Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (47 page)

I searched. Until the very last day, I kept searching…And on the last day, somebody told me, “Go see Katerina Demchuk. The old crone’s going to be ninety soon, but she still remembers everything.” They led me to where she lived, pointed her out to me. It was a brick house with a tall fence. I knocked on the gate. She came out…older than time, half-blind. “Someone told me that you used to work at the orphanage?” “I was a teacher.” “We didn’t have teachers, we had commanders.” She said nothing. She stepped away from her fence and started watering her vegetable patch with a hose. I stood there…not moving…I refused to leave! Reluctantly, she led me into her house: a cross with a crucified Christ in her upper chamber; an icon in the corner. I remembered her voice…not her face, but her voice…“Your mother is an enemy. We can beat you and even kill you.” I recognized her! But maybe I’d just really wanted to? I could have not asked, but I did: “Maybe you remember me? Perhaps…” “No, no…I don’t remember anyone. You were all very small and grew poorly. We were just following orders.” She put tea on, brought me cookies…I sat there listening to her complaints: Her son was an alcoholic and her grandsons drank, too. Her husband had died a long time ago, and her pension was pitiful. Her back hurt. It’s boring being old. And that was it! I thought about it: Here we are after fifty years…We meet again…I imagined that it was really her…That’s what I imagined was happening…We were finally face to face again—and so what? I too had lost my husband; my pension is also pitiful. My back hurts. Nothing but old age. [
She is silent for a long time.
]

The next day, I went home…What’s left? Confusion and resentment…Only who am I upset at? The steppe keeps surfacing in my dreams; one day, it’s covered in snow, the next, in red poppies. On the former site of one barracks there’s a café, on another, dachas. Cows grazing. I shouldn’t have gone back. No! We weep so bitterly, we suffer so much, and for what? What was the point of all that? So twenty, fifty more years will go by…and all of it will be stamped into dust, as though we never even existed. All that’ll be left of us will be a couple of lines in a history textbook. A paragraph. Solzhenitsyn and history according to Solzhenitsyn are going out of style. People used to be put in jail for
The Gulag Archipelago,
they read it in secret, typed copies of it up on their typewriters, wrote it out by hand. I believed…I believed that if thousands of people read it, everything would change. People would repent, tears would be shed. But what happened instead? Everything that had been written and hidden away in desk drawers was published; everything that people thought about in secret was said aloud. And then?! These books lie around on book piles gathering dust. While people run past them…[
She is silent.
] We exist, but we don’t exist…Even the streets I used to live on are gone. There used to be a Lenin Street. Everything is different now: the stuff, the people, the money. There are new names for it all. We used to be “comrades,” now we are “ladies and gentlemen,” except that we “ladies and gentlemen” seem to be struggling. Everyone is searching for their aristocratic roots. That’s what’s in fashion! Princes and counts are coming out of the woodwork. Before, people were proud of being from long lines of workers and peasants. Now everyone crosses themselves and keeps the fasts. They have serious discussions about whether or not monarchy will save Russia. They adore a Tsar that every college girl was making fun of in 1917. This country is foreign to me. It’s foreign! It used to be that when people came over, we’d talk about books, plays…Now it’s who bought what? What’s the exchange rate? And the jokes. Nothing is sacred anymore, people will laugh at anything. Everything’s funny. “Papa, who’s Stalin?” “Stalin was our chief.” “But I thought only savages had chiefs.” Somebody calls up Armenian radio: “What’s left of Stalin?” Armenian radio answers, “All that’s left of Stalin are two changes of underwear, a pair of boots, a couple of army jackets, one of them for special occasions, and four rubles and forty kopecks of Soviet money. And, oh yeah, an enormous empire.” The second question: “How did the Russian soldier manage to reach Berlin?” “By not being brave enough to retreat.” I’ve stopped seeing my friends. I don’t even go outside very much. What’s out there? The triumph of Mammon! No values are left except for the power of the purse. And me? I’m poor, we’re all poor. My entire generation, the former Soviet nation…no bank accounts, no property. All of our things are Soviet, no one will give us a single kopeck. Where is our capital? All we have is our suffering, everything that we went through. I have two certificates on regular pieces of paper ripped out of a student notebook: “Rehabilitated…” and “Rehabilitated…due to the absence of a crime…” One for my mother and one for my father. There was a time…I used to be proud of my son…He was in the air force, he served in Afghanistan. Now he sells things at the market…A Major with two combat decorations—a street peddler!!! It used to be called speculation; today, it’s known as business. He crates vodka, cigarettes, and skis out to Poland and comes back with clothes. Junk! He goes to Italy with amber and returns with plumbing fixtures: toilets, taps, plungers. Yuck! There’s never been a single salesman in our family! They were detested! I may be a chunk of
sovok
…But it’s better than all this buying and selling…

So, I admit it…I used to like people more. The people before were our people…I lived with that country for its entire history. I don’t care about the one that exists now, it’s not mine. [
I can tell that she’s tired. I turn off the tape recorder. She hands me a sheet of paper with her son’s phone number on it.
] You asked for this…my son will tell you his version…He has his own story. There’s a gulf between us…I realize…[
Through tears.
] Now go. I want to be alone.

