Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (53 page)

At last we were called through to the sumptuously decorated hall,
solemn, bravura symphonic music flowing from the amplifiers, such as accompanies cosmonauts en route to a launch.

The President of the United States of America was manifestly not a hundred miles away. It was time for his speech. We were directed to our seats. Democrat Grigoriy Yavlinsky analysed the principles behind the allocation: “Those seated closest to Bush are those most persecuted.” And indeed, Pavlovsky was awarded a seat right at the back, while
Novaya gazeta
merited the third of approximately 30 rows, between Yavlinsky and the head of the Russian Mormons. In front of me was the broad back of Yevgeny Kiselev, sacked director of the now closed NTV television station; Jews, Muslims and Catholics made up the first row, and were accordingly those deemed to be suffering most under the present regime.

A clipped command was issued to “fasten the cordon,” and we were enclosed around the perimeter. It would not be permissible to go out, we were advised, even to the toilet or to smoke, until the presidential motorcade had departed from Spaso House. His back to the podium, a young man from the American security services stood facing the social, political and religious leaders of Russia, his eyes looking simultaneously in every direction. “He’s checking for al-Qaeda,” Yavlinsky quipped.

Another half-hour passed until finally there was a rustling behind the curtains and several men wearing black suits simultaneously brought in identical “nuclear briefcases.” This was apparently a traditional ploy to confuse any possible enemy, who would not know which was
the
briefcase.

Condoleezza Rice was in the same group. The omnipotent National Security Adviser was wearing less than perfectly tailored black trousers and a rather chilly yellow jacket, with black piping along its imaginary pockets and real sides. She had no perm, something that Matvienko would never countenance in public.

“There’s Condo-Liza Petrovna,” the Soviet of the Federation quipped somewhere behind, in accordance with the sense of humor they have there.

Laura Bush was announced next, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the ambassadorial couple, Lisa and Alexander Vershbow. Proud
and serene, not even carrying a handbag, Laura came out in a grey suit with white buttons and black open-toed sandals. Powell sat down and crossed his legs. Glory be, he got away with it: unlike the socks of Russian men, which are invariably too short, Powell’s were magnificently long. Unfortunately, something seemed to be annoying him and he sternly viewed the “Russian opinion-formers” as if they’d done something to upset him. By contrast, Lisa Vershbow beamed enchantingly, and the Ambassador glanced benevolently out at all of us from under his eyebrows.

The great moment arrived. A rather gorgeous Afro-American in a chocolate-brown three-piece suit, the President’s personal bodyguard, materialised and, almost immediately behind him, Bush himself appeared, relaxed, smiling, and flushed. He landed on his chair, assumed the pose of a citizen of the greatest power on earth, and casually crossed his legs. (Well done, Laura: he too was wearing very long socks.) He was soon invited to speak and began, not by apologising for being more than two hours late, but with a paragraph in praise of his wife, the former librarian of a rural school who at one time had no interest at all in politics, but now found herself married to such an important political figure.

He spoke for perhaps another half-hour, about freedom and universal human values. Powell frowned periodically, Condoleezza was inscrutable, the black suitcases whispered about some manifestly practical matters, and the First Lady listened to her husband with the practised pose of all American First Ladies: her back straight, her head proudly raised a little, turned three-quarters towards him. Her faced expressed a calm, steadfast love which had stood the test of time, and unshakable admiration. For the entire half-hour.

All she allowed herself was an occasional nervous tapping of her right leg when something her husband was saying apparently did not impress her.

Bush enjoyed being at the lectern. He only occasionally squinted at the papers, previously arranged by his speech writers, and appeared to be speaking largely off the cuff. When he had finished, he walked directly towards us for handshakes. He had a slightly strange manner
of exchanging a few brief words with one person while already extending his right hand to the next, with a gesture which suggested you were supposed to take it yourself. He is a simple man.

Nevertheless, Bush’s grip was firm and his hand was not clammy, which was something. Russia’s leaders melted, almost all of them, standing there with hands outstretched in anticipation.

