The host announced a break, and a flock of public officials and employees stepped out of the building. Civil servants of a lower rank stumbled down the stairs onto a nearby parking lot, while the higher-ups, having occupied a wide porch, were mellowing in the sun after the whizzing coolness of the air conditioners. Their dark suits accentuated the dazzling whiteness of their shirts, and the marble porch of the administration building was looking more like a giant ice floe that had become a shelter for a huddle of penguins.
A group of deputies settled on the stairs, a few steps higher than the other personnel, yet not intruding on the privacy of the executive team. They watched with envy as a man with round shoulders, limping slightly, walked away from the administration building.
“No way he’d get his damn documents signed by the vice minister,” a dark-haired man with a pointed face and long, restless fingers grumbled angrily.
“You’ll see! He’ll get them signed,” an overweight guy with blonde hair replied, fiddling with an unlit cigarette between his chubby fingers. He was trying to quit smoking again, and had vowed that this time around he wouldn’t go back to this bad habit of his unless Jesus himself returned to Earth.
“If he gets them signed, then lunch is on me,” said the dark-haired man, looking at his colleagues defiantly.
“Deal! I’ll pay if he doesn’t,” the blonde guy took on the bet. “So, whose side are you on, Mikhalych?”
Sergey Mikhailovich Yursanov, the third participant in the conversation, was squinting in the sun. Balancing on the tips of his perfectly black shoes, he seemed to be more interested in what the executives, standing a few steps above, were talking about, rather than the argument between his two colleagues.
“Well, I’m always there where the top brass is,” Yursanov said jokingly. “And you know…Nikolay Dmitrievich, for as long as I’ve known him, has never come back without a signature. There is one funny story, though.”
“What story?” the blonde guy asked, looking interested.
“Oh… You know, it’s quite long.”
“Come on. We aren’t in a hurry here.”
“You wouldn’t believe it anyway,” Yursanov hesitated, as if reluctant to speak any further.
Nikolay Dmitrievich came into the office ten years ago. Businesses back then were often targeted by all sorts of criminals. Thus, working for a governmental entity was believed to be reasonably safe, though not that lucrative, of course. Every day, civil servants hurried to work, ignoring their hunger pains, as they quickly passed by delicious-smelling street stalls.
The new employee was appointed as a specialist, and for several years he was inconspicuously efficient, pushing papers and running around on various errands for the executive management. Somehow, in two years, and much to everyone’s surprise, he didn’t cross anyone’s path. It allowed Nikolay to skip a few steps on his way to the top and grab the position of a division manager, thus acquiring the right to be respectfully addressed by his middle name[1].
“Have you seen Nikolay?” the head of the group would habitually ask the front office.
“Do you mean Nikolay Dmitrievich?” An uppity receptionist would discreetly point out the mistake, while trying to get someone on the phone, following her boss’s directive.
When Nikolay Dmitrievich first appeared in the office, he was handsomely young and tall, and walked proudly through the corridors of the building. In his new capacity, he was expected to have a respectable gait, as well as to participate in lengthy meetings, and to be often called into the office of the head of the department.
“Are you busy tonight, Nikolay Dmitrievich?” his boss would ask him, when all the other staff were heading home.
“No, not at all,” the unmarried employee would reply, sensing his boss’s mood. Quite often, their business meetings finished with darkness outside and a couple of empty bottles, nestled neatly by the chair.
Occasionally, the Exec himself would come by, while making his evening rounds in the office building. Nikolay Dmitrievich would suddenly keep quiet, but would remain seated at the table. Gradually, his boss’s attitude towards him became protective and friendly, and even the Exec no longer ignored shaking hands with him. All in all, his success was evident.
Slowly but surely, his life was turning around for the better. Every now and then, Nikolay Dmitrievich was approached by the senior management with different requests, some of which were quite sensitive. To settle the matters, they occasionally greased his palm with a few rubles. When it became known that Nikolay Dmitrievich could open up pretty much any door, first his colleagues, and then other business people started asking him to take part in deciding the fate of various documents. Nikolay Dmitrievich would always hear them out, and although he never promised anything, quite often, much to everyone’s delight, he returned the papers to the supplicants signed and stamped.
