10
That same evening there was a farewell party at the Valentei-Miller apartment—the site of Madame Miller’s salon, where guests enthusiastically discussed literature during Brezhnev’s time and politics under Gorbachev. During times of oppression in Moscow, ideas fermented in that salon. No one had heard from Eleonora for a long time, but all of a sudden she told the old habitués of the salon that she and her husband were planning to emigrate to California. They had grown tired of the situation in Russia. After all, both their families had ancestors who were adventurers. She might be able to earn money if she wrote her poems in English.

The guests arrived two or three at a time. The spouses greeted their guests with friendly smiles as usual. In the meantime their hair had become grayer and they had more wrinkles. Madame Miller’s words of greeting betrayed the hidden pride that came from knowing that they would be citizens of the United States in five years.

Dividing up into groups, the guests carried on lively conversations in different parts of the living room and even in the kitchen. Father Gleb and Academician Volkhov were no longer among them, however, and new faces had appeared.

It was a mixed gathering of people: mediocre bureaucrats who could only survive with the help of Soviet organizations like the Writers’ Union and the Filmmakers’ Union, people who lived in proud solitude, and fledgling young film directors. Contrary to habit, Ilya arrived at the party wearing a suit, which could best be explained by his loss of self-confidence. His face had an alcoholic’s dull expression. Taking refuge in a corner, he silently sipped cognac.

“In this country no one needs literature any more,” declared an impassioned Kabanova, the editor of a literary journal. “The shelves in the bookstores only have books criticizing Lenin and Stalin or books glorifying sex.”

This topic was taken up by the veteran writer Vasilenko.

“At the same time everyone is repeating the same things that were said in Lenin’s time: ‘Peace, democracy, land—to the peasants, a new economic policy.’ And again we’re given only one choice—to support whatever the government summons us to do. Seventy years ago, when he became acquainted with post-Revolutionary Russia, H. G. Wells wrote, ‘Our dominant impression of things Russian is an impression of vast irreparable breakdown.’ And today things are just the same.”

The old film director Molodyakov slowly put his glass down on a small end table, and with evident irony threw out a few remarks. “One beautiful day out of the blue we were dragged into blinding light and told, ‘Well, you’re free. Write whatever your heart desires.’ Yes, we’re like moles that have been dragged up to the earth’s surface. Our eyes can’t see. In the old days if you wrote something resembling a heartfelt cry mixed with a critique of the system, success was guaranteed. But what kind of heartfelt cry can there be today when your empty stomach is growling?”

“Ah, California! The sunny land of vineyards. How I envy you! Listen, dear, can’t you look for work somewhere in California? We can travel there together, just like them.” Lydia, Molodyakov’s wife, had apparently not been paying much attention to her husband’s words.

There was a slight pause in the talk, but then, in a state of excitement, the poetess Samoilova saw that she finally had a chance to say something “intellectual,” a moment she had long been waiting for.

“Russia, Russians—how beautiful, pure, and natural sound those words, unlike ‘USSR’ and ‘Soviet’.”

Seemingly ignoring both women, Pisakov, a mediocre, older writer, intervened with genuine fervor in his voice.

“The government should give us a guideline. Otherwise we don’t know what to write about and in which style, whom to praise and whom to blame. On top of that, no matter how many times I bring them my manuscripts, the Writers’ Union never gets them published. They say they haven’t received money from the government. Writers aren’t writers if their works aren’t published. Perhaps if I praise President Clinton and his spouse, my work can get published in the states.”

The young writer Khromov interrupted. “For many people criticizing Stalin is the same as spitting against the wind. After all, people who criticize him now betrayed their friends and themselves in those days.”

No one wanted to take up his “serious conversation,” however. The guests broke into groups and snatches of conversation could be heard from several parts of the room.

“Lately everyone’s been traveling to different places. When you call, no one’s home. Fyodorov hasn’t answered his phone for two weeks. Maybe he emigrated.”

“No, he’s on leave now—in the Riviera with a stunning beauty, a model.”

“He got a pile of money for a book published in the states. By the way, how does one get a book published abroad? Talk to someone at the embassy?”

“You really are a ‘sovok’—a Soviet man. In the West the government doesn’t engage in the business of publishing literature. What’s more, all the Western cultural attaches are spies.”

“ ‘Sovok’—what a terrible expression! Was the Soviet Union really so bad? Were those old women who polished the Metro station floors with sunflower oil every day really to blame for the fact that they were ‘Sovoks’?”

“Yes, yes. People are changing just like clothing styles. If a person doesn’t pretend to be a liberal, he no longer gets any attention. Who are those reformists? They only pretend to know the truth. They suppress others by force in order to get their way. So we need to ask who the real democrats are—they or we?”

“I’m not at all against reforms. I’m sooner for them. No one wants a return to the past. But if the reforms had been carried out a little more cautiously, we probably wouldn’t have this chaos now.”

