Gatac

  Ilya Gavriilovic Sidorov 1A short primer on Russian naming: ‘Ilya’ is the first name, ‘Sidorov’ the family name, ‘Gavrilovic’ the patronym — a reference to the name of his father, as in, ‘son of Gavril’, Gavril being a variant of Gabriel. Because Russians often call friends and colleagues by their first name and patronym, it can create the impression that the patronym is their st name. If you’re from a firmly First Name / Last Name cultural background and think it’s silly that there could be legitimate confusion about a person’s st name, I recommend you go on the web and look for an article called ‘Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names’. As the kids would say, that shit blew my mind. took a drag off his hand-rolled cigarette, and the brief fre of the tip lit up his tattooed knuckles for a moment. He had sought out the comfort of darkness on the stern of his yacht, away from the lights hanging over the dance floor and the thumping of the music in the quote-unquote ballroom on the main deck, and out here, only the position lights and some luminescent emergency signs distracted him as he scanned the distant New York City skyline. Damn, did he need a cigarette. He'd been up for the better part of 30 hours and bedtime was still far away. He took another drag, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs, feeling the burn down his throat that kept him sharp. The footsteps coming up on him were loud and slow, and Ilya casually brushed his left arm against the side of his jacket, a little reminder of the pistol holstered underneath.

  “You'll catch your death out here,” came a stern voice from behind Ilya. “The snow won't keep you warm.”Ilya looked over to see his older ‘brother’ approach with unsteady steps, still learning to walk between the motion of the waves. Ilya greeted him with a hearty “Fuck your mother 2A popur Russian insult, but meant here more in the “Aw, screw you!” way., Nikoi!” and ughed. It was a safe thing to say: their brotherhood was not by way of parentage, Nikoi cared little for the woman who had birthed him anyway and Ilya knew he could easily outrun Nikoi. For his part, Nikoi grimaced back, more stung by Ilya’s ughter than the insult itself. “You are leaving our victory party early,” Ilya said. “All that fun must be overwhelming.”“You left first,” Nikoi replied. He steadied himself on the railing next to Ilya and tried to brush ft a new crease in his cheap jacket. “I assumed something important was happening.”“Oh, this is important,” Ilya said. He took another drag from the cigarette. “Ah, this is what fucking freedom tastes like. Ten years and I still wake up from nightmares that I'm back home smoking Belomors3Belomor is Russian for the Bck Sea. Belomors are a brand of particurly cheap unfiltered cigarettes made avaible in the Soviet Union to commemorate the completion of the Danube-Bck Sea canal. This canal was incidentally mostly built with convict bor under terrible conditions. How terrible? The official death toll is 12800 people. Which is, depending on your estimates, a bit less than 1% of total deaths in the bor camp system, which are said to be around 1.6 million people, though some estimates do go higher. That terrible. Grisly backstory aside, the cigarettes were very popur with people who needed to support their nicotine addiction on a budget.. But this, mother of God — you don't know a fucking thing about what you're missing.”“Freedom, apparently,” Nikoi said.Ilya ughed again as he cpped Nikoi on the shoulder. “Freedom, apparently!” he echoed. “There's a yacht loaded down with vodka, blow and girls, and you act like you are reading the metro timetable.”“You're right,” Nikoi said, the first hint of a smile forming on his face. “I'm being rude to my host. Sorry.”“Oh!” Ilya said.

  He reached underneath his jacket, and Nikoi tensed, but all Ilya pulled out was a pstic freezer bag containing several hand-rolled cigarettes. He transferred his lit cigarette to his lips and pulled the top of the bag open. He rummaged around inside for a good one — not the best, but a good one. He grabbed that good cigarette, handing it to Nikoi. Nikoi took the cigarette, inspecting it as best as he could in the dark of the night. He rolled it between his fingers, pressed it a little. It was overstuffed and Nikoi only raised it to his mouth reluctantly. When Ilya held out his lit cigarette as a fire source, Nikoi silently declined. He instead produced his own lighter, a crude rounded brass construction with a well-worn firewheel4Lighters such as this were often built by convicts in Soviet forced bor camps, as the Gug system was not known for providing such niceties as cigarette lighters to its inmates. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.. It took a few tries to light it, and Nikoi coughed from the first draw, but soon he was getting himself a taste of Ilya's freedom, and the way he cocked his head to the side when he puffed on it again was at least a tacit admission of not entirely hating the experience.

