The Anonymous Novel

by Alessandro Barbero

  Today they are even planning to rebuild it! But at the time, it really was an obstacle to the flow of traffic along two important arteries and, to be frank, it was never of great architectural interest. As I grew up, I started to frequent the architectural club of the House of Pioneers. We were all very interested in the rebuilding of Moscow. And I must say that those who were in charge of it were not criminals, as the anti-Stalinists like to scream now that they can look back on the past from the heights of their own good taste and current possibilities. You can say anything you like about those men who were redesigning Moscow: that they were talentless, primitive, reactionary… But they were motivated by the best intentions. They really did feel that, thanks to their efforts, Moscow was turning into the most beautiful city in the world. That the outcome was something different is another question. At the time, they believed that communist society would be an earthly paradise! The collective mood was more positive than negative, even though the great majority of Muscovites lived in terrible conditions. And it was increasingly evident from one year to the next that the situation was gradually improving. Food and consumer prices were regularly going down. Every time it was a treat. Ration cards were being lifted. Unemployment disappeared. The choice in the shops became fabulously rich in the eyes of a people who for years had only experienced poverty and squalor. They were constantly building new schools, hospitals, clubs, cinemas, dormitories, canteens and stadiums.”

  “And in the meantime,” Sergey added, “they were shooting the Kirsanovs and the Lopuchovs without attracting too much attention, and peasants just arrived in the city were taking their places in the ministries, the newspapers, the courtrooms and the universities …”

  “Exactly!” Chimut-Dorzhev replied exultantly. “Here I am and ready to serve you! Of course, you would be happier if I and my brothers had remained in our native Governorate of Kaluga, and instead, would you credit it, we came to Moscow and didn’t even need a passport.”

  “But what are you saying, Aleksandr Ivanych? We’re not talking about you!” said Tanya, slightly flustered.

  “Oh yes you are,” continued Chimut-Dorzhev implacably, his great bulk leaning over the table rather threateningly.

  “Excuse me, you cannot make an exception: you’re fine, but not you others… A historical phenomenon has to be accepted in toto; the threads are all interwoven – just try and unravel them! The fact is that our country was turned upside down and given a good shaking, and nothing can ever be like it was beforehand, not even if the Tsar came back. And you cannot, afterwards, calculate the good and the bad, because it is always only one side that is speaking: those who suffered have long had to keep quiet, but now their time has come and it seems like they were always the only ones in the world. Right now that there is no danger: as the proverb says, even the donkey takes a kick at the dead lion. When I was sixteen I was already an anti-Stalinist; but a while ago I set about studying the Stalinist period, and I have come to the conclusion that, in spite of everything, it was a spectacular era. It was terrible, tragic, bloodied by innumerable crimes, but it was not in itself a criminal era.

  Besides, if we apply the categories of ethics and morality to history, then the whole of human history has been a single enormous crime.”

  “But that way,” a thoughtful Tanya objected, “everything becomes relative.”

  “And why not? It so happens that, in effect, everything is relative. It is like socialism: some people like it, and others don’t, but perhaps there are those who think it isn’t even socialism! As Sergey Mikhailovich said earlier? Socialism… with no subtleties? Well then, my friend Sergey, I drink to your health! His definition is the best I have heard yet; ours is exactly that: a socialism, of course, but certainly not a scientific socialism; we’ll leave that stuff to the Germans, and let’s hope they can rack their brains on that one. Our one, by God, is socialism for people like us, à la russe! It’s time we realised that our socialist or communist system, call it what you like, is founded on violence imposed from below.

  The people want it, and besides, it was the people who created it, exactly as our ancestors in their villages imagined it while they worked for the landowners. The master’s mansion burnt down and everyone off fishing, and as for the harvest, God would provide. That’s what communism is, and how can you not see that it emanated from the mentality of the people? This is why the people who go around preaching the liquidation of communism are criminals. All of them, from the journalists, you’ll excuse me Oleg Viktorovich, who suddenly discover Western liberty, to the writers who hang around Moscow and send their novels abroad when today they could quite easily publish them here, to the priests who criticise their metropolitan for having submitted to the regime, and above all the economists and advisers of Gorbachev, the ones who carry out the radical reform in their own particular way. These people are a band of murderers and they are murdering our culture. It is impossible to separate the communist system from the Russian way of life. If they destroy communism, they will destroy the whole country.”