“The masses of people, the narod, are dumb and stubborn creatures. No matter what I tell my relatives about France, they are absolutely incapable of understanding anything. They’re simply afraid, afraid to change their customary form of life. One can understand why Lenin became disillusioned with Russian workers, though all the mistakes of the past seventy years came from that disillusionment. Acting in the name of the workers, a handful of people tried to change the country by force.”

“We intellectuals have become redundant creatures again, just like in pre-Revolutionary Russia. All we do is chatter.”

“Tell me, what does ‘Sovok’ mean?”

“ ‘Sovok’ means a limitlessly spoiled man. He believes that the government should give him whatever he wants.”

“No, that’s not true. ‘Sovok’ means an imperialist, who never gives but only takes.”

“You see, 1992 was a very important turning point. The owners of this country changed: from the masses to the elite. We can’t keep giving out our wealth to everyone. We need capital to start a new industrial revolution here.”

“Oh, I almost became a beggar. It’s terrible. They stopped paying my salary. Today no one needs archaeologists.”

“I’d hold accountable all those who destroyed the USSR. They did it simply in order to seize power, stripping Gorbachev of the presidency. And the ones who did it are quietly scattering now. Despite the horror of what was done, we kept on being silent. We believed that this Yeltsin had liberated Russia from an unnecessary burden, and we put all the blame on Gorbachev.”

“What? What are you talking about? The Soviet Union suppressed human nature, you say? Excuse me. Subordination is part of human nature. You make everything equal and obey what your boss tells you—only then can you be happy.”

“No, you’re wrong! We only obeyed the Party because we were afraid—afraid of being jailed and killed. Freedom, freedom is human nature.”

At the height of the evening Deputy of the State Duma Khachaturov entered the salon. After taking a cursory look around the room, he selectively greeted guests who were in the power structure. Then, after hurriedly finishing his tour of the room, he ostentatiously made a call on his cell phone to his driver. Emphatically announcing that he needed to be at the “next event,” he promptly ran away from this “second-rate” party. In the living room those who had tried to mix with Khachaturov as well as those who ignored him continued with their muddled conversations.

“A hundred million years ago a huge number of new biological species appeared on earth. The first flowering plants, the first fish with scales. Ears even appeared on the turtles, and their necks withdrew into their shells for protection. If we were to look at our country from the future, we’d see that now we are in precisely such a period ourselves. The capitalists and mafia have appeared, the narod’s ears have started to hear, and it’s protecting its neck.”

“No, no. The narod started protecting its neck a long time ago.”

“More than half of our country’s population expects nothing from the politicians and those people basically rely on themselves. What? Yes, according to reliable research. It’s simply splendid.”

“Those bastards in the West simply make fun of us. If we follow their demands, our country will disintegrate and we’ll go back to our past of six hundred years ago. They think that would serve us right. But it’s not true! Our country is a big power. It has everything!”

“You’re right. The West exploits the whole world while pretending to be nice and innocent.”

“Do you understand the essence and meaning of our time? It’s all quite simple—explosion. The state—the USSR—blew apart. Like a huge cosmic bang. Smart people hurried to pick up the pieces before we could, and now they’re sitting on the ruins with a look of satisfaction. The real explosion has yet to come, however!”

“Human concerns are merely transitory earthly vanities. Look up at the sky. Look at those far-off places shining with countless stars, at the night sky whose infinite darkness seems to pull us toward it. The cosmos is eternal, the cosmos is God. And we Russians are the only people who look—even though rarely—into its darkness and hear the word of God that comes from the cosmos.”

“Ah, California, what a marvelous place. But I don’t have the talent or the connections those two have.”

“The other day I discovered a store where you can buy a Sony TV for about three hundred dollars. That’s a steal, isn’t it? And it’s in the original box. I’ll take you there someday soon.”

“From the time that Christianity destroyed the Slavic gods we’ve been in a state of confusion, rushing back and forth between mysticism and imperialism. And we no longer remember our myths.”

“Nonsense! The Orthodox Church has been the last spiritual resort for us suffering Russians for all of one thousand years.”

“You’re wrong. Today we have war victory memorials as a substitute for the Church.”

“You see, we have too much oil and gas. That’s why we think so much about grabbing money and privileges. All we produce are missiles and guns.”

“In America they are doing experiments on implanting human genes into pigs and subsequently transplanting some of the internal organs of the pigs into people. My husband told me about it.”

“Pigs’ organs into people? How is that possible?”

“Why not? After all pigs are the animals closest to man. Take a good luck and you’ll understand.”

Just then Madame Miller clapped her hands. “Ladies and gentlemen. Attention, please.” She stood up for her farewell speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen! We are gathered at our home for the last time. I am sincerely grateful to everyone who came here tonight. I’ll remember all of you forever. Having lost our fight here, we’re running off to warm California.”

She had trouble finding words. The guests thought she was choking back tears, but she was simply unsure of how to proceed. Then having apparently decided, she continued her talk.

