Angelina Rodionova is a 17-year-old girl who lives in Moscow and attends the last grade of High school. She arrived into the school just one month ago. Currently she and her three classmates are on the bus station, chilling after lessons and waiting for the bus to arrive.
It is a sunny autumn day. Angela is wearing a mini-skirt and a light almost transparent blouse celebrating the last moments of pleasing warmth that caresses her skin before the frosts start biting it. A stock of ducks passes in V formation high up in the sky. Their quacking is the last echo of sound diversity. Soon it will be reduced to the monotonous roar of motors, rasping croaking of crows and intrusive chirping of sparrows.
Sophia Maslova is Angela’s classmate, but they are not friends. When Angelina talked to Sophia for the first time, the latter shared a story of how her pug almost fought with a rottweiler. “He started barking so loudly and courageously! Suddenly, the rottweiler’s owner dropped the leash, and the rottweiler charged. I almost had a heart attack. Thank God, the owner called “Come back!” so furiously that the rottweiler changed his mind and left my Charlie alive.” Angela smiled and tried to make friends with Sonya. However, she soon realized that the best solution was to drift apart. Sophia is a party-goer, while Angelina studies hard and has high aspirations of becoming a government official, following the footsteps of her father.
Vlad Lobov is one of many guys who flirt with Sophia. He does it predominantly through teasing the girl, while she responds to him with a submissive and charming smile. He calls her “fat” and “stupid”. She continues to skip lessons, ignore home-work, and spend most of the time with her friends in malls, either window shopping or eating ice-creams and fast food. Vlad goes to the gym regularly and feels superior to Sonya. He enjoys demonstrating his fear-inducing masculinity. Vlad has a friend, Dmitri Shatov, who is not remarkable in any respect. Shatov goes to the gym with Vlad and echoes him in calling Sophia “fat” and “stupid”.
Vlad and Sophia are having a conversation. Dima is listening to them with attention, faithfully peering into Vlad’s eyes. Angelina stands aside from them with her eye-brows frowned. She does not like all three of her peers. Every time the smoke from Maslova’s cigarette reaches her nostrils, she clenches her fists in rage. Why is it necessary to smoke on the bus stop? I hate smoke! So disrespectful!
“Start going to the gym, cow!” Lobov repeats, probably for a millionth time, and Angela’s hands and back get covered in goosebumps. She is scared that one day Lobov might turn his vulture attention at her and start insulting her similarly to how he insults Sophia.
Angelina is preparing herself for an argument in which she will protect her dignity. Now he’ll call me amoeba for not going to the gym, and I’ll tell him that he has no right, whatsoever, to talk to me in this way. Vlad does not look at her and continues talking only to Maslova. When their conversation pauses for a moment, Dima sighs:
“Where is the bus?”
“Just shut up!” Vlad orders, and Dima lowers his eyes.
Angelina scrubs the back of her head and continues looking out for the bus.
“Look! A churka is sweeping trash!” Vlad says loudly.
Angela shudders. Her Dad always shakes hands with men who are immigrants and work as street swipers. Her Mom is friends with a woman from Tajikistan who works as a hairdresser and makes great haircuts. How rude! Angela exclaims in her mind. Having never pronounced pejorative words herself, she feels uncapable of tolerating the use of them in such an unfair context.
She looks around and sees a middle-aged man who is sweeping the street. His clothes are dirty, and he seems tired. He looks extremely thin with sinewy hands and hollow cheeks. Sweeping the rubbish, he collects it into an old, dirty ramshackle cart that is surrounded by a swarm of flies. Angelina drops her eyes, feeling that an invisible mole of guilt is burrowing a hole in her chest. She stares at her gorgeous high-heeled shoes and wishes she could take them off and hide somewhere in her bag. Meanwhile, Vlad instigated by Sophia’s cynical laughter continues shouting insults: “Look at that bastard! Son of a bitch!”