The hand-shaking ceremony took another half-hour before the President and his retinue left the room. We were kept in our enclosure for a further 15 minutes, and then set free to go with the wind.

A SICK DOG IN THE BIG CITY

September 2005

Last summer our dog died. He was very, very old. Our loyal Dobermann, Martyn, was 15, exceptionally long-lived by Dobermann standards. He was a remarkable dog who loyally protected us through the long years of the chaos of perestroika, the total gangsterism of the three years of “primary accumulation of capital,” and today’s dissolution of freedoms, when life is again not without risk. Shielded by Martyn we felt safer than we would have behind a posse of bodyguards. He adored us and our friends, and unerringly identified and ruthlessly chased away anyone ill-intentioned. But he never bit anyone. In Martyn’s presence we quarrelled and did not always manage to make up; we met and parted; and through it all he loved us unreservedly, even, on one occasion, swooning with love. Only during the last 45 minutes of his life was Martyn not there to serve us, when he lay down and lapsed into unconsciousness. Then it was we who served him, cupping our hands beneath his heart until it stopped beating.

Six months later we were missing him terribly. Life without Martyn was like living without an intravenous drip of love. We realized that he had been a powerful drug, a
perpetuum mobile
generating and projecting joy at us. Even as he was dying Martyn did not forget, occasionally raising his eyelids, to wag his stump of a tail and smile. After he died, two cats and a wonderful parrot moved in, so we had little to complain about. Yet every evening we were conscious that, although
they were great, we were suffering acute emotional deprivation without a dog.

Then the children found a remarkable offer on the Internet. He looked nothing like Martyn, which was a must. He was not long-haired, which was also important because that was what we were used to. As far as we could tell from the information, he was friendly. A bloodhound puppy, a kind of basset hound on long legs, with eternally sad eyes and long ears.

We went to see the breeder. She kept saying, “He’s simply wonderful, the best pup in the litter.” Maybe, but he was peeing incessantly, every time he looked at us. On the other hand, here was an ocean of affection. He flirted with us: take me, please. That did it. He really wanted us to.

“Four months old. He still has every right to pee,” the breeder insisted.

When we got home we renamed him van Gogh instead of the idiotic “Hagard” inflicted on him by the breeder, and we settled down to live together. It very soon became apparent that van Gogh didn’t just pee all the time, he was a non-stop urination machine, and the strange thing was that he had only to catch sight of a man for there to be a puddle. We stopped letting men into the house, apart from our own, supposing that it was a phase he was going through. We never dreamt of shouting at him – of course not, heaven forbid – but we could not even slightly raise our voices for fear of an immediate flood. As soon as he made a puddle, he would rush around in despair, hiding away or, even more awful, trying to lick it up so we wouldn’t see it. As for going for a walk, we soon found out that van Gogh hated going outside. He disliked everything about it, and his happiest moment was when we came back to the entrance of our block, got into the lift, and went up to the flat. His tail joyfully sprang to attention as soon as we were home. Our house had clearly become his castle, and he would prefer never to leave it.

At the vet’s they told us straight away that the claim he was four months was nonsense. He was at least five months old, and they invited us to guess why the breeder had understated his age.

“Go on, then, why?”

“To get you to take him. People don’t like taking older dogs because somebody has already been training them and there’s no guarantee it has been done properly.”

That turned out to be true, and the vets also found sand in van Gogh’s bladder. Finding the sand cost over 25,000 roubles, and the antibiotics another 2,000 because he had an acute inflammation. Permanent damage. That was our first clue, as it became ever clearer that van Gogh was positively clinging to us as if we were his last hope. He became increasingly nervous of visitors. His fear of other people grew as he grew, and his inclination to hide behind us, his family, was becoming insane. Imagine the scene: somebody approaches us in the street, and this great big dog with huge paws cowers behind my back. He doesn’t bark or growl, just looks at the stranger with such abject terror that you feel scared yourself.

Eventually we realized he was afraid someone would come and take him away. His first owners had been men who took him away. Men, sadly, had become his lifelong enemies.

