Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (64 page)

“It is as if she is living in a mortuary,” one very well-known spin doctor informed me one time. “A normal person cannot be exposed to a constant torrent of deaths and describe it endlessly.”

“A normal person cannot help feeling that in front of their eyes part of the country is being turned into a mortuary and cannot help wanting to do their utmost to hinder it. Even less can they adapt so completely to being in a mortuary that they wander in eating cake,” I told him. “And this really is an endless topic. Who is more normal, the person who cries out in pain, or the person who pretends there’s no problem? ‘Ooh, you were quite right to stamp on my foot. It doesn’t hurt a bit,
I’m enjoying it! Please go ahead and stamp on my other foot too, because …’ ” Well, because that way, even though you are powerless, you can still seem to be in control.

But you aren’t in control, and it isn’t normal! The world is topsy-turvy and, hanging down head first, you so much want to be included in the society of morally decent people. It wouldn’t be decent to hate Anna, but you can not love her quite enough without losing face. Something is nevertheless hiding in there behind that “not quite enough,” perhaps the way people feel about themselves, a feeling deep inside that the life they are living in Russian society in the guise of decent people is not close enough to really being alive. They tried so hard to live as good people, but somehow they weren’t really; while once upon a time Anna did, and was, and that was not a fairy tale.

I remember once we were discussing some film with a lot of parts, something about special operations. It was one of those conversations fitted in while we were both busy with something else. We were checking through something on our computers and in the process exchanging comments about how disgusting this kind of false romanticisation was, abundantly spiced with racism and violence. We were going through examples which I no longer remember, and wondered what the people who created such a product would get out of it.

“Well nothing, I suppose, except a lot of money and some prizes,” I said, not taking my eyes off the monitor.

“They will bring shame on themselves,” Anna said with such conviction that I turned round and looked at her, uncertainly and with a half-smile at first: what was this? Did she really mean it?

“They will bring shame on themselves!” she repeated heatedly.

She had just been very decently brought up; that was the whole explanation. Of course, we all had explained to us when we were little what was good and what was bad. Everybody knows that. It’s just that as we grow up, we tend to drop the heavy stuff, some to a greater and some to a lesser extent. Some unload it on to the scrap heap, others just relegate it to the cellar or the attic of their consciousness, because it is difficult to live wearing these penitential chains of morality, especially when most people have long ago chosen the easy way. In any
case, there are attributes of “merit” – like cynicism, or scepticism, or that sure-fire winner, wit – which hardly weigh anything at all. With wit you are received into the society of morally decent people, you turn a caustic phrase and, even if there is no action behind your words, the topic is closed. You are sharp. You are cool.

The quandary was formulated long ago: “To Be or To Seem?” If you choose the latter, you will live long. Whereas Anna chose the former and has been murdered.

I remember how I first heard the news, and to this day it is as if I have a foreign body lodged in my brain: “Anna has been killed.” It is as if a red streamer flares up in my mind, and hurts, and gives me no peace, and cuts into me and oppresses me. “Anna has been killed.” “They have killed Anna.” “Anna …” It was exactly as if a fire had engulfed a virtual space needed simply to take the fact in. I remember those first hours, our friends ashen faced, the businesslike investigators, the television cameras. While you are answering their questions, you feel you are going around with a watering can, putting things out, trying to rescue what has not already been burned to a cinder, some features. You move the markers they are already putting down in a way that makes you rise up in revulsion and shout “No!” You say, “What are you talking about? What sort of “iron lady” was she? You haven’t even read her! “Indefatigable soldier” – who are you talking about? Anna? For heaven’s sake, the minute she came into the office she could tell me what perfume I was wearing. What kind of bloody soldier does that? She dressed elegantly, stylishly. She was an amazingly devoted mother to her children.”

Our children grew up together not in front of our eyes but because we talked about them. When you sit next to someone in a small room for seven years, you know about every boil, every joy and torment, all the enthusiasms and achievements of your colleague’s children, and she knows all about yours.

Anna treated her children with such care and respect, and such a reserved tenderness came into her voice. You might not have heard her say their names, but you could tell immediately from her tone of voice that she was talking to one of them. There was so much pain when things
were not going well, and so much delight and pride when there was cause for celebration. “Galya, my son is now earning more than I do!”

Her tone was light, as if to say, “There, we’ve lived to see the day!” But the exclamation marks were dancing in her eyes: “I have lived to see my son completely grown up. I don’t need to worry about him now. Everything is going well!”

And now, here we are.

I remember how much she loved coffee, and brought a coffee-maker to work. After she was poisoned on the way to Beslan she wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything she liked. She seemed to be sustained by air and work. I don’t believe that people suddenly become mortal. There’s nothing sudden about it. We just find it easier to believe that. If someone isn’t dead then everything must be pretty much OK. We had used up all our reserves of concern for her, and that’s always the way: as soon as you stop worrying, something bad happens.

She was edgy and run-down, and frequently in tears, but it was amazingly easy to comfort her. A long time ago I stumbled upon a method and thereafter used it shamelessly. She could be comforted like a child by distracting her attention. It was useless to start arguing with her or giving her advice when she was in that kind of state. You needed to hear her out, and then as if quite randomly tell her something amusing. The tears would still be flowing, but already there was a smile, so open, so genuine. And then that infectious laugh. Everybody who knew her remembers how she could laugh.

Anna was very much alive, a real human being.

Anna was? I remember the phrase, “He is a coward. He will kill someone if he is afraid of them.” If she hated someone’s acts she brought them out into the light, to be judged. They, furtively, sneaking along a wall, inside a lift, killed Anna.

