Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (71 page)

While my heart is still beating…[
With despair.
] I will continue to search for her. I want to know how my daughter died. I don’t believe anyone.

[
She opens up her china cabinet where, next to the crystal cordial glasses, she keeps her documents and photographs. She lays them out on the table.
]

My girl was pretty…popular at school. She liked ice skating. Her grades were fine, normal…In tenth grade, she fell in love with Roma. I was against it, of course, he was seven years older than her. “But Mama, it’s love!” It was a mad love, if he wasn’t calling her, she was calling him…“Why are you calling him?” “Mama, it’s love!” She only had eyes for Roma. She forgot all about her Mama. One day, she was graduating, and the next, they were already married. Already had a baby. Roma drank, brawled, while all she could do was cry. I hated his guts. They lived like that for a year. He’d rip up her nice clothes when he got jealous. Grab her by the hair, wrap it around his fist, and slam her head against the wall. She just kept taking it…she didn’t want to listen to her mother. Until, finally, by some miracle, she managed to get away from him. Where do you think she ran to? Her mother…“Mama, save me!” But then he went and moved in with us, too. One night, I woke up from the sound of sobbing…I open up the bathroom door, and he’s standing over her with a knife. I grabbed the blade, cut my hands on it. Another time, he’d gotten ahold of some sort of gun, I think it must have been a gas pistol and not a real one. I was pulling Olesya away from him, and he pointed it at me, “This will shut you up!” I wept and wept until they finally broke up. I kicked him out…[
She is silent.
] It was…maybe not even six months had passed…Olesya came home from work one day and told me: “Roma got married.” “How do you know?” “He gave me a lift.” “And?” “And nothing.” That was quick. But she’d had this childish love for him. She couldn’t get over it. [
She picks up a sheet of paper from the pile of documents.
] The medical examiner put down that she was shot in the right side of the head, but the bullet hole was on the left. That tiny hole…Maybe he never even saw the body? They just told him what to write and paid him off.

I hoped…I waited for her unit to return. I’ll ask them, I thought…Reconstruct the scene…The hole was on the left side of her head, but on paper, it was on the right. I needed to know…It was already winter. Snow on the ground. I used to love the snow. And my Olesya had loved it, too, she would get her skates out ahead of time and oil them up in anticipation. It seems so long ago, ages. It’s bitter for me, very bitter…I look out the window, and people are getting ready for Christmas, they’re running around with presents and ornaments. Carrying trees. In my kitchen, the radio was always on. Tuned to the local station. Local news. Waiting. Finally, it happened. They announced, “The Ryazan police division volunteers have returned from their tour of duty in Chechnya.” “Our countrymen honorably fulfilled their soldierly duty.” “They did not put us to shame.”…They were welcomed with pomp at the railway station. An orchestra, flowers. Presented with medals and valuable gifts. Some of them got televisions, others wristwatches…Heroes…The heroes had returned! Not a single word about Olesya, no one even mentioned her…I waited…I held the radio right up to my ear. They have to say her name! They cut to a commercial for detergent…[
She breaks down.
] My little girl has disappeared without a trace. How could they! Olesya…She was our city’s first coffin from Chechnya…A month later, they brought two more coffins, one was an older police officer, the other was very young. There was a ceremony for them at the theater…at the municipal theater named after Yesenin. They had a guard of honor. A wreath from members of the community, the mayor, speeches. They buried them in the Alley of Heroes, where the boys who had fought in Afghanistan lay. Now, the Chechnya boys are there with them…There are two main alleys in our cemetery, the Alley of Heroes and another one people call the Alley of Gangsters. Gangsters war among themselves, shoot one another. Bloody perestroika. They end up with the best plots in the cemetery. Their coffins are made of mahogany, encrusted with fake gold, outfitted with electronic refrigeration systems. For tombstones, they have Mounds of Glory. The government is responsible for the heroes’ monuments, and, to be honest, those soldiers’ tombstones are pretty modest. And not everyone gets one, at that. Contract soldiers get nothing. I know one mother who appealed to the conscription office, and they refused her: “Your son fought for money.” My Olesya, she lies apart from everyone else—after all, she’s just a suicide…oh…[
She can’t speak.
] Our Nastya…They give her 1,500 rubles a month in death benefits—that’s fifty dollars. Where’s the truth? Where is justice? They give her so little because her mother isn’t a hero. It would be a different story if she’d killed someone, blown them up with a grenade, but her mother only killed herself, she didn’t manage to kill anyone else. That’s no hero! How do you explain this to a child? What am I supposed to tell her? In one newspaper, they printed Olesya’s alleged words: “My daughter won’t be ashamed of me…” In the first few days after the funeral, Nastya sat there listless, as though she wasn’t there, or didn’t know where she was. No one could bear to do it…It was me who finally told her: “Your Mama, Olesya…your Mama is gone…” She stood there, and it was as though she hadn’t heard me. I was crying, but she wasn’t. And then…whenever I brought up Olesya, it was as though she couldn’t hear me. This went on for a long time, it even started making me mad. I took her to a psychologist. They told me that she was normal, but in a state of shock. We went to see her father. I asked him: “Are you going to take your child?” “Where do you want me to take her?” He’s already had another kid with his new wife. “Then disown her.” “Why would I do that? What if I need something in my old age? A couple of kopecks…” That’s what her father’s like…He doesn’t help out with her at all. Only Olesya’s friends visit. On Nastya’s birthday, they always scrape together some money and bring it to us. They bought her a computer. Her friends remember her.