  Before anyone could reply, he had already filled their glasses. Tanya pushed hers away. “That’s enough for me, Aleksandr Ivanovich. It will make me feel ill. You men should drink…”

  “Don’t you worry. I will soon have you back on your feet, Tatyana Borisovna.” He went to the fridge and returned with a bottle of mineral water; Tanya’s glass filled with bubbles.

  “Do you really believe in what you have just said?” Sergey attacked. “There are Slavophiles here in Russia who are still saying these kinds of things, but I couldn’t believe that a philosopher, a man who has been to the West …”

  “Precisely because I have been, Sergey Mikhailovich.

  Believe me, it is not for us. The adoption of Western ways of thinking and political systems is exactly what has brought this country disaster, and now it is going to happen again! The children and grandchildren of the radical intellectuals who, as you have expressed it, put Russia through a mincer in the pursuit of socialist happiness, now want to do the same thing in the interests of capitalism.”

  “But how can you say such things, Aleksandr Ivanych? It is despicable!” said Tanya, losing heart. “Why ever the interests of capitalism? We only want…”

  “Don’t think about what you want, Tatyana Borisovna.

  Think about what will happen. You are people with refined sensitivities – the Kirsanovs and Lopuchovs – but you won’t be in command. Despicable, you say. Well, I predict that a day is coming in not too many years’ time… yes, there will very soon be a day in which our people will ask us, Why have you done this? We did not want it! And they will shout in the squares, We want to live as we once did! But it will be too late. Here in Russia, it appears there can be no half measures: it is either black or white…”

  They all went quiet.

  “It’s got late,” Oleg declared.

  “Yes, it’s time we got going,” Tanya confirmed. Chimut-Dorzhev looked at all three knowingly.

  “What can I say, my friends? You have made an old man happy.”

  In the hall, they put on their coats, tied up their scarves, and shook their host’s hand. By the time she was in the doorway, Tanya could resist no longer, “But Aleksandr Ivanych, do you really believe… that stuff about people shouting in the squares?”

  Her host nodded, “They’ll be shouting, Tatyana Borisovna.”

  He opened the lift door and closed it behind them.

  XI

  Yellow flowers

  Moscow, March 1988

  The three went out into the night, and climbed back up the lane towards the underground station. Sergey suddenly came to a halt, grabbed Tanya’s arm and pointed to the apartment block they had just left. There was only one light on the top floor that was still on… you can bet that it’s his.

  “Who knows? Perhaps he’s looking down on us,” Sergey speculated loudly. “But tell me, Tanyechka, what was all that stuff about yellow flowers?”

  “You mean to s
ay that you really don’t know?” Tanya was stunned. “It’s Bulgakov, his Master and Margarita. You haven’t read it?”

  “I’ve read it, but I don’t know it off by heart,” Sergey laughed. “And so?”

  “Well,” said Tanya becoming animated, “it’s here that they meet – in this very lane. She comes round here and he’s back there! She has some yellow flowers… Which contrast with her black coat.”

  Oleg, who had been lagging behind and observing them, quickened his pace and caught up with them.

  “What a strange individual!” he muttered while chewing on a herring bone that had got stuck between his teeth. “He knows a few stories and seems to have known everyone… He even went to Lysenko’s funeral!”

  Sergey started laughing and almost choked himself. “I was just recalling… speaking of funerals, do you know what I heard today? At Brezhnev’s funeral, I don’t know if you remember it too, there was live television coverage, and suddenly the picture went and the transmission was off for a few minutes. Well, today somebody told me why; they say that the coffin was too heavy and it broke in the hands of the pall-bearers and the body fell into the grave. That’s why they had to cut off the live transmission immediately.”

  Oleg chuckled; the bachelor’s vodka, assisted by his beer, was making them both merry. Tanya studied them with tenderness, Just look at my two men, one is a little dearer to me than the other, but my friend is also very dear to me.

