Homesickness (41 page)

The ironical cheering and shouts from the wild Scots were cut short by the guards in grey. They also pointed to Violet: she had to button herself up. Cameras were allowed but—hang on—just a minute!—Doug had his binoculars confiscated. They had reached Lenin's tomb.

Touching the granite walls Hofmann and the Cathcarts had already descended a few steps when a scuffle broke out behind. There was shouting, swearing in English. One of the Scots, big man, struggled with the guards. His hat and sunglasses dropped onto the floor.

‘That looks like Hammersly,' Garry pointed. ‘It's not, is it?'

‘I don't know,' Sheila squinted. ‘It could be.'

It was hard to tell.

‘I'm sure I saw him,' said Violet, ‘his shape in the foyer.'

It was Hammersly.

‘Hey, he's all right,' Garry went forward.

‘He's not with us,' said the Scots.

And Sheila and Garry Atlas who tried to help were pushed back. The mausoleum's metal door was slammed shut.

‘Hey, that's the last we'll see of him.'

Then they noticed: the bookbinders in front had gone. They were alone in the mausoleum.

‘What's going on?'

‘Anna?' Mrs Cathcart called. It echoed. ‘Where is she? Anna!'

It wasn't entirely dark. Subtle wall-fixtures gave the granite a rosy religious glow.

Anna had all along been at Mrs Cathcart's elbow. She shrugged. ‘There's nothing to worry about. I wasn't told,' she added, perplexed.

‘Let's go back,' said Sasha.

‘We can't,' North murmured. ‘The door is bolted.'

‘Yoo-hoo!' Mrs Cathcart called out. She could be a pillar of strength.

Following Anna they slowly completed the remaining steps and turned right into the sepulchre itself, a bare room of grave sumrak, with the precise angles of a bank vault. A thick-legged worker wearing a flannel bathing costume (as worn in Black Sea resorts) was hosing the floor and walls. There Lenin lay facing the ceiling like Oblomov, lit by a spotlight. His beard glistened like the wet walls. A rope fence prevented them from going closer.

A group of dolichocephalic party bosses in their loose suits and pierced cream-coloured shoes stepped out from the shadows. They motioned Anna over. Listening intently, she glanced back at her group. She nodded.

‘Hey, you sarmations,' a member of this nomenclatura called.

‘We're from Australia,' Garry corrected. ‘And what's the big idea?'

‘Yes, I'd like to know,' said Mrs Cathcart.

‘But it is a great privilege,' Anna beamed. ‘You are very lucky. You must listen to him.'

‘I wouldn't trust them,' Hofmann was heard. ‘As I said all along. We shouldn't have come here.' Shuffling, some scratching of themselves.

The Russians remained partly in shadow, impassive and patient, and the worker kept tugging at the hose to wash the end wall. After again conferring among themselves a spokesman moved forward and, pushing Anna aside, ducked under the velvet rope. He was a heavy man with bushy eyebrows and long ears. His hand rested on the transparent lid near Lenin's head. Two others moved, skinny and coatless Russians. One had a movie camera resting on his shoulder; the other gripped an old Speed Graflex and managed to whisper to Sasha his name was ‘Ivan'.

The frontman was accustomed to audiences of several thousand. He gestured easily with one hand: a brief panegyric on the dead leader.

‘For Christ's sake,' Hofmann groaned. ‘Did we come to hear this garbage?'

Shuffling eagerly around the edges Kaddok photographed the photographers of the State.

‘Excuse me—' Borelli raised his hand; but was cut short by the Russian.

‘Now we get down to—you say?—talking turkey.'

‘They think we're Americans,' Violet sniggered.

Making a sign to the photographers he paused, then lifted the lid of the bevelled sarcophagus. A murmur ran through the party, the tourists. Lenin was exposed. This was altogether different.