For a long time, I sat there waiting for the phone to ring. Her unit had returned, the commander and her fellow troops. They’ll call me, I thought—they have to! But the phone was silent, so I started looking up their names and phone numbers myself. The unit commander was Klimkin…I’d learned that from the newspapers. All of them! They were all over the papers—the epic heroes of Russia! The Knights of Ryazan. One of the newspapers even had a little article by him where he expressed his gratitude to the unit for their excellent service. They had fulfilled their duty with honor, he said—with honor, even! I called the police department where he works: “Please ask Major Klimkin to the phone.” “Who wishes to speak to him?” “Ludmila Vasilyevna Nikolayeva…the mother of Olesya Nikolayeva…” “He’s not here.” “He’s busy.” “He’s out of town.” You’re a commander, you should be the one who comes and tells the mother what happened. Console her. Thank her. That’s how I see it…[
She cries.
] I’m crying, but they’re tears of rage…I never wanted to let Olesya go, I tried talking her out of it, but my mother told me: “If that’s what she needs to do, she should go.” “Needs”! I hate that word now! I’m not the same person I used to be…Why should I love my Motherland? They promised us that democracy would mean that everyone is happy. Everything would be fair. Honest. It was all a big fat lie…People are nothing but dust…specks of dust…The only good thing is that there’s lots of stuff at the stores now. It’s all yours! All yours for the taking! We didn’t have that under socialism. Of course, I’m only a simple Soviet woman…No one listens to me because I don’t have any money. If I had money, it would be a different story. They would be scared of me, the bosses…Today, money rules everything…

When Olesya was going away, she was happy. “Kormchaya is coming, too.” They were the two women in their unit. Olga Kormchaya…I’d met her at the station when they were departing. “This is my mother,” Olesya had introduced me. There was a moment as they were leaving, maybe I put too much stock in it now. After all the fanfare, the buses were just about to pull out, the national anthem had started up, everyone was crying. I was standing on one side and, for some reason, I ran over to the other side, Olesya had shouted something to me out the window, and I thought she had told me that the bus was going to swing around. I ran over to the other side so I could see her one last time. Wave to her. But then, the bus went straight ahead, and I didn’t get to see her again. It broke my heart. At the last moment, her purse strap had broken…I’m probably just working myself up now…She was my heart and soul…[
She cries.
] I found Kormchaya’s phone number in the phone book. I called her: “This is Olesya’s mother…I want to see you.” For a long time, she didn’t say anything, and then, in a hurt and even angry tone, “I’ve been through so much. When are you all going to leave me alone!” And with that, she hung up on me. I called her back, “I’m begging you! I need to know…Help me, please!” “Stop tormenting me!” I called again, it was probably a month later…This time, her mother picked up: “My daughter’s not home. She’s gone back to Chechnya.” Again! To Chechnya?! It’s a war zone, but for some people, it’s also a decent job. It’s a matter of luck…They don’t think about death, dying today is scary, but if it happens at some unknown point in the future, it’s all right. For the six months they served there, they all got sixty thousand rubles. Enough to buy a used car. And that’s on top of their salaries. Before she left, Olesya had bought a washing machine on credit, and a mobile phone…“I’ll pay them off when I get back,” she said. Now we’re the ones who have to pay. With what money? The bills come, we pile them up…Nastya goes around in old sneakers, they’re too small for her, she comes home from school crying because her toes hurt. My mother and I put our pensions together, budget our money, count every kopeck, and still, by the end of every month, there’s nothing left. And you can’t reach a dead person…

