Monumental Propaganda (26 page)

62

Leonid Ilich Brezhnev, a politician half-forgotten nowadays, loved all the varied delights that life afforded and was distinguished by a weakness for women, good food, expensive automobiles and all sorts of material tokens of respect: for decorations, weapons, gold, precious stones, for everything that glitters and tinkles, and he was very fond of eulogies. And what better excuse for fine words and presents could there possibly be than a birthday?

Sixty-three years may not be a round number, but the birthday boy and his guests celebrated it in style. Large volumes of beverages that were anything but weak were consumed; large amounts of hors d'oeuvres were eaten; a great many heartfelt and flowery toasts were proposed in praise of the innumerable virtues of the hero of the celebrations. Burdalakov got back to his bed at five in the morning, came around in the afternoon, read an address in the evening to the personnel of the cruiser
Perm
(the standard came in handy after all) and not until after lunch on December 21, the birthday of another great man, did he set off back to Sochi.

It should be acknowledged to the general's credit that although the time he spent in Novorossiisk had been passed in an unrelieved alcoholic haze, he had remembered Aglaya several times and thought . . . no, not about making her a part of his life forever, but he had not excluded the possibility of further developments in the situation. He'd taken a liking to her direct manner. She didn't flirt or make eyes, her opinions on everything were straightforward and definite, and at the same time she was feminine and still fairly attractive. And so before returning to Sochi the general made use of his customary method for obtaining goods in short supply: he rang the secretary of the Novorossiisk municipal Party committee, who rang the chairman of the municipal Soviet executive committee, who rang someone else, and the final link in the chain was the head man in the Novorossiisk department store, where Fyodor Fyodorovich acquired a Dawn woman's watch and the perfume Lights of Moscow, which the general's deceased wife had been very fond of.

He arrived back shortly before supper, stood his standard in the corner, took off his greatcoat and, clinking his medals as he went, set off with his presents to see his next-door neighbor. He knocked tactfully on the door. Nobody answered. He knocked again. The door opened to reveal Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Stalin's comrade-in-arms for many years. And although Molotov had been deposed from the pinnacles of power long ago and his privileges had been reduced to those of the second-rank nomenklatura, Burdalakov, who had not forgotten that he used to be the most powerful man in the state after Stalin, became so confused that when he opened his mouth to speak no sounds came out, apart from “a,” “o” and “u.” Molotov gazed patiently and cautiously at Burdalakov through the lightly tinted lenses of his pince-nez, at his shoulder straps and decorations, perhaps anticipating some act of provocation or even arrest.

“Y,” said Burdalakov.

“Y?” asked Molotov.

“Na-ah,” protested Burdalakov.

“I don't understand what you want,” said the former leader, beginning to lose his temper.

“But where's Aglaya Stepanovna?” Burdalakov eventually managed to force out.

“I don't know any Aglaya Stepanovna,” said Molotov, and shut the door in Burdalakov's face.

Burdalakov went downstairs, where he met the matron, Kaleriya Frolovna, who told him that Aglaya Stepanovna had left the sanatorium that morning, a week before the term of her travel warrant expired. Kaleriya Frolovna didn't know why, how or what for, but Fyodor Fyodorovich had a pretty good idea.

63

What had happened was the following.

Fyodor Fyodorovich's sudden departure had upset Aglaya greatly. Not because she had been counting on anything serious (although their last meeting might have engendered certain hopes), but because it had happened unexpectedly, in haste, on the eve of a date that she would have liked to celebrate together with the general.

And then there was further unpleasantness.

On the morning of December 20 a letter arrived from Divanich, written in an ornate hand with whimsical curlicues and unusual style:

Hello, Aglaya Stepanovna! Good afternoon or evening!

This letter comes to you from Com. D. I. Kashlyaev, retired c-nel. And he sends you his congratulations on the birthday of the Great Commander of our country and other peoples, Generalissimo Com. I. V. Stalin. And also permit me to wish you many years of good health and hap. life. There's nothing to write about us here, the weather is freezing cold. Deliveries of firewood and coal to the public are unreliable. Your ap-ment is in perfectly good order, as far as I can judge from the external appearance of the doors and windows and the testimony of the neighbors. Grandfather is well. That's all. I hope you are enjoying comp. rest and regul. meals, which is useful for the sake of health and well-being.

