Chapter 22: Back to Work
For a month, Rudy hardly touched a computer, and he was glad of it. He spent most of his workdays catching up on the plumbing project, crawling around the darkest, grittiest spaces inside the chemistry building, refitting every lab with new copper and PVC pipes scrounged from three local supply warehouses and solder, tape, and fittings from a fourth. His head no longer ached; a week into his return, he was lifting and wrenching pipes without any twinge in his ribs. Between plumbing tasks, Rudy sharpened mower blades, installed two new, heavier security doors in the entryway of the student apartment building, and unloaded three full trucks of bricks for which he had no immediate use but for which Vitaly had swung an incredible deal that made all the unloading and crowding of the physical plant warehouse worthwhile. Rudy got sweaty, dirty, and sore, good sore. He was glad to be doing real work again.
Not that computer work wasn’t work; Rudy could attest from the last two years and especially those several days in the basement war room with Vitaly coding the Dmitris’ demise that it very much was work, effort that produced results and wore him out. Rudy enjoyed using his mind, but as he thought about those strange days underground immersed in “financial analysis”, Rudy realized that his illness hadn’t come just from long hours and bad diet when he needed good food and rest to recover from the physical damage and the anxiety the now-dead goons had inflicted. He had exacerbated his condition by isolating himself from his body and from the world. In their war room, at their computer stations, Rudy’s eyes hadn’t looked more than an arm’s length away, at flat characters on flat screens and printouts (papers which Vitaly and Kolya had since carefully reviewed and either locked in safes or stuffed in the incinerator). He’d moved little besides his keyboarding fingers. The financial analysis had to be done and done fast, and the work had paid off, but sitting in the basement at the computers almost around the clock had kept him from recovering the balance that the Dmitris had disrupted. Working with the pipes, making water run again, Rudy sensed how important physical work was to keeping his equilibrium. He needed to handle things, move, connect, and build real objects. He didn’t want physical exertion to be separate from his daily labor, not just the morning jogs he’d squeeze in if there was time before heading to the Institute; he wanted to move and strain and sweat as a regular part of his day, using mind and muscle together to make things happen.
That was what Russia needed from him; that was what he wanted to give.
He didn’t want to fall into one chair at one desk. He wanted to get back to his routine… really, his not-routine, moving all over campus, finding new problems he could put his back into, and fixing them with the increasing array of tools in his box and belt.
As always, to his surprise and not-surprise—one would think Galina Filipovna’s cosmic questions consumed her attention, but her inquiries and directions concerning his far more mundane work continually reminded him of her keen eye and mind—Galina Filipovna appeared to recognize Rudy’s “physical enthusiasm” at least as fully as he did. She used those words, before Rudy himself had fully recognized or verbalized what he felt as he got back to work, when she summoned him to her office a month after they raided the Leonov funds, a few days after Rudy finished replumbing the chem lab.
“I value your computer skills,” she said after he closed her office door and took his seat. “You and Vitaly built a system that performed exactly as intended. We removed the Dmitris from our affairs. Neither Leonov nor the police have bothered us. We are three million dollars richer.” Galya’s tone softened. “And away from the computer, you appear to have recovered your health and your physical enthusiasm. I am glad you are feeling well.”
Praise plus personal concern from his director turned Rudy’s cheeks warm. “Thank you,” he said, squirming a bit and lowering his eyes to his scuffed boots, which he had stomped and brushed vigorously on his way in to avoid tracking autumn mud into Galina Filipovna’s office.
The director remained silent long enough to worry Rudy. He glanced around, fearing he maybe had brought some mud in with him. But when he looked across the desk again, Galya was eying him, not her parquet floor, with her usual piercing curiosity. When his eyes met hers, she spoke. “But you don’t want to sit. Come.” Galina Filipovna stood, and Rudy jumped to his feet. “Let’s walk.”
Galina Filipovna grabbed her black fall coat and her black knit beret and walked right past him to hold open her door for him. Rudy zipped his jacket as he hurried to follow her out, down the stairs, out of the Fizika building into the damp late October air. It had rained for three days. Some afternoon sun broke through to shimmer on puddles everywhere.
