Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (57 page)

Now I want to live with every fiber of my being, all because of my Zhenya…I even dream of us having a baby some day…The doctors are against it, but that’s my dream. I want us to have a home together; my whole life, I’ve wanted a home. I found out they recently passed a new law…According to the law, I could get our old apartment back. I filled out an application…They told me that there are thousands of people like me, they’re able to help many of them, but my case is complicated because ownership of our apartment has already changed hands three times. As for those gangsters that robbed us, they are all long in their graves, they killed each other off…

…We went to see my mother. There’s a portrait of her on her tombstone, and it makes it feel like she’s there. We cleared away the debris. Cleaned her grave. We stood there for a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to leave, and then there was this moment when it seemed like she smiled at me…like she was happy…But maybe it was just a trick of the light…

*
Gennady Zyuganov (1944–) emerged as the leader of the reformed Communist Party after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, spearheading the opposition against capitalist reforms. He remains a political force to this day.

I went to St. Petersburg to get a different story but came back with this one. I’d struck up a conversation on the train…

—

A friend of mine killed herself…She was a strong and successful woman. Tons of friends and admirers. We were all in shock. Suicide? What is that? Cowardice or an act of courage? A radical transformation, a cry for help, or self-martyrdom? An exit…a trap…a punishment…I want to…I can tell you why I’ll never kill myself…

Love? That’s not even an option…I’m not against all that happy shiny stuff, but you’re probably the first person to say that word to me in ten years. It’s the twenty-first century: It’s all about money, sex, and two smoking barrels, and here you are talking about feelings…Everyone finally got their hands on some dough, for the first time ever…I was in no hurry to get married, have kids, I’ve always put my career first. I value myself, my time, and my life. And where did you ever get the idea that men are looking for love? Ooh, love…Men consider women game, war trophies, prey, and themselves hunters. Those are the rules that have been developed over the course of centuries. And women aren’t looking for their knight in shining armor to come galloping in on a white horse—they want him on a sack of gold. A knight of indeterminate age…even a “daddy” will do…So what? Money rules the world! But I’m no prey, I’m a huntress myself…

I came to Moscow ten years ago. I was wild, fired up, I told myself that I was born to be happy, that only the weak suffer, and modesty is nothing but adornment for the weak. I’m from Rostov…My parents work at a school, my father’s a chemist, and my mother’s a Russian language and literature teacher. They got married when they were in college, my father only owned one decent suit but had more than his share of ideas. Back then, that was enough to make a young girl swoon. They still love to remember how, for ages, they got by with one set of linens, one pillow, and one pair of slippers. They’d spend their nights reciting Pasternak—they knew it all by heart! “Anywhere is heaven with the one you love!” “Until the first frosts,” I’d laugh. “You have no imagination,” my mother would reply, hurt. We were your typical Soviet family: For breakfast, it was always buckwheat or noodles with butter; we only had oranges once a year, on New Year’s Eve. I can still remember how they smelled. Not now, but back then…it was the smell of a different life, a beautiful life…Summer vacation meant a trip to the Black Sea. We’d go to Sochi as “savages”—without reservations—and all share a single nine-square-meter room. But we had something to be proud of, something we were very proud of: We were proud of our favorite books, which came from the underground, through some major connections. And the greatest joy of all: complimentary passes to premieres! My mother’s friend worked at the theater. The theater! The eternal topic of conversation in decent company…Today, they write about the Soviet Union being one big penal colony, a communist ghetto. A world ruled by cannibalism. I don’t remember anything scary…I remember that it was naïve, that world, very naïve and clumsy. I always knew that it wouldn’t be how I was going to live! I wanted none of it! They almost kicked me out of school for that. Oh! You know us…“Born in the USSR” is a diagnosis…You’re branded for life! We had home economics classes, for some reason, the boys were taught how to drive while the girls had to learn how to make meat patties. I’d always burn those damn meat patties. One day, the teacher, who was also our class teacher, started lecturing me: “You don’t know how to do anything! How are you going to cook for your husband?” My snap reaction: “I’m not going to make anyone meat patties. I’m going to have a housekeeper.” It was 1987…I was thirteen…What capitalism, what housekeeper?! Socialism was still in full swing! They called my parents in to the principal’s office, told me off at the general class assembly, then at the council meeting of the school
druzhina.
^*1
They wanted to kick me out of the Young Pioneers. The Pioneers, the Komsomol—it was a huge deal. I even cried…Even though I’d never had any rhymes in my head, only formulas…never rhymes. When I was left home alone, I would put on my mother’s dress and heels and sit on the couch reading
Anna Karenina
. Society balls, servants, aiguillettes…romantic trysts…I liked everything up to the part when Anna throws herself under the train: What did she do that for? She was beautiful and rich…for love? Not even Tolstoy could convince me…I liked Western novels better because of the bitches in them, the beautiful bitches that men would shoot themselves over and suffer for. Fall at their feet. The last time I cried over unrequited love was when I was seventeen—I spent the whole night in the bathroom with the tap running. My mother consoled me with poems by Pasternak…I still remember, “Being a woman is a mighty feat, / To drive men mad—heroic.” I didn’t like my childhood or adolescence, I was always waiting for it to finally end. I pored over my textbooks and worked out at the gym. I was faster, taller, and stronger than everyone else! At home, they kept playing the same Okudzhava tapes: “Let’s take each other’s hands, friends…” Not me! That’s no dream of mine.