This lucky fellow also ingratiated himself with the old-timers in the office. Most ladder-climbers usually screw up at the first rung, thanks to the efforts of the established white collars. But Nikolay Dmitrievich was complaisant and polite with everyone. When talking to others, he listened respectfully, bowing his neck slightly, which made him look somewhat shorter. Never had he been caught spreading any gossip. Nor had he tainted his name with any unwise signature. He often praised Venus[2] and Bacchus[3], but at the same time avoided their debauched slavery. In other words, the caring hands of the bureaucratic fortune, sooner or [R1] later, would have, without a doubt, put him into the chair that was to be guarded vigilantly by his very own personal assistant.
But, out of the blue, the protagonist of our story began to behave quite strangely. It all started with vague talks and glimpses of sadness in his brown eyes. He began to neglect after-hours get-togethers with the high-rankers. He gave up playing solitaire, and instead passed the time in the office reading mind-bending literature. When the head of the department saw those books, he got really worried about his young colleague.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you, Nikolay Dmitrievich?” he would ask his bemused employee half-jokingly.
“Oh, never mind,” he would mutter back with an enigmatic sigh.
In autumn, Nikolay Dmitrievich took an extended period of leave. He went on a pilgrimage around ancient Russian monasteries and mountain churches in Altay. When he got back into the office, he didn’t brag about his holiday, showing off photos of himself in which he could have been seen blocking glorious landscapes. Instead, he began to wear a pendant which served as a symbol of him being born again.
Ever since, he started behaving in a bizarre fashion. Nikolay Dmitrievich could often be seen leaving the office immediately after the end of the working day, or he could take a day off on his boss’s birthday. In the middle of a long business meeting, he could also fall into a trance and, being wrapped up in his thoughts, didn’t hear what his boss was saying.
“Oh… Please, forgive me,” he pleaded, shaking himself out of his reverie. “It’s like I’ve just seen an angel. I could see it just as clear as I see you now.”
Behind his back, they started calling him a weirdo, and everyone was waiting in anticipation until Nikolay Dmitrievich would screw up again and lose his job. But to everyone’s dismay, he managed to keep his privileges safe. Eventually, people got used to the strange ways of the newly converted, and accepted them. However, whenever any other staff member attempted to repeat the nutcase’s strange behaviour, they had to post their résumés online just one week later.
His career eventually came to a standstill and he continued to serve as the department’s deputy. His influence, however, extended way beyond his role. Many doors opened for him, even those that were beyond reach for people with much more power. While dealing with various issues, he was able to reach such heights where others stumbled on the threshold. He had always spoken about these places with reverence, almost deifying their occupants.
“I went to see Maria Vasilyevna yesterday to discuss a few things,” he said, with a voice filled with admiration. “She’s got such an amazing personality! And her eyes… Have you seen her eyes? Truly, they’re like deep pools of wisdom!”
Those who’d met Maria Vasilyevna before, knew that she was, in reality, a vindictive, narrow-minded government official, in charge of municipal property, and yet, even they would eventually surrender to his near-religious exuberance and would start seeing Maria Vasilyevna in a whole new light.
By thirty-five, due to his continuous fasting and spiritual practices, he’d withered away and his skin had creased with deep lines. His eyes lost colour, as if he was some old man. And while some found his eyes empty, others thought they were bottomless. His habit of bowing while talking with people made him hunched and kind of shortish. When walking, he started dragging one leg slightly and spoke with a bit of a lisp. His eyesight got worse and he kept on complaining that he had to buy another apartment closer to the office, as he struggled to drive in the dark.
As his wealth grew, Nikolay Dmitrievich didn’t display the trappings of his success with the ostentation of a peacock in spring. Instead, he humbled himself and became extremely compassionate. He didn’t try to convert strangers to his faith, though did give guidance to the higher-ups as much as he could.
“I’ve just arranged for a group of people to go and visit a monastery. Right now, I’m busy working with others,” he spoke with his colleague about his friendship with the owners of the high-end mansions just outside Moscow.
“Listen, they’re busy building their palaces with blood money,” claimed other employees, sharing the tabloid gossip.
“Well… You see, it’s the sinners who need a saviour,” the weirdo replied, “the righteous ones will themselves find their way to Heaven.”
In a sauna, the high-rankers, having wrapped sweat towels around their loins, often teased Nikolay Dmitrievich. They called him Nikolka the Weirdo behind his back. In private, however, they casually asked him questions, which, in fact, were more appropriate to be discussed with a priest. When he answered, they listened to him without a hint of sarcasm, and for a moment one could see a glimpse of something human in their eyes.
At the end of their lengthy conversations, the high and mighty shook the weirdo’s hand and said goodbye with a joke, the origin of which was unknown.
“Pray for me, Nikolka[4],” pleaded the higher-ups and stood, motionless, while waiting for an answer. Those who were more intelligent felt somewhat uneasy, too.