  “I'm trying out a little more Turkish in my mixture,” Ilya said. “Maybe it is too sweet.”“It is sweet,” Nikoi said. “Too sweet, I don't know. Everyone goes out of his mind in his own way5A particurly Russian way of saying “To each his own”.. This is yours, not mine.”Ilya ughed again. “You can speak your mind here, Nikoi,” he said, sucking in some more smoke.Nikoi took another drag. “It's shit,” he said.“It is shit!” Ilya cried. “What was I thinking? We can do better than that! We can have people roll our cigarettes for us now! Just how we like them. You get a guy and I get a guy. Specialists!” He let out his breath and the st of his smoke. He tossed the stump of his cigarette into wind, watching the embers get carried out to sea with a grin on his face. The grin deepened and he tossed the whole bag of cigarettes after it, watching it disappear into the dark before it made a barely audible spsh off the side of the yacht. “Come on!” Ilya said. “You wanted me inside, let's go inside! It is getting cold out here.”“Then go warm up,” Nikoi replied. “I'll follow you after I finish this one.” He took another drag. “It would be a shame to waste your gift.”“Try not to get lost!” Ilya said, cpping Nikoi's shoulder one more time. He sauntered off toward the light and the noise.

  Nikoi watched him, as if to make sure he wouldn't stumble on the few steps toward the staircase back to the main deck, but it seemed like this night wasn't fated to be the end of Ilya or even this party. Nikoi savored the cigarette, no matter how cloying it was. Maybe it was better he hated the taste, a more useful emotion. Hate had gotten him this far, after all. As he stood there alone, he looked down at the yacht's deck. Bone-dry teak, barely weathered. How long had it been since this monument to excess had even been out to sea at full speed, rather than sneaking around its home port? He frowned at the thought and raised his lighter again, stubbing the cigarette stump out on the side.

  There would be different cigarettes and a proper ash tray or two inside, Nikoi reasoned. After all, there had to be a limit to how careless Ilya had become.

  Nikoi knew he had to hurry to the main deck when the thump of the music stopped. He was still in time to hear the coked-out partygoers cheer on Ilya's attempt to climb onto a table. Once more, Nikoi considered the possibility that a sudden movement of the ship could send his brother tumbling, but again Ilya kept his footing until he stood on the table, feet apart as if surfing it like one of those American youths, and the cheering of the women only became louder when he stripped off his jacket, exposing his shoulder holster. He took it one off, too, turned around and threw it — gun included — over his back like a bouquet at a wedding. Even Nikoi flinched, but the women ate it up, giggling and crowding around the one who had managed to catch a small token of the gangster lifestyle. Nikoi's eyes scanned the rest of the crowd, fellow Thieves and aspirants — none of them were ughing.

  Ilya didn't leave it at that. His shirt had to go, too, and while he managed to undo the top two buttons, the third defeated him, and so he ripped it open and threw it to the floor. Tattooed skin stretched over the taut muscles on his back. The centerpiece was an ornate church with three steeples. Above it, spanning across his shoulderbdes, were gothic letters spelling out “GOTT IM HIMMEL"6Churches and religious symbols are a big part of Soviet (and now Russian) prison tattoos, both an expression of genuine faith and a means of showing they reject the prison authorities — only God can judge them. The wording means “God in Heaven” in German. And yes, I know that ‘gothic’ font is called Fraktur. I am German, after all, but I figured I’d make it easier to picture for the folks who don’t read these footnotes. Now, you may wonder why Soviet convicts sport tattoos in German, but —. He turned around, a mad grin on his face, and inevitably all eyes went to the swastika7— these date back to the early 20th century, where Soviet prisoners used these tattoos to show their disdain for and defiance against the system which imprisoned them in any way they could. And how do you piss off a Soviet prison guard? By proudly wearing Nazi symbols. Of course there’s significant overp with Neo-Nazis post-WW2, but hey. tattooed on his right pectoral, though Nikoi noted the eight-pointed star on the left shoulder, too — that one was the newest.

  “Friends!” Ilya called out, stretching his arms wide as if to reach around the entire room. Every word was given its moment to echo through the ship. “Welcome…to…the…party!”

  That was it. That was the whole thing. Cheers erupted all around the room for that, whatever that was.

