Chapter 4
It was the closest you
can get to the middle of nowhere an hour or so’s train ride from Moscow. But
there were a couple of shops that were open, so I resolved to stock up on some
cigarettes.
“I’m just going to go
in there for a minute,” I said. It was
wonderfully warm compared to outside, and I took my time buying a couple of
bottles of fizzy drink and enough packets of cigarettes to last me a few days. Galina
looked on disapprovingly when she saw the carrier bag with my goodies.
“You’ll not be allowed to smoke, either of you, nor
drink Coca-Cola.”
“I’m sure I will be allowed to do what I please
outside.”
“We’re supposed to be clearing our minds, not
filling them with stimulants.”
I tried to be
conciliatory. “I’ll do my best, but you can’t expect someone to give up
everything at once.”
“I understand,” said Galina.
“It’s very good of you to come at all and you, David. I’m sure you will both
enjoy yourselves.”
I looked at David and
caught the slightly dubious look on his face. But he was pleased to be there.
It was minus thirty. He had on clothes that would have worked brilliantly on
the coldest day in Britain or indeed that worked well in Kaliningrad, but I
could see that he was absolutely freezing here. His thick leather jacket just
didn’t do anything at these temperatures. He was stamping and clapping his
hands round his body. We waited and then we waited some more. As ten minutes
turned into twenty, we began to wonder how much longer we would have to stand
in the cold.
“I can’t think what’s happened,” said Galina. “I
told them when we would arrive.”
“Why don’t we get a taxi?” I said.
“No. I’ll call again.”
Twenty minutes later a
rather old minivan turned up. The driver looked vaguely as if he was in India
except that he was Russian and had on the outer clothes that a Russian would
wear in January. He introduced himself with a name that I instantly forgot,
some combination of Indian words or perhaps, they were Sanskrit words. There
were no apologies. No doubt, he had been considering higher things.
We put our bags in the
back and drove off. It must have been five or six miles we drove. The route was
circuitous and we passed a lot of what looked like dachas, rather expensive
ones that the wealthy in Moscow used for the summer. There were endless woods
all around and thick snow that hadn’t been cleared. Eventually, we pulled up
outside a large modern house. It was completely secluded. I wondered, but
already sort of knew, what it had been before. I’d been in such buildings in
the old days. It was the sort of place you’d go for a conference or for
training. I’d attended these from time to time in Kaliningrad. There was always
good food and often some luxuries that were not usually available. We’d go away
for a few days, there’d be some lectures, perhaps, we would be told about some
new initiative, perhaps, there would be a demonstration that showed a new way
of doing things or a new policy. There would then be networking and a chance to
keep in touch with others doing similar work. I remembered these events quite
fondly. Of course, it had been necessary to play the game and sometimes things
might turn a little creepy, even a little dangerous. Powerful people are always
a little dangerous, because there is little they are not capable of. We are all
capable of much good and much evil given the necessary power. If you think this
does not apply to you, you just have not been in the requisite circumstance. Most
of us are neither especially good, nor especially bad, but we all have in us
the seeds of something much better or indeed much worse. I have seen this from
people who were not so very different from me. We kid ourselves when we suppose
that such people are unusual.
This was just such a
place as those I had visited in the dying days of the Soviet Union. It would
have been ideal. It was secluded, not far from Moscow and could have given some
favoured people a touch of luxury otherwise hard to obtain. Who knows what went
on here before? I used to hear talk of there sometimes being quite riotous
parties at such retreats. There might be drink, there might be pretty young
girls, but there also sometimes might be screams. It was beneficial for all
sorts of reasons to be secluded, far enough away for no one to be able to hear.
So it was with a
certain frisson that I arrived there. I had been in just such a building many
times in the countryside around Kaliningrad. It was built almost to exactly the
same design. Soviet architects frequently worked to the same plan, which is why
it is not always easy to tell which town you are in unless you know in advance
or you get the chance to see a sign post.