With that goodbye. Your fr-d.
Com. D. I. Kashlyaev, retired c-nel.

 

P.S. Also permit me to inform you that only yesterday your neighbour cit-n. M. S. Shubkin was rel-ed from custody due to the lack of any criminal offense and a shameless campaign by antiSov. circles in certain Wn. Countries.”

Aglaya was greatly displeased by Divanich's letter, or rather by the postscript to it, which aroused certain presentiments that would prove to be not entirely unfounded.

64

That evening she went to bed earlier than usual. Outside, the weather was clear and there was a full moon. Aglaya looked at the moon for a long time and attempted to find on it the features that Andrei Revkin had once tried to show her an entire lifetime ago, when he was not her husband but her comrade-in-arms. One twilight evening, in the company of a group of Komsomol members who spent the collectivization period attached to an NKVD unit, they had approached the rebellious village of Gryaznov and made their beds for the night in haystacks. She and Andrei had found themselves in the same haystack. It was a quiet, still, moonlit night. They had a view of the entire meadow with the dark haystacks standing on it and the separate trees that all seemed to be wandering off somewhere together, but each one on its own, retreating into the white mist that was rising from the river. Against the background of the mist the crookedly scattered huts of the village appeared absolutely black; it was sleepy and quiet over there, with only the cows occasionally lowing in their sleep and the dogs suddenly yelping and howling without rhyme or reason, or perhaps out of some premonition. First one would howl, then another would follow and they would all give voice in chorus, as though each of them were trying to howl louder than the rest, and the people, even those who were lying in the haystacks, felt a deep unease. But by the middle of the night the dogs had calmed down and total silence had set in. No sound at all but the rustling of the hay and the chirping of the crickets. Glowworms drifted in front of their eyes like tiny airplanes. Andrei had reached out for Aglaya and begun fondling her breasts, still young and firm then and quite untouched. At first he fondled them through her tunic and then, after unfastening a few buttons, he fondled them directly. She snuggled up to him, but before she gave herself to him, she asked him, as the senior comrade with the better grounding in theory, whether it was possible for two young Bolsheviks carrying out an important Party assignment to think of such secondary matters as those he was pestering her with. He told her that it was and cited Marx, who had said that nothing human was alien to him. And Comrade Lenin had written in a letter to Inessa Armand that as materialists and realists, Bolsheviks could not deny the objective laws of nature and a certain attraction might arise between Party comrades belonging to different sexes. Suppressing it was pointless, avoiding it was impossible and so comrades of one sex ought to meet comrades of the other sex halfway and satisfy their mutual desires, so that afterward they would not be distracted from carrying out the truly important assignments.

Revkin had convinced her, and Aglaya had given herself to him, having warned him beforehand, first, that she was a virgin, and second, that she didn't want any children. She was rather afraid when she allowed him to enter her, knowing from hearsay that the first time was painful. In order not to spoil her clothes, she took off everything she was wearing under her tunic. But while he was fussing with his own clothes, the passion that was about to overcome her had evaporated, leaving nothing but curiosity— curiosity and fear, which proved unfounded. To her surprise she felt no pain; she felt nothing at all, either pleasant or unpleasant. There was even one moment when she thought he must have missed the spot, and she had to reach her hand down to convince herself that she was wrong. With the job completed, in protecting her against the risk of pregnancy, he had spilled an entire puddle onto her belly. She dipped her finger in it and tried it on her tongue. He asked: “Is it good?” She said: “It's like raw egg.” He hesitated for a moment, then asked: “But why did you tell me you were a virgin?” She said: “I told you I was a virgin because I was a virgin. I never lie and I don't intend to lie to you.” “Then why wasn't there any blood?” he asked. “That surprises me too,” she replied. A doctor had later explained to her that it was the way her anatomy was arranged: sexual activity had not disturbed anything, and she remained intact until the moment she gave birth. And so until that birth Aglaya was able to regard herself as perfectly virginal, and in a certain sense she remained virginal even afterward.

