An urban fantasy about how the truth always comes out, even when the investigation leads to the very top, and Mayor Giuliani's apple doesn't provide answers to the simplest questions.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko arrived at work and saw two more Roshen stores in the lobby of the Kyiv City State Administration building. He furtively spat on the door of the first and scratched the window of the second with a nail he'd prepared. He gave the saleswomen a hostile smile that made them both blush like poppies, and then headed up to the ninth floor to work for the benefit of Kyiv residents, even though he sometimes felt like the job was sucking the life out of him.
It was bright in the elevator in the morning: they screwed in a light bulb, the mayor guessed, although it was difficult to say how long it would hang there, because the bulb usually didn’t last until evening – someone was constantly unscrewing it, and Vitaly for some reason thought that this was a manifestation of his civic position. little Gritsenko, who clearly took after his hoarder father, known, among other things, for his bad temper.
Taking advantage of the rare opportunity, Vitaly examined the bruised knuckles of his face in the elevator mirror by the light of the lamp and, for the first time in a long time, shuddered with disgust: his face was unshaven and somehow dented, and his expressive athletic eyes looked as if Klitschko had spent a wild night with an unhappy ending. In a sense, that's exactly what happened: that evening, due to a sudden hot water outage for maintenance, his smart home system malfunctioned. Vitaly went to fix it, broke a screwdriver, and angrily punched something—it turned out to be his wife—and then they made up until the morning, lighting a fire in the fireplace to heat up some water in a silver champagne bucket. When they finally succeeded, Vitaly accidentally hit the bucket with his coal tongs and made a huge mess. Afterwards, frustrated, he put the bucket on his wife's head and left for work, loudly slamming the door in the ear of a neighbor who had snuck up to listen to what was going on at the mayor's.
Then a brilliant idea struck Vitaly. With a mysterious grin, the mayor unscrewed the elevator lightbulb in one swift motion and stuffed it into his pocket, which already contained a felt-tip pen, a nail, a decorative goose pan, and a glass apple—a gift from former New York City Mayor Giuliani.
"Is there hot water at home?" Vitaly asked the secretary gloomily as he entered the reception area.
"No, Vitaly Vladimirovich," the secretary said, frightened. "They shut it off last winter. Our heating main burst, and it's near the police hospital. Now the mayor's office says the police should pay for the repairs, and the police say..."
"Just don't give me any details," she started clucking like a cow. "What do you need the fireplace for?" Klitschko cut her off sternly. "Get my deputy. Tell him I'm not here."
Bursting into the office like a hostile whirlwind, the mayor locked himself in, carefully took off his clothes, wrapped himself in a towel, and, his bare feet slapping heavily on the parquet floor, went to the shower, where he suddenly encountered the leader of the Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko.
"It's busy," Lyashko said weakly. "But come in anyway."
"Listen, why are you always coming here?" Vitaly asked with hatred, wrapping the towel tighter around himself. "What, there's no hot water at home?"
"Yes," Lyashko admitted, "but I wanted it here. You see, I have a speaker, but Rosita's always playing around and turning it off when my friends and I go into the shower..."
"Okay, get out of here," Klitschko interrupted him decisively. "And tell Levochkin that if he gives you the key to my office even one more time…"
"Then what will happen?" Lyashko asked defiantly, leaving the booth.
"Whatever it takes, it will be," the mayor scowled and turned the red tap. Ice-cold water poured out of the shower, and Klitschko jumped out with a scream after the Radical Party leader. "What kind of hooliganism is this?!"
"Well, they turned off the hot water," Lyashko shrugged, putting on a terrycloth robe. "I thought you knew. When I'm mayor, I'll ban this mockery of Kyiv residents once and for all."
Klitschko angrily hit him with a towel, and Lyashko, devouring the mayor with an admiring gaze, flew into the closet.
"Just stay there, you Levochka's scumbag," Klitschko growled, quickly getting dressed. "People are coming to see me now."
"You're Levochkin's scumbag yourself," Lyashko muttered vindictively. "Aaaah!"
The leader of the Radical Party burst out of the closet with a bang, his face flushed with excitement.
"You have someone there, and something's wrong with you!" he complained. A well-groomed, bespectacled blond followed him out, his eyes downcast in embarrassment.
"Vitaliy, I'll explain everything to you now," the blond said quickly, noticing Klitschko had already swung his chair. "I'm your colleague from Lviv, the progressive mayor Sadovyi, so to speak, if you please, I'll be running in the capital. I've come to see my future office."
"Sadovy!" Lyashko clasped his hands. "The most intelligent and handsome mayor in Ukraine! What a fool I am..."
"Neekard," Klitschko said jealously, lowering the chair back into place, "he's a real candidate, the slightest thing, he's straight to the closet. Did you see that?"
Klitschko took Mayor Giuliani's apple out of his pocket and showed it to Sadovyi.
"This is Mayor Giuliani's apple," Sadovy said.
Klitschko grunted and put the apple back in his pocket with annoyance.
— And what would you do in my place, Sadovyi, if someone in Lviv turned off the hot water for maintenance?
"We never had it in Lviv," Sadovy shrugged. "My grandfather told me there was one under the Austrians, but then the commissars came and it disappeared."
"What the hell do I need your Austrians for? I need to wash up!" Klitschko exclaimed with annoyance.
"Well, that's just 'vizmy' and 'zroby'!" Sadovy snapped in an unexpectedly stern voice. "'Zroby' and 'vizmy'!"
"I won't give you any trouble!" Lyashko responded automatically.
"That's outrageous," Vitaly sighed, pulling the glass apple out of his pocket again. "I wonder what Mayor Giuliani would do in a situation like that?"
"I'd just go and get it!" Sadovy said firmly.
“Not you,” Lyashko said mockingly.
