Titianna “Suzy” Sukovski is a commerce attaché at the Russian Embassy here in Washington, specializing in foodstuffs, principally caviar, as she represents the interests of Ryva Yaytso Prodavets Zagovor, the Russian caviar exporters’ association, which funds her post and pays the invoices for her appointments with me. She has been exploring strategies to get the ban on Russian aqua-cultured Caspian sturgeon caviar lifted during our consultations since President Biden declared it in March of 2022 in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I must admit that so far, we haven’t had much luck. Carefully structured attempts to reach out to seafood distributers generally resulted in surly lectures about what a bunch of lying, thieving crooks Russian caviar dealers are, and the various American restaurant associations with which we tried to establish ties with an eye toward a coalition to pressure the various federal agencies involved in the embargo also fell flat – generally, after the Ukraine invasion, they started suspending any members whose restaurants have the word “Russian” in them. She usually visits my office on the first Tuesday of every month, so the call to my residence in Great Falls, Virginia on a Sunday afternoon took me somewhat by surprise.
Suzy: Hello, is Tom Collins I am speaking?
Tom: Hi, Suzy! To what do I owe the honor of a weekend phone call at home?
Suzy: How you know it was me?
Tom: Your… voice… is unmistakable.
Suzy: You are talking of my accent?
Tom: Um… and syntax, yes. No worries – it’s charming.
Suzy: Maybe to you. I am sick of English. Is stupid language. But I must speak it, so you don’t tell anyone I said that.
Tom: Of course not. So – what’s up?
Suzy: What you mean, “what’s up?” You been hiding under a stone for the last week, maybe?
Tom: “Living under a rock” is the idiom I think you were search for. And yes, sure, I know what’s up: Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian oligarch and head of the Wagner Group mercenaries, turned on his mentor, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, turned his forces away from Ukraine and took the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Sea of Azov. Putin immediately went on state media, denounced him as a traitor and vowed he would suffer the severest punishments for his actions. Prigozhin then lead a column of Wagner group mercenaries and mobile weapons north toward Moscow, being cheered and enthusiastically welcomed by the Russian populace along the way, as the regular Russian Army units in his path turned tail and ran like frightened schoolgirls.
Suzy: Wrong! Russian school girls have more guts than those Russian soldiers!
Tom: Okay, I stand corrected – they ran like Iraqis being chased by ISIS.
Suzy: All right – is better anachronism.
Tom: I think the word you are looking for is “analogy.”
Suzy: What I say? English is stupid language! So okay, Putin start war in February 2022 with second most powerful military in the world. One year later, he has second most powerful military in Ukraine. This week, Putin leads the second most powerful military in Russia! He is lucky Prigozhin stop, only one hundred twenty kilometers from Moscow!
Tom: About an hour’s drive away.
Suzy: But is over one thousand kilometers from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow! You know why Prigozhin stop one hundred and twenty kilometers from Moscow? I give hint: he was not out of gas!
Tom: Of course not. He stopped because Putin struck a deal with him to stop.
Suzy: And deal was for Prigozhin to go Belarus, and Wagner soldiers to join Russian Army as contractors. You can read beside lines, yes?
Tom: I think you mean, “read between the lines.”
Suzy: Yes, yes, “beside,” “between,” “through,” “though,” “thought,” “thorough,” – stupid, stupid English language! Maybe I never learn all the “a,” and “an” either! How come you say “a halibut” but you say “an hallucination” and half of you say “a historic occasion” and other half say “an historic occasion,” huh? Stupid! Stupid!
Tom: Well, French is worse. Just look at the irregular verbs, there’s no rhyme or reason to them whatsoever.
Suzy: Okay, okay, you are saying “well, syphilis is worse than gonorrhea,” right? Yes, so what, French is stupider!
Tom: “More stupid.”
Suzy: What?
Tom: “Stupider” isn’t actually a word.
Suzy: You tell that to other stupid Americans! I hear them say “stupider” all the time!