Clearly we had acquired a dog with serious psychological problems. He was not going to protect us; we were going to have to protect him. Less than ideal.

I rang the breeder: what had happened to the dog in the past? I wasn’t ringing to complain, I just wanted to know so I could help both the dog and myself. The breeder gave in. Before us van Gogh had twice been rejected, though what had gone on was nothing to do with her. But he had been beaten, by men, and they had done something else to frighten him, and then kicked him out.

That seemed credible. We would need to find an animal psychologist and a trainer who worked with dogs individually. Animal psychologists, we discovered, charged $50 a visit if you were lucky. For your $50 you were advised to take a holiday, take the dog to the countryside, let him rest, change your flat, your environment, your town, your country. Nor was all this imparted in a single consultation. Each separate piece of advice cost another $50.

Ouch! No way could we afford that.

So we rushed to find a personal trainer for him. Katya, at 500 roubles an hour from a company called something like “Clever Dog” or “Faithful Friend” informed us that she only worked with dogs of the elite (not elite dogs, but dogs belonging to the rich), and that she was fully booked. She did, nevertheless, find time for us. At 7:00 a.m. Katya arrived. She stuck her hands in her pockets and started giving me commands: “Go there! Do this!” There was nothing elite about it.

Fifteen minutes before the end of the session Katya, despite her anti-globalist garb of black pullover, trainers, and bandanna, entirely capitalistically demanded 500 roubles. We didn’t invite her back. The second and third personal trainers were identical in respect of the quality of their exercises, but proved even pricier at 700 and 900 roubles for the same truncated hour.

We decided to stop throwing money down the drain, the more so since van Gogh’s bladder continued to require thousands of roubles. Life went on as before. He was scared stiff of anything and everything, and I stood between him and the unfamiliar – screeching garage doors, squealing car tyres, and men walking past.

As he grew older, the problems intensified. In order to get to a dog-walking area in our neighbourhood, you need to cross a main road at a crossing without traffic lights. That is, you have to weave between cars not in the custom of reducing speed when approaching a zebra crossing. As we neared it van Gogh would collapse, prostrate with fear. I had to half carry him, half drag him like a sledge, 40–50 kilograms of resisting live dog, between the cars. One walk over the crossing and back guaranteed a rise in blood pressure. It was plain, however, that a dog with a dysfunctional metabolism, sand in his bladder and problems of social interaction simply had to be taken for a walk in the company of his fellows.

In the end I started loading van Gogh into my Lada 10 and driving him across the road. In the walking area he runs about anxiously among the other dogs, not playing with them often, but sometimes at least. He exercises, he sniffs, he gets used to them. His main occupation there, however, is standing by the fence gazing longingly at our Lada. The minute I open the doors, van Gogh jumps into the back seat.
Being driven, or even just sitting in the car, is the one thing he really loves. A small, contained space separate from the rest of the world, just him and his owner, that is the best place on earth for van Gogh. He immediately calms down, looks out of the windows at the world with pleasure, and his gaze becomes steady. He can fall asleep like that, all his fears forgotten. He jumps out of the car and heads straight for the the entrance, runs to the lift, and can’t wait to get back into the flat.

For now my blood pressure has returned to normal, but what next? The vets are telling me unambiguously I should have him put to sleep. Friends and colleagues concur. Why give yourself such a hard time? A dog is not a human being. Give him away. That is only their polite way of saying the same thing: have him put down. Who else would put up with him, other than those already wholeheartedly attached to this long-eared, sad-eyed creature who is guilty of nothing?

Nobody. It is the lot of sick dogs in the big city to be put to sleep if their owners do not have large amounts of money for treating and supporting them. A world which has become heartless towards unfortunate people (the disabled, orphans, the sick), has become equally heartless towards animals. Naturally. What else could we expect? Quite how feral money makes us is something you understand when you have a sick dog. I am not a crazy dog-lover, a category of people as large as that of crazy dog-haters. Crazy dog-lovers differ from the rest of us in loving dogs more than people. When all is said and done, I love people more than dogs.