After Love (26 page)

At around seven that evening, I heard a huge roar from the edge of the crowd and saw people running in the direction of the Kalinin Bridge. The tanks also seemed to be moving.

‘They're coming,' someone shouted. All the soldiers disappeared inside their tanks. As they too began to roll, the crowd retreated.

‘It's going to start,' a man with a loudspeaker announced. I made my way towards the White House. I was delighted when I saw Shurik, Yasya and ten-year old Lena under a flimsy, plastic shelter.

‘Did you hear that the tanks are coming?' I asked Shurik.

‘Yes, but it's a false alarm. They're not going to attack, at least not now,' he said, with great certainty.

‘I saw a girl like you on top of a tank,' I told Lena.

‘I was up on one yesterday,' she said proudly. ‘Have you seen Mama?'

I told her that Tamrico was with Katya and that she was fine, but that they were worried about her and Yasya.

Lena told me about the ice-skating school she was attending.

‘One day I want to compete in the Olympics,' she said.

‘That's wonderful,' I told her. ‘If I'd known, I would have brought you a pair of ice-skates from Canada.'

But she was preoccupied. ‘Do you really think they'll attack us?' she asked nervously. Everyone was turned towards the square where some movement in the tank columns was clearly taking place.

‘Hard to know,' I said.

‘Can we stop them?'

‘Of course we can. Haven't we already done that?'

I told her that the best thing was that people in the crowd were friendly and carried no weapons. The soldiers could see they weren't threatening them.

‘Fear and panic lead to disaster,' I said. ‘It's good that no one is trying to whip up fear now.'

‘But what about the soldiers and militiamen who have come over to our side? If they attack, the army is bound to retaliate,' Yasya said.

‘Our soldiers won't attack,' said Shurik. ‘They've been ordered to stay calm. What's more, they know they can't match the army.'

Out of the uneasy movement in front of the White House, slowly a chain of command was beginning to emerge. The people inside had realised it would be dangerous to let the protestors react spontaneously to events, according to Shurik. The protestors were tense, tired and visibly scared. They needed guidance. Every so often one of the members of Yeltsin's government would come out of the White House, mount a tank or stand up on a table, and make a short speech. The loudspeakers from inside also kept us up to date about what was going on.

On portable radios the news came from everywhere: the BBC, Radio Free Europe and Moscow Radio. Someone had even managed to plug in a television set. To add to the cacophony there were guitars, accordions, violins and balalaikas. Earlier in the day the great cellist Rostropovich had entered the White House and waved to the crowd from a window. And other performers had also joined the protestors. The folksongs and ballads of the bards Vysotsky and Okudzhava were continually being sung. Then someone else would play the humorous skits of satirist Arkadii Raikin. Lena told me that an hour before she had seen the stand-up comedian Genady Khazanov in the crowd, cracking jokes. ‘He's so funny, isn't he?'

Rumours spread like grass fires. One said that soon a curfew would be declared, probably between 11pm and 5am. Another said that the trains in the Metro would be stopped. As soon as the crowd had been ordered to disperse, an attack would begin, said a third. Shurik said that he had seen soldiers preparing to take their positions in and around the White House. They had removed their uniforms and, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, were ready to defend the President.

At 9.30pm
Vremya
announced the curfew. News came through the crowd from Manezh Square near the Kremlin that tanks were beginning to move in the direction of the White House. By this time Lena was tired and ready to sleep. Shurik and Yasya left her with me in the shelter and went off to find out what was happening. The news they brought back was sobering.

Those guarding the White House were ordered to be ready at midnight, we heard. Some bulldozers and tractors were brought in from nearby construction sites and positioned in Tchaikovsky Street, where the attack by the commando group was expected to start. Half an hour later there was shooting from the direction of Smolensk Square. The news was that soldiers in armoured cars were trying to break through the barricades. We saw people running and calling for help, then running back towards the square. We heard gunfire coming from the White House. It was a short exchange lasting just a few minutes.

Shurik had disappeared again. As soon as the firing started, Lena woke with a start. I had no idea what to do with her. ‘Should I take her inside?' I wondered. It had begun to rain lightly and a woman sitting nearby took off her jacket and wrapped it around the little girl, asking her to be calm and brave.

‘It's no use going inside,' said the woman to me. ‘We're much safer here. They want to attack the White House and kill Yeltsin.'

Fortunately there was no further shooting, just a tense calm. The rain stopped and the sky cleared. Soon a half-moon appeared, followed by a sky full of stars. We could see the bright lights on the Kalinin Bridge. The mood of the crowd lifted.

We saw people standing at the windows of the Hotel Ukraine, waving and signalling with torches. ‘What's happening there?' Lena asked, pointing.

In the morning we would discover that a twenty-two-year-old veteran of the Afghan War had tried to stop one of the armed vehicles attempting to break through the barricades. He had climbed over the tank and attempted to cover the front with a tarpaulin sheet, but slipped and been dragged alongside it and crushed. Two friends who had rushed to help him were shot dead by the soldiers.

At two o'clock in the morning, out of a drowsy silence we heard loud cheers. We saw Eduard Shevardnadze, the foreign minister, walk into the White House. On the way he stopped, shook hands with some of the protestors and thanked them for their support. As he was entering the building twenty or so motorcyclists arrived from Kutuzovsky Prospect. The cheers erupted again. One of the riders took a loudspeaker, stood on a table and made a short speech, ending with the good news that the soldiers had started leaving Kutuzovsky Prospect.

