Butterfly Skin (12 page)

My big boss Pasha Silverman likes to say journalism is part of PR. I feel rather offended when I hear that, but the senior editor in my department, the young girl Ksenia, just shrugs her pointy shoulders. She’s five years younger than me, and she has five years’ fewer illusions. All second-flight publications live on advertorial, she says – maybe that’s why they’re second flight. Ksenia herself never writes articles to order, because the message is the messenger, the text is the author, and advertorial kills you as a professional. Take that road, she says, and you can earn fifteen hundred a month quite easily – but you’ll never earn more.

Ksenia wants more. She’s twenty-three years old, and she’s my boss. You can’t write anything on her face, except what she herself wants. Big eyes, harshly made-up lips, tousled hair. A girl who grew up early. In two years’ time she’ll have her own car and in four she’ll have her own apartment.

I think that’s why she thought up this special project, because even if you wanted to, there’s no way you could put any written-to-order material into it. What good is the Moscow Psycho to anyone? Before the election, the subject could have been used to attack the Moscow authorities, but now nobody needs this story. So this will be genuine journalism, completely unadulterated by PR. Almost an independent investigation, in an area a million miles away from politics – if such a thing is possible in Putin’s Russia.

Ksenia says this project is an intermediary between the authorities and the public, but I think it’s an intermediary between every one of us and our most secret dream. If it all works out the way she’s planned it, then in a month’s time the newspapers will be standing in line for an interview with her. I know the way the media market works too well to be wrong about that: in a month from now the skinny young girl from a second-flight online newspaper will be a star. Tousled black hair, big eyes, hard mouth, emphasized even more by lipstick. She’s beautiful, I think, she’ll look good on the TV screen. In the nineties she would definitely have made a brilliant career. It’s not certain that they’ll want to see her on air now, but she’s destined for more than the fifteen minutes of fame promised by Andy Warhol, whose own fame lasted all the way from the fifties to the car he was supposed to have painted for the TV Series
Brigade
in the late eighties.

I wonder if Ksenia realizes what we’re starting here? What a scandal this whole story will be – not the site itself, but the story of a twenty-something girl devoting a site to a psychotic killer? How many people will say, without even visiting the site, that she’s making propaganda for violence and provoking new crimes?

“Maybe we should drink a toast to success, what do you think? I think what you’ve come up with is great. To be quite honest, it’s really got me going, I haven’t felt anything like it for ages. Why don’t we have a shot of vodka apiece, and then go home?”

KSENIA TELLS ALEXEI ABOUT THE SITE, LAYING OUT
the printouts of the interviews and news in front of him: there are occasional black and white photos, indistinct, almost completely obliterated by the poor-quality printing. Alexei listens, nods and sometimes chuckles approvingly. A thirty-year-old man, the father of two children, a boy and a girl, isn’t it? – I ought to make sure of that somehow, so as not to get it wrong. He probably feels bad because I’m younger than him and already the boss. He doesn’t show it, though.

Black and white sheets of paper on the table, try not to look, try not to read a single word by accident. What must be going on inside the head of a man who cuts off women’s nipples, burns patterns into their bodies, puts the eyes squeezed out of their sockets into their anus and vagina? Better not ask yourself that question because then you’ll have to ask yourself what’s going on inside your own head when you haven’t known what to do with yourself for a week and every evening as you go to sleep you masturbate, imagining these very details, no, don’t look down at the print-outs, because if you do, that dark wave will sweep over you again, and the space around you glowing in anticipation of a celebration will start eddying and curling up behind your back until there’s nothing left apart from the heat that fills your whole body, the tight ball rolling around below your belly, the itching, the pain, the anticipation of pleasure.

What’s going on inside your head, I ask you, what’s going on? “You and I are sick people,” your lost lover Sasha used to say while you washed his cum off your hair in the shower. And you, wincing at the touch of the water on your lacerated skin, used to answer him: “No, darling, you and I are normal healthy people. Do you know how the really sick people behave? You ought to be screaming at me now:
You bitch, look how low you’ve brought me, I’m not like this!
And he used to come up to you, stroke your fresh weals tenderly and say, “Yes, I am like this,” and smile his most touching and open-hearted smile. And then, you used to say, “we could behave like some psychotic killer in a bad movie and swear to each other that we won’t do it again.”