Slowly, ponderously the Russian chose his words. ‘We understand you have travelled. There is nothing like travel, eh? You must have seen wonderful sights, those cities and towns with their empty cafe tables, local customs and colour, the innumerable objects fascinating for their detail, the different sunsets. You've been to many countries. Africa too, I'm told. Very good. It makes you feel experienced,
nyet
? It gives one the added perspective, a means of comparison. Naturally by now you have sorted out the…wheat from the chaff, the real from the nylon. Your eye has sharpened. As in war, travel has heightened your senses. That is good; very good. Perhaps you are less naive?' He looked at each one of them, taking his time. ‘But appearances, of events and things seen around, are deceptive. What can we believe any more? What is real? Appearances are not necessarily exact. The appearance of things is generally a lie. That has become a problem of life, wouldn't you say? You were in Moscow yesterday and now today. But how can you prove it?
Chuzhaya
! Where is the truth, the real existence of things? Increasingly the edges are blurred.'

Borelli and Gerald Whitehead nodded.

The Russians now glanced at Lenin's exposed face.

‘What do you accept, what do you choose to believe? That which is before you? You came to see Lenin. In your country you have your embalmed Holy Men and Royals. There is the Roman Pope—a man who can lift both arms. And movement, someone has written, is the basic characteristic of reality. OK. To you Lenin is a curiosity, a shape; to us he is both the living Idea and the Ideal, example and reminder. So in certain quarters abroad scurrilous rumours are regularly let out that Vladimir Ilyich here is a dummy, a fake. Such is his central importance and the persistence of attacks we are compelled every five years to show the world it really is…Lenin. Understand? That is our plan. A simple test…randomly selected independent observers.'

Slowly he looked at each one. Most of them still didn't understand.

‘Step forward, please. Mind the rope. Of course, ladies first.'

The Cathcarts glanced at Sheila, at Phillip North. Holding North's arm Sasha shrugged.

‘Well I'm game,' said Doug as Hofmann ducked under. For some reason Hofmann was more than usually keen.

Lenin lay waist-high on a kind of podium. He wore the familiar three-piece suit, the baggy trousers steam-pressed, sporting the polka-dot tie and the gold tie-pin. His face seemed to be real, though it had a distinct cadaveric pallor and the beard glistened as if treated with preservatives. From behind the ropes Lenin had certainly looked more natural, as if he was dozing.

‘Madam…'

Smiling, the Russian gave Sheila a small hand mirror.

‘Go on,' he urged, gently.

The movie camera with the surging hips whirred; and Ivan from
Pravda
squatted and waited.

‘But we've seen too much!' Sheila cried. ‘It's been hard to digest. There were so many things. We are the least qualified.'

‘Sheila's right,' Borelli said. ‘It's been confusing. We're still in the dark.'

‘Come on. We can form an opinion,' Hofmann said. ‘This is simple enough.'

The Russian took Sheila's trembling hand and guided the mirror to Lenin's slightly opened yellow mouth.

‘He's dead. Yes?'

Sheila turned. ‘I can't look!'

But Hofmann leaned forward. ‘He's dead.'

The Russian nodded to Violet. She got into the spirit of things.

Leaning over she tweaked the nose.

‘It feels real enough. It didn't come away in my hand.'

‘Very good,' the Russian nodded. ‘That's the spirit.'

Doug Cathcart tapped the bald head with his knuckles and turning to the zooming movie camera reported, ‘Fair enough.'

Then Hofmann, impatient, offered his services: ‘I'm a dentist.'

The Russian nodded.

Hofmann bent close to the face.

Signs of ecchymosis, several shaving snicks. Professionally prising open the mouth he squinted in. He clicked his fingers for Garry's Ronson. Lenin's teeth reflected the food of exile, prisons, the Russian cigarettes and borscht.

‘Gold fillings,' Anna observed. She grinned at everybody.

Hofmann frowned. ‘Some are missing.'

‘What?' the Russian leaned forward.

Hofmann shook his head. ‘He didn't look after himself.'

He tried to close the mouth.

‘Lenin never had enough time,' the Russian answered. ‘And he liked to dine not with tourists but with the chauffeurs and workmen.'