Later she and Andrei lay on their backs and looked at the moon. Andrei asked: “Do you see one brother stabbing another up there?” She asked: “Why, is there a class struggle up there too?” He laughed and said: “There can't be a class struggle up there because there aren't any classes.” She didn't understand that either; she thought they'd built a classless society up in the sky. He laughed again and explained that there was no society up there because there was no life at all. Then which brother was stabbing which? He explained to her patiently: There weren't any brothers up there either, but if you looked at those spots they looked like people and one of them was stabbing the other. “Do you see? Do you see?” he asked her. “No,” she answered. “I see the spots, but I don't see any people.” Then he told her she had no imagination. It wasn't the first time she'd been told that. Once in his aggravation the teacher at school had told her she had no fantasy, sense of humor or feeling for beauty. In Aglaya's sister Natalya (a year younger than Aglaya, she had studied in the same class at school) the teacher had discovered fantasy and feeling, and this, that and the other thing (and then something else, when he slept with her in the school director's office), but in Aglaya—not a thing. But then none of this bothered her very much, because, along with the other feelings, she also lacked any sense that anything at all was lacking. She didn't always understand jokes, and she didn't know why poetry, ballet or opera existed. In real life people didn't speak in verse, they didn't dance when they were struck by an arrow and they didn't sing on their deathbed. Aglaya only tolerated the existence of these arts by way of an exception, when they glorified the heroes of the revolution or the war, bolstered the fighting spirit of Soviet soldiers or helped the workers to fulfil their production plans.

Now Aglaya lay in her room. The moon was shining in through the window and she could see the same spots on it, but once again they were simply spots and didn't look like brothers. She remembered Andrei's claim that if you looked at the moon long enough you would turn into a lunatic and go wandering around naked on the roofs at night. She felt frightened; she didn't want to go wandering naked across the roofs—at her age it would be dangerous and indecent. Aglaya turned away to face the wall and closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she saw that what she had tried to avoid had already happened: she was on the roof and she was naked. She was amazed that she'd turned into a lunatic so easily and so suddenly. She wasn't afraid in the least. It felt strangely interesting to be walking naked across the roof, and not even walking, more like gliding above it, only skimming the surface lightly from time to time with her feet. She hoped the roof would end soon and no one would notice her, but the roof turned out to be terribly long. At first it was pointed, but then it became flat and went on forever in all directions. Aglaya kept on running and running, and people began to appear, walking toward her, with rucksacks and suitcases, walking without stopping, a boundless crowd, but they were still looking at her, and she simply didn't know what to do; she had no clothes, and there was nothing to hide behind, no chimneys or other protuberances on the roof. Then she saw something in the distance and thought it must be a chimney, but it wasn't a chimney, it was a pedestal, and the inscription on the pedestal said I. V. STALIN, but L. I. Brezhnev was standing on it, alive and wearing the uniform of a generalissimo, with a standard that said TAKE BERLIN. She asked politely: “Did you take Berlin as well then?” He said: “But of course. Fedya Burdalakov and I took it together, the two of us.” “I didn't know that,” said Aglaya, “but where was Stalin?” “He was standing here.” “And where is he now?” “Over there.” She ran in the direction Brezhnev had pointed out to her. And she saw Stalin, or rather his back. He was walking along, lost in thought about something, without hurrying, and moving his feet as if he were kicking a ball along ahead of him. She knew there was danger lying in wait for him up ahead; she wanted to warn him, to avert it. She made a furious dash and suddenly slipped and fell to the ground, feeling quite amazed—hadn't she heard that lunatics never fell off roofs? First she felt amazed, then she felt frightened, and when she woke up, it was a long time before she realized where she was and what had happened to her.

It was still night outside and the moon was still shining, although it had slid a long way down toward the horizon. Aglaya switched on the bedside lamp, fumbled on the bedside locker to find her watch and looked at it. It was twenty minutes to six in the morning.

