The Metronome (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  - Nurture alliances with like-minded nations. The nature and application of the U.S. power will likely lead to “if you are not with us, you are against us” attitude that the Russian people are, unfortunately, so well familiar with. Unilateral actions and/or actions done with support of only a handful of allies will force other nations to choose sides. Countries such as China, India, Brazil, Iran represent possible targets. Brzezinski identified a possibility of such an alliance, but discounted its likelihood due to diverging interests. We believe he underestimated the unifying factor of resisting American hegemony.

  - Work to end the “reserve currency” status of the U.S. dollar. The United States will be increasingly forced to grow through the rise of indebtedness rather than true wealth creation through production. The government will be forced to operate in persistent deficit in order to support the ever-larger proportion of the poor. There is no constructive outcome to this state but the effective devaluation of the currency. This will undermine the ‘reserve currency’ status of the U.S. dollar, key pillar of the U.S. financial power. Russia can help to accelerate the process by working with like-minded nations to eliminate the dollar from bilateral or multilateral transactions

  - Avoid the oversight of the U.S. financial system. One avenue is to work with allied countries to construct parallel financial networks, e.g., alternatives to SWIFT, a separate credit card system, etc. The other avenue is to deeply embed some of our financial resources into the Western system, so these resources are not perceived as “potentially hostile.” While both approaches can and should be pursued, the “deep embed” has an additional advantage of being secret. As increasing indebtedness makes the U.S. system more leveraged and less stable, where even a limited but unexpected and well-placed action can cause a wide-spread crisis.

  - Promote internal divisions. Rising inequality will undermine societal cohesion of the United States. History shows that most of the societal collapses and bloody revolutions have been preceded by extreme inequality. The American people may not appreciate this point because the American Revolution, unlike the French or the Russian ones, was not driven by inequality. The United States has been protected by the majority of its population belonging to the middle class that traditionally provided societal stability. As “financialization” decimates this group, its stabilizing influence will dissipate and the divides between various groups and states within the United States will increase.

  The steps described here are largely clandestine, requiring time and patience. Over time, all political systems deteriorate because organized interest groups extract ever increasing value for themselves. Our strategy should be based on United States continuing down an unsustainable path and eventually wearing itself out via societal divisions and imperial overstretch. All American strategic thinking is based on an invulnerable “fortress America.” But while it’s not vulnerable militarily, it is vulnerable economically. We think that the key element is displacement of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency. It is impossible for us to predict exactly when such a point will be reached. Based on the likely trajectory of the rising debt, aging of the U.S. population and corresponding increase in the U.S. government’s social and medical expenditures, and faster growth of other countries, we would project this to be twenty to thirty years in the future.

  After finishing Voronezhsky’s document, I re-do my diagram. This time I start with two large, partially overlapping circles. One circle I title “Brockton’s scheme.” I place Crossmans, Khmarko, and Voronezhsky Sr. inside the circle, Brockton into the overlap part. The second circle I call “Deep embed?” and put Nemzhov and Sosnovsky inside the circle and Streltsova into the overlap part. Below the circles, I write names – Vakunin, Pemin, Saratov, Voron(ezhsky), Shoffman. And then I draw just one more circle, with Karen and Sam Baker. This diagram is much simpler now, the picture in my head is almost complete.

  When I land, my first instinct is to call Sarah. I pull out my phone as I walk through the terminal, stop, stare at it for a minute and call Jack instead. We arrange to meet for lunch on Monday.

  When I get to my apartment, I unpack, set up the father’s metronome. It fills the place with a steady click, click, click… The fridge is empty, and I go to a neighborhood grocery to pick up some food. There, while standing in front of Fuji apples, I give up and call.

  She answers on a third ring. “Pavel?” There is noise of many people in the background.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In a grocery store.”

  “In St. Petersburg?”

  “No, here in New York. I just got back.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “Yes, I am fine. Are you?”

  “I am good. Look, I have to go, OK?”

  “OK.”

  What did you expect? She has to live her life. I wanted Anya for her pleasant comfort and familiarity. I wanted Karen for that instant recognition in the Lenin’s Library, the recognition that changed everything. Why do I want Sarah? It’s not familiar or spiritual. I think it’s the greed. The greed of wanting to possess her, to merge into one whole. It’s the physical, hungry relationship. The best thing I can do for her is let her go.

  Back in the apartment, I eat without noticing what, just to keep myself going. Find a bottle of Chivas Regal, pour myself a glass. I stand by an open window, listening to the sounds of New York, thinking of taking a walk to the river when the intercom rings. It’s Sarah.

  I planned to ask her about her week, explain what happened to me. Instead, when she comes through the door I push her against the wall and pull up her dress. Her mouth latches onto mine, her left arm pressing me into her face while her right hand desperately tries to unzip me. “Yes, Yes,” she sobs as I enter her against the wall, her breaths coming out in short cries. I don’t know how we ended up on the floor. I gasp and Sarah pulls me into her as hard as she can. After we climax, we lie there, breathing hard. She is dressed for going out, a sparkly little emerald green affair with a string of pearls and matching high heels. Satin red underwear is lying by the wall.

