Café Boris – employment opportunities

Dmitri entered Café Boris one morning to find a gorilla sitting at his usual table. The gorilla waved at him. “Dmitri,” it said, “it’s me, Sergei.”

“Sergei, what are you doing dressed like that? Are you hiding from someone?”

“It’s my new job, Dmitri. I’m a gorillagram.”

“A gorillagram? What on earth”

“I go to birthday parties and stag nights to sing songs or recite poems to the birthday boy or groom-to-be.”

“A poetic gorilla? Is this why capitalism triumphed over socialism, so that gorillas can sing to rich people?”

“It’s good money Dmitri. Anyway, I’m here because I have a job for you.”

Dmitri shook his head. “This sort of thing is not for me. Do you really see me in a gorilla suit?”

“Not that kind of job, Dmitri. A real job, teaching.”

“Teaching?”  Dmitri had left his teaching job several years previously, when the school had run out of money to pay him. Since then he had been ‘living off the air’, like so many people are forced to do.

“It is one of the people who booked me for a party,” Sergei explained. “Nikita Lagunov.  He’s a local businessman. His daughter has dreams of becoming a writer when she leaves school, and when he heard that the man who writes the Café Boris obituaries was a friend of mine, that he was a qualified teacher currently out of paid work, then he demanded I acquire your services.”

“Let me stop you, Sergei. I have heard of this ‘businessman’, Lagunov. I don’t wish to get mixed up with such people. Their ‘business’ is not good for Ukraine.”

“You haven’t heard what he’s offering, Dmitri. A very generous salary, for just a few hours’ work per week.”

“And you haven’t heard me, Sergei. The reason he can be so generous is that his business methods are unscrupulous. I wish to have nothing to do with him.”

“I will let you sleep on it then. You can tell me tomorrow. I have to go now though, I have a funeral to attend.”

“A funeral? You go to funerals dressed as a gorilla?”

“This is Ukraine, Dmitri, in the 21^st century. People want their funerals to entertain, a dancing gorilla to cheer them up. Much better than a priest reading out a dry, dull sermon.”

“You don’t dance, Sergei.”

“As well as any gorilla does, Dmitri. Loosen up, enjoy the new Ukraine. Sometimes I think you preferred the Soviet system.”

“At least I was paid under the Soviet system, without having to do private work for low bred gangsters,” Dmitri said, but by then Sergei was already on his way to the door.

After Sergei left Dmitri was alone for several minutes before Boris finally came over to serve him. “That was Sergei yes? He dress up as gorilla to avoid paying his debts? He will have to do better than that. I am used to customers trying to escape paying me, you wouldn’t believe it, some of the stunts they pull. On time an American feigned a heart attack to avoid paying his bill. I got him though, I extracted the money from his wallet while the medics were carrying him away.”

xxx

Dmitri spent a few hours at the café, enjoying the lunch he received as payment for his daily submission to the obituaries column and taking the opportunity to catch up on the latest gossip within the circle of the café’s regulars and their views on football and politics. He wrote the obituary for the next day’s column, answered a few letters (Dmitri had not entered the world of the internet and emails) and watched the toing and froing of the world, or that section of the world that takes residence in Café Boris.

Later in the afternoon, just as he was finally planning to leave, he was joined by his friend Viktor, an Inspektor from the local police.

“Don’t go, Dmitri,” he said, “I want to talk to you. Here, let me get you a vodka.”

Boris brought over two vodkas without the long wait associated with service in Café. Even Boris is nice to policemen.

“Cheers,” Dmitri said, raising his glass. “What are we drinking to?”

“To your new job. I bumped into Sergei and he told me all about it. It’s most exciting, you’re going to be teaching again.”

“Ah that,” Dmitri said. “I told Sergei I wouldn’t be taking the job. I don’t want to get mixed up with ‘businessmen’ like Lagunov.”

“But there is nothing sordid in what you are being asked to do. It is a straight teaching job, you don’t need to be involved with his murkier activities.”