HER SON’S STORY

For a long time, he wouldn’t let me turn on the tape recorder. And then, out of the blue, he suggested it himself: “This, you should record…It’s not just family squabbles, fights between fathers and sons. This is history with a capital ‘H’…Don’t use my last name. I’m not afraid of anything, but it’s unpleasant for me.”

—

…You already know everything…But what can we say about death? Nothing intelligible…It’s unknowable!

…I still like old Soviet films, there’s something about them that you won’t find in today’s movies. I liked that certain something ever since I was a kid. I can’t put it into words. I was into history, I read a lot, everyone read a lot back then. I read about the Chelyuskinites and Chkalov
^*6
…Gagarin and Korolev
^*7
…but it was a long time before I learned anything about 1937. One day, I asked my mother, “Where did my grandfather die?” and she fainted. My father told me, “Never ask your mother about that again.” I was a Little Octobrist, a Young Pioneer, whether I believed in it or not didn’t matter. Maybe I did? More likely, I didn’t think twice about it…The Komsomol. Songs by the campfire: “If it suddenly turns out that your friend / Is not friend, but not quite foe…” And so on…[
He lights a cigarette.
] My dream? I dreamed of becoming a soldier. Of flying! It’s prestigious and magnificent. All of the girls were dying to marry an army man. My favorite author was Aleksandr Kuprin.
^*8
An officer! In an elegant uniform…Dying a heroic death! Fraternal debauchery. Friendship. All of that seemed very attractive when I was young and impressionable. And my parents supported me. I was raised on Soviet books: “Man is higher,” “Mankind! That has a proud sound.” They wrote about a man that didn’t exist…who doesn’t exist in nature. I still can’t understand it, why were there so many idealists back then? Now they’ve all vanished. What kind of idealism can the Pepsi Generation have? They’re pragmatics. I finished military school and served in Kamchatka. On the border. Out where there’s nothing but snow and volcanoes. The one thing I’ve always loved about my country is the nature. The landscape. Now that’s really something! Two years later, they sent me for training at a military academy, and I graduated with honors. More little stars! A career! There would have been a gun salute at my funeral…[
Provocatively.
] And now? There’s been a change of scenery…The Soviet major is now a businessman. I sell Italian plumbing fixtures…If someone had prophesied this ten years ago, I wouldn’t have even bothered punching that Nostradamus, I would have just laughed in his face. I was totally Soviet—it’s shameful to love money, you have to love a dream. [
He lights a cigarette and falls silent.
] It’s too bad…You forget a lot…You forget because it all goes by too fast. Like a kaleidoscope. First, I fell in love with Gorbachev, then I was disillusioned. I went to demonstrations and shouted alongside everyone else, “Yeltsin—Yes! Gorbachev—No!” I screamed, “Down with Article 6!” I even put up flyers. We talked and read and read and talked. What did we want? Our parents wanted to say and read whatever they wanted. They dreamt of humane socialism…with a human face. And young people? We…we also dreamt of freedom. But what is it? Our idea of freedom was purely theoretical…We wanted to live like they do in the West. Listen to their music, dress like them, travel the world. “We want change…change…” sang Viktor Tsoi.
^*9
We had no clue what we were hurtling toward. We just kept on dreaming…Meanwhile, the only things on sale at the store were three-liter jars of birch juice and sauerkraut. Bags of bay leaves. We had ration cards for noodles, butter, grain…tobacco…You could get killed in the vodka line! But they published the forbidden Platonov, Grossman…They took the troops out of Afghanistan. I got out alive, I thought that all of us who had fought there were heroes. We returned to our Motherland only to discover that it was gone! Instead of the Motherland, we found ourselves in a new country that didn’t give a damn about us! The army fell apart and people started flinging mud at army men. Murderers! We were no longer defenders—now we were murderers. They blamed us for everything from Afghanistan to Vilnius to Baku. All the bloodshed was our fault. It became unsafe to walk around in your uniform at night, you could get beaten up. People were angry because there was no food or anything else at the stores. No one understood what was going on. In our regiment, the planes weren’t flying for lack of fuel. Combat crews sat grounded, beating each other at cards, chugging vodka. An officer’s monthly pay was only enough for ten loaves of bread. One of my friends shot himself. Then another…People ditched the army, scattering in every direction. Everyone had families to feed. I have two kids, a cat and a dog…How to live? We switched the dog from meat to cottage cheese, while we ate nothing but kasha for weeks on end. All of this gets wiped clean from your memory…Yes, it’s important to write it down while there are still people around who remember it. Officers…we’d work the night shift, unloading train cars, or as security guards. Laying asphalt. The people working alongside me were PhDs, doctors, surgeons. I even remember a pianist from the symphony. I learned how to lay ceramic tile and install armored doors. And so on, and onwards…It was the dawning of the age of business…Some people imported computers, others “cooked” jeans…[
He laughs.
] Two men decide to start a business together: One is going to buy a cistern of wine, and the other one’s going to sell it. They shake on it! One goes looking for money, and the other one wonders where he’s going to find a cistern of wine. It’s a joke, and it’s the truth. People like that would come see me, too: wearing beat-up sneakers, trying to sell me a helicopter…[
A pause.
]

