If Only You Knew

by Alice Jolly

  He’s telling me about the newspaper. Soldiers came and tried to seize the machinery. But most of it had already been taken away. He climbed out across the roof with one of the typewriters. Now tape has been tied across the door and a soldier is on guard. But they don’t know that they have come too late, he says. Most of the text of the newspaper has already gone to the printers. Yeltsin is calling a General Strike, and in Moscow people will support him. But outside Moscow, people don’t know anything. All news is cut except for official channels, and everything that is said is lies. Voronezh is a city of one million people, Nizhnii Novgorod has two million – but none of them knows anything and so they can’t support Yeltsin.

  He says that if the plotters stay in power then everyone he knows will be arrested and sent out of Moscow. All the journalists will be sacked from their jobs, no one will have a trial, many people will die. All the work of the last three years will be wasted and Russia will be back in silence, in lies. There will be no hope for the future, no one will be able to write, or speak. They will not even be able to think. This can’t be allowed to happen. Everyone must stand firm – but how can they do that if they know nothing? These faxes must be sent.

  Rob’s office is all closed up and so they can’t send any faxes from there. What can he do? His voice is suddenly weak with despair. He doesn’t know – maybe none of this would make any difference. Most of the people don’t even care, they don’t even know. He curses the Russians and their lack of interest.

  ‘Give me the faxes,’ I say.

  Sasha says no, I mustn’t do that, but I’m determined. I must do this for him, I must do it for Jack, I must do it to compensate for all the time I’ve watched and felt nothing. I’m powerful now, I can do anything. ‘Give me the faxes,’ I repeat. My hand shuffles through my bag, looking for the office key.

  ‘No, no,’ Sasha says. ‘You don’t go.’ But I insist. ‘Your office is near the White House,’ Sasha says. ‘And you are sick. A curfew says that no one must go in the streets.’

  I make him give me the papers. ‘You go back to the printers, and I will do this.’ He’s still protesting but I take the papers and walk away down the stairs.

  Stepping out from under the arch and into the waiting night, I listen to my feet on the pavement, concentrating on the sound to keep my mind clear. I give myself instructions. Don’t walk down the Garden Ring, it’s certain to be full of soldiers and tanks, roadblocks, and overturned vehicles. Walk through the back streets. I head in towards the centre, avoiding the yellow pools of streetlights, and the glow from the windows of buildings. The air smells tense. At one corner soldiers are massed, their cigarettes flickering in the dark, but then the next street is deserted. The curfew doesn’t seem to have had much effect. People slide through the darkness, their shadows flaring across pavements, or up against walls. Light rain still floats down, but the air is warm and sticks to my skin. I listen to the scraping of my breath. The streets are braced, waiting.

  I round a corner to find three soldiers on the pavement opposite. It’s too late to turn and go back. I keep my head down and walk. My mind fills with half-remembered stories of Soviet prisons, meat-grinders, electric wires, tooth drills, dazzling lights. A bed like a hospital bed but with leather straps across it, and below it the black stains of dried blood on a concrete floor. One of the soldiers shouts at me. Fear rises in my throat but I look across at him, mumble a greeting. He nods and I walk on. Don’t walk too fast, don’t look as though you’re frightened. I wait for him to shout again but he doesn’t. A street appears to my left. I turn into it and start to breathe again.

  As I come out on to the Novyi Arbat, the whirr of a helicopter sounds. Spotlights sweep across the street, crossing and merging, their translucent ovals highlighting one detail after another. The air explodes in a rattle of gunfire. The sound comes from several blocks away, but my feet falter and I press myself back into the entrance of a shop. Now it starts. Now people will die. Ahead of me, tanks are clearing roadblocks, pushing against overturned lorries and cars, shovelling aside uprooted trees. I need to cross the Garden Ring to get to my college. Because of the river there’s no other way. Sasha’s faxes crumple under my coat. I hurry along the pavement, keeping close into the buildings. Around me I feel the air pull tight. A ball of fire sails through the air and crashes down into the roof of a building. The junction ahead is crowded with protesters. Feet trample, banners wave and the air throbs with the sounds of idling tank engines.