Then seeing both photographers staring open-mouthed—only Kaddok aimed a camera—he elbowed Ivan then the other. ‘
Bolkan
!'

After Hofmann closed the mouth Gwen Kaddok at the other end dipped into the reliquary and grappled with a leg. It was stiff but she managed to lift it up. The black shoelace was undone and he had no socks.

Mrs Cathcart shook her head. Nothing would make her touch him.

Gwen struggled to put the leg back. ‘He's alive—I mean he's not false. I can see it's not wooden or anything,' she frowned at the cameras. ‘It's a leg.'

Hofmann stared at Louisa. ‘My wife has a great passion for truth. So go on.'

Tentatively she touched the necktie. The others would have laughed at Gwen and Lenin's leg if it weren't so serious; and easily embarrassed Gwen crossed and rolled her eyes.

‘We ask,' the Russian interrupted Louisa, ‘that you prove the existence of him, of his solid body, and not his decorations. Of course his clothing is authentic! Clothing is clothing.'

But the tie abruptly came away from the waistcoat. It had been cut short—was only a few inches long. In the strict analytical sense it was not a real necktie.

‘Oh dear. That was so unexpected.'

‘See what you've done?' Borelli joked.

‘Enough!' said the Russian harshly.

The cameras were lowered as the tie was gingerly tucked back into place.

The incident, so human in its unexpectedness, lightened their mood and they chatted among themselves. Anything is possible after a time.

Returning them to the task the Russian had to speak loudly.

‘Some say revolutionaries are basically lazy. For example, that is the English view. But it has been estimated that Lenin wrote ten million words.' He pointed to Borelli. ‘Now you, why not see if that is true?'

Borelli thought for a second, then bent over the coffin: fresh outburst of camera whirring and clickings. He lifted the writer's finger and twisted it back and forth under the lights.

‘Careful,' murmured North.

‘Is it worn?'

Borelli nodded. ‘Where his fountain pen must have rested. There is a distinct flat spot—'

‘Speak up,' the Russian smiled at the cameras.

‘A distinct flat spot, shiny, almost a callus. The finger has formed a lot of words. Dirty fingernails.'

‘Did you know,' Kaddok boomed out from Lenin's feet, ‘Soviet nail polish is the longest-lasting in the world! It's made from old films.'

The Russian looked surprised and Borelli stepped back, wiping his hand on his jacket.

‘It was quite waxy to touch,' he told Louisa and Sheila, ‘and stiff but it was a finger all right, just as it looks. My uncle I was telling you about would have appreciated this.'

Because Phillip North wore a grey beard he was elected to test Lenin's: suddenly the expert, Auditor of Beards, to the world at large. It was important. The beard was one of Lenin's most conspicuous features, and all along comments had been made of its false appearance. It was ginger and glistened too much.

All North had to do was touch it, tug at it. This he did several times to everybody's satisfaction: the physical aspects corrected the visual.

‘I think we believe he's the real McCoy,' said Doug slipping into argot. ‘I'd say he's genuine enough. I'm convinced.'

‘I haven't had a go yet.'

Stepping forward Garry Atlas raised Lenin's right arm to 45 degrees. He let it go with a satisfied expression. But it remained in salute. The other Russians shouted and moved forward, ducking under the rope. They pushed Atlas away. International incident at——. It took two heavily built Russians cursing and perspiring, and Ivan who gave Gerald his camera to hold, to press the arm back.

‘You're a silly bugger,' Hofmann snapped. ‘You could have had us all shot. Do you know what you did?'

‘What d'you mean? That wasn't my fault.'

‘It doesn't matter,' North soothed.

The Russians had returned to their corner, glowering; and Ivan took his camera back. Their spokesman straightened his lapels and cleared his throat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we very much thank you. It was unfortunately a brief, necessary task. You will understand. It should convince'—his voice rose—‘the most hardened reactionary lackey. Some things have a force of their own, are a statement of fact. Lenin lives!'