Angelina’s heart starts hammering in her chest. She feels that her face is burning, and she subconsciously wonders how her crimson cheeks and forehead look like. I have to intervene! She is telling herself, his words are impermissible! I’ve to tell him to shut up! A fearful voice inside her protests: what if he insults me? He might start to hate and insult me every day! Angelina glances at Vlad who suddenly starts walking towards the young man in an aggressive gait.
Angelina’s heart fells to her feet. Her tear-soaked eyes notice as through a fog that Sonya is laughing hysterically, Dmitri is following Vlad, and Vlad boots the cart, causing it to overturn. The rubbish: broken bottles, plastic bags with wasted food, Coka-Cola bottles scatter across the pavement.
I don’t care! I must intervene! Angelina starts walking towards the group in an unsteady gait. Her hands are shaking, and her mind is blank.
The man asks, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”
Vlad laughs: “Know some Russian, don’t you? Dirty…”
He does not have time to spit out another obscenity because Angelina appears next to him and shouts: “Shut up!”
Vlad seems to be puzzled for a moment, but soon recovers: “What did you say?”
“I told you to shut up,” Angelina repeats firmly, “Why are you doing it?”
“I wanna see this dog’s reaction. Will he have courage to…”
“Are you crazy?” Angela feels herself overwhelmed with rage.
“Boy, go away,” the man says and starts to put the garbage back into the cart.
“Go away!” Lobov mimics the accent, “Get out of my country…” here he pronounces the most pejorative insult that can be ever imagined. Seemingly satisfied, he walks away. Shatov follows him like a life-guard with a smirk on his lips. He regularly turns around to check that they are not being followed.
Angela is standing with her lips shaking and hands hanging powerlessly. She does not know neither what to do nor what to say. She is watching the man patiently collecting rubbish. Eventually she exhales: “I’m sorry.”
The man straightens his back and looks directly into her eyes: “Don’t be sorry. It was brave of you to intervene with your “Shut up”. These teens are just stupid,” he waves his hand hopelessly and continues reloading the cart. His lips are tightly pressed together, and eyes are focused on the job. Angelina once again feels that the invisible mole of guilt is painfully digging a pathway from her heart to her stomach.
Angelina turns around and notices that the bus has arrived. Lobov, Shatov and Maslova get into it. Angela does not move. She waits for the bus to depart, then drags herself to the bus station.
***
On the next day Angelina is scared to meet with Vlad. Trying to become independent from her parents, she did not tell them anything about the incident; she does not want them to intervene into her problems. She believes that as a future government official she will have to take full responsibility for the consequences of her actions. She also believes that she must be brave and resist Vlad. Still she is afraid. Vlad comes from a rich family of entrepreneurs and was brought up in the atmosphere of permissiveness. She deliberately arrives 1 minute before the first class begins and proceeds to her seat with lowered eyes. Angelina is scared to catch Vlad’s sarcastic gaze. For the whole lesson her mind is occupied with imagining what she will say if Vlad insults her. Once she does not even hear that the teacher calls out her name to answer a question.
Later during the break Vlad and Dimitry approach Angelina. Their facial expressions are hostile and Rodionova feels fear that she will not be able to stand up for herself in the wave of verbal abuse. It is exactly what happens:
“Is one of your parents an immigrant that you protect these sons of bitches?” Vlad asks with hatred burning in his eyes.
“Or ask her if she’s in love with that churka,” Dimitri suggests and starts laughing. Nobody shares his laughter.
Angelina exclaims: “Go away! Both of you!”
“You know, you’re a bitch, right? We’re gonna treat you this way from now on!” Vlad threatens and tells Dimitri: “Let’s go!”
The next few days become a nightmare for Angelina. Vlad only shouts pejorative insults across the corridor every time he sees Rodionova. Once in the canteen he spills a drink on her blouse and on a Physical Education lesson deliberately throws the ball into Angelina. The ball strongly hits her in the chest, and she can not breath for several seconds, her head starts spinning, and she is scared she is going to die.
Nevertheless, Rodionova does not complain to her teachers and her parents about her struggles because she believes she has to deal with them on her own.
During one break, Sophia approaches Angelina.
