11 A time of passion and madness.

Pride, ambition, ignorance, shamelessness, malice, envy, hatred, cruelty, love, expectation—all swirled by and, like a whirlpool, drew innocent people into the abyss. Towering over everything was the Colossus whose name was time. He fixed his eyes upon the horizon, and with a majestic look firmly proceeded on his way.

“Lord, oh, Lord, why are we like this?” The Colossus didn’t answer. The pleading voice was absorbed into the darkness and only an echo returned.

Ilya’s daughter continued to gain fame and popularity as a singer. Yuliya’s natural voice, nice figure, and the hint of unrequited love in her eyes attracted crowds.

Popularity isn’t money, however. In order to live a normal life, she needed to work for many hours. And when she came home, she had to listen to the chatter of little Igor, who had been waiting for his mama. Her son needed to socialize, but how could she find a nursery school for him? These days they were closing down one by one and being made over into offices for foreign firms, or for one of the foreign religious sects, or for some mafia organization. And the few schools that remained were overcrowded. Moreover, they were expensive—the tuition cost you an arm and a leg. On the other hand, it would be a burden for Yuliya to have to take Igor to nursery school every day, pick him up in the evening, and stay at home on days when he was sick.

Her desire for her manager, Valentin, quickly diminished after the first night. It seems it was only the money I earn that attracted him; he’s no different from those guys who used to hang around me at the disco. One day Yuliya finally dismissed him, but she felt like a total ruin both physically and emotionally. Day by day she seemed to be living on automatic pilot. Her image of Roman became more vague and unreal, and her songs lost their force. Her face, though sad, was still pretty, but there were signs that her beauty was fading.

Oh, Yuliya, have even you, playing your guitar with your head in the clouds, become unable to endure suffering; have you started to age before your time like a simple peasant woman?

One evening after giving a lackluster performance at her concert, one in which she showed none of her usual energy, Yuliya returned to the dressing room where, as usual, her friends and admirers gathered and competed with one another in showering praises. There were noticeably fewer of them, however. A telephone call interrupted the overly enthusiastic compliments. Someone called Yuliya to the phone. She picked up the receiver and heard her Aunt Olya’s familiar voice.

“Yulechka, how did the concert go? Forgive me for not coming. Yes? Everything went well? That’s great. Listen, Yulechka, Roman just called. Yes, yes, your Roman. That’s right, Ro-ma! Well, I can see you’re thrilled. Your voice even sounds livelier. Listen, Roma asked where you live now. He’s coming—to you, of course. He’s come back. Come back to Moscow. To you, to your home! In Bosnia…”

Without listening further, Yuliya hung up, excused herself from the banquet in her honor, and with her guitar slung over her shoulder rushed outside. Roma, my Roma! He’s come back! He’s alive! I… and what have I done? I’m a little fool, my Roma’s little fool.

On the dimly lit staircase in the entrance hall of Yuliya’s apartment building Roman tossed away a cigarette stub, took his wife in his arms, and cried.

“Yulechka, my Yulechka, I was wrong. I’ll never leave you again. Forgive me. I understand now. There’s nothing I need except you.”

“Silly dear! My silly Roman! My love, I love you.”

Winds crossed the fields as Ilya continued his pilgrimage through vast Russia. Today took him from Rostov to Krasnodar. As a rule, those truck drivers who would pick up a penniless, singing wanderer, turned out to be decent people.

“Yes, brother, since everything in the world turned upside down there’s no way to understand what it’s all about. There are rumors that in Abkhazia—just imagine—Russians are fighting together with Chechens against the Georgians. As if no one else was there but Chechens. They are daring fighters, though. There’s fighting in the streets of Sukhumi, you know. The houses have turned into anthills—all the people have scattered. They say only apes are in the streets. Apes inoculated with AIDS and yellow fever. Scientists were experimenting on them, and no one knows which ape is infected with which disease. If one bites you, you’re dead! Really, they’re not apes—they’re today’s Mafiosi. Isn’t that the truth, brother? Ha, ha, ha! Oh those bosses, they are all making experiments—on us people with their wars and on apes with AIDS. Soon there’ll be no one left in this country. And then my business will be finished, oh my God!”

The Chechens. In the past on Stalin’s orders they were herded into freight cars, like cattle, and transported for days in rickety cars with almost no air inside. Then they were unloaded in Central Asia in the middle of the desert. Two hundred thousand old people and children died from the cold and illness. Under the iron hand of President Dudayev this nation now stood alone against Russia.

Sukhumi… The scent of grass wafted through the truck window, and the smell of the earth. Lyuba’s smell. Her affectionate voice, her soft skin. Lyuba! When he remembered her, a feeling of warmth entered in Ilya’s heart. My wife! She’s there. In Sukhumi. They might kill her!

“Hey, brother, my wife lives in Sukhumi. Tell me how to get there.”

Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldavia, Abkhazia… Russia was in a circle of conflicts. One day your city suddenly turned into a battlefield: the loud rattle of automatic gunfire, the relentless movement of tanks, the destruction of buildings hit directly by shells.

A neighbor’s son jumped out with a rifle in his hands. “I’m a soldier, you’re the enemy. You’re a different nationality! Leave! Get out of here!”

A thief just released from prison became a flag bearer for a nationalist cause overnight. War is a cruel business. On both sides fellow countrymen and mercenaries fought each other. Within half a year the nationalist hero had departed for the other world, hunted down by his countrymen and the Mafiosi. People were left only with a feeling of deep hatred toward the “enemy,” toward the unknown strangers who killed their relatives.

Two days later Ilya finally reached Sukhumi—the Black Sea Riviera.

At dawn a column of trucks from Tbilisi was rushing along the city embankments. But even here, in the zone of conflict, Ilya’s driver continued to chatter in a carefree tone.

“Brezhnev? A thing of the past. He came here on visits. He rebuilt the Voroshilov villa. In summers he’d splash his fat butt in the sea. Those were good days. If only because there wasn’t any shooting. Right?”

The sun scattered the morning mist, bringing the city’s ruins into sight. The smell of gunpowder lingered in the air. Shells had made gaping holes in the buildings on the outskirts of town. Here and there people had glued crosses made of paper onto the windows of the buildings that remained intact so that the explosions wouldn’t shatter the glass. Over there on the corner lay an abandoned truck with a broken axle; its tires had been removed, the windows were smashed, and a stream of black smoke still rose from its ruins. After the battles only old people, dogs, and cats stayed in the city—and the apes. The shooting so frightened the animals that they couldn’t even bend their paws; sometimes as they moved they got cramps and then suddenly, out of the blue, they would leap into the air.

“It was just like the Nazis,” Lyuba whispered, as if regaining consciousness, and she clung to Ilya with her whole body.

The light-blue Black Sea sky, the dark blue sea, fog in the distance, the endless line of surf. High in the sky a lone silver fighter plane left a sparkling trail.

Death walks by our side here. And yet it’s so beautiful. Live. We shall live. I want to live with Ilya forever.

Back in Moscow things looked the same, however, as if nothing had happened. You could just see a quiet tiredness in the expressions of the Muscovites dashing around the square in front of Kursk Station or in the faces of the out-of-town visitors loaded down with shopping bags who rode in lopsided buses.

Ilya and Lyuba stood for some time, pensively watching the rapid movement of people and cars. A different world—it was hard to believe. People are living… The sun was bright, birds were chirping. Yet in the clear morning light signs of aging were visible on both their faces and both had more gray hair. Man and wife. Lyuba quietly took Ilya’s hand and smiled shyly, just as she did long before when they first met and she looked up at him as she was bandaging his knee.