“You’re a decent guy,” Oxana said gratefully, moving to a chair by the window and turning her back to the refrigerator-freezer combo, from which Vovchik would be removing delicious and forbidden foods.

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was hot, and after the hot tea Oxana wanted to cool off. She unlocked the window and flung open both sides. Kneeling on a chair, she rested her arms on the windowsill and stuck her head outside. Refreshing raindrops drizzled on her hot cheeks. Kirill and his guests were out on the veranda, they had overdone the heating last night, and now they were all looking for cooler spots. But yesterday, although sunny, had been cold, below freezing with a north wind. Who knew that the weather would change so quickly, going up to 40 by morning and the low sixties by the afternoon?

Tire voices reached her clearly, as if she were with them on the veranda.

“No one’s ever thought of that yet,” Kirill Esipov was saying. “Everyone wants to make more profit, but they’re too cheap to spend money on a reader poll. Grisha, you’re going to be stubborn again, I know. You have to understand that we have to make a conscious choice to spend money so that we can increase our profits later.”

“And how much do you estimate this will cost?” came the unhappy voice of Grigory Avtayev, the commercial director of Sherkhan.

“Let’s add it up. The poll has to be done in Moscow and major cities with our dealers and with colleges. Students and high school kids will be happy to do the questionnaires to pick up some money. If we pay a thousand rubles for every questionnaire, they’ll work hard. They’ll stand next to a book stall and ask questions of the shoppers. I think that they could interview fifty people a day. If necessary, they can work two or three days.”

“And how many questionnaires do you want to get?” Avtayev’s voice went on.

“I figure five thousand will be enough to get a good idea, first of all, of the general picture of the demand for literature, and second, of our readers, the ones who buy our books.”

“Five million rubles!” Avtayev gasped. “That’s a thousand dollars. You’re going to throw away a thousand dollars on a poll nobody needs! Never.”

“Come on, Grisha,” Esipov said with a laugh. “It’ll be much more than that. First of all, the questionnaires have to be written properly. That requires special knowledge. If the questions are wrong, you don’t get anything useful from it. Then we have to pay the people who find the impoverished students, to explain to them what needs to be done and how to do it, and most importantly, to supervise them. You know what today’s students are like. They’ll stay at home, fill out fifty questionnaires themselves in ten minutes and go take a nap, and that evening they’ll deliver the questionnaires and demand their fifty thousand rubles. No, my friends, the student has to stand behind the counter with the seller and honestly work with the buyers, and the supervisor had to go from stall to stall and make sure it’s done right. And that costs money, too. Next. The questionnaires have to be worked on. That means the data has to be entered in a computer. Semyon, do you know how to use a program that works with questionnaires?”

“Huh?” Voronets asked.

Oxana smiled. She was feeling happy. She understood every word Kirill was saying, she saw him come up with idea, and Kirill had discussed it with her many times. But stupid Voronets didn’t get it. He probably didn’t even know how to turn on a computer.

“Nothing,” Esipov said rudely. “How about you, Grisha?” “How much?” came the mumbled reply from the commercial director, who realized where the general director was headed.

“At least another thousand dollars. That’s intellectual labor, and it’s expensive.”

“A thousand?” Avtayev cried. “For what?”

“For entering the questionnaires in the computer, doing the calculations, tables with results, and a summary. For all that, a thousand. No one would take the job for less.”

“Maybe we could look around?” Grisha said hopefully. “Maybe we can find someone cheaper?”

“I’ve already looked. Basically, the only people who have questionnaire programs are the people who work with them. It’s a large program that takes up a lot of computer memory, and people who don’t work with statistics don’t install it. The ones who do work with questionnaires know the value of their results, and you can’t sucker them. They know better than we do that we’re talking about increasing profits here, and they won’t do the work for small sums of money.”

From the jangle of cutlery and crockery, Oxana could tell that they had started eating. She sat back down on the chair, elbow on the broad sill, resting her head on her hand. Her face was wet but she did not wipe it with a towel – the moisture was good for her skin. When Vovchik returned to the kitchen, she said, “Vovchik, could you throw some diet stuff into a bowl for me? But no bread and no mayo.”

A few minutes later the bodyguard gave her a large, deep dish with lettuce, chunks of peaches and apricots, and dry oatmeal flakes. He could not understand how anyone could eat that, and he felt deep sympathy for her.

Oxana, however, did not share his feelings. She knew that this strange salad had loads of vitamins for the hair and skin and almost no calories. So she ate without disgust, actually feeling a high. However, she knew the high was from what she had overheard of the conversation. Her Kirill was so much smarter and farseeing than his partners! She was always aware of that. From the very beginning, from the very first day, when she met all three. She had been told then, “Pick whichever one you want. Whichever one you like. It’s important for me that you be with one of them all the time, and you can pick the one. All three of them are as one, they have no secrets from one another.”

