'What are those?' Zoya narrowed her eyes at the manila-colored file.
'Some applications forms.' Tanya rubbed the back of her neck where Zoya had recently burned her with peroxide solution.
'For?'
Aeroflot.' Tanya's voice was flat and heavy as a grounded Ilyushin.
'Oh.' Zoya's gaze settled on Tanya's hips, measuring her girth. 'Really?'
'Yes,' Tanya slid another piece of gum into her crowded mouth. 'I have to reduce and quite possibly I need to have my teeth looked at before I can begin flight-crew training. But at least I'm on the waiting list. And the recruiter said she'd definitely give me a call. Maybe.'
With another glance, Zoya inventoried Tanya's hair, her nails. 'Well, if you need professional advice regarding hair and make-up, let me know,' Zoya said in a voice meant to be a whisper, but the acoustics in the museum were so highly unique that Tanya knew everyone, even those closeted in the lavs, could hear it all perfectly well.
And this?' Yuri pointed to Head Administrator Chumak's file.
Tanya laid the folder reverently on the table. 'It's an assignment. For us.'
Zoya opened the folder and began reading. Zoya was smarter than she was, Tanya decided as she watched Zoya. She could read English without moving her lips and she read the entire application form, top to bottom, front to back in less than a minute. It was disgusting.
'Imagine,' Zoya shook her head, but her hair remained absolutely still. 'People in America with extra money and they want to give it away. Incredible. And all we have to do is answer these questions.'
'What do they want to know?' Yuri asked.
Zoya cleared her throat and began reading: '"Describe what 'positive work ethic' means to you. Do you like Americans, and in particular, those of the western variety? Explain what you think team spirit means (please use a separate sheet of paper for your explanation)."'
'This is the strangest application form I've ever heard,' Yuri said.
'It's written by people who appreciate art; you wouldn't understand,' Zoya replied, a sour expression on her face.
'You're right,' Yuri said, his torso listing harder to the right. He turned to Tanya. 'What is "positive work ethic"? Do such words even belong together?'
Tanya shrugged. 'Inscrutable.'
Zoya smoked fiercely. 'Americans are mad for work. It's why they have so much extra money. It's why they feel so positively about working.'
'I would too, if I got paid for it.' Yuri scratched his nose absently. 'But that "team spirit" stuff makes me nervous.'
'Maybe it's like the old idea of the mir,' Tanya mused. 'You know—the close kinship of community. Like what we're doing here. We're answering hard questions. Together. This is very Russian. This is very team spirit. We could write this down.'
Zoya licked her lips. 'We could write this down. Team spirit is answering together these three questions: who's to blame, what's to be done about it, and how to divide it all up.' Zoya lit another cigarette. 'This is the very definition of Russian team spirit. And it's easy to answer the first two questions. The blame falls squarely on you, Tanya, if anything goes wrong. After all, it's not for nothing that Chumak gave the assignment to you. What's to be done about it? Again, Tanya, your problem. How to divide the resources? Now that's where the team work gets interesting.'
Tanya could see in Yuri's eyes that he had his bags packed, was travelling to faraway places, fishing no doubt for the magical pike who would solve their every problem.
'Just imagine,' Zoya sighed happily, spooning sugar into her coffee, 'what we could do with this money.' Zoya looked under her eyelashes at Yuri. 'We could honeymoon like real Europeans. We could have a baby and bring it up kulturny, a miniature version of a better us.' She smiled obliquely.
Zoya's desire for a child was so naked and near that Tanya could feel the skin of her face and neck tighten. Always she had considered Zoya to be a little like those cheap bras the Korean woman sold at the end of their street. Fabricated out of whatever materials were on hand, they were transparent and the straps wandered no matter how tightly you cinched them. And this is what bothered her: how very similar she and Zoya really were in substance if not form, in ambition and desire. Tanya glanced at her dreambook. The only difference was that Tanya kept a little quieter about her wishes. That's all.
Zoya, noticing Tanya's brooding silence, turned a vague smile in her direction. And Tanya! You could get your teeth fixed or something.'
Yuri spread his quaking hands over the table. 'Yes, well, we haven't got it yet and even if we get the grant, it's not really ours,' he said quietly.
'Of course it's ours. If it comes as a result of our efforts, then most certainly it's ours,' Zoya insisted.
'But Head Administrator Chumak,' Tanya said.
'So he gets a controlling portion, but we'll just make him see. He'll have to understand, because he hasn't paid any of us for nearly four months.'
'Maybe he would finally pay us,' Yuri said.
'Certainly he would pay himself,' Tanya said.
'And Daniilov,' Yuri tipped his head to the right.
'Because he's so handy with the toilets,' Tanya said.
'And because clean toilets are at a premium,' Yuri tipped to the left.
'Which is not in any way to criticize Azade and the latrine,' Tanya said.
'Because, God knows, it's not easy in circumstances like hers,' Yuri said.
'Shut it!' Zoya said, lighting another cigarette. Any playfulness in language, with the exception of verbal abuse, Zoya could not abide. 'First we'll get Chumak to sign a contract for set wages with scheduled raises, say six per cent the first year, twelve per cent the next, and so on and so forth.' Zoya danced her fingernails over the tabletop, figuring on an imaginary calculator.
'What's twelve per cent of nothing?' Yuri asked.
'Try to stay relevant,' Zoya snapped.
'But, really, I don't think it would be wise to let on that we haven't been paid; it makes us sound too desperate,' Tanya said.
'I agree,' said Yuri. 'We should temper our answers with cautious desperation. For instance, we shouldn't tell them that the biggest attractions for us museum workers are the café and the toilets. And if it should come up, we should tell them that we work for sporadic pay because the art exhibits themselves are our reward.'
'In that case we probably shouldn't tell them that we made all the exhibits ourselves,' Tanya said.
'I don't know.' Zoya licked the rim of her coffee cup. 'The inferior quality of the exhibits might work to our advantage. They are proof that we are just that much more deserving of the money.'
'Because then we'd use the grant to buy better art,' Yuri suggested.
'No, we wouldn't.' Zoya rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. 'That's not the point.'
'What's the point?' Yuri asked.
'Money, stupid. We need and want the money.' Zoya dropped her cigarette in her coffee.
Tanya retrieved the application form and stuffed it into the manila file.
'So, as soon as you return the application form we get this grant? Just like that?' asked Zoya.
Tanya could feel her veins deflating. 'No. This is a competition. We have to fight it out.'
'So we have a sporting chance?' Yuri said.
'Well, I don't know,' Tanya said. 'Bratsk is universally agreed upon as the armpit of the world. And they have a museum.'
'And Blagoveshchensk.' Yuri wagged his head sadly. 'Oh, God. If somebody from Blagoveshchensk enters, we're done for. Except for that mummy of an Altai princess drip-drying in their basement, I hear their exhibits are even worse than ours. They are voluminously worthy.'