Герман Садулаев: The Maya Pill

“Who, the Dutch guy?”

“Uh-huh, the Flying Dutchman, and he can stick it up his… You forwarded his message, but damned if I’m going to read it.”

“Nah, in fact, they agreed to compensate us fifty-fifty.”

“Oh. So I typed two entire volumes of War and Peace for a measly four hundred dollars?”

“That’s about right.”

“So what’s the rest of the message about?”

“Something completely different. Remember the time they snuck those undeclared samples into a container?”

I did remember. It happens every once in a while: Some item that isn’t declared on the invoice gets slipped into a container, deep inside, away from the door. Customs can’t open and unload all the containers, so they conduct random inspections. More often than not that happens if there’s a glitch, or if some information comes in from the higher-ups, or if the customs office has a conflict with the broker and they want to show him who’s boss. So in theory it’s possible to bring in entire containers full of contraband, with a couple of rows of approved goods stacked inside the doors, just in case.

By the way, have you ever wondered why bananas are cheaper here than apples? My guess is it’s because the banana companies are a front: If a few bags of pure cocaine were loaded into every container of bananas, profits would far exceed any overhead. Your bananas could even be distributed free of charge.

I try to avoid breaking the rules. So when Lina asked, as she always does, “The Dutch want to load three pallets of samples in the container. Is that okay?” I refused.

“Right. Three pallets, half a ton each. One and a half tons of contraband per container. Maybe we should just give up declaring anything? We’ll just declare oxygen. What’s the TN VED code for air? [5] Nomenclature for goods in international trade. Zero duty?”

“I’m not kidding, Max.”

“I’m not Max. My name is Maximus.”

“I don’t care if it’s Caligula, asshole. We need samples. The front office is on our case day in and day out, they’re going nuts trying to get the mashed potatoes with mushrooms on the shelves before our competitors. And the broker with the mushrooms doesn’t want to declare them—that way the mushrooms will be pure profit. You know that!”

“I do. And I also know that we’ll bring in two hundred tons of the mushroom mixture, and it’ll just sit in the warehouse taking up space for six months, and then all of a sudden no one will have any use for it.”

“So what? At least they’ll be off our backs.”

“Fine, then, load them up. But why three pallets at once? Let them have ten boxes, that should be enough. If they decide to inspect the whole batch, we can buy the inspectors off for a hundred bucks. But three pallets could get us arrested.”

“Okay! Should I tell the broker?”

“No, keep them in the dark as usual.”

“Got it.”

“But make sure they get it right—it needs to go on the floor in the very back. And God forbid they include the boxes in the bill of lading and packing list! Tell them exactly how to fill out the forms.”

“I know, I know—I’m no virgin.”

“Oh, you expect me to believe that?”

“Figure of speech, you dimwit.”

“As though anyone would take you!”

“You… you yellow-faced Tatar!”

“Khazar. Get it right: My face is Khazar. But really, who’d want you anyway? Haunting the workplace every day till nine P.M… .”

“I’m going to throw this hole punch at you!”

“Hole punch, hole punch… is that an invitation?”

“Filthy mind. Only you could come up with something like that. I think you’re in desperate need of a girlfriend.”

“All right, we’ve had our little laugh. Let’s look at the rest of the message.”

That’s the way it was. More or less. But then something else came up. There’s always something coming up with these samples—first they try to cheat us, and then they mount an ambush.

“What is it this time, Lina?”

“They claim something got into a shipment that didn’t belong there.”

“Meaning?”

“They put in an extra box of something, by mistake, and now they want it back, I guess. They’re worried we might accidentally send it out to a retailer or open it ourselves. Rat poison, something like that…”

Now that was interesting. I decided to read the message after all. In spite of the insulting tone of my earlier letter, the supplier was proposing to split the expenses down the middle, and was being extremely courteous about it.

The second half of the message had to do with a box labeled PTH-IP-176539/48, twenty kilograms net weight. You could tell that the author of the message was trying too hard to strike a casual tone: We’ve just made a little mistake, everyone screws up now and then, no? So just set the box to one side, and we’ll come and get it, no problem.

But he wasn’t doing a very good job of sounding innocent. The wording was too strained, and I could see that there was real panic behind it, barely patched over. This was clearly no ordinary box. And sure enough, the phone on my desk rang and I heard the voice of the Import Director, calling from out on the road.

“Maximus?”

“Yes, Diana Anatolyevna.”

Or should I call her “Madam Director”? My boss is three years younger than me. It’s demeaning. She addresses me either by my first name or my last, but I use her full name, with the patronymic. It’s not required, but some masochistic impulse makes me do it.

“Hello.”

“Good afternoon, Diana Anatolyevna.”

“These crazy Dutch guys have been calling my cell all morning.”

“The swine!”

“They’re in a huge rush to sign a supplementary contract to issue bonuses by sales volume.”

“Imagine that!”

“Anyway, they’re on their way to Russia as we speak. They want to be in the office first thing tomorrow. Can you pick them up at their hotel in the morning?”

“Whatever you say, Diana Anatolyevna.”

“Semipyatnitsky, can we do without the excess humility? You know my car’s in the shop.”

“I said I’d pick them up.”

“All right… so look: I’ll come straight to the office from the airport; they can meet me there. Also, they mentioned a box, something that accidentally got into a container along with the samples. Are you up on this?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Have the box brought from the warehouse to the office—the Dutchmen want to take it back with them. Though I’m finding it hard to imagine how they’re going to manage that. And why all the fuss?”

That’s an awful lot of trouble for a box of rat poison, I thought to myself. This sudden visit by the supplier’s representatives had to be about the box. It was the contract about the bonuses that was incidental; that sort of thing can be decided without a face-to-face meeting.

I skimmed the message again. The Dutch were insisting that the box remain sealed, to keep the contents intact. So were they just going to take the box back to Holland with them, seals and all, as checked baggage?

Or would they open it beforehand and pack the contents in their personal luggage?

What was in that box?

I had to take a look. I could justify myself later by claiming that it had fallen off the forklift and broken open, or I could come up with some other story. I couldn’t get that box out of my mind. I had to head over and see it for myself.

Let me say a few words about the organization where I work, its history and the nature of its business.

In its current form, Cold Plus is a conglomerate comprising regional distribution companies, warehouse complexes, and transport and freight enterprises, all administered from one central office. Cold Plus imports frozen food products from all over the world and arranges their processing through customs, trans-shipping, storage, delivery to processing companies, and distribution onto the retail market. The assortment, or, as they still call it, the product line, is enormous. Everything from potatoes to strawberries, shrimp to octopus, even cakes, candy, and bread, is frozen and freighted in from abroad in refrigerated containers and trucks. Just so you know, the chunks of “fresh fruit” in your morning yogurt are shipped in from China at a controlled temperature of minus eighteen Celsius and defrosted in Russia. The cheesecake that you order in a café was brought in frozen from Australia and thawed in the microwave, just moments before the waiter brought it to your table. The “fresh,” “steamed,” or “chilled” meat and fish in your supermarket more often than not were frozen a year ago somewhere in Argentina and underwent special processing to give them the appropriate degree of “freshness.”