It did not matter to me
much where I slept, and so I ended up in the girls’ dormitory along with Galina
and Vera. It was warm and sufficiently
comfortable and I had lived long enough in Russia to not find it problematic
when it was sometimes necessary to live in a Spartan fashion. If you travelled
at all, or even if you wanted to go out into the country for more than a day,
it was normal to accept a degree of privation. At home Petr and I would often
just drive out somewhere and ask some people if they could find a place for us
to sleep. They usually would for a small gift. Houses in rural parts of Russia
do not always have running water or toilets inside. So I have sometimes found
myself roughing it on some cushions on the floor. It is worth it. Once you get
used to a simple life, there is a lot to recommend it. You can live in the
countryside in Russia happily for next to nothing and the next morning can be
very beautiful with the sun rising over a lake and the sound of a moose
calling. Then there is the whole day ahead of you, maybe gathering mushrooms,
maybe hunting or fishing or having a barbecue. There’s a freedom in this that
we had in the Soviet Union that people in the West just do not get. We were so
far away sometimes from anyone that no one could listen to what we said and no one
could tell us what to do, because no one was there and no one cared what we
did. Practically speaking we were as free if not freer. Some of the places
which go on about freedom I find rather filled with regulations about what you
can or cannot do and there are rather a lot of things you cannot say, even
things that are self-evidently true.
I could see however,
that David was not comfortable. His idea of a holiday was not sleeping in a
dorm with a bunch of people he did not know.
“Can you help me out,
Zhenya?” he said in English. “I might need the help of a translator.”
I went with him and
found the organiser of the event. He was a man in his fifties and quite strict.
To begin with, he said there was no possibility of someone staying on their
own. Who did David think he was anyway? I explained that David was not used to
the conditions in Russia. He had just flown in from Scotland and was tired.
Moreover, he was happy to pay extra. I
spoke to David in Scots to find out how much he had with him. It was a lot. I
started negotiating. David did not particularly care how much it cost him, but
he did want a room on his own. I guessed why. It was not just that he was shy.
It was not just that he was mistrustful of the people he was suddenly going to
spend the next few days with. He wanted the possibility of being alone with Galina.
He did not, I am sure expect anything to happen, at least not immediately, but
his sole purpose of making the trip was to spend time with her. How could he do
that if there was nowhere they could go? He told me later of their first couple
of hours together that day.
He had arrived with
very vague instructions. It was two in the morning, and she was not there. He
had told her of a backup plan if they somehow missed each other. He would go to
a certain hotel in Moscow and she could find him there. He had stood there in
the airport nervously drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, but after about half
an hour she turned up. She had taken the earliest possible bus. It simply had
not been possible for her to get there earlier. He did not care. Instantly his
mood had changed from fear of being stood up to joy at seeing her. The joy was
mutual. He could see that she was absolutely delighted that he had come. She
told him that no one had done something as splendid for her before. For the
next two or three hours it was exactly like those first afternoons they had
spent together in Kaliningrad, except now his Russian was pretty good. She was
amazed at the progress that he had made. They talked of literature, they talked
of films and of the things that were important to them. They talked of
everything except of where she was taking him and what would happen there. He
had written to her with feeling for the longest time, but he was overwhelmed by
his feelings for her now after such a long separation. He was unprepared for it. He thought he could
detect some sort of feeling in her, too. I think, he was right. Frequently when
I first saw them together, there was something about them that suggested
possibility. I thought David might have been just what Galina needed. Moreover,
it wasn’t all one way traffic. I saw how she sometimes looked at him. Anyway, what
woman would not be delighted to see a man who has flown from Aberdeen to Moscow
just to see her?
So I understood fully
why he wanted a room of his own. He was completely ripped off, but he paid
willingly. His room was a sort of unused sauna with no heating. But it had a
door and a lock. For this he paid the equivalent of a Moscow hotel room. He
slept for the next few days in all the clothes he could wear and still froze.
But he needed that room. He knew he would need it and in the end, and not only
in the end, he did indeed need it.