  What a pity they can’t stand each other. It would be so wonderful if it could always be like this evening, all three of us together! Then the image of the two of them joking in the alley was overlaid with that of Chimut-Dorzhev, as slow and heavy as a bear, and pontificating with elbows resting on the table next to a half-empty tankard… History, he says, has no useful purpose and is just a commentary on literature.

  No, my dear fellow, that would be far too convenient!

  “Do you know what I’ve decided?” she exclaimed abruptly.

  “What?”

  “I will find those records. The ones for the trial, I mean.

  Even if it costs me another year in the archive.”

  “Well, aren’t they the ones you’re already looking for?”

  Oleg objected. Tanya shook her head.

  “You don’t understand me. Until now I have been unsure whether or not I would find them. And I thought, just accept the outcome, whatever it is. I can do my thesis even without the transcripts: statistical analysis, reconstruction of the collective experiences, more statistics – you can still, of course, say something these days, but you’re not getting your hands right down into the shit, if you’ll excuse the expression. And just think how everyone in the Institute would be so much happier; Obilin would finally calm down, and stop putting so many obstacles in my way…”

  “But what are you actually going to do next?” Oleg said, nodding in agreement; he could follow her only too well.

  “Next? That’s not the point. I will find them and that’s all there is to it. Without that material there will be no thesis – but when I’ve found them …! Do you understand now?”

  Oleg once more nodded that he had, and turned to look at Sergey; he too was approving. The strength of Tanya’s feelings had been communicated to both of them through the freezing cold of nocturnal Moscow.

  “What was it you said?” Oleg murmured. “A free people… must remember?”

  “It must remember,” Tanya was thoughtful. Fine, but it is no small thing when even an intelligent man like that Aleksandr Ivanovich, Chimut-Dorzhev I mean, doesn’t care a damn about history, and in fact likes to argue that, generally speaking, it doesn’t even exist. And he’s sharp – more quick-witted than we are and can truss us up any way he wants… But he’s wrong, Tanya confirmed to herself, while experiencing an inexplicable sense of elation. What can you do? He’s a philosopher and reasons like a philosopher. He has built his own cage and cannot escape… They had got to the entrance of the underground station, and there Sergey said his goodbyes. He lived at the end of the world, at Shchukino or perhaps even further out, and it would be unthinkable to give him a lift in the car. The linguist embraced Tanya and kissed her unhurriedly on the cheeks, while Oleg examined the nails on his right hand and then on the left. After that he made a non-committal gesture in Oleg’s direction and disappeared down the stairs – swallowed up by the clammy Mother-Earth.

  “Sergey is also a bit strange,” smiled Tanya, shaking her head, as they crossed the road hand in hand. In that spot, they were up to their ankles in mud and slush. “I’ve read it, he says, but I don’t remember it… I don’t think he’s read Bulgakov at all. God knows what linguists read? But I don’t think you’ve read it either,” she was lively and staring at his face.

  Oleg remained silent for a moment and then recited in an apparently casual manner, “The yellow flowers, of course…

  An ugly colour, says the Master. And she has asked him: Do you like my flowers? And he says: No, I like flowers, but not these ones… And she throws them in the gutter.”

  Tanya stopped, her eyes wide open. “So you knew all along! And pretended not to, you bastard.”

  She bound herself more closely to him, and even put her arm through his. We all know that such intimacy was untypical of Tanya – and in public too! Of course there was nobody about, and that is probably what gave her the courage. Oleg could feel the live body leaning against his, and it was not at all easy to guide through the slushy snow.

  Tanya was almost as tall as he was, and her weight was not much less: she was hardly a delicate little woman! Like a sudden piercing pain, a realisation came to him that she had been close to Sergey throughout the evening, and had been deep in conversation and speaking into his ear, as though to cut him, that is Oleg, out.

  “Listen Tanyechka, I must tell you something,” he muttered hurriedly. She looked at him in surprise.

  “What?”

  Oleg took a deep breath, “Look, if you prefer Sergey, you are free. I’ll just get out of the way.”

  Tanya opened her eyes even further and her mouth trembled. It was not clear whether she was going to laugh or cry. “What an idiot! What a complete idiot!” she exclaimed incredulously, but her eyes were now laughing; she was not crying at all and her cheeks were redder than would normally be caused by the cold.