To Moscow…oh, Moscow! I’ve always seen her as a competitor, from the moment I got there, she inspired a sporting rage in me. My kind of town! The crazy pace gets you high! A city big enough to spread my wings in! I showed up with two hundred dollars and a few lousy rubles in my pocket. That was it. The roaring nineties…My parents hadn’t been paid in ages. We were so poor! Every day, Papa would repeat: “We need to be patient. Just wait and see. I trust Gaidar.” It took a long time for people like my parents to realize that capitalism had already begun in earnest. Russian capitalism, young and thick-skinned, the same beast that had been put down in 1917…[
She falls into thought.
] Do they understand it today? It’s hard to say…There’s one thing I know for sure: Capitalism was not what my parents ordered. No two ways about it. It’s what I ordered, it’s made for people like me, who didn’t want to stay in the cage. The young and the strong. For us, capitalism was exciting…Adventures in enterprise, risk…It’s not just about money. The mighty dollar! Now I’ll reveal my secret: For me, capitalism, I mean modern capitalism, not Dreiser, is more interesting to read about than the gulag or Soviet shortages. The informants. Oh! Oh! Gosh, I’ve trod on the sacred. I wouldn’t dare breathe a word of this to my parents. My lips are sealed. How could I! My father remains a Soviet romantic. August 1991…The putsch! They started playing
Swan Lake
on TV that morning…Tanks filled Moscow like it was Africa. So my father and around seven other people, all of his friends, took off from work, heading straight to the capital. To support the revolution! I sat glued to the television…The image of Yeltsin on the tank stayed with me. The empire crumbled…so let it crumble…We waited for my father as though he were coming back from a war—and he returned a hero! This must have been his shining hour. After however many years, I realized that this was indeed the most important event of his life. Like my grandpa…His whole life, he kept telling the story of fighting the Germans at Stalingrad. After the fall of the empire, life grew boring for Papa, he’s lost all interest—he has nothing to live for anymore. Mostly, they’re disappointed…His generation…they feel like they were defeated twice over: The communist Idea was crushed, and then what happened afterward is beyond them, they don’t want to accept it. They wanted something different—if capitalism, then capitalism with a human face and a charming smile. This world isn’t for them. It’s an alien planet. But it is for me! It’s all mine! I’m happy that the only time I ever see Soviets is May 9, Victory Day…[
She is silent.
]

