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The Ivan Aufulich Papers
16. Stepan Itvilya
Experienced Kremlin-watchers never overlook a snippet of evidence, or even a potential source of a snippet. While the upper echelons of the nomenklatura use chauffeur-driven Zils, the lesser members must resort to taxis, whose drivers acquire a fascinating store of information. Those passengers who are generous tippers may sometimes tap that store; and sometimes, when combined with other information, it is by no means trivial. (The acquisition of such information is itself information for others, and so it goes.) One of the most prosperous cabbies around the walls of the old Kremlin is Stepan Itvilya, who commented recently that he had taken a fare from Vasily N. Dzheli, who was last seen slipping through the clutches of reporters after a soccer match in Tomsk. That in itself is remarkable (and was remarked upon), as Tovarisch Dzheli's tastes in entertainment run more to ballet. But astute observers remember that soccer, and the Tomsk team in particular, was a passion of Katya Lyukin who (you may remember) did *not* design the name-tags for the Plenary Session of the Congress of Armored Vehicle Washers. The fact that Vasily has been seen since, and Katya has not, is of course weighty with consequences for the sausage-casing factories throughout northern Byelorus *and* potato production.
Officially, in the Soviet Union, there is no crime; at least no criminals are caught. Oh, there are occasional "crimes against the state"; but since all property is owned by the state and everyone works for the state, every crime is "against the state" and comes under the purview of the KGB. That is considered a health risk more than a crime.
Stepan Itvilya, the cabby who leaked the interesting tidbit about the reappearance of Vasily N. Dzheli, came out recently to his start his shift and discovered his cab missing. Why anyone, except perhaps a cattle shipper, would want to steal a Volga cab may surprise foreigners (who are among the few who can afford to take a cab and yet do not have their own limousines); but Soviet citizens who know the extreme shortage of private vehicles will understand. Taking Itvilya's cab, however, was a serious risk: he has connections. Thus whoever took it was either very foolish (and very short-lived), or has connections of his own and was seeking to send a message. When any such message is sent, the author must always be suspected to be V. R. Nahtamyuzd, somehow seeking to advance his agendæ of cultural and economic purity. Jaded observers, having seen so many such plots, will realize that Itvilya, and even his connections, are much too small fry for Nahtamyuzd to bother with, and hence suspect an attempt to discredit Nahtamyuzd himself for stooping so low. But the truly sophisticated swimmers in the seething surf of Moscow politics will recognize the hand of the arch-plotter himself, using his shadowy connections (via the Vladivostok Curb Repairers' Union and certain Estonian hog collectives) to the Minsk underground to seduce his enemies into making such an attack, dreaming that they will bring him down. They will soon, of course, begin dreams from which they will never wake. We can expect to see, in short order, a small report of the theft itself, a much more prominent series of denunciations of the thieves (with veiled references to Nahtamyuzd), and then a brief announcement that the denouncers have been sent to "serve on a collective" (as fertilizer) -- followed by an ominous silence, through which can once again be heard the faint wails of the dissident poets in Kazakhstan.
©1997 Grant Schampel