She no longer felt like sleeping, she could remember her dream very well and she began to wonder what a vision like that might mean. Then she remembered that today was December 21, the day of His birth, ninety years ago. Ninety years, she thought, that's a great age, but some people managed to reach it. Her aunt Elena Grigorievna had lived for ninety-six years, shallow and stupid, no good to anyone for anything. Why couldn't a man like him live to be at least a hundred? He would have had time to get so much more done.

She got dressed quickly and went downstairs to where the concierge Ekaterina Grigorievna, in thick wool tights lowered to her calves and felt slippers, was asleep on a narrow bench beside the desk with the telephone. Hearing a rustling on the stairs, the concierge instantly woke up, swung her feet down onto the floor and looked first of all at the tall clock standing by the entrance, then inquiringly at Aglaya.

“Good morning,” said Aglaya.

“Morning,” the concierge replied, abbreviating the phrase in accordance with the new fashion.

“Can you tell me when they bring the newspapers?” Aglaya asked.

Ekaterina Grigorievna looked at the clock again and stifled a yawn as she said: “They bring them about nine o'clock, why?”

“And does anyone,” Aglaya asked, “have them earlier?”

“In the bo——” said the concierge, opening her mouth wide and covering it with her palm, “ . . . sta——”—she shook her head—“ha . . . ll.”

Aglaya was lucky. The kiosk at the boat station was already open, and the newspapers had just been brought in from the local printing works, where
Pravda
was printed from matrices delivered by plane. Aglaya bought a copy, which in addition to smelling of ink was still warm, as though it had come out of a baker's oven and not a printing press. Aglaya spotted an article on the bottom half of the front page, with a big headline, “On the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of I. V. Stalin,” and immediately disliked something about it. Perhaps the fact that there was no portrait. Perhaps that it said “the Birth of I. V. Stalin” and not “of Comrade I. V. Stalin.” She desperately wanted to read the article on the spot, but she realized that she'd forgotten her glasses, and without them her sight could only cope with big letters. She went running back to the hotel.

The concierge had already tidied away her bed and was sitting under the lamp by the phone.

“Did you get a newspaper?” she asked politely.

“Yes,” Aglaya muttered, and climbed the stairs to her room, burning up with impatience.

What she read shook her perhaps even more than Baldie's speech at the Twentieth Congress. You could never have expected anything good from Baldie, but these people . . . They had started off so promisingly . . . The article was no different from the ones printed in Baldie's time. Something for your side, something for ours. Certain services rendered were acknowledged, but from the very first lines they were clearly understated, and there were reservations: “. . . became actively involved in the revolutionary movement from the days of his youth . . . played an active part in setting up the newspapers
Zvezda
and
Pravda . . .
in directing the activity of the Bolsheviks, together with others, led the struggle against the Trotskyists and right opportunists . . .”

“Together with others,” not “side by side with Lenin,” not “one of the most important.” And here in the second column was the shameless admission: “In its assessment of Stalin's activity the CPSU is guided by the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU of June 30, 1956, ‘On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences.'”

After that it was one disappointment after another: “At the same time, Stalin committed theoretical and political mistakes which assumed an acute character in the final period of his life . . . Subsequently, he began gradually to deviate from Leninist principles . . . Cases of unjustified restrictions on democracy and gross violations of socialist legality, groundless repressions . . . he definitely miscalculated in assessing the likely timing of the attack . . . At its Twentieth Congress the Party exposed and condemned the personality cult. It has carried out an immense amount of work in order to restore . . .”

Aglaya was overwhelmed by a paroxysm of insane fury. She crumpled the newspaper, tore it into pieces, spat on them, flung the spittle-soaked paper onto the floor and trampled it underfoot. Then suddenly she froze, struck by a terrible thought: they had deliberately sent her here, lured her out of her own home especially in order to take Him away and fling Him out on the garbage heap, as they had all the other monuments to Him in all the other towns and cities of the Soviet Union. They had deliberately planted that general on her and he had entertained her and distracted her from her main goal.

“What a fool I am,” she told herself, and repeating the word “fool, fool,” she dashed to the telephone and asked the concierge to call her a taxi urgently.

It was still early, there wasn't much work and the car soon arrived. Aglaya carried her big suitcase downstairs, gave the concierge five rubles, said goodbye and set out for the station.