“They’re unbearable, aren’t they?” she asks with a sympathetic nod of her head.
“Who they?” Angelina pretends not to understand the question because she is afraid of being perceived as a weak character who can not stand up for herself. She straightens her shoulders and puts up a mask of courageous facial expression: knitted eyebrows and highly raised chin.
“Vlad and Dima,” Sophia smiles and sighs at the same time.
Rodionova remains silent, waiting for her interlocutor to speak.
“Well, if you wanna, I can tell them to shut up. Vlad’s my boyfriend, after all. But just promise that you’ll not cross their road again.”
Angelina is surprised that Sonya and Vlad became a couple. When did they even have time? But she quickly comes back to the gist of the conversation:
“No, I am not going to stop!” she exclaims, “When I see injustice, I intervene!”
Sonya looks at her with pity:
“Don’t bark so loudly. Last week Charlie died. He was killed by that damn rottweiler. He shouldn’t have barked so loudly. Just leave Vlad alone.”
Angelina feels outraged about Sonya’s rudeness and emotionless about the death of her dog, however, something in her words appeals to her. Why can’t I just ignore them? She asks herself. Anyways, I am not going to follow them around and check that they don’t insult immigrants. Perhaps, I won’t even be witness of their behavior again. What’s the point of listening to their insults for the whole year?
“So, you want me to promise you that I won’t intervene when Vlad insults others, and instead you’ll make him stop insulting me?” Angelina asks.
“Exactly!” Sophia nods.
“But why? What makes you hate immigrants so much? How calm you can be friends with a racist who can’t control himself?”
“’cause he’s a cool guy, you know?” Sonya replies, “and I don’t want you to spoil his coolness.”
“Okay,” Angelina suddenly feels exhausted with the conversation and Sophia’s irrationality. She chooses the easy way out and accepts the deal.
Later, after the conversation Rodionova is in her room, deep in her thoughts. I’ve just allowed them to break me down, she feels hatred to herself. Immediately, a coping mechanism switches on in her head: On the other side, I didn’t have much choice. Anyways, it would be stupid to suffer for something that I can’t change. I can’t prevent racism all over the world. I’d love to, but I just can’t! If they continued bullying me, I wouldn’t be able to focus on studies… I don’t need to spoil my future just because I spoke out against a racist. Never mind! I should just forget about it.
Angela unpacks her school bag and starts doing homework.
***
20 years pass. Now Ms. Rodionova is a 37-year-old mayor of Moscow, elected in the turbulent time of radical changes, happening all over the world. The moment of climate breakdown happened simultaneously with the breakthrough in technologies. Waves of progress washed people out from all those positions that could be delegated to AI, such as waiters, hairdressers, street sweepers. Depression spread like plague among those who were left without means for survival, especially in the face of catastrophic heat waves, droughts, and flooding.
One year ago, when all routine jobs were automated, around 300000 poor illegal immigrants got trapped in the city where the climatic conditions were deteriorating on a rapid speed. Most of them could not afford the protection, and the government refused to help. Angelina tried to start a Moscow-based charity organization that would distribute water, food, and protective clothes for free. In the long-term she planned to build shelters for homeless people.
She speaks in front of the Committee of Economic policies and strategic planning of Moscow and suggests that half of the Moscow’s budget is allotted for her project. Angelina is wearing high-heeled shoes and an elegant blue dress that covers her shoulders and knees. Along with the members of Committee are Vlad Lobov and Dimitri Shatov wearing identical black suits and blue ties. An expensive wedding ring is shining on Vlad’s ring finger. Lobov and Shatov are respectively Chairman and CEO of Future Russia – a company owned by the Russian Government and responsible for purchase, delivery and distribution of robots and cutting-edge technologies that allow people to deal with climate change. When mayor Rodionova finishes her presentation during which she talked about economy and morality, her fingers and palms are cold. Her intuition is whispering her that the project will not be approved.
“That’s stupid!” Vlad exclaims and hits the table, “We’ll go bankrupt!”