“That’s not an attitude I expected from you. Haven’t you said that these ‘businessmen’ are destroying Ukraine, a new generation of mega criminal corporations that are untouchable by the police, corrupting on government and that undermine all genuine industry and commerce in this country. Have you changed your mind so completely?”

Viktor dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the only other people in the café were tourists, speaking in English, French, Spanish, not a Ukrainian speaker amongst them. Boris was there, of course, but Boris was well-known to have trained his ears to hear the faintest of whispers, so there was no point trying to hide anything from Boris, besides which, Boris was, in spite of being nosy, the most discreet person alive in Ukraine today.

“The truth is Dmitri, that it will be handy for me to have you in Nikita’s house. You can keep your eyes peeled and your ears pricked. I have been trying to get evidence on Lagunov for over a year now, but he works with a very select crew and there is none of the usual boasting. Though I’m sure he’s a serious criminal, I have no idea what he’s done, let alone any evidence against him.”

“You want me to spy for you?”

“I just need an inside man, someone who I can trust. I won’t ask you to root around in drawers, plant bugs or make illicit recordings of conversations, all I am asking you to do is use your eyes and ears when you are with them and your tongue when you are with me.”

“I will have to think about it Viktor. It is no small thing you are asking and I want to be sober when I make the decision, so no more vodka for me today.”

Dmitri went home to mull over the proposition. He needed the money, and a ‘businessman’ like Lagunov would pay well, more than enough for him to have a comfortable life. The teaching would be easy, just one child, and writing is the easiest subject in the world to teach. If the writing is good, you just say ‘this is good’, 'you should write more like this'. If the writing is bad you just say, ‘you need to read more’.

The moral dilemma was also solved, he would be more than happy to take Lagunov’s money, as he would be doing a service for the police. The only problem was the risk. What if he did overhear a conversation about a planned crime and report it to Viktor. Lagunov would soon realise that the only person out of his trusted circle that could have heard about it was Dmitri and the repercussions would be nasty. Even if he heard nothing, Dmitri would be taken a risk being seen with Viktor when he was working for Lagunov. These ‘businessmen’ are very protective of their privacy, as Ukraine’s graveyards would confirm.

The next day he met Sergei at Café Boris.

“Not dressed as a gorilla today, Sergei?”

“No, that work’s dried up.  Some people are saying that gorillas are yesterday’s fashion.”

“What’s today’s fashion?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still asking around. I tell you Dmitri, keeping up with trends in today’s Ukraine is a full time job. Anyway, have you come to a decision?”

“A decision?”

“About the job, Dmitri.”

“I suppose I could speak to Lagunov and find out more about his proposal. It would do no harm. After all, it’s a while since I’ve had any money.”

“Good man, Dmitiri. Joining the working classes again after all this time. Here, the number’s in my phone, Dmitri. Under ‘Nikita’. Make a note of it and give him a call.”

Sergei thus took the opportunity to show off his latest mobile device, a top of the range model that did a thousand things Dmitri would never dream a phone could do.

Dmitri made a note of the number in his own phone and then took the opportunity to explore Sergei’s toy. “So what’s in the ‘photo gallery’, pictures of all these young ladies you’ve been boasting about? ‘Eleven o’clock gallery’, what’s that?”

“Every day at 11.00 a.m. I take a photo of whatever’s in front of me. I took the idea from an artist friend. It creates ‘a montage of life’. A record of everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done at that time over the course of the past few years.”

“But they’re all the same. Just a picture of the door. Hundreds of pictures of the same door.”

“11.00 a.m. is my bathroom break, Dmitri. I take photos of the door while I am on the toilet.”

“Why not go to the bathroom later? It’s hardly a ‘montage of life’ if you photograph the same door every time.”

“My bowels dictate when I go, Dmitri. There is nothing I can do. It is determined by nature.”

“Well, why not take the photo later, 11.30, midday.”

“You fool, Dmitri. If I did that it wouldn’t be my 11.00 o’clock gallery.”

Dmitri handed the phone back.

“I will call this Lagunov later today. It will be good to be working again.”