“She wouldn’t be caught dead at Kazan Station, but her mother’s coming in on the train. That’s how I got the car. Unless you want to keep the radio.”

“No.”

When he was alone, Arkady opened the curtains. The rain had stopped, leaving weepy stains around the windows of the courtyard. The skyline was a ring of damp chimney pots upraised like spades. Perfect weather for a funeral.

The man at the Ministry of Foreign Trade said, “A joint business venture requires a partnership between a Soviet entity—a cooperative or a factory—and a foreign company. It helps if there is sponsorship from a Soviet political organization—”

“Meaning from the Party?”

“Yes, to be plain, but it’s not necessary.”

“This is capitalism?”

“No, this is not pure capitalism; this is an intermediate stage of capitalism.”

“Can the joint venture take rubles out?”

“No.”

“Can it take dollars out?”

“No.”

“This is a very intermediate stage.”

“It can take oil. Or vodka.”

“We have that much vodka?”

“For sale abroad.”

Arkady asked, “All joint ventures must be approved by you?”

“They should be, but sometimes they aren’t. In Georgia or Armenia they tend to make their own arrangements, which is why Georgia and Armenia don’t ship anything to Moscow anymore.” He giggled. “Fuck them.”

His office was on the tenth floor with a view of squalls moving east to west. No factory smoke, though, because parts hadn’t arrived from Sverdlovsk, Riga, Minsk.

“What did TransKom register as its purpose?”

“Importation of recreational equipment. It is sponsored by the Leningrad Borough Komsomol. Boxing gloves, things of that nature, I suppose.”

“Like slot machines?”

“Apparently.”

“In trade for what?”

“Personnel.”

“People?”

“I guess so.”

“What kind of people? Olympic boxers, nuclear physicists?”

“Tour guides.”

“Touring where?”

“Germany.”

“Germany needs Soviet guides?”

“Apparently.”

Arkady wondered what else the man would believe. That the baby Lenin left coins under pillows in exchange for teeth?

“TransKom has officers?”

“Two.” The man read from the file in front of him. “Many positions, but all filled by two people, Rudik Davidovich Rosen, Soviet citizen, and Boris Benz, a resident of Munich, Germany. TransKom’s address is Rosen’s. There may be any number of investors, but they’re not listed. Excuse me.” He covered the file with Pravda.

“The Ministry has no names for the tour guides?”

The man folded the newspaper in halves and quarters. “No. You know, people come here to register a venture to import medicine, and the next thing you know they’re bringing in basketball shoes or building hotels. Once conditions exist here for a free market, it will be like watering the ground.”

“What will you do when capitalism is in full swing?”

“I’ll find something.”

“You’re inventive?”