Tom: Yes, well, anyway, I can indeed read between the lines: Either A., Putin tricked Prigozhin into calling off his troops in exchange for promises he never intends to keep so he can have Prigozhin conveniently fall out of a window in beautiful downtown Minsk; or, B., Putin backed down and capitulated to Prigozhin because Putin’s idiotic foreign policy and incompetent domestic governance have rendered him powerless to remain dictator, and therefore his days are numbered.
Suzy: So – “A” is saying, Prigozhin action was mutiny, Putin still in control, Prigozhin is dead meat; and “B” is saying, Putin is toast because Prigozhin action started disintegration of Putin’s power with attempted a coup d’état.
Tom: Nice French pronunciation there.
Suzy: Ha! Flattery is getting you no time.
Tom: “Nowhere.” You mean, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Suzy: Stupid English language! You forget C: Maybe Lukashenko offers Prigozhin place to go instead of Wagner Group fighting Russian Army so Lukashenko has Wagner Group to defend Belarus from Russian takeover.
Tom: Or D: Putin let Prigozhin go so the Biden Administration will get to spend some time worrying about what Russia will be like if Prigozhin and his personal army of violent ex-convicts takes over.
Suzy: Or E: Prigozhin decides on going to Belarus to provoke Republicans in US Congress to cut off funding to Ukraine.
Tom: Or F: Putin lets Prigozhin go to Belarus because he knows Prigozhin will attack Ukraine from there and bring Belarus into the war. Or the remaining twenty letters in the alphabet. I suspect the truth is, nobody knows what’s going on, least of all Putin or Prigozhin. So, I’m applying Occam’s Razor and going with “A” as the most likely thing.
Suzy: I don’t know this Occam guy, but also think “A” most probable. But if is “B” instead…
Tom: Yes, that is the second most likely scenario.
Suzy: You can afford to be wrong. I can’t!
Tom: Really? Why?
Suzy: Because I am related to Putin!
Tom: Related? How?
Suzy: Because my… how you say… my boyfriend, who is married…
Tom: You mean, you’re somebody’s… mistress?
Suzy: This is what Americans call the second office, yes? Okay then, I am mistress of man who works at Russian embassy. He has good post there, but not so high up. He has wife in Russia; cannot bring her to Washington because he is not so high up; Putin likes to keep close relatives in Russia so nobody defects, and this man and his wife have no children. So wife stays in Russian and this man, he finds post for me at Russian embassy, and we have sex when he feels like it. So okay – I get my job by spreading legs; plenty of American women do this, too, right?
Tom: Unfortunately, yes. Actually it’s the primary source of incompetent female managers in most American organizations, particularly the federal government. Not that I meant to imply you are incompetent…
Suzy: I am okay at what I do. You have seen that.
Tom: You certainly are; more than okay. And I’m not judging you, by the way, and that’s all beside the point here, obviously. But your relationship with Putin – it’s through this man?
Suzy: He is Putin’s… what you call… second cousin? And I do not have to tell you, Prigozhin, that man he has no heart; he is absolutely ruthless. This is why I am calling you on a Sunday! I need my own alphabet. I have Plan A, bet on what you call… scenario “A!” But if scenario “B,” then I need a Plan B! And Plan B needs asylum request, place to stay after I lose job at Russian Embassy, other job, Green Card, all kinds of things!
Tom: So it does, and I can’t say I blame you for being proactive and thinking ahead in a situation like this.
Suzy: After talking to you for four years about global fish egg market, one thing I know is, you are smart guy. Um… you need a… mistress?
Tom: No, I already have a girlfriend.
Suzy: Could I provide… what you Americans say? Something on the side, maybe?
Tom: No need to worry about paying me for my advice, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I’m glad to help out free of charge.
Suzy: Really?
Tom: Oh, yeah, sure. As a matter of fact, free initial consultations are part of my marketing plan, so no problem.
Suzy: Otlichnyy! You are one great guy – for an American, that is.