“I will, I certainly will,” the weirdo answered simply, and the underlying anxiousness in the beseechers disappeared, giving place to worries about day-to-day matters.
They were called back into the meeting, and the narrator had to interrupt his story. He could only finish it a few days later, when everyone met again in the cafeteria.
“Do you remember I was telling you about Nikolay Dmitrievich the other day? Well, the funniest part of the story has actually taken place quite recently,” continued Yursanov, feeling chuffed with his generous meal.
“Go on, Sergey Mikhaylovich,” the guy with blonde hair encouraged him. “I think I’ll make another order. Let’s see, what’s the most expensive thing on the menu here?
“Yeah, whatever,” said the dark-haired man, who was paying for three lunches today and wasn’t too happy about it.
“Talk is cheap, money buys the whiskey,” Yursanov began, expressing a popular saying. “With regards to sorting out any paperwork, Nikolay Dmitrievich was reckoned to be almost like a magician. There was no door in the city that he couldn’t open.
“How can you be so sure?” the angry man asked, refusing to believe the story.
“Well, he probably didn’t get to the very top,” the older man said, “but he definitely did rub shoulders with those who were flying high.”
One day, Nikolay Dmitrievich was asked to have a paper signed by someone very influential. The document might not have been that pivotal for the country’s future, but it was very crucial for one big enterprise. And the matter was urgent, as they always were.
“Please, help us out, man,” the supplicants pleaded with Nikolay Dmitrievich, “for the sake of our old friendship! We’ll do whatever you want, but the document needs to be signed by tonight.”
“OK. I can try. Give me a couple of days,” Nikolay Dmitrievich replied in his usual calm manner. “The matter isn’t that easy, you know.”
“There’s no way we can wait that long. It has to be signed by tomorrow.” And apparently, they promised him something really big, since Nikolay Dmitrievich put everything else aside and fell to thinking.
He phoned the right secretary. And since all the secretaries had a soft spot for Nikolay Dmitrievich, she was more than willing to help. In fact, all the other girls favoured him too, even though he was very plain-looking and not that attractive at all. How did he charm them – with either good deeds, or sweet words? That, nobody knew. But the fact was that women could never say no to him.
And the mover and shaker’s secretary wanted to help, but instead, she disconcerted him. This very important person wasn’t available. He indeed was out of his office, and not because his P.A. said so. After all, sorrow doesn’t need a gatekeeper’s permission to enter. Grief doesn’t care whether the boss is in or out. Anyone’s life may collapse in no time at all, whether you are a mere mortal, or one of the high and mighty of this world.
A couple of months ago the mover and shaker’s daughter had fallen sick. At first, nobody paid any attention. Kids do get sick every now and then. The girl’s father spent every single day at work, while the mother was busy at the gym, working on her derriere, and the girl’s nannies, too, failed to notice anything. Eventually, they took the child to the hospital, but doctors, having found nothing wrong, gave them a piece of their mind and stated that the kid was okay and they shouldn’t have come and bothered them for no reason at all. And one month later, the same doctors said that they should have brought the girl much earlier because it was too late and there was nothing they could do.
The hospital was the most expensive one in the city, and the doctors were the best, but it was all in vain. In a private ward, lost in a pile of sheets, was a tiny little body. The green line on the monitor, which only a few seconds ago was zigzagging up and down, suddenly went flat, brutally underlining the end of a very short life with a perfectly straight line. And by the girl’s bed was the mover and shaker, holding his daughter’s still warm palm in his massive hands.
The doctors stood around the bed, silent. Those who’d only recently started working in the hospital, were secretly shedding tears. Everyone felt sorry. One simply cannot get used to such sorrow. But the mover and shaker was known to be involved in many nefarious activities, so it was impossible to find any words of consolation for him. And although the head of the hospital was the same breed as the high and mighty, he showed no compassion for the grieving parent. To cut public health expenditure on paper is one thing, but taking beds with bedridden patients out of the hospital into the street is another.
“He can’t be that bad,” the angry man with the dark hair stood up for the big boss.
“Well, he might not be that bad,” the older man agreed. “Or he might be even worse than you think. The story isn’t about that.”
“Yeah… Your story is way too sad,” the angry guy didn’t give up.
“How about our life, then? Isn’t life sad?” said the older man and continued his story.
“Nobody seemed surprised that Nikolay Dmitrievich somehow managed to have sneaked into the ward,” Yursanov went on. “If this nutcase needs a paper signed, he’ll do it one way or another.”
