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The Ivan Aufulich Papers
25. Lena Kutovmit
Kremlin-watchers, of course, pay attention, in excruciating detail, to the doings of the high-and-mighty, and even closer attention to those of the mighty who prefer to operate behind the scenes. But the more astute also attend to the doings of the little people, especially the little people who cater to the needs -- and vices -- of the mighty.
Such a one is Lena Kutovmit ("Lena" is a diminutive for "Elena", the cognate of "Helen"), butcher to the nomenklatura -- and *not* to ordinary citizens, who have neither the hard currency nor the favors with which to pay her. Lena's shop, just off Ulitsa Kirova, is of more moment than its small size would suggest. For it is there that the chefs to those mighty ones obtain the juiciest cuts of meat -- and leave behind even juicier bits of gossip.
Even when customers are too close-mouthed -- or too attentive to their own skins -- to let slip any news, subtle clues can be picked up by those who trade in information rather than slices of cruder fare. Recently the observant among them remarked upon the disappearance from Lena's cooler of the finest Beluga caviar and the substitution of lesser varieties. Some would have put this down simply to scarcity -- the Caspian Sea, spawning ground to the best sturgeon, is (thanks to the triumphs of Soviet agriculture and industry) the most highly-polluted body of water in the world.
Others, perhaps with access to restricted data, realize that though production is drastically down it is not yet sufficiently low to account for the unavailability of this luxury to those able to pay for it. The question they ask is the Russian equivalent of the age-old investigative principle in the West (no, no, not "cherchez la femme"; not even in the Soviet Union is there anyone powerful enough to restrict *that*): "cui bono" ("for whose good"). In the Soviet Union, unlike in the West, the good whose beneficiary is to be asked is not money so often as it is power. Who, indeed, might benefit from a shortage of caviar? Not the suppliers; they would benefit, all right, but not enough -- or with enough longevity -- to be worth frustrating the nomenklatura. Those with power would soon exert enough of it to *force* the resumption of supplies.
And therein lies the first clue. For those who might have been expected to have exerted such power are nowhere in evidence: not just that their power is invisible, but they themselves have disappeared from sight. Whenever one of these mighty ones disappears there must be suspected to be a reason, and one not of their own choosing. What did *all* these power-wielders have in common that could draw the baleful attention of those yet more powerful, enough to cause them to disappear ("sent to serve on a collective", in all probability -- as fertilizer)?
Therein lies the next clue: what they had in common was power, and not enough caution in wielding it to avoid the attention of those with yet more. Such was the favorite tactic of V. R. Nahtamyuzd: to provoke his enemies into exerting enough power to expose themselves, and then to wield the sickle.
The more thoughtful observers note the final clue: that those who have disappeared are rather beneath the concern of V. R. Nahtamyuzd. He has bigger fish to fry -- such as those who might be provoking the caviar action and causing the disappearances, and thereby exerting enough power to expose *themselves*. We may expect shortly to see -- or rather *not* to see, but only to feel the sudden vacuum of -- their own disappearances.
The collectives will be *well*-fertilized this year.
©1997 Grant Schampel