  I’m coughing and shaking, dripping with sweat. For a moment I just want to go home. What I’m doing will make no difference anyway. But I think of Jack and I go on. Voices echo from inside the underpass. An armoured personnel carrier runs out of control, its engine roaring, as it jerks back and forth across the road. Protesters crowd on top of the underpass, hanging over the metal rails. They hurl stones down at the tanks, and throw lighted bottles of petrol. A Russian flag is draped over the side of one wall. Dark figures stand in the path of a tank, smashing at it with metal bars. A tarpaulin is heaved over the edge of the underpass. I watch for a moment, then stumble on across the road and reach the pavement on the other side. I go up to the door of the college building. From behind me I hear shouting, the sound of a horn blaring and the crash of metal against metal.

  The code works, the key slips into the lock. I fall into the building and stumble on a pile of post. I go up in the lift, open a door and step into the office. The shadows of cupboards, chairs and rubber plants stand waiting in the dark. Everything here is small, neat, normal. I turn the light on, then switch it off. I flick the button on the fax. It buzzes and clicks, its dial pad glowing green in the dark. I put a chair next to the fax and find a bottle of water. My head bends low as I dial in the glow of the streetlight outside. The numbers are engaged again and again. My fingers lose their way on the keypad. The engaged tone beeps in my head. My eyes are sore and my breath rasps. Occasionally I receive a response, and hear a muffled voice, then the paper starts to scrape through the machine. But after two pages the line always cuts and I don’t know whether the sheets have been received or not. Every time I breathe, a sharp pain digs in under my ribs. I watch the dark shapes of the room, and the lights from the street shining up on to the ceiling.

  When I’m sure that all the pages must have gone through, I turn off the machine and go to the window. The sky is turning grey at the edges. The air is smoky and helicopters still hover. I look out towards the White House and see a halo of light but the building itself is obscured. As I come out of the door the sound of an explosion blasts into the night, echoed by shouts and screams. From deep inside the underpass, an engine roars. The protesters dangle from the rails above. Gunfire stutters. I cross the road, dodging behind a lorry and a tank. Another explosion rips through the underpass. On the railings above, a man falls, his body twisted, one arm flung out. The crowd around him buckles. The scene is frozen there. The purple sky, the orange glow of the streetlights. The roar of engines. The ebb and flow of the crowd. A petrol bomb sailing like a fiery comet through the sky. Banners dropped in the street. With my hands gripped to the side of my head, I start to run. But I know now that the plotters will not succeed. No amount of tanks and soldiers can win this battle. The people of this city have made up their minds.

  Sibirskii Pereulok 1/8, Moscow

  August 1991

  As I put on my clothes, my limbs feel no more substantial than the air around them. It’s early still, and the courtyard is damp with dew. I’ve only slept two hours but I don’t feel tired. I slide my arm firmly into Maya’s coat. The day hangs uncertainly between sun and rain. The air is full of rainbow light. People push into the Metro, lost behind blank eyes.

  I want to know what happened last night, but the news-stands are empty and that snatch of conversation I’m waiting to overhear doesn’t come. Jack will be able to tell me. He’ll have listened to the news, or telephoned someone. In the Metro, my foot hovers above the wooden slats of the escalator. I’ve never got us
ed to the fact that from the top of these escalators you can’t see the bottom. I step forward and my stomach turns as I drop down into a brown fog lit by circular, moon lights. Crowds press onto the platform. The train comes in, bringing with it a blast of sweating air. I fight my way into a carriage. Beneath me, the train bounces over the rails. I break into a sweat and start to cough. I pass through station after station – marble pillars, chandeliers, mosaics and statues flash into sight then fade. Surely I’m passing through the same stations again and again?