Tom: Thanks. I’m thinking here… um… since you’re… shall we say… comfortable… with… spreading your legs…
Suzy: Yes, yes, no problem! And you know I am hot, too!
Tom: Oh, yeah, you’re definitely a six, at least.
Suzy: Six? I am eight at least!
Tom: Something like that. Let’s say a seven.
Suzy: Okay, I am seven. What is your idea?
Tom: I had a girlfriend when I was a student, years ago, and it turned out later, after graduation, that she was also… comfortable… with spreading her legs to advance her career. She eventually married a Hollywood producer and they lived in a mansion in Malibu. Then she divorced him and got the house and some alimony, but the alimony ran out and the house burned down in a wildfire. So she got back in contact with me and I put her up in the guest room of my house here in Great Falls for a while, more or less for old times sake.
Suzy: And you had no girlfriend at the time?
Tom: Oh, yes, I did, the same one I have now.
Suzy: And how was that, with the three of you there?
Tom: My girlfriend has her own house; and she’s not the jealous type. The point is, when the pandemic came along, this woman left Washington about a year into it and took up with a sugar magnate she met through a senator she was… being comfortable with… and…
Suzy: She was… comfortable… with senator?
Tom: She was comfortable with a lot of wealthy and influential men – and women – in Washington when she lived at my place in Great Falls. I think it was pretty much the same as things were in Hollywood before her house in Malibu burned down. So, as I was saying, she spent most of the pandemic at his mansion in Oyster Bay or on various sugar islands in the West Indies. And now, she’s a lobbyist for the sugar industry with a very stylish residence on Capitol Hill.
Suzy: Stylish residence on Capitol Hill?
Tom: Yeah, the neighborhood behind the Capitol between Constitution and Independence Avenues. Oh, fifty years ago, it was a slum, really, or so the old timers tell me – a formerly fashionable neighborhood of late nineteenth and early twentieth century brownstones that fell victim to urban flight after World War II. But in the eighties, gentrification started, and since most of the poor black people who lived there rented their homes, tossing them out and chasing them into the neighboring suburbs of Prince George’s County Maryland was no problem. The few poor black people who actually owned their homes, well, they didn’t remain poor very much longer, of course – they all made out like bandits. And the rich people moved in and restored all the old brownstones, installed luxury interiors, hot tubs in the backyards, repointed all the brickwork, commissioned craftspeople to re-create all the ironwork and front yard fountains and so forth. Now the streets are all parked up with Porsches and six-figure Mercedes and the cheapest house on the block is appraised at eleven million dollars.
Suzy: Sounds nice.
Tom: It’s always nice to be rich. Ask any Russian oligarch. So anyway, she owes me a couple a favors, obviously, and if I were to brief her on your… background… being comfortable with men, well, as a female lobbyist for something like the sugar industry, I’m sure she could use some experienced help making various senators, congressmen and political appointees… comfortable with extensions and increases in sugar production subsidies, relaxation of various onerous regulations on sugar cane field laborer health and safety, and maintenance of essential tariffs to prevent foreign sugar producers from taking advantage of American companies.
Suzy: Okay. We will seen then. If Putin goes down toilet, please tell her I am ready to get comfortable with whoever she says.
Tom: Will do. She has a lovely guest room, by the way. I’m sure you’ll enjoy staying there until you buy your own place on Capitol Hill.
Suzy: I am very grateful, Tom. Thank you so much.
Tom: You’re welcome. And oh, by the way – the first Tuesday next month is the Fourth of July, and my office will be closed. Shall I tell Gretchen to reschedule your appointment for the eleventh?
Suzy: Ah… I am tired of talking about fish eggs. I think sugar could be better subject. We will wait and see if Putin is still President of Russia by end of week. Then I let you know.
Tom: Hey, no problem. Just give Gretchen a call. I’m sure we will be able to fit you in later in the month if Putin’s still alive.
Suzy: Yes. Am keeping fingers crossed.
Tom: That he is?
Suzy: Am not saying. ‘Bye!