“I intend to keep you feeling well,” Galina Filipovna said, leading him toward the main campus gate, “and that means having you do work that taps your physical enthusiasm to the fullest.” The director leaned close; for a moment Rudy thought she was going to take his arm, which struck him as inconceivable, out here, stepping onto Karl Marx Street, between Lenin and Tsar Alexander the Third, the great director clutching this workman’s arm, as if she needed any—
Galya leaned close only to keep her next few words from floating much farther than Rudy’s ears. “You are not a bank robber.” Then she leveled and straightened to her full height, dispersing the ridiculous tingling fear that had momentarily possessed him.
“You are a builder,” Galina Filipovna continued, in her regular forceful voice, without missing a stride. “We need both, and more, but it is as a builder that you are most useful in expanding the Institute’s utility and influence. So tell me…” and with a casual gesture toward the back of Fizika, the blue-white brick and dark windows that peered through the trees and over the Kremlin wall to the street, Galina Filipovna began a tour with Rudy around her entire campus, first around the center, the irregular pentagonal old fortress, outside the walls, then inside around each building, then out again to a few of the main outlying facilities—economics faculty (morphing now into the business center), agronomy, gymnasium, motor pool. She asked him questions about the design and function of each location, questions about what appeared to work well and what, if he had the time and materials, he might improve. They looked at sidewalks, too, paths for people and trucks, utility lines, steam vents, benches and trees, shade and sunlight. They stopped often, but their stops were animated, as Galya and more so Rudy touched brick and steel and glass and wood, pointed out details, and sketched in the air the angles and annexes of a couple dozen renovations and innovations—new windows, elevated and enclosed walkways joining buildings inside the Kremlin and across Karl Marx Street, new facilities for computer science and agronomy, underground secure network connections to every building, removal of defunct vehicles from the motor pool (Rudy could identify ten that hadn’t moved since he’d arrived) and resurfacing of the cracked and weedy lot, a water tower for better pressure in student housing, more green space around the library. Some of the projects he had thought of earlier; some he brainstormed there, on the spot, prompted by Galina Filipovna’s questions and observations.
As they surveyed the Institute, Rudy thought of Suzdal, the basement he and his friends had cleared, and Aleksandr, the man in Suzdal who was building the art restoration school. Rudy couldn’t remember Aleksandr’s actual position—owner? architect? Maybe Tall Igor had said Aleksandr was a local biznesmen, but he had no idea what local business could be funding the school project. Rudy had never spoken directly to the Russian or seen or heard any full plan for the school or what the basement would be used for. Rudy thought back and couldn’t picture the basement or the water pump and picnic ground in the context of the entire former monastery. Swept along in the rush of days and thirst and surprises, he’d never had a moment to look much farther than the swing of his hammer or the piles of rubble that the girls hauled out to think, what is Aleksandr building here? how could we make it better? What else could we create? He and his friends in Suzdal were just volunteers, Americans, free labor, going where and when and doing what they were told.
Galina and Rudy stopped in front of the library. Clouds had risen from the southwest to swallow the low sun; it would rain again after supper. Galina Filipovna pulled her coatsleeve back to look at her watch. “Oh my,” she said in a flat voice, pointedly devoid of surprise. “Look at the time.”
Rudy tugged his own jacketsleeve back. 16:20. They’d been touring the campus for over two hours.
“I’m sorry,” Rudy said, trying to read the director’s tone. “I lost track of time. Have I—”
She waved away his apology. “It was my intention. Repairs, renovations, buildings… you see them the way I see particles, interactions, equations….”
Galina Filipovna looked like she might see one of her equations there on the sidewalk, might lose herself in tracking down a missing factor. Instead, after a moment, she turned squarely to him. “Are you still thinking of leaving?”
The question surprised him. He’d spoken of that possibility only to Vitaly, only back at his apartment, only in that awful conversation right before Vitaly revealed his plan, then shortly after Rudy recovered, when they stayed up past midnight talking about what had happened on the street right outside Rudy’s window, the moral responsibility they bore and would bear for whatever might come from future financial analysis, the caution necessary to avoid any repeat of such dire events, and the tension that caution would cause with their commitment to protecting Galina Filipovna and her great plans, no matter what. Rudy still wondered if he had the temper to remain, if he wouldn’t somehow get his friends into trouble again, if caution dictated that he remove his friends from danger by removing himself from the scene. These few weeks of honest work had quelled that wondering but not erased it.
