Sad Stories Always Make Me Blue

Over the Christmas period, I’m going to post some short stories I wrote while in Tatarstan. They come under the category of ‘True Lies’ – or what writers prefer to call ’semi-documentary’. I wrote them about real people – but sourced largely from local gossip.

The Story Of Sveta and Andrei

Perestroika opened the floodgates of opportunity and Sveta and Andrei were carried on the tide.

In the market, Sveta haggled for two stout canvas holdalls and Andrei set out for Turkey the next day.

Soon he was travelling once or twice a week, bringing back the kind of shirts and lingerie that looked like satin and lace against poor Russian offerings in the local market.

In those heady, early nineties days of the new economics, Andrei had enrolled in the the sect of bag carriers. The clanking train to Turkey became an enterpreneur’s university, where everyone graduated to dreams of bigger schemes. To pass the long hours away from their wives, the suitcase men traded tips and addresses and contacts. And it was here that Andrei learned about pyramid selling and Herbalife.

Herbalife will change your life! Russians had been waiting years for a miracle and now they had two: perestroika and the wonder food. While losing weight and looking ten years younger, everyone could become millionaires, simply by telling their friends. The Herbalife pyramid scam fed easily on the Russians’ naïve consumerism and ignorant diet.

From amongst her many clothes clients, Sveta recruited Herbalife agents. In her imitation Cacharel suit and Istanbul Gucci shoes, Sveta was the picture of everything new Russians aspired to become. All the same, both she and Andrei expected the bubble to burst. Already people were muttering that Herbalife was just dried grass, and that all the profit was creamed off at the top– as indeed it was. So while the couple creamed, they cast around for an exit strategy.

By some quirk of fate, at about this time, Galina Fedorovna came into Naberezhnye Chelny. It was known that she travelled freely between Russia and North America. It was whispered that, for a price, she could arrange transit papers for Canada. While Andrei took tea with Madame Federovna, Sveta visited all the different places in the apartment where Russians hide their money: the mouse-poison box under the sink, the secret chapter in Pushkin’s poems, the bottom of the chess set. Then Andrei handed over two thousand dollars, almost the entire Herbalife hoard, on the promise of Canadian papers. Of course, he did not doubt Madame Federovna’s credentials. A Turkish clothes trader could see it at once. There was nothing false here, not a trace of polyester in her cotton, nor of polymer in her shoe leather.

The summer months dragged for Sveta and Andrei. While anticipating the call to Canada, they sold their apartment, their furniture, their shoe shop, all their remaining stock. They waited in a cheap rented studio with nothing much to do, with just their life savings for company. Normally Sveta had no time for family matters but this time, when a cousin called, it was a welcome distraction.

The cousin told a familiar story. The marriage was over, her husband simply had to go, but had nowhere to go to. Perhaps he could stay, only for a week or two of course, in the temporary studio? You know, just until he got himself sorted out? And Sveta, you and Andrei are so lucky and my life is so unfortunate, isn’t it? And so it was that the cousin’s husband moved in.

One day, coming back to the studio, Sveta must have sensed something in the atmosphere. It was a natural, subconscious reflex that prompted her to inspect the life savings. In frantic disbelief, books were swept from the shelves, drawers tipped out and cushion covers ripped apart, but everything, including the ex-husband, was long gone. There is a saying, ‘those that hide can find’. Suddenly Sveta realised how obvious all the hiding places were, and that she now knew exactly the whereabouts of all the money in Chelny.

The papers for Canada arrived. Well, not exactly Canada. First they must travel to Mexico and wait there for Madame Federovna’s notary. Andrei borrowed money from everyone he knew, promising to send money home as soon as he was working in Canada. He pledged and pleaded until finally the couple were able to take the plane. But as a result of the delay, they arrived too late to meet the notary from Canada. In fact, the notary would not visit Mexico again for many months, by which time the couples’ hopes and visas expired.

Russian women are frequently striking. With her blonde hair and delicate fair skin, Sveta outshone the local Mexican women and captivated Mexican men, one of whom took her in and set her up as a hairdresser. With her own hair and beauty as advertisement, a rich clientele followed.

For as usual, in adversity, Russian women cope, the men drink, and Andrei’s canvas holdall now only carries back empties to the bar. Many people ask him: ‘What’s a Russian doing in a pub in Mexico?’ How dearly he would love to return home to Chelny, but he owes too many people there too much money. So he answers simply, ‘Herbalife can change your life.’