“We will,” he promised, “we definitely will.” But now you know we won’t do it again, it’s over.

Alexei has brought your shot of vodka, shit, this is just the wrong time, I wonder if it’s the same for ordinary vanilla people, the arousal sweeping over you just at the most unsuitable moment? If you told this nice thirty-year-old boy,
I’d like you to take me to the restroom put me down on my knees and fuck me in the mouth
, he’d probably choke on his vodka. But he has lovely hands, a bit like Lyova’s hands, strong, with long fingers. I wonder how it would feel if he caressed you with them from the inside, if he squeezed your nipples? Better not think about that, though, just drink up quickly, yes, here’s to success, to the success of our project, look at your watch, say I guess it’s time to go home. Collect your coat from the cloakroom, yes, thanks, that’s very kind of you. I wonder if it’s true what they say, American women won’t let men hand them their coats, or is it just a lie? It’s probably a lie. But then, who cares. Say goodnight, take a taxi, go home.

The two of you walk outside, Alexei’s mobile rings and he answers quite loudly, so you can’t help hearing: “No, Oxana, I’ll be delayed a bit longer. Pasha’s asked me to discuss a special project with him.” So Pasha asked him! His Oxana must be the jealous type, then. A boy and a girl or two girls. Now’s the moment you ought to ask. You ask: “How are the children?” He answers: “Fine, thanks, but they’ve been sick this last month. Some kind of really terrible flu.” So it’s still not clear
who
he’s got.

A taxi stops, he asks: “Where are you going?” He says: “I’ll take you.” You pile into the back seat, and on a corner he presses himself against your thigh, as if by accident, and he stays there like that and says that for every item in the real world there ought to be a corresponding item in the virtual world, so that ideally every event should be honored with a special project, it’s a pity no one has the resources or the money to do it, and you try to think what kind of special project could be made out of the story of your split with Sasha. Photos of the participants, a description of the tortures that he invented and the ones you invented, with separate sections for the ones you had time to try, and the ones that remained dreams: a few texts of cultural analysis, a link to the resources of the Russian BDSM community – SMLife, bdsm.org.ru and Bondage.ru, plus a few blogs. A link to your other web projects. Sasha’s CV. An mp3 file with a reconstruction of your final conversation. The hostess’s reminiscences about how Sasha used to be in love with her at school. A photo gallery: your buttocks before and after an assignation. Alexei really does have strong hands, so really, perhaps you could – close your eyes and reach out your lips for a kiss. Of course, he’s your subordinate, you mustn’t offer him the full program, you can limit it to vanilla sex, the standard, simple nookie.

After all, a man’s prick is better than a dildo. At least there’s some variety.

HE’S NOT A STUPID MAN, THINKS KSENIA, BUT THE
most important thing is that he has flair. He’ll agree because he realizes it’s a dead cert.

The three of them are sitting in Pasha’s office. Silverman behind his desk, half hidden behind the PC monitor, Ksenia and Alexei on chairs, shoulder to shoulder. More like companions-in-arms than lovers, thinks Ksenia.

She’s a beautiful girl, thinks Pasha, but the most important thing is that you can feel the drive she has. You don’t often find that kind of drive in Moscow girls, I would have taken her for a provincial, from somewhere in Ukraine or the south of Russia, or Peter at the very least. I can tell that sooner or later she’ll squeeze that hundred-dollar raise out of me, especially since the project she’s suggesting is a dead cert, an excellent idea, it’s a pity I’ve got to say no.

And he does say no, and Ksenia’s not even surprised, because she’s already read this “no” in his face, but Alexei, restraining his indignation asks: “Why not?” A good partner, Ksenia thinks about him, good, but too impatient. It would be interesting to see how he dances. Although I’d probably have to spend six months teaching him first. Just look how complicated everything is for me: whether it’s for dancing or for bed, I need highly qualified specialists. And what’s more, the qualifications are different: so all my dominant lovers turn out to be lousy dancers. Maybe I really ought to teach him to dance the boogie-woogie, I’m still going out dancing alone, like some girl looking to get picked up.

She’s not saying anything yet, pausing for effect, thinks Pasha, clever girl. I remember when I put her in charge of these idlers six months ago, I was sure they’d gobble her up, but just look – everything turned out fine.

