Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

I decided to take a breather before I stormed into the Dean’s office and made a fool of myself and strolled the square out to the Chkalov Monument and looked down the grand stair case to the Volga. The hydrofoils were speeding down the middle of the river, running circles around the barges and the cruise boats. The river was blue and calm, like the vast sky to the north and west. It was a beautiful day, it had just started out poorly. After taking a few deep breaths, I turned to head back to the history department building and there across the street was my personal shadow pretending to talk on the public telephone. “What a dope!” I said to myself and paid him no attention as I entered from the street into the building.

The Dean offered me a chair as he finished his telephone conversation. Luckily the office window looked directly on to the square where the ‘British Knight’ had taken a seat and was smoking another cigarette and watching the door with one eye and the passing university girls with his other eye.

“Mr. Turner!” the Dean said putting down the handset, “We have not spoken since your interview. How did it go? I am very anxious to hear the details.”

“Good morning, sir. I am afraid that Mr. P. did not find the interview very ingratiating. He has somehow got a hold of Valentina Petrovna who has confiscated my notes from the interview and has forbidden me from writing about anything I learned in that interview in my paper,” I whined.

“That old cow! Don’t pay her any attention. She is an overcautious old lady. We must go forward with the project.” Dean Karamzin was very dismissive of the morning’s events. “You can still remember what you spoke about, yes? Just rewrite your notes and everybody will be happy. Mr. P. thinks he killed the story, Valentina Petrovna can tell the university director she stopped it and we will still publish your article. Everybody wins!”

“Valentina says that such an action would be dangerous for me personally,” I retorted.

“She has such an imagination! What does she think we live in Moscow of something? To my knowledge we don’t have a single Chechen in our city,” he continued his rant.

“Might it be possible to write this paper anyhow without using this example? Even without a name? I was able to get a picture of how funding from a small operation of theft and smuggling grows into a larger operation that then moves to legitimize their operations with the local government’s blessing. Perhaps we can find some more and make a composite picture instead of focusing on this specific local example, and then everybody wins!” I smiled with irony on my lips.

“Young man! We do not need another academic paper without specifics. If we are going to flush this pheasant from the underbrush we need to use the dogs!” he bellowed.

“Why is it your goal to name your friend and client? Wouldn’t that be bad for your business?” I challenged.

Dean Karamzin leaned back in his chair, a bit pensive and spoke quietly, “Mr. Turner, I know for a fact that the politicians of this city are in direct cooperation with the criminal elements to make themselves rich. They use their positions of power to make themselves rich and not care for the people of this great city that fought and worked hard to preserve the independence of our country from occupation. My father, my uncles! These criminal elements are quietly and secretly setting the policy agenda for the future of our country. I know you feel the same way I do regarding the way that these opportunists are robbing Russia blind. If you say you have the information that we can substantiate as criminal, I can bring you into contact with people who can tell you how that money is corrupting city council decisions.”

“And do you think people will really care? Aren’t they just resigned to the fact that Russian civil servants are only there for themselves and their own profit?” I replied.

“The governor will care! He has already been fighting the corruption and making more and more of what happens in Nizhniy more transparent. If we can show that the criminals of Nizhniy are in bed with the city administration we might get some change here, very soon, but we have to act quickly as Nemtsov is being courted by Yeltsin’s people and could in the next year go to work in Moscow with the national government,” he appealed to me.

“I am sorry, but I don’t have anything that I can substantiate as criminal. The way he tells his story it all sounds plausibly legal, especially during the Perestroika period. Nobody really knew what was legal and what wasn’t. Did he steal car parts just because nobody knew how to price them? I would have to do a lot of inference to turn shady entrepreneurialism into criminal. Inference is not an academic tool last time I checked,” I thought I had the Dean in check.

“This is why you must continue to research what you learned about his past and future plans. Perhaps you can pin him down squarely on criminal activities and then we can connect that black money to the city hall. You must keep digging away in that database and find a proof, find some documentation of his activities. We need to find the link!” he was almost desperate.

“Sir, I need to let you know that I am being actively watched and followed. I had a visit from the FSB to my apartment on Sunday evening for a short interrogation and to give me a warning. All this started after my interview with Mr. P.” I confided.

“I think you are imaging things.” he insisted.

I motioned to the window. “Please tell me if a young man, about my age, dressed all in black, except for his white shoes is still sitting on the bench in the square, smoking and watching the door of this building.”

Dean Karamzin stood and looked out the window. To his surprise he saw exactly what I described would be outside his window.

“For how long has this been going on?” he queried.

“Since Saturday afternoon. Today is Tuesday. He goes everywhere I go when I’m on this side of the river. When I am in Zarechnaya there is an ugly woman and a dog that keep watch over my apartment. That young man knew my home address and went there after I was able to shake him on Saturday afternoon in the old city. He drives a black Lada and has a partner.”

“Ah yes! A black Lada has just pulled up and they are speaking through the window,” the Dean blurted surprised.

“Voila!” I breathed out in French.

“I will speak with the Governor and have this stopped immediately!” he declared to me.

“No, please don’t! They don’t know yet that I know I am being followed. I need them to keep using the idiot on the bench in the white shoes so I know I can lose them when I need to, and know that I have truly lost them. I am not doing anything different than before so I have nothing to hide from them. It’s just to show you that if I go any further and make people mad they’ll know exactly where to find me should they want to ‘persuade’ me with something more than words and threats,” I calmly explained.

“You say the FSB came to your apartment?” He queried again watching out the window with his back to me.

“Yes, Sunday night around dinner time. They did not come with a police officer in uniform either,” I offered to get his response.

“They can’t do that! That means they are working without orders. Who are they working for? You didn’t tell them anything did you?” He seemed genuinely concerned now.

“I gave them truthful answers to everything they asked me of course. I was terrified!” I exclaimed.

“Why? What right did they have to take you anywhere?” he remarked with doubt in his voice.

“I threatened one of them with a knife….” I confessed.

“What? Why?” he turned to look at me with wide eyes.