  Then suddenly I emerge at Dobryninskaia and stand staring at the street as though I’ve never been there before. As I walk the road to Jack’s flat, I pass all of Moscow on the way – the tower blocks, the stunted silver birch, the kiosks, the building sites, the blank stretches of sky glimpsed between the concrete outlines of buildings. Occasionally a man or a woman looks into my face, raises a hand, or opens their mouth to call out. I don’t have time to listen, and hurry on. The touch of their questioning eyes follows me down the street. I feel as though I’ll keep walking past these same scenes for ever. It’s like in a cartoon where the characters appear to be running but the same backdrop rolls behind them again and again.

  I’m spiralling towards Jack now like water drawn towards a drain. Around me, the streets are blurred by slow summer rain, and the air is clotted with the smell of smog and oil. The lines of buildings sway and expand, as though reflected in water. A street vista opens like a gaping mouth – a sudden dazzle of grey sky and buildings stretching away into the distance.

  I have no memory of turning off the main road, or walking down Jack’s street, but then suddenly I’m opposite his building. Its cold-eyed windows stare down at me, the few trees around it are parched and ragged. No children play on the swings and slides. Before I key in the code, I repeat it several times in my head. I identify the buttons I’ll need to press, memorizing the pattern they make. My fingers shake, but I get it right and the door clicks open. Bags of rubbish are stacked in the green-tiled hall. I wonder how I will get up those four flights of stairs.

  My feet move, but they hardly touch the concrete floor. The light is dusty and the building is touched by a strange chill, as though frost has settled there unseen. The silence reverberates, as after the sounding of a bell. I stop on the third-floor landing, my chest heaving. From above, mottled light falls through the glass roof. Jack’s door is shut. I move forward, lay my hand against the green paintwork. The door opens and the corridor narrows ahead of me. I step into the hall and move forward to his door.

  And there he is – sitting in an armchair by the window. And this is all exactly as it’s meant to be. Time has folded in on itself, and I’m back at the dacha, standing on the veranda, and the whole day stretches ahead of us. Time to walk down to the standpipe and fill the bucket, or watch the yellow flowers, or light candles in that damp sitting room, which smells of earth and wax.

  I step forward. The silence holds words on the tip of its tongue. Jack’s head is leaning back, exposing his throat. On his chin is a tiny smear of blood where he’s cut himself shaving. His glasses are propped on the bridge of his nose, his lips slightly parted. His legs are stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. One hand hangs down beside him. My eyes trace the folds of his blue shirt, the edge of one cuff which has come undone. A spectrum of light shines in on him through the sun and rain at the window. I move towards him and take hold of that dangling hand. I want to fold his fingers up in mine, but his hand is cold.

  I step back from him. He’s ill, I say to myself. Then I say it again to make sure I’ve understood. I need to look after him and make him better. It’ll be difficult, but I can do it. Soon I’ll make everything all right. I issue instructions to myself. First you must make sure that he’s warm. I pull pillows from the bed and then lay a blanket over him, tucking it in all around.

  I straighten his glasses and lift his head, feeling the thickness of his hair. I slide a pillow under his head. My finger runs down over his cheekbone, and I bend to kiss his lips. I tell him that he’ll be warm soon, that everything will be all right. Now you must make him a cup of tea. I go behind the screen and struggle to pick up the kettle. My skin is flooded with sweat and I tug myself out of Maya’s coat, leaving it draped over a chair.

  The few things in front of me – my wrist, the kettle, the cups – seem like objects exhibited in a museum case, or projected on to a large screen. They’re spectacular in their lack of significance. I light the gas, find a bowl and a cloth. I fill the bowl with warm water and go back to him. Everything will be all right-white-height. Gently I wipe around his wrists, rubbing the warm water into each of his fingers and the palm of his hand. I wipe the bruise on the inside of his middle finger where his pen would normally rest. He will soon be warm. I move around to wash his other hand, running the warm cloth along the ridges of his fingers and the pad of his thumb. Then I wash his face, run the cloth across his lips and over his eyes, then below his ears and his neck. In a minute he will wake.

