The Porcupine (20 page)

Evening and rain fell softly together. On a low hill to the north of the city stood a concrete pedestal, sullen and aimless. The bronze panels round its sides gleamed dully in the damp. Without Alyosha to lead them into the future, the machine-gunners now found themselves fighting a different battle: irrelevant, local, silent.

On the piece of waste ground beside the marshalling yard, rain gave a gentle sweat to Lenin and Stalin, to Brezhnev, to the First Leader, and to Stoyo Petkanov. Spring was coming, and the first tendrils would soon try once again to take a hold on the skiddy bronze of military boots. In the dark, locomotives lurched on wet points and dragged at overhead cables, flashing brief light on to sculpted faces. But argument had ceased in this posthumous Politburo; the stiff giants had fallen silent.

In front of the vacant Mausoleum of the First Leader an old woman stood alone. She wore a woollen scarf wrapped round a woollen hat, and both were soaked. In outstretched fists she held a small framed print of V.I. Lenin. Rain bubbled the image, but his indelible face pursued each passer-by. Occasionally, a committed drunk or some chattering thrush of a student would shout across at the old woman, at the thin light veering off the wet glass. But whatever the words, she stood her ground, and she remained silent.