  Nikoi still stared when Ilya climbed back down from the table and the music started up again and everybody went back to what they were doing before. One of Ilya's toadies gently retrieved the gun from the women by way of barter with a tray of champagne flutes, while another rushed to drop a fur coat over Ilya's bare shoulders. Ilya snagged himself a drink to wet his throat — top-shelf whiskey on the (half-melted) rocks — and wandered around the room, seemingly only to collect handshakes and cps on the back. His smile widened when his eyes fell on Nikoi standing in the corner of the ballroom, looking even cheaper and shoddier in the harsh light.

  “Nikoi!” Ilya called out. “My brother has no drink in his hand! What a shame!” He turned to the man at his right, a man uncomfortable in his brand new suit in more ways than one. “Rusn, get my brother a drink! Get him — ”Nikoi raised his hand. “No drinks for me, thank you,” he said.“Alright!” Ilya cried, looked at the gss in his hand as if considering whether to smash it on the floor, but before he could put the impulse into action, Rusn gingerly took the gss from his boss's hand and hurried off with it. Ilya looked back to Nikoi. “I see how it is, Nikoi,” Ilya said. “No more drinks, it is time to get serious. Rusn!” The man turned away from the bar. “Vodka!” Ilya cried.“You got it, boss!” Rusn shouted back, putting down the half-full gss first for someone else to clean up before he went to follow his boss’s new orders.“Let's sit down,” Ilya offered, waving his hand toward a nearby table off the dancefloor. Said table wasn't empty when he waved over it, but the men sitting there quickly cleared out at his approach. Nikoi pulled out a chair — white pstic, freshly delivered for the party — and sat while Ilya plopped himself into one across the table. Soon, Rusn returned with a round pstic tray, holding several shotgsses, a bottle of vodka covered in fine dew from the chiller and bowls of pickles, sardines and dark bread. Ilya wasted little time opening the bottle. He poured a shot for Nikoi and himself, smiled at Rusn and poured him one, too.“To business and friendship!"8So, it turns out Russians don’t actually toast with the “Nastrovje!” you may be thinking of now. Toasts are made to a specific occasion or person. The closest to the stereotypical “Nastrovje!” is “Sa strovje!”, meaning “To health!” — maybe a part of a (generally longer) toast, but not the same as “Cheers!”. It is more generally used when somebody thanks you for serving them food, however. Ilya said, raising his gss.“To business and friendship,” Rusn repeated.“…to business and friendship,” Nikoi added.

  Some…time…ter, Nikoi regained a hold on his senses. Which isn't to say he was out cold before, far from it, but the level of alcohol in his system had dropped below the threshold of forgetting himself, and his vision was clearing up enough to be disgusted by the image across the table. He moved his right arm, brushing against the leather-bound notebook in his jacket. Still there. Good. Well, not good, actually terrible, but better than the alternatives, he told himself.