“At such moments it’s customary to make an eloquent speech. Moreover, I’m a poet. Yet I’m not going to do that today. I am simply not in the right frame of mind. Not because our guests are not worthy of such a speech but because I am unworthy… for having betrayed all of you. I wish to make a confession. I was not able to resist the KGB’s threats and I secretly informed them about everything that was said in this salon. Yes, I—the one who swore revenge against that horrible system, the one who called on all of you to rise up. I was the one who betrayed all of you in the most shameless way.”

Silence descended on the room and voices began murmuring.

“Shame! Egoist!”

“Well done, Eleonora, well put. It must have been hard for you.”

“It’s easy to repent now that you’re leaving!”

“It wasn’t just you. It was our whole generation. Everyone has his or her own shady secrets.”

The party ended. The guests took leave of the Valentei-Miller couple, repeating the usual polite clichés and then hurrying out the door. Times had changed. Conversations no longer went on until deep into the night. Today people had to work and earn more and more money. The hosts didn’t keep them since they were expecting a call from an American publisher at ten o’clock.

During the chaos of leave-taking, Madame Miller took Ilya by both hands as he was about to leave like an ordinary guest, and looked him straight in the eye. “Farewell, Ilyusha. You’re a real man. But you’ve been acting strange lately. It’s not like you. Get hold of yourself. Mount a cloud and soar high above the treetops. Only people like you can save today’s Russia.

“Ilyusha, I… I have something serious to say to you. About little Ilya, your child. Aurora’s child. We’re taking him with us to America. If you were to take him to your place it would turn out badly. The children’s home won’t be able to determine whether he’s yours or not. Moreover Savva is looking for him. There was an inquiry at the children’s home. He’s a very dangerous man, Ilya. The papers are ready. This time there won’t be any mistakes. I don’t know where Aurora is, but I believe she’ll be relieved.”

The next day without saying a word to anyone Ilya left the city to take to the road. He’d had enough, he was sick to death of Moscow. Russia is calling me. The Russian land calls me. I’ll go on a pilgrimage.

Russian in summertime. You can do as you like, go anywhere you want, without a cent in your pocket—like that time long ago when Ilya traveled with Sofronchuk in his straw hat and Apollon with his harp. If you hitch, you can take a seat beside the truck driver and roll down the window; the wind drifting through the fields ruffles your shirt and you take a deep breath and breathe in the painfully familiar smell of the earth.

Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Tambov, Lipetsk, Saratov, Samara, Rostov… He decided to go wherever he pleased, as the wind flew. The Russian land. Its smell, its maternal breath. Immutable and eternal. Once more Ilya’s body and soul were filled with energy. For now his sufferings seemed trivial. In this world, in the cosmos there’s something far more important. Begin again, Ilya. Start all over again. Cleanse your soul of all unnecessary things and do everything over again. From the very beginning.

Ilya spent nights either in cheap hotels or in a stack of hay in a field. There he contemplated the flickering stars. It was a time for sorting through memories, and the night sky even seemed to hum along. He remembered the words of the late Father Gleb. “In this universe there are only God, Nature, and the human being. You should not be occupied with such illusions as the state and the Party. Instead, our duty is to ask ourselves constantly whether we act in accordance with God’s will and whether we love our neighbors.”

One day on the side of the road Ilya began to play his guitar and sing a song from his heart, some stanzas of which he had taken from Yesenin’s poem “Letter to My Mother.”

My dear old woman, are you still alive?
So am I. Greetings to you, greetings.
May the indescribable light of dusk
Shine above your little hut.

People write that you’ve grown sad,
Worrying about how I am,
That you often come out on the road
In your worn, old-fashioned coat.

I’ll return when our white orchard
Spreads its branches in the spring.
But don’t awaken me at dawn
As you did eight years ago.

Don’t awaken dreams that are forgotten,
Don’t disturb whatever did not come.
It was my fate too early to encounter
Loss in life and tiredness.

And there’s no need to teach me how to pray.
It’s too late to turn back to the old.
You alone give me help and joy,
You alone, my indescribable light.

A dirty bar in Kaluga. Hearing Ilya’s song, which carried from the side of the road, the drunks inside grew silent. An old woman walking along the road could barely hold back her tears. “Oh, it’s our song. It’s a song from the heart. Who is that drifter, I wonder?”

To noises of approval Ilya strummed his guitar and sang. His anger hit those listening like a violent wind.

Hey, privatization,
What have you done?
We sit here without pay,
Down and out without work.
In every firm lowbrow bruisers
Are running the show.
In the factories—take a look—
They’ve kicked out everyone in their way.

Hey, privatization,
We believed in you so!
They said the rich would come,
Strong and able people,
Who’d work in harmony with us
And save our country from ruin.
But in truth all they do
Is rake in the big bucks!

Hey, privatization,
You were a short-lived hope!
It’s tenders and vouchers for them,
And for us it’s bitter tears.
There’s nothing they produce,
They only split the profits…
Enough! It’s not money we’re after,
Just let our souls be free!

The listeners grew more and more excited. Passersby threw money into Ilya’s dirty cap. The drunks from the bar called him over in their own way.

“Hey, friend, brother! You’re really something! Come on, toss one down with us, eh?”