  “My God, what an idiot you are! What a cretinous thing to say,” she continued. Oleg, we know, did not generally like people calling him stupid, and when people pointed out that he had said or written something foolish (because such things could happen at the newspaper’s offices, where sensitivity… well, they wouldn’t even know how to spell it), he would become furious with himself and even more so with the others, but this time, who knows why, all this idiocy he had displayed was something he positively relished.

  He pressed her against the filthy wall of an apartment block. The lamplight did not reach that corner and they both disappeared into the shadow. He embraced her and this time Tanya did not pull back, did not say leave me alone and did not say no, not here. In fact, for quite some time she did not say anything, but only greedily sought out all the flavours that hid within his mouth: of course, my man’s mouth tastes of vodka, beer, smoked herring and, there you go, onion and shallot as well. Can there be a more exquisite flavour in this world? And when she did speak, it did not occur to her to protest or say unpleasant things. In truth, she did not say very much. There came no discourse that contained some fully elaborated meaning, just a few small words of sweetness, a rather ridiculous term of endearment:

  “My sunshine…”

  A little later, Oleg’s car stopped outside Tanya’s home, and there she was surprised and disturbed to see that the two ground-floor windows were lit up. It was unusual for someone to be up at that time of night. Her mother and grandmother were in the habit of going to bed early, even though it meant lying in bed awake and waiting with bated breath for the key to turn in the lock: Thank God, the girl is back home safe and sound once more�
�� But that day, unknown to Tanya, a great drama had taken place in Bauman Street – or perhaps it should be called a comedy of such proportions that the entire apartment block had been gossiping about it all evening, and even the mother and the grandmother, in spite of midnight having passed, were still seated at the kitchen table, drinking tea and commenting on the incident. As soon as Tanya came in, they both started talking together and explaining what had happened – it had indeed been a startling event. The Housing Committee had finally managed after years of persistence to get a policeman to come along and evict the tenant Lumin on the fourth floor, who had not paid his rent for as long as anyone could remember. That’s right, he’s not paying, but he was not just another poor devil, this Lumin. There are of course parasites in Moscow who don’t work and don’t have a single kopeck to pay the rent. How they live is not at all clear, but one thing is certain: when they do have a few roubles, they’re not off to the Housing Committee to pay their arrears. No, Lumin is a respectable citizen, actually rather affluent. Just think, he has a Ph.D. and works at one or other of those institutes.

  Then one fine morning, no one can remember when, he got this idea that he should move to a lower floor. There’s no lift here, he said, and every day I have to climb four flights of stairs; it’s scandalous! He went to the committee, and asked to speak to those in charge. He wanted to be transferred to the first floor, or even the ground floor, right there in the caretaker’s flat, where the Voznesenskys, or in other words, Tanya’s family live. Well, you know how these things go. The committee shrugged their shoulders: Citizen, they said, if it’s that important to you, try and reach an agreement with them; we can’t turf them out of their house using force. But Lumin was a queer fish and had no intention of negotiating with anyone. Nor was he going to spend any money: I, he said, have rights and you must provide. The guys on the committee, keen to resolve this tiresome business, tried to bring up the question with the other tenants: perhaps there is someone willing to switch apartments with Lumin? The Petrovs skipped the niceties and said that he could go to the devil, and at Tanya’s home they decided it was out of the question, after having discussed it all night: it was true that Lumin’s flat had three rooms, it was large and luminous, but how could you possibly move up to the fourth floor. In the end, the Housing Committee washed its hands of the whole affair, and since then five or six years must have passed, and Lumin has not paid his rent. Not because of the money, of course! For someone like him, the monthly rent is a trifle. But for the principle (even though, as the years went by and the interest built up, that “trifle” gradually turned into a not inconsiderable sum, in fact something unrealisable even for a doctor of philosophy). Initially the committee did not get too agitated. They too considered it a trifle. They sent demands for payment to the tenant, but he never acknowledged receipt, and even learnt to play hide and seek with the postman: they would never get him to scribble his signature, never. Eventually the committee lost its patience and sent off the bailiffs to inspect the premises.