Polina Dashkova - Madness Treads Lightly

The barking of the dogs grew loud and then turned into a howl. There were several of them, at least three, but they fell silent—one after the other. Then it got quiet, and in that silence she distinctly heard a soft thump, as if something big and heavy had fallen to the ground right in front of her window.

All of a sudden the lights went out. Throughout the building. The yellowish light that had just been cast from the neighboring windows disappeared. Lena froze and peered into the darkness. The light of her cigarette flared up in the glass. A minute later she heard steps and voices outside the door.

“You go check!” Lena heard the voice that belonged to Vadik shout. “Let me go outside and I’ll check the fuse.”

Someone replied, but Lena could no longer make out the words. The voices and steps moved away, and then it got quiet again. Lena’s heart started pounding. Without knowing why, she dressed quickly in the darkness, feeling for her jeans and knit shirts. She zipped up and used her lighter to find her boots.

And then she thought, What for?

The building was quiet. Her boots were under the bureau. She’d pulled on one boot when she heard voices again.

“Maybe something’s wrong with the wiring. I can’t see a fucking thing!”

“The boss’ll come and you’ll see everything plenty fast!”

“Hey! Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’ll show you who I am!”

“Okay, fellas, enough shouting.” a third voice interjected.

A key turned in the lock. Lena managed to quickly kick off her boot. The door opened. The flashlight’s powerful beam struck her in the eyes.

“Were you sleeping?” he asked her evenly.

“Nearly.” She nodded, squinting from the flashlight. “What happened?”

But the door had already slammed shut.

“Have you seen the dogs?” Lena heard.

“They’re asleep. Everyone’s asleep.” Vadik said, and then yawned loudly and groaned. “It’s the middle of the fucking night. We’ll figure out what’s up with the electricity in the morning.”

The steps and voices died down and a door slammed somewhere.

Lena couldn’t calm down. That means the bald man is gone. He’s not here. All that’s left are the guards. How many of them are there? One would be plenty for me. But they said they were going to bed now.

She put on her boots just in case, laced them up, and pulled on her sweater. The moon was shining brightly out her window. Lena lit another cigarette. She couldn’t understand why she was so nervous.

“Does this mean I want to escape? Do I really want to escape into the taiga? With no jacket and thin-soled boots? I could put the other sweater on top of this one, but it’s still colder than ten below at night in the taiga. I’ll just get lost and freeze or starve to death. The wolves will eat me. And how can I get out? If I break the window, they’ll hear.” She noticed she was speaking out loud, in a quick, nervous whisper.

At that moment she fell silent. She heard a rustle right outside her door and the lock click quietly. The handle turned slowly. Lena jumped back and pressed up against the wall. The door cracked open and shut immediately. A short male silhouette slipped quickly into the room. He moved lightly and silently, like a cat. His flashlight blazed up for a second, rested on Lena, and went out immediately.

She had nothing to lose. She flicked her lighter. In the trembling, unsteady light she made out powerful shoulders under a dark leather jacket, a blond crew cut, deep-set, almost-white eyes under bare eyebrows, deep, rough pitting on his cheeks, and the traces of a young man’s unhealed blackheads.

“Vasya Slepak,” she whispered, and she dashed to the window. “Vasya, have you come to kill me?”

Regina Valentinovna liked to make money and spend it. It wasn’t that she was too lazy to count it—she just couldn’t bear to. Long ago, when she’d had very little as a young student, she’d counted every kopek.

But now, everything that had to do with banking and bookkeeping made her yawn. Naturally, the company had an entire staff of bookkeepers, lawyers, and managers. She didn’t have to worry about their qualifications. But their trustworthiness, that was always in question.

Veniamin Borisovich, on the other hand, liked to count money as well as make it. The business’s gigantic financial mechanism was under his vigilant and keen control. He trusted his colleagues, but he was constantly checking on them. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and he could answer how much money there was in each account and how much was invested in securities. He always knew what was going on in the markets of Europe, Asia, and America and understood stock prices as well as a professional broker.

Over the years, Regina had gotten the hang of bookkeeping, though. Gradually and imperceptibly—even to her husband—she’d made up for lost time. It’s always better to know than not to know, she thought. Anything could happen. What Venya, still not recovered from the serious flu, was doing with the bank accounts she learned from the bookkeeper Grisha, but confirmed with a few other sources as well.

And here she was, sitting with one of her secret consultants in a small restaurant, sipping on Baileys from a shallow glass and looking thoughtfully into the young lawyer’s clear, brown eyes.

“There’s something else, Regina Valentinovna,” the young man said. “But I’m afraid this information…” He coughed and fell silent.

“Don’t be afraid.” Regina smiled gently. “Call a spade a spade. Are you trying to say this information will cost me more?”

“What do you mean?” The young man blushed. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it?”

“The information is still vague but dangerous. But for your sake, Regina Valentinovna, I’m prepared to take the risk.”

“Come on, Anton, spit it out.” She leaned back in her chair and suddenly winked merrily. “What do you want in exchange for your burning secret? You don’t have to be shy with me.”

But Anton was shy. He blushed and felt his shirt treacherously soaking through under his jacket.

“I think we’d do better to talk about this somewhere else,” he said softly. “If you don’t object.”

“Where are you and I going to talk?” Regina shook her head.

“If you have no objection”—he filled his lungs with air and blurted out—“at my place!”

For two weeks a quiet rumor had been circulating among the employees that the boss had a new love interest. People had always been surprised by the iron faithfulness of the couple. Neither Volkov nor Gradskaya had allowed themselves any outside distractions. People were used to seeing them as a single unit, whole and indivisible. And now someone had heard from someone else who knew for a fact that the boss was head over heels in love with another woman.

The most interesting part was that the object of his desire was not some film star or model, but a modest, middle-aged journalist. People were burning with curiosity. If the boss had started something with one of the famous beauties that circled around him, no one would have been surprised.

People said that Volkov was very serious about the journalist, he’d fallen in love in his old age, and he was planning to divorce Regina and marry the journalist, who no one knew or had even laid eyes on.

After cautiously verifying the business’s financial affairs on Gradskaya’s instruction, Anton Konovalov had become more and more convinced that his boss was busy dividing up their joint property. He had to give his boss his due. He was dividing up the business’s immense wealth between him and his wife fairly. From what he was able to see, Volkov intended to put the entire business in Regina Valentinovna’s full control, leaving himself with several houses and money in the form of cash deposits in a few Swiss banks. It was clear that Gradskaya was losing almost nothing. The business yielded huge profits, and in five or six years Regina Valentinovna could fully recover what her husband had taken with him.