing the subject.

  ‘Spotted at a college fashion show. Only showroom stuff, though, and the odd bit of catalogue work. This isn’t my career of choice. But it neatly fills the financial gaps. It’s good for contacts, though.’

  That was something Misha did understand; if you didn’t have svyazi, you were nowhere.

  ‘Which brings me to the reason, the official reason,’ he corrected himself, ‘I invited you this evening. Would you be a buyer and fashion coordinator for me, run my Milan office, not that I have one at the moment… set it up? I can’t promise to pay much to start, but as I’ve said there is a massive opportunity here, and not just one.’ He had already begun to think of other possibilities. Wasn’t Russia short of just about everything?

  ‘To the Soviet there is no such thing as a consumer, only the proletariat, but when the proletariat,’ he said mockingly, ‘start spending…’ He didn’t finish the sentence. ‘There are fortunes to be made… if you can leverage the system.’

  ‘And what about you?’ she cut in, half teasing.

  ‘Oh, the biggest fortune of them all, of course,’ he said, joking. It was not something he had thought about in any depth until now; making money yes, but not serious money. They fell silent for a moment. ‘But not until you accept this job. That will be the first step. It will be hard work. As I say, not much pay to start… we wheel and we deal.’

  ‘So, what do you think, Ilaria?’ Misha knew he was taking a risk with someone he hardly knew, but he decided to go with his instinct as he had on so many other occasions.

  ‘Do I get a contract or anything?’

  Misha took a serviette and wrote down a number and signed it.

  ‘Will that do?’

  She looked at him, slightly embarrassed, before breaking into a broad smile.

  ‘I think that will do fine. When would you want me to start?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I’m heading back to Leningrad in the morning. If this goes down as well as I expect, I’ll be back on the phone to you in the next few days and you can put together the next order with Luigi.

  ‘And one more thing.’ He reached into his inside pocket and fished out two small 35mm film cassettes.

  ‘The shots from today?’

  ‘Not quite.’ He handed her the new-looking film case. ‘These are the photos from today. Can you get them back to the showroom and developed by eleven tomorrow morning?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And this one…’ it was obviously a lot older than the first, the casing duller. ‘Do you know a private photographer who could develop this? Eight by tens. Some of them may be partly exposed.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She looked at him questioningly. ‘A bit cloak and dagger?’

  ‘Maybe, but the less you know about this the better. When you speak to the photographer, make sure he understands you want the negatives and all the photos back. He’s not to keep any copies.’

  ‘Can I ask what they are of?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know, but the people who have been after them don’t play around.’

  Chapter 10

  Leningrad

  The return flight was uneventful. A distance that under the old Soviet had seemed almost infinite was suddenly commutable. Still, Misha did not think the average Russian would be making the journey any time soon.

  In the baggage hall at Pulkova he and Ivan stacked six tightly packed canvas bags on two airport trolleys and pushed them towards the military customs point. An officer waved them over to a long steel table.

  ‘Your declaration,’ he said abruptly, snapping his fingers. Misha handed over the list of items and the invoice from Venti.

  ‘Import permit?’

  Misha handed him the permit. The officer looked at it briefly.

  ‘Unzip the top bag.’

  The custom’s man rifled through its contents, glancing occasionally at the permit. He held it up to the light.

  ‘This permit is a forgery. You will need to leave these bags here.’ He handed back the invoices.

  That nagging doubt about Gleb came to the fore. He shouldn’t have trusted him.

  ‘Come to my office. I will take your details. There will be a fine to pay,’ he said, indicating a glass-paned wooden box.

  Misha folded a fifty dollar bill inside the invoice and handed it back to the customs officer once inside the dingy cubicle.

  ‘Officer, I am sure if you look again you will find this permit in order.’

  The officer sat down, unfolded the invoices, pocketed the dollar bill and stamped the declaration approved.

  ‘There you are, that’s all in order,’ he said. He pointed at an import permit taped to the cubicle window. Misha could see the difference. A large watermark in the shape of an asterisk was missing.

  ‘You have my address’ said Misha. ‘If your girlfriend or wife would like an outfit, she can have her pick.’ Misha wrote down his telephone number.

  ‘That would be good, comrade,’ the officer said, pleased with the added bonus.

  ‘That Gleb, he’s a chancer,’ said Ivan as they wheeled their load through to Arrivals. ‘You could have had the whole lot impounded.’

  ‘Well I can assure you he is not going to get away wi
th it.’ Misha had to have people he could rely on, not risk losing everything because someone tried to shortcut him.

  Ivan’s friend Rodion met them at the exit. They piled the bags into the back of a heavily scratched and dented van with the words ‘Leningrad Freight’ on the side and squeezed themselves into the front. It didn’t take long to negotiate their way through the city. They stopped at a building just east of Anichkov Bridge. One of Ivan’s security contacts had suggested it, a small nondescript manufacturing unit that was no longer manufacturing. Alina, Rodion’s girlfriend, had already assembled mobile clothes rails around a large empty office.

  The three of them unpacked one of every style, while Misha wrote out and affixed price tickets. The main stock they sorted tidily on shelves in the second room. It was early evening by the time they finished. Misha decided to stay the night and slept on an ex-army canvas fold-up that Rodion seemed to procure from nowhere.

  Next morning, Misha had Ivan put word out on the street that a fashion consignment was newly arrived from Italy, and by the afternoon the shelves had been cleared at many times the price Misha had paid. Only the sample styles remained hanging on the rails. Alina, who had been helping, look frazzled; the morning had been a free-for-all, with traders jostling each other for attention.

  He counted her out fifty roubles. ‘I have another job for you, if you are interested. I want you to go visit those people who left empty-handed and then the ones who bought, take advanced orders, 25 per cent upfront, US dollars, balance on delivery, 10 per cent for you, all right? Just traders – we need volume.’

  Alina nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ll be on it as soon as I finish this coffee.’ She was clearly pleased with the turn of events. ‘When are you going to bring in the next order?’ she asked, putting on her jacket.

  ‘Let’s see how you do on the sales side.’

  Misha went out onto the street and found Ivan smoking a cigarette in animated conversation with Rodion. He handed him a wad of dollars.

  ‘You were right about Gleb. I could have had my whole consignment impounded. The End. And I’ve been thinking… I do need security, plenty of it. I have a good feeling about all this – better than that. How about you running that for me… security? You know how it works. You’ve got contacts… Rodion, for instance.’ Misha mentioned a figure in US dollars many times what he was making trading CDs on the street and nightclub security work. ‘And you won’t have to be sharing digs with me forever, not on that! What do you think?’