There were two people with her in her final moments, two witnesses. It happened at the security checkpoint, in a two-by-two-and-a-half-meter booth. During the night shift. It was the three of them on duty. The first one…“Well, you know, she came in,” he told me over the phone, “we chatted for two or three minutes…” And then he had to go somewhere for some reason, maybe he had to use the toilet, or maybe someone had summoned him. From outside the door, he heard a bang. At first, it didn’t even occur to him that it could have been a gunshot. He came back and found her lying on the floor. Her mood? What was she like that night? She was in a good mood, a regular mood…she came in, they said hi, joked around…The second witness…I called him at work. He didn’t show up to our meeting, and they wouldn’t let me anywhere near him…He was in there with her when she shot herself, but, according to the story, right at that moment, he’d turned away. Right at that very second…So, in a two-by-two-and-a-half-meter booth, he didn’t see a thing. Would you believe it? I pleaded with them…Just tell me, I need to know…I won’t go anywhere else with the information. I swear to God! They avoided me like the plague. They’d been ordered to keep their mouths shut. Defend the honor of the uniform. Their mouths were stopped up with dollars…[
She weeps.
] From the moment Olesya signed up with the police, I didn’t like it. My Olesya, a cop? It just wasn’t right! I hated it…But the thing is, she only ever went to technical college, then one semester of teacher training college. For a long time, she couldn’t find a job. The police hired her right away. It scared me…Law enforcement is a business…They’re a mafia…People are afraid of cops, there’s someone who’s suffered from police brutality in every family. They’ll torture you, disfigure you. People are as scared of them as they are of the gangsters. God forbid! In the papers you read about the “werewolves in uniform”
^*3
…They rape people, kill people…The kinds of things that would never happen in Soviet times—not in a million years! And if they did happen…Many things were kept silent back then…No one wrote about them, so we all felt safe. [
She falls into thought
.] Half of the people on the force have seen combat. Some fought in Afghanistan, others in Chechnya. They’ve killed people. They are psychologically disturbed. They fought civilian populations because that’s what the wars are like now: Soldiers don’t just fight other soldiers, they fight civilians, too. Regular people. For them, everyone is an enemy—men, women, and children alike. When they come back, they’ll kill someone here, at home, and then be surprised that they have to explain themselves. In Chechnya, no explanations were necessary…“Mama,” Olesya would counter, “You’re wrong. It all depends on the individual. A woman police officer is a beautiful thing. The blue shirt, the epaulettes.”

Her last night at home, her friends came over to say goodbye. I remember it…These days, I dwell on every little thing. They stayed up all night talking…

“…Russia is a great country, it’s not just a gas pipeline with a tap on it…”

“…We don’t have Crimea anymore, we gave it away…There’s a war in Chechnya…Tatarstan is starting to stir…I want to live in a great country. Our MiG jets will reach Riga…”

“…They’re slamming Russia’s face against the table! Treating Chechen gangsters like heroes…Human rights?! Out there, they’d show up to Russians’ homes with machine guns, demanding, ‘Leave or we’ll kill you.’ A good Chechen says, ‘Leave!’ before killing you, a bad one kills you right away. Suitcase, station, Russia…On fences, the graffiti read: ‘Don’t buy apartments from Sergei, they’ll end up ours anyway.’ ‘Russians, don’t leave—we need slaves.’ ”

“…Two Russian soldiers and an officer were captured by Chechens. They cut off the soldiers’ heads but released the officer: ‘Go lose your mind.’ I’ve seen videos…They cut off people’s ears, their fingers…They keep Russian prisoners as slaves in their basements. They’re animals!”

“…I’m going! I need to make money to pay for my wedding. I want to get married. She’s a pretty girl, she won’t wait around for long…”