Near Zero
by Natan Dubovitsky
translated by Bill Bowler
Yegor Samokhodov was happy as a youth in the Russian heartland but now, in Moscow, in middle age, he is estranged from his wife and daughter, and his low-paying job as an assistant editor is going nowhere. Looking for a way out, he joins a criminal gang, the Brotherhood of the Black Book. The Brotherhood is involved in forgery, theft of intellectual property, black-marketeering, intimidation, extortion, bribery, murder, etc.
Yegor’s girlfriend, Crybaby, invites him to a private screening of her new film, although she cannot attend. Yegor goes, hoping she may show up, and is horrified to discover he is watching a snuff movie where Crybaby is slowly murdered. After the screening, Yegor finds that Crybaby has disappeared. He sets out to Kazakhstan, to find and kill her murderer, the film director Albert Mamaev.
The story is set against a panoramic backdrop of Russia during and after the collapse of the USSR. Yegor’s quest brings him into contact with a cast of characters from a broad spectrum of Russian life, culture, history, politics and government.
| Translator’s Foreword | Cast of Characters | Table of Contents |
Chapter 45: Sorok Pyat’
Yegor’s inquiries bore results. He was getting close to Mamai.
He now knew Mamai’s habit of stopping in vacation villages toward the northwest of Moscow, sending five layers of idiots to front for him, and renting three dachas at once for various lengths of time.
Yegor knew that Mamai sometimes went without bodyguards to keep a low profile. He knew Mamai stayed a day or two in one place, looked around, moved to a different address if there was anything he didn’t like, and would disappear at once if he had a bad dream. Yegor knew Mamai lived like that for a month or a bit longer, snooping around Moscow, not especially concealing himself, but keeping on guard, not staying in one place, seeming to hang out with everyone openly but, at the same time, indistinctly.
Mamai met with actors and actresses, bargained with film producers, organized closed screenings, scampered around, partied. He was in Yegor’s grasp, five minutes from being caught, already almost not alive. But the closer Yegor approached the enemy, the more quickly he moved away from dreams of destroying him.
And then, one Sunday, Yegor was distracted from a solitary, hasty repast — one which would be customary for very sick or very unhappy people — by several phone calls and Internet messages in a row. His search was finished: these were the final bits of necessary information. Taken together, they formed a picture, more exactly, a map of his final battle.
He saw precisely where the beast was hiding. He knew how to approach the place unnoticed, how to penetrate the lair silently. He pictured the layout of the rooms. He knew the habits of the victim and the time when he would be defenseless and ready for slaughtering.
Yegor decided which pistol to use and where to hide the warm firearm, the smoking evidence of his criminally quenched passion. He memorized the words that Albert must hear at last, the words with which Yegor was preparing to torment him, until the merciful bullet relieved this quivering creature from fear and pain.
The way was open, the work simple. And yet Yegor knew that he would do nothing and go nowhere. He finished eating his cold penne, drank sweet tea and watched the Adventures of SpongeBob on Nickelodeon until nightfall. Yegor was not enlightened but seemed, to the contrary, more confused than ever. He did not feel relief. He did not feel anything except the reluctance, the inability to kill, to take revenge, to languish in rage, to sizzle with hate, to poison himself with fury, to burn himself with bile and cruelty.
He did not achieve sainthood. Everything just somehow finished itself. It wasn’t conscience that stopped him and turned him back from sin, but plush, sleep-inducing laziness showering down on his twitching brain.
The future did not portend love, but death was not visible there either. No one’s. Mamai remained alive. Vengeance and death were cancelled. Goodness and light were victorious.
Having had a good laugh over SpongeBob that led to a sweet yawn and growing suddenly quiet like a child for the first time in many months, Yegor fell asleep collected, restrained, and in harmony.
translation © 2019 by Bill Bowler
