I rejected 2.15 billion dollars in perfect good health. There's always a first time for everything, but I would have preferred to try something else. Ivan Oblomov met me in our offices at 2:00. Without any kind of preambles or niceties—should be glad if I got a “hello, Ferdinand”—he gave me a memory stick and said: “open, check it and tell me if everything is fine for you.” “I hope it has no viruses, Ivan Ivanovich,” I joked. “Buy a real copy of Norton Antivirus,” I preferred to keep myself quiet or we would have had troubles. Everything was there and the transfers done matched with our records. Repin had paid everything back before February. “Yes, but the interests should be recalculated. You have paid for a full year when it's only ten months.” I was desperate to find an excuse to stop what was coming next. We never thought that he had been serious about December. Hell, we didn't think Repin was able to meet February's deadline! “We were thinking you would charge us for paying in advance,”