I hitchhiked to the capital—it was cheaper. The more I saw out the window, the more riled up I got. I already knew that I would never return from Moscow. Not for all the tea in China! To either side of the road there were markets…People selling tea sets, nails, dolls—back then, everyone was getting paid in goods. You could trade frying pans or irons for salami—meatpacking plants paid workers in salami—candy or sugar. There was a fat lady sitting next to a bus stop wearing a bandolier full of toys. It was like a cartoon! When I got to Moscow, it was pouring rain, but I went to Red Square anyway. I just had to see St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin walls—that power, that might, and here I am! In the very heart of it! I walked along limping. Shortly before I had left, I’d broken my little toe at the gym, but I was still in high heels and my very best dress. Of course, fate is just luck, the luck of the draw, but I also have good intuition and know what I want. The universe never grants you anything just because…for free…Here you go! And for you! You have to really want it. And I really did! All my mother brought me were little homemade pies, and then she’d tell me about how she and Papa were going to all the democratic rallies. The ration cards allotted each person two kilos of grain, one kilo of meat, and two hundred grams of butter a month. Lines, lines, lines; numbers scrawled on people’s palms. I don’t like the word
“sovok”
! My parents aren’t
sovoks,
they’re romantics! Toddlers living adult lives. I don’t understand them, but I love them! I went through life alone, all on my own…It wasn’t a cakewalk…And I have good reason to love myself! Without any tutors or money or patronage I got into Moscow State University. The journalism department…In my first year, a boy from my class fell in love with me. He wanted to know: “Are you in love with me back?” My reply: “I’m in love with myself.” I did everything for myself. Myself! My classmates didn’t interest me, the lectures were boring. Soviet professors teaching Soviet textbooks. Meanwhile, non-Soviet life was roiling all around us at a fever pitch! The first used foreign cars appeared—awesome! The first McDonald’s on Pushkin Square…Polish makeup, the creepy rumor that it was intended for corpses. The first commercial on TV, for Turkish tea. Everything used to be gray, but here came the bright colors, the eye-catching billboards. You wanted it all! And you could have it all! You could be anyone you liked: a broker, a hitman, gay…Ah, the nineties! To me, they came as a blessing…an unforgettable time…The era of technocrats, bandits, and venture capitalists! Only the stuff stayed Soviet, the people had a new agenda…With some luck and a bit of elbow grease, you might end up with everything you’ve ever dreamed of. What Lenin? What Stalin? That’s all in the past, there’s an amazing new life ahead of you: You can see the whole world, live in a gorgeous apartment, drive around in a luxury car, eat elephant steak for dinner every night…Russia’s eyes darted in every direction…You could learn more on the streets and at parties, so I transferred to the distance-learning department and got a job at a newspaper. I started loving my life from the moment I got up in the morning.

I was looking up…to the top of the tall ladder of life…I never dreamed of being fucked in stairwells or saunas in exchange for expensive dinners. I had a lot of admirers…I didn’t pay any attention to my peers—we could be friends, go to the library together. It was unserious and safe. I preferred older, more successful men who had already made it. They were interesting, fun, and useful. But I attracted…[
She laughs.
] For a long time, I was pegged as a girl from a good family—from a house full of books, where the most important piece of furniture is the bookshelf. Only writers and artists ever paid any attention to me. The unrecognized genius type. But I wasn’t about to devote my life to some genius who’s only acknowledged after his death, gently doted on by his followers. On top of that, I was already sick of all of those conversations from constantly hearing them at home: communism, the meaning of life, the happiness of others…Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov…They weren’t my idols—they were my mother’s. The people who read books and dreamed of flying, like Chekhov’s seagull, were replaced by those who didn’t read but knew how to fly. The entire former repertoire of gentlemanly charms fell by the wayside:
samizdat,
whispered conversations in the kitchen. How shameful that our tanks had entered Prague! But look: Today, they’re in Moscow! Who are you going to impress with that now? Instead of your
samizdat
poems, show me a diamond ring, expensive labels…It was a revolution of desires! Wants!! I liked…and still prefer bureaucrats and businessmen. Their vocabulary inspires me: offshore accounts, kickbacks, barters. Internet marketing, creative strategies…At editorial meetings, my editor would tell us, “We need capitalists. We have to support Yeltsin and Gaidar’s initiative to create capitalists. Urgently!” I was young, beautiful…They’d send me out to interview these capitalists: How did they make their fortunes? How had they earned their first million? Could socialists become capitalists? I had to describe this phenomenon…For some reason, it was the number “one million” that sparked the imagination. To make a million! We had gotten used to the idea that Russians don’t want to be rich, they’re even afraid of it. So what do they want then? The answer is always the same: They don’t want anyone else to get rich. That is, richer than they are. The magenta sports coats, the gold chains…that’s all from films, TV shows…The people I met had steely logic and an iron grip on reality. They were systematic thinkers. All of them were learning English. Management. The academics and postgraduates were leaving the country…the physicists and lyricists too…But the new heroes, they didn’t want to go anywhere, they liked living in Russia. This was their time to shine! Their big chance! They wanted to be rich, they wanted it all. Everything!