Rage starts to fill Angelina’s heart. Shut up, idiot, she thinks, have you not heard the numbers I just gave? Your damn company won’t go bankrupt. You’re lucky that your Dad was a government official. Otherwise, how could someone that stupid become a Chairman? She takes a deep breath and repeats the calculations again.
Chairman of the Committee narrows his eyes, “You don’t possibly want to cut us short of profits, do you? While the government holds monopoly on imports, we have to use the opportunity.” A president of the Committee with an indefinable facial expression, a woman who looks as if her humane feelings were buried under layers of years spent in bureaucracy, says: “It is not our responsibility to care about illegal immigrants from other countries.”
During a break a man who introduced himself as an authorized representative of the Chairman of the Committee approaches Angelina and asks to have a confidential conversation. When they enter an empty room, he tells her, “The Chairman asked to inform you that with all respect, you will be forced to step down if you continue pushing the project forward. He has the president’s administration on his side.”
Angelina bits her lower lip and lowers her eyes. When the informant walks out from the room, she falls into a chair and drops her hands on her knees, palms facing upwards. She is staring at her palms for a long time, while sobs are shaking her body that feels weightless. Eventually she stands up and walks into the hall to witness how the Committee votes against her proposal.
Angelina feels defeated and desperate. She compares herself to a drug addict who finished a rehabilitation course but lost control over herself again. She compares herself to a murderer who was released from prison and had a chance to start a new life but killed again because she was useless for society and hated people for this. Angelina remembers that day when she entered into agreement with Sophia. The feeling of hopelessness is nauseating.
When the meeting ends, and Angelina stumbles to the entrance door, Vlad and Dimitri approach her with smirks on their faces.
“I told you politics isn’t for women,” Vlad says to Dimitri loudly. They both have changed. Positions that do not require any intellectual efforts from them and bring them wealth left prints of stupidity and impunity on their faces. They walk everywhere with raised chins and speak informally to people of any positions.
“So, churkaphil, are you going to invite thousands of churkas to your house? No wonder you’re still unmarried,” Vlad is watching Angelina with a ruthless expression on his face.
Mayor Rodionova replies in a well-modulated voice, “Watch your words. You are speaking to the mayor.”
Later, when she arrives home, Angelina takes a bottle of potassium chloride and a syringe from the drawer in her bedroom. She puts them on a bedside table made of red wood. Angelina stares at the bottle and syringe, while The following thoughts are circulating in her head: I am a betrayer, a killer. How can I rule the capital of Russia? I was tarnished with corruption. I lost honor.
After an hour of delirium, Angelina fills the syringe with the poisonous drug, however, somehow, she knows that she will not inject it. She puts the syringe back on the bedside table, stands up and approaches the window. She has a feeling that she has reached and crossed a point of no return.
***
Mayor Rodionova is outside of the building where city council has recently held a meeting. She is waiting for a self-driving car that she ordered using the app Selver. Not a pleasing warm autumn wind surrounds her, but rather a murderous heat. Mayor Rodionova is wearing a special expensive costume that cools down her body. Trees that grew near the majestic residence of city council dried out last year. There are no colorful leaves, the symbols of autumn. Ducks no more fly in V formations high up in the sky. All sounds ceased, and there is silence like in a grave. People who could afford protection from the heat, stay inside. Mayor Rodionova is looking at the road with melancholy. Suddenly, she notices two figures, approaching her.
Some of the last survivors, mayor Rodionova sighs, looking at a grey-haired man in his 60-s with a slouched back walking with a small girl. They are approaching slowly, seemingly exhausted by the unbearable heat. Why are they walking in this heat? Did he decide to die and kill her too? Mayor Rodionova wonders with neither sadness, nor real wish to understand the man’s intentions. She is not afraid of an attempt on her life because robot body-guards are highly efficient. Last month one pauper tried to hide in some wealthy family’s house, which is equipped to protect from the extreme heat. The robot guard discovered him almost immediately and executed for illegal entrance of private property.
The man sits down on the pavement in several meters from the mayor and lights a cigarette. Did he go mad? The girl looks very weak. She begs her grandfather not to smoke. When he starts coughing from the smoke that does not move in the air, the girl looks up at the mayor Rodionova.