  I go into the bathroom to fetch a towel. White-right-sight-light. How strange that this flat is suddenly cold as midwinter. A syringe lies next to his watch and razor, on the side of the sink. I look up at the one window in the bathroom – a tiny square high up in the wall filled by opaque glass. A pipe runs down the wall near the sink. I notice that it has a strange curve to it. The tiles on the wall are crooked. My hands, as they stretch out to pick up a towel, have become as large as dinner-plates. You must go back to Jack and make sure that he’s warm. You have to look after him, you have to be there when he wakes. I repeat these instructions again and again. But the syringe is burning on the white ceramic surface. And on a shelf below the shaving mirror stand two tiny bottles, their reflection doubled in the mirror behind them.

  I stare at his wristwatch, lying on its side, the second hand climbing around the face. You must pack up his things for him so you can take him away from here. But I can’t keep control of my eyes. They escape and fix on that syringe, on the narrow gleam of the needle, the figures marked on the tube. My fingers close around a bottle. I turn it upside down. It’s empty and drops with a clatter into the sink. I try the other bottle. Empty.

  The crack is so loud that it sounds as though the crust of the earth has broken. The child sees her father go down. She shouts, Dad, Dad, Dad. He will drown, with black water filling his mouth, his fingers slipping against sharp-edged ice. The child knows that she must help him, but fear holds her still. Behind her, she hears screams ripped from her mother’s throat. Feet scrabble on the icy path beside the lake. The planks of the jetty clatter. In the freezing air, each sound is distinct. Dad, Dad, Dad.

  A sucking noise and then a splash. Far out across the lake a form rises, falls, rises. Shaggy and slow-moving, it is blurred by fronds of weed. Again a splash, and that shape is struggling towards the far bank. One leg detaches from that shape and lifts, rises above the ice. The child knows that soon her father will be safe. He is in shallow water, he can make it to the bank. She watches his figure rise and fall, struggling through weed and broken ice.

  And then it happens – the child stares down at her feet and finds them resting on ice. Shock jolts through her. Surely she hasn’t come out across the ice? Surely she didn’t follow him? She wouldn’t do that, she knows that ice is dangerous. But her head turns and all around her is nothing but air. She’s far from the jetty, far from the boathouse, far from her father, far from the star-sprinkled sky. She stands in an infinite space, attached to nothing except the ice. She looks back towards the bank and sees a shadow, hears her mother screaming.

  Oh, she thinks, it’s me. It’s me. I am the person on the ice. I should never have followed him. I knew that I must never go near the lake. But someone will come, they will come soon. She slides one foot forward, just an inch. The ice is covered with a sprinkling of snow. Underneath is transparent blackness, deep without end. All is quiet and the child holds the stillness inside her head. Someone will come soon. Her father, he
r mother. They will come.

  A ripple, the faintest movement. A creak as though a door is blowing in the wind. Another ripple, something shifting, then settling again. She feels it in the soles of her feet. Above her, the moon and stars waver. Her mouth opens ready to shout, but her lungs fill with a rush of cold air. The creaking is quiet, a slow easing. Her foot moves, ready to run. Then a crack and the stars jerk back over her head. The darkness grips her legs and tugs her down. The cold of the water scalds her. The ribbon of the cloak cuts into her neck. Her body collapses as the cold presses into it. Her hands push against the yielding water. The sliding mass of the cloak clings to her face. Air is shocked from her lungs, bubbles rise around her. Her head will burst. She reaches up, her fingers scrabbling against a wall which has no shape, no edges. Help me, help me. She thought that her father would die, but she is the one who is going to die. Her hands scratch, her nails break. She can’t grip, she is falling.

  Down, down. Warmth floods through her. She is suspended in light. All is still. Her hands float above her through the water. They swell with a gentle heat. The water is dissolving her, soaking through every sinew. All around her, the light increases. It welcomes her. She wants to be absorbed into that light, to be lost in it. Somewhere far above, people scurry back and forwards, like ants, along the side of the lake. They scream, their arms wave, their hands are pressed against their mouths. A ladder is lifted down from the wall of the boathouse. Torches are carried through the woods to the banks of the lake. Their light dances in the trees and spills across the ice.