He didn’t dwell on what Vitaly may have told Galina Filipovna or when or how much. Vitaly’s allegiance to their director, like Rudy’s own, superseded friendships and confidences, and Rudy begrudged the director’s primacy not one whit. Vitaly may have said nothing; Rudy thought it entirely possible that Galina Filipovna could read his thoughts, maybe his own uneasy bearing after the attack, maybe in his blush a moment ago. Her vision penetrated everything, mathematics and men.
Rudy stalled while a group of chattering students walked by. They greeted the director with respectful and nervous voices as they headed to the library doors, and Galina Filipovna responded warmly before fixing her eyes back on Rudy. He watched the students go inside, out of earshot, before speaking. “I was wondering if I put you in danger, and if you would be safer if I went elsewhere.”
“You put yourself at risk, to protect us, and all of this.” She waved toward the library and beyond to her Physics building, but Rudy knew he wasn’t thinking of buildings or the Kremlin when he threw the Dmitris out of her office.
At that moment, Rudy thought of Brenda.
“You know, when I came to Russia, there was a professor of Russian language in our group. Brenda. She brought her students, who were most of our crew. She’d been to Russia before, many times, in Soviet Union days, when it was… safe, I guess, for a woman to go out alone in the evening.”
Galya scoffed. “Safe, yes, for an American woman, a tourist with KGB watching.”
Rudy shrugged, embarrassed. “I suppose that cocoon affected her impressions. But when we came, after the collapse, that cocoon was gone. One evening, in Moscow, at the dormitory we stayed in, Brenda went downstairs by herself. I don’t remember what she said she was doing—looking for a grocery store, going for a walk, I don’t know. But before she could get out of the lobby, these three guys—I want to say they were young punks, but I remember one guy was older, pudgy, while the other two were maybe college-age—they crowded around her, started asking her questions. Brenda was always looking for chances to meet regular Russians and have conversations, but these guys were too close. She thought she should head back upstairs, but the goons wouldn’t let her go toward the elevator. As they peppered her with questions, they were maneuvering her gradually toward the front door.
“That’s when Marty and I came downstairs. Marty was our group leader. He was going down to the cafeteria to check with staff on plans for the next day’s meals. I went with him, just to stretch my legs. The elevator opened, and I heard the goons’ voices. I saw Brenda trying to talk her way out of their little crowd, and I saw the goons talking over her and herding her toward the exit.
“And I shouted her name. Didn’t think; it just came out. And I went right over, walked right in between the older guy and one of the young punks. Didn’t even look at ’em; just locked my eyes on Brenda the way she locked hers on me. I was saying something, just making stuff up, probably didn’t make any sense, but just talking as if the goons weren’t there, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I took Brenda’s arm, and then Marty was right there, too, on Brenda’s other side, wedging himself between her and the two young guys, like a scoop helping me pop her out of the box they’d tried to put her in. I beelined to the elevator, Brenda in tow, her hand clamped like an eagle claw on my arm. Marty followed. He kept his hands free, like he was anticipating having to use them. The elevator hadn’t gone back up yet—there was a bench by the door, and Marty had slid it across the gap to keep the elevator from closing. Marty shoved the bench out, and the door creaked shut, but not before we saw the three goons snap out of their surprise and take a couple steps toward us. The elevator rattled and crawled up, and I was calculating how much time it would take those guys to run up the stairs. Did they know we Americans were staying on the third floor? Would they confront us, try to take me and Marty on?
“But under my calculating, my blood was boiling. I stood at that door, side by side with Marty, shielding Brenda behind us, my free hand balled in a fist. I imagined winding springs inside, getting ready to unload on whichever ugly face showed itself first outside the elevator.
“Thing is, I’ve never trained to fight. I don’t do karate or anything like that. I just knew they were bullying Brenda, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. It was just instinct, and if those bullies had been any kind of fighters, it would have gotten me in a world of hurt.