  Sarah lightly runs her hand through my hair, starts crying quietly. “Did you put some potion in my drink when we went together for the first time? I was on a date with a perfectly nice guy today, and then you called and all I could think about was how to leave without hurting his feelings.”

  I cradle her in my arms, rocking gently. “Sarah, I am so sorry. I tried not calling. But to be in the same city and not call you…I could not, I am sorry. We can go out, get dinner.”

  She gets up, lifts the dress over her head, standing there in shoes and a bra.

  “No, not tonight. I want to stay here. But tomorrow is Sunday; promise you’ll spend a day with me.”

  I promise.

  Later in bed she says, “I feel like a character in one of those depressing Russian dramas from the 19th century, caught in a hopeless affair. Reading those back in college, I could not understand this kind of attraction to tragedy, to hopelessness, to pain. I think I do now.”

  I want to say something about the Russian soul or about the ancient Greeks inventing tragedy, but it’s just false and cliché. Instead, I simply repeat, “I am sorry.”

  Sunday, June 25

  We make love in the morning, then Sarah leaves to change with, “You stay right where you are and wait for me.”

  I am happy to obey; my inner clock is all confused with time changes. I give Sarah my second set of keys in direct violation of the rental agreement, then I fall asleep again.

  She is back in an hour with two cups of coffee, pulling off my blanket and ordering me to the shower. “Come on, you promised this is my day.”

  Sarah traded her little emerald dress and high heels for a T-shirt, jeans, and comfortable walking shoes. I wonder if her underwear is red satin; I’ll have to wait to find out.

  I like going to the East River, but Sarah leads me west. “I know it’s a cliché, but I love visiting Central Park. I’ve only l
ived in New York for two months now; perhaps after a few years I’ll get tired of it.”

  We walk through Central Park Zoo with its polar bears, sea lions, and leopards, eat late breakfast at Ballfields Café, then wander aimlessly through the little trails. It’s a warm day, and New Yorkers are sunbathing on the grass, happy to shed off their clothes after a chilly spring. Sarah sighs. “I wish I had my bathing suit on,” she says then finds an unoccupied patch of the Great Lawn and spreads out on the grass. I follow her lead. For what feels like an eternity, we are lying there, watching the clouds drift by. It’s simple and kitschy, but my head is clearing and stress is draining out of my body.

  “When it comes like that ... at forty ... losing myself like a teenager…I did not want it ... I did not expect it.”

  Sarah is looking at the clouds, not at me.

  “And then I can’t sleep at night while you are half a world away without calling and I practically run to get to your building when you finally show up. I wish I could, but there is nothing I can do to stop it. I should be focusing on finding a job, some stability. I run into people I know, and they offer me sympathy. ‘Let me introduce you to a nice man,’ they say. But I don’t want sympathy, and you don’t offer it. Perhaps that’s why.”

  I remain silent, watching the clouds, adding Sarah to the side of my life ledger that’s labeled “The Women I’ve Hurt.”

  “What’s going to happen to you, Pavel?” says Sarah. It’s more of a musing than a real question, she knows I am not in any condition to be certain of anything.

  “I am not sure, but I think I’ll know soon.”

  “What did you find in Russia?”

  How do I answer when I am not sure myself?

  “I brought home my father’s diary, it’s an old notebook on my desk. I found out that he was not the man I thought.”

  “Was he better or worse?”

  “Better, much better. I think he kept so much inside, not wanting to be a burden, a liability, not wanting me to feel any guilt. I was angry at him all these years because I thought he did not care about my mother dying. I did not realize how much death he’d seen during the Leningrad’s blockade when he was only a teenager. He was just letting my mother go, letting her leave the suffering and the pain behind.”

  My voice breaks and Sarah raises herself on her elbow, kisses me and caresses my face until I can continue.

  “Turns out I have a brother, Andrei. Not a biological one. During the blockade, my parents adopted a neighbor’s boy who’d been orphaned. They were barely older than he was. They saved him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He lives in a city in the southeast of Russia. He spent many years in prison camps because of his opposition to the government. At one point, my father had to denounce him in a letter to the authorities so I could go to a special school for talented kids.”

  “Oh, Pavel, I am so sorry. But it’s not your fault.”

  “My father hated them…the hypocritical ruling party functionaries that lived at the expense of others. All these years he kept silent in order to protect his family, but he hated them with all his heart. He wrote that letter for me, and I left him all alone. I think he killed himself so the very people that he hated couldn’t get to me through him, so that there was nothing that they would have on me. I was so selfishly blind.”

  “Are these people trying to threaten you?”

  “Sarah, I don’t know yet. I came across some ugly stuff that’s best not to discuss.” I try to say it in a please-don’t-ask-anymore voice, and she gets it.

