TOO EARLY TO TELL

I. THIRST

In the dis­trict town of Pren­iev there were so many barber’s shops and par­cel pick-up points that it seemed the in­hab­it­ants were born for no other pur­pose than to have their hair cut, col­lect a par­cel and promptly send it back.

On Tues­day, the tenth of Novem­ber, a third oc­cu­pa­tion was ad­ded to these quiet pur­suits. The town was read­ing the news.

It read the news on its phones while queuing for par­cels, and the longer it read, the more it lan­guished. It was re­por­ted that two-day talks between Rus­sia, Ukraine and the United States had opened in Abu Dh­abi and that the first meet­ing had las­ted more than four hours.² It was fur­ther re­por­ted that the par­ti­cipants had made no gen­eral state­ments on its out­come, and that the Krem­lin had re­frained from fore­casts.² Fi­nally, the Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter, Ry­ab­kov, said that it was “too early” to judge the course of the talks, and con­firmed that they would con­tinue the next day.³

“Four hours they sat,” said the pen­sioner Yer­molai Sav­vich Ne­baba, a man whose mous­tache re­sembled two com­mas put in the wrong place. “Back in ninety-two I stood four hours in a queue for sugar, got to know the whole dis­trict and mar­ried off a couple. And now it’s ‘too early’.”

The queue hummed in sym­pathy. A Pren­ievite needed an as­sess­ment. Without one he felt like a man without galoshes in Novem­ber: one can walk, but it is not cosy.

II. THE BUREAU

At that very minute a young man of about thirty-five in a checked scarf came off the plat­form of Pren­iev Goods Sta­tion and walked into the town. In his hand he car­ried a briefcase. In the briefcase lay a tooth­brush, a round rub­ber stamp and a busi­ness plan be­gun in three places and fin­ished in none. The young man’s name was Rostis­lav Kuzmich Ob­tekaev.

Ob­tekaev listened to the queue for a minute and a half. That was enough for him, as one glance at the pa­tient’s tongue is enough for an ex­per­i­enced doc­tor.

“The cit­izens are lan­guish­ing,” he said quietly. “The cit­izens need a for­mu­la­tion. The de­mand is there, but sup­ply keeps mum and puts every­one off till to­mor­row. That isn’t a mar­ket, that’s an orphan.”

By noon the boarded-up kiosk that had once offered “Shoe Re­pairs & Keys Cut” bore a card­board sign:

BUREAUOF PRELIMINARYASSESSMENTSPrompt. Streamlined.Officially stamped

Be­low it hung a price list: a cau­tious as­sess­ment, one hun­dred roubles; a guardedly op­tim­istic one, two hun­dred; an im­por­ted one, three hun­dred and fifty. The “too early” as­sess­ment was dis­pensed free of charge.

The im­por­ted as­sess­ment was not Rostis­lav Kuzmich’s own in­ven­tion. He had bor­rowed it from the Amer­ican Sec­ret­ary of State, Ru­bio, who that day in Paris had called the talks “very pro­duct­ive” but stressed that a good deal of work still lay ahead.²

“A for­eign art­icle, and all-pur­pose,” Ob­tekaev ex­plained, breath­ing on his stamp. “Suit­able for ne­go­ti­ations, for home re­pairs and for mar­ried life. Will wear for years.”

The post of dir­ector gen­eral of the bur­eau went to Goga Pritykin, a local youth on whose face the ex­pect­a­tion of an ad­vance had set for good.

III. THE SKY OVER “DAWN”

The first cli­ents were the garden­ers Kur­dy­ukov and Syroezhkin of the Dawn al­lot­ment so­ci­ety. They had not been on speak­ing terms since nine­teen ninety-two, that is to say, for ex­actly as long as the Treaty on Open Skies has ex­is­ted, signed that year by rep­res­ent­at­ives of twenty-seven states.¹

Both had read in the news that, ac­cord­ing to the Fin­an­cial Times, the coun­tries of Europe were ready to re­sume talks with Rus­sia on arms con­trol, even to the point of re­viv­ing such Cold War mech­an­isms as that same Open Skies and lim­its on the de­ploy­ment of cer­tain classes of mis­sile.¹

“So even Europe has come round,” said Kur­dy­ukov, look­ing past Syroezhkin. “Whereas a neigh­bour of mine has been build­ing a shed for six years now, and what is in that shed is un­known to sci­ence.”

“His own green­house looks sus­pi­cious,” replied Syroezhkin, look­ing past Kur­dy­ukov.

Ob­tekaev drew up the treaty in forty minutes. Each party was gran­ted the right to two ob­ser­va­tion as­cents of a ste­plad­der per week, with pho­to­graphy and film­ing of the ad­ja­cent ve­get­able beds. The de­ploy­ment of cer­tain classes of im­ple­ment, namely rakes, tines up, and long-range hoses, within three metres of the fence was pro­hib­ited. The doc­u­ment was named the Open Ste­plad­der Treaty.

“Trust, but climb and verify,” said Rostis­lav Kuzmich, and ap­plied the stamp.