“Of course, they weren’t fighters. They weren’t in the hall when the elevator opened. They didn’t come up the stairs. They were probably just bored and stupid and looking for easy marks.
“Funny—only bruise I got was from Brenda, where she gripped my arm for a good half-hour as we sat upstairs, talking about what had happened and everybody in the group coming over make her feel better and tell Marty and me how brave we were. I just sat and thought about my instincts, thought about what I’d done, thought about what I’d been ready to do. Was I really going to throw a punch? Was I really going to hurt those guys, and keep hurting them until they backed down and went away? If they didn’t back down, if they were that stupid, would I really knock them down so they couldn’t get back up? And if I couldn’t knock them down, if they were stronger, would Marty have saved us? Would anyone else have come down to help?”
Rudy was surprised to hear himself talk so much, to Galina Filipovna, about something other than work. He was surprised to feel a shudder run from his shoulders down to his hands and into his gut and keep reverberating.
Galina Filipovna leaned closer. “Would Brenda, and Marty, have been better off without you?”
Rudy had never spoken to Galya, or Vitaly, or anyone else, about the fate of his friends or his connection to that well-known and grim event. Galya couldn’t know that, when Brenda and Marty were without him, they died.
His mind whirled back. If he hadn’t been there, on the elevator, would Marty have been able to handle the situation alone? If something bad had happened, maybe they’d have cut the trip short, never gone to Suzdal. Maybe they’d all be back in America, alive….
Rudy shivered harder. Galina Filipovna took his arm, pressing her fingers on the same spot where Brenda had bruised him.
“You did the right thing, for Brenda, and for me. Do not doubt that.” Galya stared him down, inches away, until he calmed. Then she tilted her head, just a small degree, and let loose his arm, and they turned in sync and started walking back toward her office.
“Your temperament does not endanger us,” she continued. “Your temperament suits you for the work I want you to do.” Rudy glanced at Galina Filipovna, and she answered. “I want you to be our specialist in physical projects.”
The term puzzled Rudy. No such position existed in the current campus organization tree. “Specialist…?”
“Yes, a new position. You’re a good repairman, but I want you to do more. Physical projects fall within Vitaly’s formal duties, but I need him to concentrate on our… “—she glanced at the library doors—”…financial analysis, and broader informatics strategy. You will help him with the network, the hardware aspects of that strategy. But you will primarily do what we have done this afternoon—rove the campus, identify things that are not working, things that could work better, things that the Institute does not have but should. And you will have the authority and the resources to turn your observations into plans and physical improvements to the campus.”
“Resources… from our financial analysis?”
Galya lowered her eyes and nodded. “You and Vitaly have demonstrated that we can tap the huge cash flows coursing beneath the surface of the legitimate economy. We can rob banks… rob the bank robbers and the criminals who threaten us. We will hide most of that money for a few years, launder and invest it, for use on the Ring. But we can safely divert some of the money to current projects, including the improvements you will make, here and… well, one thing at a time.”
Before Rudy could determine his liberty to ask Galya what came after that one thing, the director of the Institute turned and started climbing Fizika‘s steps. “Don’t put up bell towers and paint them with gold,” Galya said. “Focus on infrastructure: computers, network, security, power.” Galya stopped at the door and stared at Rudy again. “Stay. Make things work. You will serve the Institute well. I think so. Vitaly thinks so. And I think you think so.”
Rudy looked around at the buildings they had circled and surveyed for the last couple hours, buildings that had occupied his attention for more than two years. Galya was right, of course. He wanted to do every one of the projects they had sketched in the afternoon air. He wanted to make this Kremlin what Galina Filipovna needed it to be. He wanted to be whatever part he could of this serious woman’s serious dreams.
“I can do this work,” he said.
“Can you do it for bank robbers?” Galya asked quietly.
“You’re not—”
“We are. We must be. Better and smarter robbers than those who would rob us.”
A Kremlin built on theft—would every great thing in this tumultuous place have to be built on crime and guile?
“I will do the work,” Rudy said. “For you.”