“Because the times aren’t right,” says Pasha and thinks to himself that he can’t remember when the times ever were right. During his childhood, during the period of Brezhnev’s lies? Or later, when all the Russians were forced out of Grozny by the Chechens, and then some other Russians razed Grozny to the ground? When those two apartment blocks were blown up on the edge of Moscow? When those hostages were taken in the theater near the Dubrovka subway station? Yes, he asks himself, when were the times ever right? He doesn’t know the answer, but he does know for certain that they aren’t right now.

“But it’s not even politics,” says Alexei, and Ksenia remembers him explaining that this site could become the intermediary between people and their most secret dreams. She thinks: what kind of dreams did he have in mind?

“In this country everything’s politics,” says Pasha. “It’s a brutal, bloody, shocking project. And right now everything has to be nice and peaceful. Try watching the TV in the evening sometime.”

“As long as you keep on thinking like that,” Alexei suddenly shouts, “we’ll never get out of the second ten on Rambler. Look at Gazette, read their columns! They write about whatever they want. And look at where they are on the ratings and where we are.”

He’s getting too worked up, thinks Ksenia, as if he didn’t know it’s pointless to shout at Pasha. You have to take what you can get and wind up the conversation. She’s starting to feel sad: they haven’t got anywhere with Pasha, she should finish up quickly, maybe she’ll be in time to go dancing this evening.

“Gazette.ru is financed by YuKOS,” replies Pasha. “So maybe you’d better look at where Khodorkovsky is and where we are.”

“But listen…” Alexei says, and Pasha explains he doesn’t mean we’d all be put in jail, he’s only talking about… err… their degree of financial independence. “So I won’t give you any money for this, he says. “But I will support the advertising.”

He’s not a stupid man, thinks Ksenia, but the most important thing is that he has flair. Maybe our project really is no good? And I only like it because I… well, because it interests me. Maybe, I should drop it? thinks Ksenia, and out loud she says:

“Thank you, and I wanted to ask you to let us have us the blog engine you have on Evening.”

She’s a beautiful girl, thinks Pasha, but the most important thing is that you can feel the drive she has. She has strange interests: two days ago she asked me if I could make enquiries about a certain man. And she added pointedly: through my own connections. I don’t like jerking my own connections about, and I almost always refuse, but this time I agreed. “Is it to do with work?” I asked. “No,” she answered, “no, of course not, it’s personal business.” Personal business, thinks Pasha. What kind of personal business could she have with this forty-year-old businessman with a criminal past who has survived two attempts to kill him and has three criminal prosecutions pending? A man whose business partners go missing in broad daylight. Of course, personal business is personal business, but it’s not nice to think about it. When we finish this conversation, I’ll ask her to stay behind and show her the note they drew up for me.

“Give us the blog engine you’ve got on Evening,” says Ksenia, and Pasha shrugs.

“Take it, and take my programmer too, he’s on a fixed rate anyway. Do you want me to find a good designer?”

“I have a designer,” Ksenia replies, “an old school friend of mine. We’ll agree terms.”

I’m going to do this after all, thinks Ksenia, if something can be done, you should do it. If only to find out whether it works or not.

“All right then, that’s settled,” says Pasha, smiling, and asks Ksenia to stay, and he thinks to himself: how can I tell her I’d like to support their project? It’s an excellent idea and a commercial dead cert – but something inside tells me I’d better steer clear of it, or else sooner or later I’ll start thinking about the fact that there’s a man walking round this city who amuses himself by cutting out women’s intestines and hanging them round their necks like garlands of flowers. I don’t want to think about that, there are already too many things I’m trying not to think about too much. About having to say “no” when you want to say “yes.” About businessmen whose partners disappear without trace. About piles of rubble that appear where buildings used to be. Sometimes it feels like I waste most of my energy on trying not to think about such things. I waste so much energy on it and every day as I walk through the city, I shudder when I see a heap of debris where only recently there was a restaurant. It feels like my nightmares are becoming reality, but it’s not that, it’s just Mayor Luzhkov clearing space for new skyscrapers, clearing it with a gusto that sometimes makes it seem like the terrorists have learned to use a new kind of explosive – so silent that it doesn’t produce any echo in the newspapers or the conversations of the citizens.