The stamp read: “Red Tinker Co­oper­at­ive. For De­liv­ery Notes.” Both sides went away sat­is­fied, each to its own side.

IV. INTO BUSINESS

After lunch Ne­baba read the news aloud to the queue. The state cor­por­a­tion Ros­atom, hav­ing be­come the sole owner of the Delo group (the word means simply “busi­ness”), was press­ing on with its re­shuffle of the lo­gist­ics hold­ing: the port op­er­ator Global Ports was to get a new chief ex­ec­ut­ive.⁴

“So even the atom has gone into busi­ness,” said Yer­molai Sav­vich with re­spect. “I’m the only one on a pen­sion.”

Ob­tekaev took the re­port as a dir­ect­ive. Be­ing the sole owner of the kiosk, he too began a re­shuffle at once: he re­moved Goga Pritykin from the post of dir­ector gen­eral and ap­poin­ted him act­ing dir­ector gen­eral, on the same salary as be­fore, there hav­ing been none.

“And what’s changed?” asked Goga.

“The ar­chi­tec­ture,” Ob­tekaev answered sternly. “This morn­ing you were a fig­ure. Now you are a mech­an­ism.”

Goga felt more sig­ni­fic­ant and asked for an ad­vance. The ad­vance was re­fused him in a suit­ably stream­lined form.

V. THE TRILATERAL LIFT

To­wards even­ing the bur­eau re­ceived a large or­der. At num­ber seven, Con­cord Street, the lift had been stand­ing idle for go­ing on three months. The res­id­ents de­man­ded as­sess­ments. The man­age­ment com­pany, Cosy Pro­spects, gave none. Gav­rilov the mech­anic did give as­sess­ments, but of a kind that could not be prin­ted.

Ob­tekaev pro­posed a tri­lat­eral format. The con­ci­erge, Ad­elaida Pavlovna, ac­ted as host. She thanked the parties for the trust they had placed in her and as­sured them that she stood ready to provide all ne­ces­sary sup­port, by which she meant a kettle and two stools.

The first meet­ing las­ted more than four hours. The parties dis­cussed the se­cur­ity ar­chi­tec­ture of the cabin, guar­an­tees for res­id­ents above the fifth floor and chan­nels of com­mu­nic­a­tion in the event of a crisis, that is, the Call but­ton. As in Abu Dh­abi,⁵ the talks were con­duc­ted in Rus­sian, a lan­guage in which Gav­rilov the mech­anic was es­pe­cially flu­ent.

By then the town already knew that the Ukrain­ian pres­id­ent, Zelensky, had called the first day in Abu Dh­abi con­struct­ive and fairly sub­stant­ive, but had re­marked that it was “hard go­ing with the Rus­si­ans”.⁵ So nobody was sur­prised when the res­id­ents’ rep­res­ent­at­ive, Zoya Vlasyevna, a book­keeper, stepped out on to the stair­case dur­ing the break and wrote in the build­ing’s group chat: “Format con­struct­ive.” Aloud she ad­ded:

“It’s hard go­ing with mech­an­ics.”

The parties made no gen­eral state­ments on the out­come of the meet­ing. The lift like­wise de­clined to com­ment.

VI. NO PRICE LIST

When dark­ness fell, the whole of Pren­iev gathered at the kiosk. It de­man­ded a fi­nal as­sess­ment: of the talks, of the lift and of things in gen­eral.

Ob­tekaev came out to the people with the stamp in his hand.

“Cit­izens!” he said. “Let us not an­swer such ques­tions, es­pe­cially now, while the talks are un­der way. It is too early to tell. The bur­eau will re­sume its work to­mor­row.”

The words were not his own. The first sen­tence had been spoken that day by the Pres­id­ent’s press sec­ret­ary, Peskov;² the second, al­most word for word, by the Deputy Min­is­ter, Ry­ab­kov.³ But Rostis­lav Kuzmich had long held that a good for­mu­la­tion, like a good um­brella, be­longs to who­ever is hold­ing it.

“Then what did we pay for?” asked Ne­baba.

“For re­strained op­tim­ism,” answered Ob­tekaev. “Made to or­der. Non-re­turn­able.”

The crowd fell si­lent. Then Yer­molai Sav­vich took off his cap and said very quietly:

“Just tell me one thing, Mis­ter For­mu­lator. Will there be peace?”

And then some­thing happened to Rostis­lav Kuzmich that had not happened to him since his schooldays: he could not find a for­mu­la­tion. He stood for a while turn­ing the stamp over in his fin­gers, then took out a hun­dred-rouble note and gave it back to the old man.

“There’s no price list for that, old man,” he said. “Let us hope.”

The same words had been spoken be­fore the talks by the Amer­ican en­voy, Kush­ner: “Let us hope that this war will be the last one here.”² The for­mu­la­tion proved to be a com­mon one and, it seems, the only one all Tues­day that nobody thought to dis­pute.

The talks are to re­sume on Wed­nes­day, the el­ev­enth of Novem­ber.^2,3 The town of Pren­iev re­solved to get up early, have its hair cut, col­lect its par­cels and switch on the news.

From press reports

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