But we made it out alive! We survived—and the country survived! So what do we know about the soul? Only that it exists. For me and my friends, everything worked out all right. One of them runs a construction business, another one has a little grocery store—cheese, meat, salami; a third one sells furniture. Some have capital abroad, others have houses in Cyprus. One used to be an academic, another one, an engineer. They’re smart, educated people. In the papers, they portray “new Russians” in ten-kilo gold chains with gold bumpers and silver wheels on their cars. That’s all bullshit! Successful businesses are run by all sorts of people, but never idiots. So we’ll get together…bring expensive cognac, but drink vodka. We get drunk and by morning, we’re putting our arms around each other and belting out Komsomol songs at the top of our lungs: “Komsomol youth, volunteers…/ Our mighty friendship is our strength…” We remember the trips we took “digging potatoes” and funny anecdotes from army life. In short, we reminisce about the Soviet era. Do you understand? Our conversations always end the same way: “It’s a mess out there. We need a Stalin.” Even though all of us, as I’ve already told you, have made it. What’s that about? Take me, for example…November 7 is still a holiday to me. On that day I celebrate something great. And I miss something, I miss it enormously. Actually, to be perfectly honest…On the one hand, it’s nostalgia, but on the other hand, it’s fear. Everyone wants to leave, get the hell out of this country. Make the big bucks and clear out. What about our children? They all want to study accounting. But ask them about Stalin…that past has been severed clean! To give you a rough idea…I gave my son Solzhenitsyn to read, and it made him laugh. I’d hear him laughing while reading it! For him, the accusation of being a triple agent seems ridiculous. “Papa…There wasn’t a single literate interrogator, they misspelled every word. They couldn’t even spell ‘execution’ right…” He will never understand me or my mother because he didn’t spend a single day of his life in the Soviet Union. My mother—my son—me…we all live in different countries, even though they’re all Russia. The ties that bind us are ghastly. Ghastly! Everyone feels lied to…

…Socialism is alchemy. It’s an alchemical concept. We were hurtling forward and ended up God knows where. A joke: “Where do I sign up for the Communist Party?” “At the psychiatrist’s.” While they—our parents, my mother—want to feel like they led important, not worthless lives, believing in the things that are worth believing in. But what do they have instead? From all sides, they hear that their lives were total shit, that they never had anything but their terrible missiles and tanks. They were prepared to defeat any enemy. And they could have done it! But without a war, it all collapsed. No one can understand why. That’s something we need to think about…but no one ever taught us how to think. All anyone remembers is fear…and fear is all anyone talks about. I read somewhere that fear is also a form of love. I bet that’s a quote from Stalin…Today, the museums stand empty while the churches are full. It’s because all of us need therapists. Psychotherapy sessions. Do you think that Chumak and Kashpirovsky
^*10
heal people’s bodies? They heal souls. Hundreds of thousands of people sit in front of their televisions and listen to them like they’re hypnotized. It’s a drug! The terrifying loneliness…the sense of abandonment…From the taxi driver to the office clerk to the People’s Artist
^*11
and the scholar. Everyone is terribly lonely. And on and on…like that…Life has completely transformed. The world is now divided into new categories, no longer “White” and “Red,” or those who did time and the ones who threw them in jail, those who’ve read Solzhenitsyn and those who haven’t. Now it’s just the haves and have-nots. You don’t like that? No, of course not…And as for me, I don’t like it, either. You, and even I…we were romantics…And how about those naïve sixties dissidents? A cult of earnest people…They thought that as soon as communism fell, the Russian man would drop everything and learn how to live with freedom. Instead, he went out and learned how to live. Really live! Try everything, lick it, take a bite of it. Eat good food, wear nice clothes…travel…see palm trees and the desert. Camels…Instead of burning and burning out, eternally running somewhere with a torch and a pickaxe. No, all Russians wanted was to live like other people…in France and Monaco…Because you never know what might happen! They gave us land, but they can take it away. They let us do business, but they might still put us in jail. They’ll take away the factory and the little grocery, too. That fear keeps drilling away at our brains. Boring holes into us. What history?! It’s time to hurry up and make some money. No one thinks about anything great…or sublime…We’ve had it up to here with greatness! We want something on the human scale. Normal. Mundane…you know, everyday stuff! It’s enough to remember the great stuff occasionally, after a little vodka…We were the first ones in space…and manufactured the best tanks in the world. But there was no detergent or toilet paper. Those goddamn toilets always leaked! People would wash plastic bags and hang them out to dry on their balconies. Having a VCR was tantamount to having your own personal helicopter. A guy in jeans didn’t inspire envy, just aesthetic interest—what an exotic novelty! That’s the price we paid. The price for all those missiles and spaceships. For great history! [
A pause.
] I’ve been running my mouth…Everyone’s so eager to talk these days, but no one listens to one another…