‘They're pulling out!' he shouted. ‘We've done it.'

Then we heard the blare of horns from ferries on the river. They had assembled near the bank and blew and blew, their way of announcing that they would stay there to support the protestors.

The next cheer came when someone turned on the radio and the voice of the newsreader at Moscow Echo was heard. ‘
Tovarishi
, we're back,' he announced, ‘and the news is good. No attack!'

‘Didn't I tell you?' Shurik was thrilled. He had reappeared. ‘But do you know why?' He lowered his voice. ‘My friends tell me that the Alpha Group chickened out. The plan was to bomb the first and the second floors of the White House, storm the office of the President and, if he resisted, kill him there and then. But an hour before they were due to attack they were told that there were five hundred heavily-armed soldiers inside the White House and that there could be a bloodbath. Do you know what they did next? Something most unusual for a KGB unit. They summoned the entire force and asked each of the commandos to vote. The decision was unanimous: they would disobey any order to attack. Amazing! Even the KGB has gone soft.' He looked pleased. ‘So now we can go home and relax.'

‘Let's go now,' said Lena.

‘Yes,' Yasya agreed. ‘I want to sleep for a week.'

I took both of them home. Shurik wanted to stay on at the White House for a while. As we passed the wreckage of the trolleybus Yasya picked up a piece of metal sheeting with the route number 49A painted on it.

‘A souvenir for Papa,' he said, smiling.

Yasya didn't get to show the souvenir to Vladimir. He passed away at three o'clock in the morning, unaware of the loud horns of the ferries that had gathered at Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment. Ivan Vasillivich, the doctor, arrived, did a final examination and signed the necessary papers. The undertaker was informed and soon the body was ready: washed, dressed and laid in the coffin. The wreaths were placed and friends and relatives would soon start coming.

I didn't stay in the room for much longer but found a chair in the kitchen and waited for the first rays of sunlight. I was tired, but sleep would have to wait. Katya appeared busy, although there wasn't much to do; everything had been organised. Soon the funeral would be over too.

At around five o'clock an old man with a long grey beard came and told Katya that he was ready. He looked like a priest, but Katya said that Aleksei Nikolaevich was a sculptor who had come to prepare a death mask of Vladimir's face.

‘Do you want to help?' she asked.

Aleksei Nikolaevich was an expert and needed very little help. He washed Vladimir's face to remove any grease and dust, and then coated it with plaster of Paris. I fetched hot water from the kitchen to mix the powder. It took fifteen to twenty minutes for the mask to set. Once it had hardened, Aleksei Nikolaevich asked me to help him remove it. We peeled it off and placed it near the window to dry. A cast of Vladimir's right hand was also prepared. The face and the hand were carefully washed and dried.

The funeral took place on the following day, 23 August 1991. It was a Friday and quite sunny for an autumn afternoon. The ceremony was simple. Yasya made a short speech. He didn't cry, not once. An actor friend from the theatre read a poem and Vladimir's body was cremated. I was told that Katya and Yasya would take the ashes to Sverdlovsk and release them into the waters of a river. I was given a handful in a bottle and asked to take them to Berlin to empty into the River Spree. Katya wanted them near Vladimir's father and mother who had died in Berlin during the War and been buried somewhere in the nearby battlefields.

Shurik would later tell me something else about Berlin. During one of his visits to the city, Vladimir had shared a needle with a stranger, in a park outside the Rosa-Luxemburg-Plaz Station as he waited for Katya. She had been held up answering an urgent call at the hotel.

The day after Vladimir's funeral I visited Aunty Olga.

I had spent most of the day in the Lenin Library, looking for material for my essay. In spite of the turbulent events in the streets, the reading room was full. I ordered my material and while I was waiting for it to be brought down, went to the café. It looked different, smaller and overcrowded. The old relaxed atmosphere had disappeared and the women serving the food were deliberately slow and unfriendly. In the reading room there was dust on the floor and the lights on several of the tables were broken.

I tried not to head for my old table but as soon as I entered I couldn't stop myself. I found it easily, but it was occupied. An old woman in a nurse's uniform adorned with a row of medals was taking notes. I walked on and saw that the glass in the window near Anna's favourite table was cracked. The seat was empty. I pulled out her chair but couldn't bring myself to sit down. I went into an adjoining room and worked there.

On the way to the library I had called in to the Moscow Art Theatre to buy a ticket for a new production of
Uncle Vanya
. A young woman holding a baby in her arms had approached me. She said she was an actress who had lost her job a few months before and now needed help. I didn't let her finish her story. I gave her a ten-dollar note and walked on.

Beggars were now everywhere in Moscow. They were on the streets, in the Metro and outside shops and hotels. In the Soviet days I had occasionally met beggars, but then they were usually alcoholics wanting money for their next drink. Even more surprising were the number of people buying and selling little things: tomatoes, shoes, batteries. I saw young men and women carting boxes on trolleys, setting them up wherever there was space and selling music cassettes, records, chocolate bars, T-shirts, soap and washing powder, condoms, chewing gum, calculators, books, magazines and pornography.