"Quiet, both of you!" Klitschko barked, swinging his fist and accidentally knocking them both to the floor. After that, the Kyiv mayor carefully dialed a number and waited for an answer, hoping the line would be busy.
"Hello, dear fellow countryman!" came Rinat Akhmetov's exalted voice from the receiver.
"I'm not your fellow countryman," Klitschko said, confused. "I'm the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko."
— But Donbass is Ukraine, do you agree with me, Vitaly?
"Yeah," Klitschko said, embarrassed. "I agree."
"I'm glad we reached an agreement, Vitaly," Rinat exclaimed. "Goodbye!"
"Hey, stop!" Klitschko said quickly.
"What?" Rinat was surprised. "Don't you agree? It's so sad, Vitaly."
"I don't agree that your KyivEnergo has started shutting off the hot water in Kyiv!" Klitschko said quickly, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a decorative goose pan that happened to be at hand. "What right do you have?"
"Ask the people of Donbas how they're doing now, Vitaly," Rinat sighed, and suddenly blew a deafening blast into an invisible horn. Klitschko grimaced and quickly removed the receiver from his ear.
"That's how they live now," Akhmetov continued reproachfully. "Do you still agree that Donbass is Ukraine?"
“Still,” said Vitaly, feeling himself gradually falling into a trance.
"Then, Vitaly, I see no disagreement about why Kyiv should have hot water," Akhmetov said happily. "Do you agree with me?"
"Agreed. I mean, no!" Klitschko snapped, rubbing his eyes furiously. "But we at the Kyiv City Council passed a resolution stating that Kyiv residents can't have their hot water turned off in the summer!"
"That was in the summer, Vitaly," Rinat retorted sweetly. "There's no disagreement there, especially considering it's spring now. Do you celebrate May 9th, Vitaly?"
“I’m celebrating,” Klitschko said hopefully.
“Then heat the water in advance,” said Rinat and hung up.
The mayor was brought out of his drowsiness by the buzzing of the intercom.
"Vitaly Vladimirovich, little Gritsenko is here," the secretary's voice rang out. "He wants to talk to you about some light bulb."
"Oh!" Klitschko rejoiced and jumped up, rubbing his hands angrily. "Call me!"
Deputy Gritsenko Jr. entered the office. His honest face was distorted with anger, but Vitaly didn't buy this crude pantomime.
"Vitaly Vladimirovich, someone unscrewed the light bulb in the elevator!" Gritsenko exclaimed indignantly. "I think you did it!"
Klitschko smiled and punched him in the stomach with all his might.
"Here are your light bulbs," he said. "Here are your elevator thefts. Here are your hot water, here are your Donbass—that's Ukraine—here are your zombies, here's your fucking Roshen!"
"Who's talking about Roshen here?" a cheerful voice suddenly rang out from somewhere under the ceiling, and a half-naked, tattooed yogi in a turban and shorts glided smoothly onto the Kyiv mayor's desk.
"Nobody," Klitschko muttered, plopping down in his chair in frustration. "It just came up."
The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Shkiryak, shook his head reproachfully and, with exaggerated concern, helped Deputy Gritsenko to his feet.
"Shall we write a statement, young man?" he asked.
"We won't," Gritsenko said angrily. "I'll deal with him like a man."
"Just like his dad!" Shkiryak smiled dazzlingly, closing the door behind the deputy. "Always a civic-minded person, brave, courageous! But you, Vitaly, are in trouble. Two Roshen stores filed complaints against you."
"What, again?" Lyashko giggled stupidly.
"I didn't do anything," Klitschko said sullenly. "Kyiv is Ukraine, do you agree with me, Zorian?"
"Oh, drop this Donetsk thing, it won't work with me. I worked as an advisor to Avakov himself," Shkiryak dismissed, taking his usual pill and pacing around the chandelier. "So, what do we see? An official without a first aid kit, fire extinguisher, evacuation plan, or even an emergency stop sign, his eyes watering in the morning, spitting on the door of a respected Roshen store, and even scratching the other one with a nail!"
"How many?" Klitschko hissed. "I mean, how many more stores?"
Shkiryak thoughtfully rolled his eyes to the ceiling:
- Well, let's say, uh...
At that moment, he lost his vigilance and caught his pocket on the chandelier, the pocket tore, and elevator light bulbs fell out of it onto the mayor’s desk.
"Holy pitchfork," Lyashko drawled, stunned. "Immortal pitchfork..."
"You damned flyer!" Klitschko roared, jumping up and catching Shkiryak by the leg as he dived toward the window. "So this was your doing!"
"It's not what you think!" Shkiryak shouted, swallowing pills in vain in an attempt to pass through the wall. "It's an unfortunate coincidence."
"A coincidence?!" the mayor growled. "Because of you, I punched an innocent man in the stomach, and you know what a world champion's fists are like? How am I supposed to look the guy in the eye now?!"
"Viz'my i zroby," said Lviv Mayor Sadovyi calmly. "So, go ahead and ask him again. Well, how many stores?"
"Not at all!" Shkiryak said hastily. "Of course, not at all. Where else? It's impossible to get to the city hall from these stores anymore, and all they do is send complaints about decent people."
"Okay," Klitschko exhaled, gradually calming down. "So be it, get out of here, you filthy yogi, and don't try to mess with me one more time!"
Shkiryak meekly flew out the window and, turning around one last time, suddenly stuck his tongue out at the mayor, sending a chill down everyone's spine. Klitschko jumped up and threw a decorative goose pan at the yogi, but he instantly evaded, and the goose pan flew over Khreshchatyk Street and crashed into the window of a Roshen store with a heartbreaking crash.
“Damn,” Klitschko said.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren began to howl, getting closer.
Vasily Rybnikov, especially for "KievVlast"
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