I’m really not that interested in what happens to those cowards, I know it already. I believe the theory that we live several lives and I read an elaboration, I don’t remember where, but it very much appealed to me. It was to the effect that in this life conscience makes things awkward for us. That’s true, isn’t it? It causes a lot of trouble. It’s at the root of all our problems. It’s like a hermit’s chains, why deny it? In fact it
really doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose. But if we imagine that a mother’s womb is a different world in which the human embryo lives, and we know that it lives there for a long time with its little hands and feet, we can equally well ask: what does he need them for, in that life? They just get in the way. They don’t serve any purpose. It’s completely incomprehensible what they are for until the moment of birth, but if then you were born without them, it would be a disaster. You would be a cripple. In just the same way, perhaps, for us earth-bound embryos, conscience is an organ of that kind.

Anna has been born into that different world completely normal and perfect.

Her killers are heading the same way, and they will be monsters.

I remember …

A Healthy Dog in a Big City

Van Gogh the bloodhound joined the Politkovskaya family just over two years ago. The puppy had problems, and his need was not so much for food and injections (well, not only that), as for selfless and all-enveloping love. He wallowed in love, and gave as good as he got to his owners.

Anna related this extraordinary doggy history, which says no less about her as a journalist and a human being than her reports and investigations, in the pilot color issue of
Novaya gazeta
in September 2005. We reprinted the article (
Novaya gazeta
, No. 77, “A Sick Dog in a Big City”) two days after the tragedy at Lesnaya Street. Readers responded with a barrage of phone calls asking what had happened to van Gogh. At our request, Anna Politkovskaya’s daughter Vera updates us on van Gogh:

Van Gogh is fine. His mood seems to have returned to normal. At first, of course, he appeared rather lost, but he is feeling much better now. For the first week after October 7 it was as if he was waiting for someone. He was off his food and didn’t play with his toys. Anybody with a dog will recognise the symptoms.

Now van Gogh is leading a normal doggy life. We take him to the
vet regularly, but he is healthy now and does not need special treatment. My mother simply rescued him from a dire situation when he was a puppy. We despaired and did not know what to do, but she nursed him back to health and now he is over those problems and behaves quite normally, except that he is still afraid of people, especially men.

Van Gogh is living with us and enjoys all the blessings of a normal life. He and I have been friends for a long time: when my mother was away on assignments, she left me in charge of van Gogh, so we have loved each other for years. Nobody knew him better than Mother and I.

Van Gogh shows no signs of giving up old habits. You can say goodbye to any boots or shoes left unattended in the hallway. His preference is for leather shoes but recently, in the absence of such delicacies, he chewed his favorite toy to pieces. It is beyond repair. He used to bring it to everyone who came into the house if he wasn’t afraid of them. It was his traditional way of showing he trusted someone, and since traditions should be respected we will find him a replacement toy.

He has a trainer who helps us when some particular aspect of his upbringing is beyond us, but we no longer have the earlier problems with him. He is a bloodhound, of course, a hunting dog, but two years ago we bought a puppy with the sole aim of having a friend living in our family.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA’S AWARDS

2000

January. Moscow. Golden Pen Prize of the Russian Union of Journalists for reports on the struggle against corruption.

2001

January. Moscow. “Journalists Against Corruption” Prize, Russian Union of Journalists with support from the Soros Foundation.

Special prize of the Russian Union of Journalists, “A Good Deed and a Kind Heart.” For aid to an old people’s home in Grozny. During bombing Anna managed to organise the evacuation of old and forgotten people to safe regions.

February. Moscow. Winner’s Certificate in the Golden Gong 2000 competition, with a bronze statuette of the goddess Iris. For a series of articles from Chechnya.

April. Washington. Inaugural winner of the Artyom Borovik Prize for Investigative Journalism, established in the USA by CBS and the Overseas Press Club and awarded by the Pulitzer Committee. For detailed chronicling of the Chechen War.

July. London. Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, Amnesty International’s highest award. For a series of reports on torture in Chechnya, and for many years of reporting from the Republic.

2002

London. Most Courageous Defence of Free Expression Prize from
Index on Censorship
.

October. Los Angeles. Courage in Journalism Award of the International Women’s Media Foundation, and Crystal Bird symbolising freedom. [Awarded
in absentia
since Anna was obliged to return to Moscow in connection with the
Nord-Ost
hostage-taking.] For work in dangerous and difficult conditions and reporting on the war in Chechnya.

December. Moscow. Winner of the Andrey Sakharov Prize for Journalism as Action. For consistently defending the rights and freedoms of inhabitants of Chechnya and courage in exposing war crimes.

2003

USA. Europe’s Heroes nomination by
Time
magazine.

February. Vienna. Prize for Journalism and Democracy of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. For courageous professional activity in support of human rights and freedom of the mass media, for publications on the state of human rights in Chechnya.

October. Berlin. Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage, established by
Lettre International
magazine, the Aventis Foundation, and the Goethe Institute, for her book
Tchétchénie, le déshonneur russe
, published in France.

November. Darmstadt. Prize of the German PEN Center and Hermann Kesten Medal. For courageous reporting of events in Chechnya.

2005

January. Stockholm. Olof Palme Prize, the Olof Palme Foundation. For courage and strength when reporting in difficult and dangerous circumstances, shared with Ludmila Alexeyeva and Sergey Kovalyov.

April. Leipzig. Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media, Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig. For her contribution to developing freedom of the press.

October. New York. Civil Courage Prize of the Northcote Parkinson Fund [now the Train Foundation]. For steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk. [John Train is the father-in-law of American journalist Paul Klebnikov who was murdered in Moscow.]

2006

October [posthumously]. Tiziano Terzani International Literary Prize. To mark the rare moral courage of Anna Politkovskaya, who paid with her life for criticising abuses of power.