She had taken a long look at the three directors of Sherkhan Books. First, naturally, her eye fell on Semyon Voronets, tall and broad-shouldered. Oxana was 5'10', the right height for a model, and Voronets was a suitable match. But after a few minutes of chitchat, the girl realized that he was thick-headed. Grisha Avtayev was quite good-looking, but by then Oxana knew what it was like being the mistress of a man, who wanted to preserve his reputation as a faithful husband and caring father. Constant fear of exposure, covert and sometimes quite open glances at the clock, endless stories about the little one’s illnesses and the school successes of the older one. Nothing but humiliations and no pleasure.

It was only at the end that she noticed Esipov. The shortest of the three and the youngest. The most inappropriate for her in terms of height and age. Oxana always liked men who were taller and at least ten years older – and more was even better. Kirill was six inches shorter and only three years older. But Oxana chose him. And she did not regret it.

At first she did not quite get why she was assigned to Esipov. She only had the broadest outline of the plot. The man who hired her knew how to make publishing truly profitable, he kept coming up with new ideas. Her job was to comprehend those ideas and then deftly, almost in passing, slip them to Esipov in way that made him think they were his own.

“I want Sherkhan Books to become the richest and most prestigious publishing house in Moscow, perhaps in all of Russia,” her employer told Oxana then.

“What is it to you?” she wondered. “Why do you care? If you know how to make a publishing house profitable, then do it yourself. Why give the profit to someone else?”

“Who told you that I plan to give it away?” he laughed. “I intend to get it for myself. But before getting it, I want it to be large and handsome. Understand?”

“Yes,” Oxana said.

“And you have to try, my pet, to make the profit at Sherkhan truly large and handsome. Because when I come to take it, you get a cut. How much do you want?”

“Twenty percent,” the girl said after some thought. “I think that’s fair. The ideas are yours, no argument there, and I would never come up with them myself. But the execution is mine. And I’ll have to sleep with him. I can’t say that I’m dying of passion for him, he’s a bit too small for me.”

“You’re a good girl,” the employer said with a satisfied smile, and Oxana could see that he was truly pleased, although she couldn’t guess why. “You are intelligent and not greedy. You asked for the very percent 1 was planning to offer you. That means that you and I think alike. And therefore, our cooperation will be fruitful.”

Two years passed since then, and Oxana could see how right he had been. He explained to her how to build up a publishing house, she casually passed on those ideas to Esipov, and then at the next informal meeting of the three directors, Oxana would hear that profits were up, that in a month’s time they made so much from this edition and that much from another.

And just now she heard Kirill clearly explain to his partners the idea of a sociological poll of their readers to see who buys Sherkhan’s books, what parts of the population are interested in East Best Seller, which ones have not been touched, and why not. Do the readers like hard cover books or do they prefer small cover pocket books, which are cheaper and fit easily in pocket or purse. The research would give them answers to many questions, and the first seed of this plan Oxana had planted in Esipov’s head.

She had begun the week before with an innocent remark. “You know, today I saw a woman not buy Secret of Time. She held it in her hands, twirled it around, oohed a bit, and then put it back.”

“Was it too expensive?” Kirill wondered.

“No, it didn’t fit in her purse. The lady was quite decent looking and she had gold jewelry and expensive clothes. And a tiny purse. I was very surprised that she had even considered buying Secret of Time.”

“Surprised? Why?”

“Well…” Oxana paused as if looking for the right words. In fact she prepared the whole conversation in her head the day before. “I always thought that Eastern Best Seller was intended for a certain audience and a woman like that was not part of the audience. I guess I was wrong.”

That had been enough to start Esipov thinking about how well he knew his readership. A few more calculated remarks were required for him to come up with the questionnaire idea. And now today, here was the result in the form of a business conversation with his partners. She couldn’t even believe that just a week ago, Kirill hadn’t been thinking along those lines at all. The ideas had been placed in his head carefully and cleverly by his young mistress, the model Oxana.

* * *

On such a cloudy rainy day there wasn’t enough daylight for work and the lights had been since morning in the study – a ceiling light and a desk lamp, which shed additional light on the computer keyboard. Solovyov liked soft, warm weather, slightly muted but at least devoid of frivolous merriment.

The work was going well, and as usual, brought him satisfaction. He was looking at the manuscript pages, covered with Japanese characters and clipped to a special holder, while white letters appeared on the blue background of the screen, forming the text of an exciting novel – a best seller to be. Solovyov was in the throes of a creative upswing, the unexpected appearance of Anastasia in his life had turned his thoughts to a new track, gave birth to new images and ideas. He had even lost his appetite, so engrossed was he in his translation.