So, he had found his way into the ward and there he saw an almost abandoned bed and the father by that bed, holding onto his child’s hand. And the doctors were there, too. The mover and shaker paid no attention to him. In fact, he didn’t give a damn about what was happening around him. In the meantime, Nikolka, somehow, wriggled his way through the doctors and lowered to his knees by the bed, twining his twig-like fingers around the girl’s other hand. And so they remained a while, the father on one side and the weirdo on the other, holding the little girl’s hands, as if trying not to let the soul leave the child’s body.
Everyone around kept quiet, studiously avoiding glancing at the high and mighty. Some of them could even have thought that he had deserved it, even though it’s a great sin to think this way. But Nikolay Dmitrievich felt truly sorry for the poor man.
“You’re a lost soul,” he said to him.
He did manage to find some kind words. But the father, perhaps, didn’t even hear any of them. He suddenly remembered how he’d held his newly born baby girl for the first time. And back then, she had been part of him. As he had brought his daughter close to his chest, immediately he’d realised that it was the soul that had come back. Still so crystal clear and so radiant that everything inside him was shining bright, too bright for his eyes. And he was crying, crying because he felt so radiantly happy. Since then, he had never cried again. But now, his whole body was shaking, as he understood that his precious daughter’s soul no longer wanted to be part of him.
“Bullshit!” the angry man was now seething. “How the hell do you know what this asshole felt back then?”
“Well… Nikolay Dmitrievich himself told me the story.”
“And you… Do you really believe him?”
“It’s not that easy not to believe when he talks to you.”
“Do you really think he has been blessed?” the dark-haired man wasn’t giving up.
“Of course not… He’s as much of a crook as you are,” Yursanov replied, unwilling to answer the question.
“So, what happened to the girl?” the blonde guy was fiddling with the unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
“What do you mean what happened?” the narrator responded. “One cannot trust kids. They always talk rubbish.”
Later, the girl would tell that she had almost departed the mortal realm when, all of a sudden, a man, as radiant as the Sun, came up to her, limping slightly, and took her by her hand. He whispered something very nice into her ear and talked her into heading away from the light. And once she turned back, there was no way she could have gone.
“It’s a whole lot of bullshit. So, what happened next?”
“Next? It was like watching a Brazilian soap! All the devices in the ward came back to life. The nurses were crying tears of happiness. The girl’s father buried his face into the blanket and was either growling, or sobbing, or praying in his own manner. Some were amazed, others were happy. The head of the hospital, though, didn’t seem surprised. He had always said that with such irresponsible attitude to healthcare, only miraculous healings could work. And the weirdo, he just stood there, a withdrawn smile on his face, as if he was some kind of a dumb yokel at the village fair.
“That’s the story,” Yursanov concluded. “There were way too many witnesses. Otherwise, I would have never believed it myself.”
“Mikhalych, I suggest you come up with something more realistic by Wednesday,” the dark-haired man advised. “Why don’t you go and find some teen chat room to share your tear-jerking story there?”
“Even there, it’s not going to work,” the blonde guy agreed with the non-believer, “unless in the next episode the girl is to turn into a vampire.”
“Listen, the story isn’t about the girl,” Mikhalych said, frustrated.
“So, what is it all about, then?”
“I was telling you about the documents. Have you forgotten, or what? The joke was about Nikolay Dmitrievich going all the way to the hospital to get the necessary papers signed. And, in order to do that, he did find the right ward, fooled the security and got into the ICU through the closed door.”
“Awesome!” The angry guy approved. “So, where’s the funny part?”
“Well… When it all happened,” the older man kept on talking, “those papers completely slipped out of his mind. He even forgot to pull them out of his briefcase. So, he gave the documents back with no signature.”
“No way!” the fair-haired guy almost groaned and lit the cigarette absently.
“What a moron! I definitely wouldn’t have screwed up!” the dark-haired man summed up the story.
[1] In Russia, a middle name or a patronymic is a part of a personal name. It is constructed by adding either a male or a female ending to an individual’s father’s first name (e.g. Nikolay Dmitrievich). Patronymics are mandatory for all official documents, and when addressing people formally.
[2] Venus is the Roman goddess of love, sex, beauty and fertility.
[3] Bacchus is the Roman god of agriculture, winemaking and wine.
[4] ‘Pray for me, Nikolka!’ is a quote from a play by Alexander Pushkin entitled Boris Godunov.
[R1](In footnotes) Ending = suffix?