  We get hungry, so we make our way to Gabriela’s Restaurant & Tequila Bar just west of the park. The place is loud and full of happy-looking people; I love it. Sarah’s been there before, and she does the ordering: two lime Margaritas and two Gabriela’s Brunches. We fill up on burritos, crispy tortillas, assorted tortas, and barely get up from our table. We walk it off by heading to AMC Loews on 84th Street. There, we are presented with the grand choices of X-Men, The Fast and The Furious, Cars. Sarah settles on Peaceful Warrior, which turns out to be a mix of Rocky and The Karate Kid. But Sarah looks happy, snuggles next to me munching popcorn and says, “I feel like I am on a real, old-fashioned date.”

  We eat dinner in one of our neighborhood restaurants and end the day in my apartment. I impatiently watch Sarah undress, and she gives me a curious look. “What?” I explain that I’ve been wondering all day if she has red satin underwear on. She laughs and steps out of her jeans. It’s blue satin. Sarah says, “I made you promise this day for me and you did it. Now, what is your wildest desire?”

  “Well, that would require at least two young, nubile girls dressed in a harem attire…”

  She laughs and slaps me. “They are not here, but let me see what poor old me can do.”

  She can do plenty.

  Monday, June 26

  Sarah has an afternoon interview with a private school on the Upper West Side.

  “I have enough money to get through the summer, but come September I’ll need a job,” she says. “I look forward to teaching again. Hey, do you want me to ask if they need a physics teacher? We can have a simple life.”

  She kisses me and leaves.

  I check the bank account; the money is not there yet. It’s still early, but I am anxious.

  My phone rings. Private number, unfamiliar voice speaking with Russian accent:

  “Pavel Rostin?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Greg Voron. Grigoriy Voronezhsky if you prefer.” I remain silent, so he continues after a pause, “Can we meet at the Carlyle tomorrow? Say, 11 am? You know where it is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Excellent. Go to the front desk, there will be a message for you there.”

  Surprisingly, Jack asked to meet at one of the waterfront places on the East River. I walk there to kill time and calm my nerves after the call from Voron. Jack is already there, waiting for me, drinking. He is not wearing his tie, I am not sure I have ever seen him without one.

  “What’s going on, Jack? Are you playing hooky?”

  Jack laughs. “You can say that. I no longer work at the bank.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. The chief called me on Friday. He was honest about it. Said that while he understands my conservative approach to risk management, this is a different era, and we have to be more aggressive in order to keep up.”

  “So they don’t need to manage risk?”

  “The way he put it, ‘while the music is playing we’ve got to dance.’ They’ve been ignoring me anyway, but two weeks ago I wrote a memo directly to the CEO warning that our traders are taking very dangerous positions in subprime CDOs. I reminded him how our bank almost went bankrupt in 1998 following the Russian crisis, and we are more leveraged now. The CEO did not like it. He needs a big bonus this Christmas to pay for the new digs in Hampton. The trading group generates the majority of the company’s profits these days, and they all hate my guts. Nobody seems to give a damn what happens after they get their bonuses. Profiting at the expense of others while claiming to do ‘God’s work.’ And as I was being escorted out, the bank’s chief counsel showed up and warned me that I have a confidentiality agreement with the bank and to keep my mouth shut or they’ll sue me until I’ll be forced to beg on the street.”

  “Jack, I am so sorry. They are idiots!”

  “You know, Pavel, we did not use to be this way. When I started thirty years ago, we made good money but not these outrageous amounts for pushing paper. We cared beyond the next bonus. You see, that’s the problem – we knew we had to keep our reputation so we could come back next year. Now a trader makes millions in one year and an executive makes tens of millions, so they don’t care if they are buying crap because they get to keep their money and someone else will foot the bill!”

  Jack’s voice is rising, heads turn, but he does not care.

  “Who was it that said ‘After me, the flood’?”

  “It was either Lou
is XV or Madame de Pompadour, I don’t remember.”

  “Didn’t they lose their heads?”

  “No, but their successors did twenty years later.”

  “Well, I hope our children won’t have to pay for our sins, but one can’t defy the laws of mathematics, and I am afraid we are going to take away their future and leave them a giant Ponzi scheme. I dealt with money for most of my career, and ultimately it’s just a mechanism for making the commerce simpler. It’s much better to use money than to barter – ‘I’ll give you ten goats and a hundred chickens for this used car.’ But we now attached to money some mythical power, as if it’s a magical elixir that can control and fix the economy. That’s more convenient for Wall Street and the politicians because it’s easier to create money out of thin air than to make something real. But ultimately this only creates a rigged system that serves special interests. There can be no sound economy without sound finance. Our corruption is not ideological, it’s the corruption of money, of taxing everyone in favor of those that have influence.”

  Jack finishes his drink and motions for another.

  “How’s Suzy taking it?” I break the silent pause.

  “She probably has had enough. She never seemed to buy into the notion that what’s good for Wall Street is good for the country.”

  A waiter appears and takes our orders, including more drinks.

  Jack waves his hand dismissively. “But enough about me. I am ready for retirement anyway. Did you see The New York Times story last Friday?”

  “No, what story?”

  “I guess you were pre-occupied in your travels. The story was also in the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. The U.S. government is now analyzing the international banking data, the data that was supposed to be private.”