  “No, no, baby,” Ilya slurred to the woman on his p, who was taking her time licking the st drops of Vodka from Ilya's gss. “This” — he tapped the swastika on his naked breast — “this isn't me, okay?” He tapped the star on the other side. “This is who I am.”“I like all your tattoos,” the woman replied, running her fingers over the swastika.“I'm telling you,” Ilya said, “I am many things, but I am not a Nazi. Okay?”“Okay,” the woman giggled.“It means I hate the state!” Ilya expined to the otherwise empty room. “I hate the cops and the prison guards, all of them, all of the garbage! That's why I got the tattoo.”“Okay,” the woman repeated.“He still hates fags, though," 9In video game criticism, there’s the half-joking measure of Time To Crate, i.e. how long you py the game before you see the first wooden crate in it, the implication being bad games fall back on such a cliché object quickly while better games manage to push it out or even avoid it entirely. In a less joking manner, I guess you could say I managed a Time To Slur of roughly 7000 words. Your call on how this rates retive to other stuff. The slur is a convenient shorthand for Nikoi being a terrible person. I wish I had a better excuse, but I honestly don’t. Sorry. Nikoi threw in. It seemed like the time to remind his host he was still there.Ilya ughed. “I'm expining it to the dy, Kolya!"10A diminutive of Nikoi. Diminutives have a habit of becoming ‘proper’ first names over time. Sasha is a diminutive of Natasha, for example. You can see a simir development in English with James, Jim and Jimmy. he said. “And I don't hate them this way, they stay away from me, I stay away from them, everybody is at peace! You say it as if I go out with a baseball bat at night.”“Ooh, what are you guys talking about now?” the woman asked.“Maybe you should,” Nikoi added. One advantage of knowing Ilya from another life was he also knew where his brother’s buttons were, and he was in the mood to push them, if only to get him back into the moment. “The man who sets the table is almost as important as the one who sits at its head. You have let Arkady Arsenovich host you without compint. You must love our brotherhood greatly, to endure such an insult for years.”This was the first time of the night Ilya's smile faltered. “You are my guest here, Kolya,” Ilya said.“I am,” Nikoi said, turning back to the woman now looking at him. “My friend Ilya is right, the star is who he is now. We were just talking about it.”The woman touched it, tracing the lines and feeling Ilya shudder under her touch. The skin beneath the tattoo was almost back to its normal color after three weeks of healing, but still tender.“He is a leader,”11As you might expect, it is difficult to get an authoritative list of Soviet/Russian prison tattoos and their meanings when a lot of the motifs vary by personal inclination, geographical distance and the sheer time scale of the development in this ‘nguage’, not to mention things being lost in transtion to other countries or people getting inked with stuff that they think looks cool.It is simirly difficult to get a precise idea of how rank works in this context — while the ‘Thieves In Law’ adopted some military trappings, such as tattoos of rank insignia and epaulets on the shoulders, those were more an indication of your personal reputation and specific pce in a specific hierarchy rather than something universally recognized. Plus there’s the whole deal where the Thieves are — as far as my research went — more a collection of smaller groups of professional criminals with some common trappings than organized crime on the scale of the Mafia or Yakuza societies, and even then much of what one might hear about them was really more applicable in the 1930s and 40s than it is today or even in the 1980s, when most of the story takes pce. Get into the differences between the Thieves and the Bratva and (Post-)Soviet Union organized crime in general, you’ll need a whole different book and one I’m not qualified to write, in any event.What I’m saying is, I use the term ‘Thieves in Law’ in this story in a way that owes far more to the needs of drama and internal consistency than it does to any particur historical reality. Just, you know, FYI. Nikoi said. “A man worthy of respect. A man who has worked hard to be on top. His tattoo means this.”“That is so sexy,” the woman said to Ilya. “Can you expin the others to me…ter?”“Anything for you, pussycat,” Ilya said, and as he grabbed for her rear, he felt her slide back on his p and lean forward, tempting him — and he gave in, a light sp on her butt to leave her giggling. “You can freshen up in my cabin,” he said to her.

  She slid off his p and made a pyful grab for his crotch, only to find her wrist caught in his hand. Nikoi nodded with satisfaction. Buzzed up as his brother was, he still had reflexes when it counted. “You'll get plenty of that ter,” Ilya said, smirking at the woman, and when she smiled he let her go on her artificially merried12While Google tells me I have not invented this word/spelling out of thin air, I think I might be the first one to use it this way. way. Ilya watched her saunter away and turned to Nikoi, his smirk widening to a grin.

  “Girls,” Ilya said. “Right?”“You would be better off without them,” Nikoi said.“Spoken like a true convict!” Ilya said, though he didn't ugh. “Well! You scared her away, now say what is on your mind!”“I meant to do no such thing,” Nikoi protested, though not too loudly.Ilya wagged a finger at him. “Oh yes you did,” Ilya said. “I know your tricks, Kolya. Out with it, then!”“I'm…concerned,” Nikoi began. He shook his head. “No, that is not right, that is not the word…oh, damn your vodka, Ilyusha!13And this is a diminutive of Ilya, if you hadn’t guessed. What I mean is —”“You don't trust me,” Ilya said, meeting Nikoi’s gaze. “You see me celebrate and you think I do not conduct my business well. You think I am soft now. You speak as if you would make every choice differently, in my position.”“That's a harsh thought,” Nikoi said.“Yet I know I am right,” Ilya said. “Look, Kolya, I understand your 'concern'. You had a…we had a hard life. It is not everything you wanted. You see me here like this, you think I have forgotten the broken knuckles and bck eyes.” He leaned onto the table, meeting Nikoi's gaze with his own. “I have made it big. I have made a better life. I enjoy this, and I wish to share this with you. But do not think this is enough. Only the dead say ‘Enough’.”

  Nikoi smiled.

  “That's good to hear,” he said. “That’s very good to hear, brother.”