“Please, help us!” she cries out. Her eyes are tear-soaked.
Mayor Rodionova does not respond. It is not the responsibility of the government to care for immigrants.
However, something in the girl’s desperate face, brings up memories of the autumn afternoon many years ago, when Angelina was feeling that a mole of guilt was burrowing a hole in her heart and when she felt herself obliged to intervene. Everything changed, Angelina sighs, It is not obligatory to help them. We can’t save everybody.
The squeaking of tiers informs about the arrival of self-driving car. Ms. Rodionova heads to it. The girl rushes to her. It seems as though she wants to fall on her knees, hug the mayor’s knees and beg for help. The robot body-guards hold her back with their firm grip. Ms. Rodionova drives away.
“The heat wave that struck Moscow will last for the next 30 days,” the indifferent voice of a weather forecast reporter informs. “Do not open doors for the sick immigrant dogs that are left in the streets. They will rob your houses and murder you. After 30 days no traces of them will be left.” Ms. Rodionova notes how excellent the state propaganda works.
As the car is speeding down the road, the mayor gets lost in her thoughts. The face of the old man emerges in her memory, and it seems similar to that of the middle-aged man who worked as a street sweeper many years ago and whom Vlad insulted. Both faces have the print of fatal exhaustion. Then the face of the small girl appears: the desperate glimmering of her eyes. They’ll die today, Ms. Rodionova thinks with apathy. But I can’t take them home. We can’t help everybody.
Then the feeling of guilt squeezes Angelina’s throat: Damn it! They were working for us! We were exploiting them! And now, when we don’t need them anymore, we let them die! It’s unfair! It’s so unfair! These doubts tortured her regularly throughout the last year, tearing her heart several times per week.
Ms Rodionova raises her eyes and sees posters with photographs of her. She is reading the pathetic inscriptions: “Mayor Rodionova brought progress!”
The woman recalls the day when she signed the contract with China for massive import of robots. It was followed by nation-wide demonstrations with desperate immigrants asking existential questions: “What are we going to do now?” “Who will train us for academic work?” “Who will teach us how to do surgeries and run businesses?” They still had enough strength and solidarity to speak out and protest. On that day Mayor Rodionova was pacing back and forth in her office, filled with doubts. Russia can’t lag behind! We need progress! But think about all these poor people! Her mother sent her a message to congratulate on the accomplishment. Her father called to tell her how proud he felt.
“But I’m not sure if it’s worth it. So many people will be left unemployed,” Angelina confessed in her doubts.
“Don’t worry, Angela. People always find ways to cope with adversities,” her father consoled her.
Another poster reads: “Mayor Rodionova saved millions of lives!”
Mayor recalls the day when the cutting-edge technologies were brought into Moscow to protect citizens from catastrophic consequences of global warming. On that day the independent social media presented statistics, according to which several thousand immigrants in Moscow would suffer from the consequences of a massive heat wave if the protective equipment was not provided to them by the government. It was then that Mayor Rodionova started telling herself: We can’t save everybody, and calling herself a monster, while everybody else were worshipping her as the Goddess of innovations. It was then that Mayor Rodionova realized that a part of her had died.
Angelina looks at her hands, and in a moment of delirium it seems to her that they are stained with blood, and in a rapid succession she sees in her mind faces of the little girl and an old man dying in the unbearable heat, millions of people praising her service, thousands of illegal immigrants with their hands folded in pleading signs, international summits where failure to prevent thousands of deaths in Moscow is discussed.
The sequence of memories arrives to that autumn day when an innocent girl thought that it was morally obligatory for her to resist racism of her classmates and who bravely intervened. Now Angelina is telling herself as she did many years ago: I must intervene. It is not too late yet. I can share my house with them. I must intervene. She opens her lips preparing to command: “Turn around”. Then a wave of contradictions overwhelms her: It’s not your obligation. You CAN’T save everybody! Mayor Rodionova squeezes her temples with her cold trembling fingers.