Around five o’clock Andrei finally got him to eat some lunch. Solovyov wheeled himself into the kitchen, quickly ate everything his assistant had prepared without even tasting it, thanked him dryly and hurried back to the study, even though he usually liked to relax over a cup of coffee and chat with Andrei, smoking and sipping cognac from a snifter.

But his hopes for fruitful work that day were shattered. When he came back to the study, Solovyov saw to his dismay a small green square in the middle of the screen – a sign that the computer had crashed. He pushed the reboot button, but when it displayed files he realized to his horror that everything he had done today was gone. Yesterday’s text was unharmed, but there wasn’t even a trace of todays. Solovyov made a few pathetic attempts to restore the loss using “Unerase”, but nothing helped.

The machine had a virus that destroyed current work. Or maybe it did some other terrible things, too. There was a rule that said: if you have a virus in your computer turn it off right away, if you don’t know how to cure it. The virus breeds and eats program and text files only when the computer is on. It can have a long latent period, when it lives in the hard disk and gives no sign of its existence, and one fine day it comes to the surface and starts destroying everything in its path with the subtlety of a herd of young, hungry bisons.

Solovyov turned off the computer and called in his assistant.

“Andrei, we need to call computer first aid. Do you have numbers of companies that work on the weekend?”

“No, but I’ll find one,” the assistant replied. “What happened? What do I tell them?”

“Tell them that the computer has a virus that is erasing current work.”

Solovyov went back into the study, took a book from the shelf, and got lost in his reading. Through the head he heard Andrei’s muffled voice, calling various companies that repaired and serviced computers. Solovyov’s mood was spoiled and he was sorry he had made a date with Anastasia for Sunday. It would be better if she came today, since he couldn’t work anyway, and had time to play.

“Mr. Solovyov, the service person will be here tomorrow at three.”

“Why can’t they come today?” Solovyov grumbled.

“They had a lot of calls. They’re the only ones who work weekends. And they’re sending someone tomorrow as a big favor. First they said they didn’t have anyone before Thursday.

I promised to pay extra. Is that all right?”

“Fine,” Solovyov barked. “Damn it. Now the work will be stuck until tomorrow. And more importantly, I had promised to give you the day off tomorrow from breakfast until late evening. Anastasia is coming tomorrow, and we can manage lunch without you, and you could take care of your own affairs. Now because the repairman is coming at three, you’ll have to stay.”

“Of course, I’ll stay, Mr. Solovyov.” Andrei smiled. “I can take care of my things another day, there’s nothing urgent about them. If you’ll be busy with your guest, the stranger in the house will be unsupervised. That’s no good.”

Solovyov could not deal with the anger he felt over the disruption in his work schedule and his plans. He saw Andrei’s hostility toward Nastya as well as the fact that it annoyed her, and he had wanted to arrange things so that they would not meet on Sunday. And now everything was changed because of some stupid virus that got into his computer somehow. What if he were to ask Nastya to come today? Yes, that was it. Not tomorrow, when Andrei would be home all day, but today, and he could give Andrei the evening off. Or send him on some errand.

He quickly dialed her number. A man answered, and Solovyov noted that for an elderly and respected professor he had a very young voice. Or was her husband out and this was a lover? “Hello,” he heard her calm, low voice at last.

“It’s me,” Solovyov said hurriedly. “Forgive me for calling you, and at such a time.”

“It’s all right. Go ahead.”

“How are you about tomorrow’s plans?” he began cautiously.

“Fine, as we agreed. What’s the matter, has something changed for you?”

“No. I mean, yes, I mean… Listen, could you come today? It’s not late yet. We could have a lovely evening.”

“Do you have a problem with tomorrow?”

“No,” Solovyov lied. “It’s just that I miss you. I want to see you and I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“I’m very sorry,” she replied, still very calmly. “I can’t come today. It’s out of the question. If you have a problem and we can’t meet tomorrow, then we’ll meet another day. But not today.” “Nastya, I really want to see you… You’re right, I do have a problem with tomorrow, but I don’t want to put off our meeting. Come over tonight, please. Will you?”

“No.”

“But we can’t sec each other tomorrow.”

“Then we won’t.”

“When, then?”

“I don’t know. But not today. It’s not open for discussion.”

“You can’t leave because of your husband?” Solovyov said finally.

“It has nothing to do with my husband,” she replied coldly. “I have work, and I have to do it. Today.”

“So you can do it tomorrow.” He didn’t know why he was making such an issue out of it. “If we don’t meet tomorrow, you’ll have half a day free.”

“I told you already, Solovyov, it is not possible. Out of the question. So, then I won’t come tomorrow?”

He was silent for a bit. Then he said angrily, “Come. I’ll be waiting for you.”